Is This Thing On? – Page 3 – Matt Complains About Stuff

A Quite Exclusive Perfumery In An Average Size Mexican Town

Post author By Matt Armstrong
Post date 13/03/2013

In the morning we head back to the food stalls for a quick breakfast salbute and hit the road, driving first along the long grey ugly strip of hotels that make up the zona hotelera. We stop briefly at a shopping mall called Liverpool (slogan: es parte de ma vida, which well I guess it sort of is…) and buy indifferent coffee at Starbucks. It is time to get out.

We drive the cuota — toll road — to Valladolid. It is a long straight highway lined with low vegetation that reminds me a little of Cuba. There are almost no other cars on the road, and there is nothing to see except the occasional signs telling us there’s a service station in 84km — quite some walk if you happen to run out of petrol. This makes for an easy but slightly dull drive. We will later discover that there is a parallel non toll road that the locals prefer. A rather more interesting route, it passes through a number of pueblos along the way. But the price for driving the free road is the need to slow to a crawl in each village, punctuated as they are every few hundred metres by topes, Mexico’s lengendary speedbumps.

Our home in Valladolid for the next two days is a quite exclusive perfumery in an average size Mexican town. It is, quite simply, beautiful. This is a hotel of one room — above the shop — and when Susanna, the manager, leaves for the evening we are left in charge of both shop and hotel. There is a step ladder for accessing our giant raised bed, chiffon curtains that billow like something from a Chanel ad, a huge roof terrace overlooking the town, private plunge pool and a giant vintage bath. I could get used to this.

Downstairs in the shop it feels as if you have stepped back in time. Everything is displayed on vintage cabinets under giant glass bell jars.

We split our time between chilling on the roof terrace watching the birds ride the currents above us, exploring the perfectly preserved colonial town on foot, eating salbutes at the market (only 8 pesos!) and taking advantage of Susanna’s restaurant recommendations. It’s tough.

Tags Honeymoon, Mexico, Valladolid

Central America Mexico Travel

Cancun

Post author By Matt Armstrong
Post date 09/03/2013

It is only when we arrive in Valladolid that it feels like the holiday proper has begun. It is a beautiful, sleepy little place, all colonial architecture, tiny streets and little squares, and couldn’t be more different from the grey concrete jungle of Cancun.

It had never been our intention to stay in Cancun, but it’s really the only realistic entry point to this part of Mexico, and with our flight arriving at 5pm, we didn’t think it terribly wise to set off on the road to Valladolid and drive for two hours in the dark. By the time we have obtained our small red motorised metal box from Hertz at Cancun airport and set off for the town, it is already going dark. Half way into town, it begins raining. Hard. Visibility is reduced to a few metres, and, in a scenario that will be repeated throughout Mexico, we cannot find our hotel. The Tom Tom, we later discover, is directing us the wrong way down the right street. We pull over at a farmacia and I run out in the torrential rain to ask the locals if they know where our hotel is. Even though the hotel is on the street we are on, and I am waving a piece of paper with the street address written on it, the staff at the farmacia do not know where our hotel is. They tell me to keep driving in the wrong direction.

Some time later the street becomes a different street and we realise we must be going the wrong way. We stop again. This time I ask a man in a garage who at least directs us back in the direction we came from. At this point I spot for the first time that the piece of paper in my hands also contains some GPS coordinates. We drive back towards the coordinates, and again–briefly–fail to find the hotel, before realising that it is almost where the coordinates say it should be, just on the opposite side of the road. We pull into a parking spot out front and check in.

Eschewing the dubious charms of the zona hotelera, we are staying for our one night in downtown Cancun, in the hope that we might discover some local colour. For dinner, we head to nearby parque las palapas and hit the food stalls: we try salbutes and panuchos — small round tacos cooked fresh to order, topped with your choice of meat, tomato, onion and salsa picante. We quickly decide that salbutes con conchinita pibil (marinated pork) are our street food of choice (slightly softer than the panuchos, which seem to break when you try to fold them over), although for some reason Sal is unable to remember their real name and will call them salt-em-bancos for the rest of the trip.

After filling up at the food stalls for the equivalent of about 7 aussie dollars, we find a couple of bars, chat to one of the owners, drink our first tequilas of the trip, and discover our new favourite Mexican beer–the beautiful chocolatey delight that is Bohemia Obscura–while listening to a band play covers of rock classics in a bar called the “route 666 bikie bar”, just down from our hotel. The bar is full and we are the only gringos there. A waiter asks where we are from and we tell him that we have just arrived from Australia.

“¿Es su primera día? ¿Que te parcece?”

What do I think? It’s pretty good, I tell him, finishing my beer. It’s pretty good.

Tags Cancun, Honeymoon, Mexico

Los Angeles Travel US

Los Angeles

Post author By Matt Armstrong
Post date 06/03/2013

Our trip begins with two very pleasant days in LA. It is our second visit to a city that everyone seems to have nothing but bad words to say about, but once again we have a ball.

Even after a lengthy wait to clear customs and immigration at LAX, we arrive at our hotel in Santa Monica several hours prior to leaving Melbourne (thank you, the international dateline), and head out to explore. We spend our first day wandering in and out of the shops and spending some US$ travellers cheques left over from our 2008 trip to South America–this was our emergency fund, but as we never had an emergency we now have a small present from the us of five years ago.

Every time we produce one of these relics it sends the shop assistant into a spin. “Travellers Cheques? No one uses those anymore”. Each store somehow has a different procedure for cashing them, but one by one they accept them and we leave each store with free stuff, and free US$.

As the sun sets we walk out to the beach–past the wooden Baywatch huts–and down to the end of the pier, past the rickety funfair, past a caricature artist who shouts an offer to “make me smaller” and Sal taller, and a guy dressed as Uncle Sam playing music and pulling funny faces. We stick around to watch the sunset before heading for dinner at the quite excellent Tar & Roses, where we sit at the bar eating beautiful glazed ribs, lamb belly and roasted chicken.

Later we retire to a bar called Chloe where we help the barman–an impossibly handsome young man with a floppy fringe that seems as if it is straight out of a daytime soap or some teen pop band–to name a new cocktail, and chat to his girlfriend about her love of Top Gear and her plans to visit the UK to see it being filmed.

On our second day we collect our convertible from the hotel a few blocks away, and set out to drive the city–first to Rodeo Drive, where the shop assistants are all too friendly for us to have the opportunity to say “you work on comission, right? Big mistake…”, and then on into the hills, along Mullholland and Ventura, past the lookout down to the city and the Hollywood Bowl, where we hear a tour guide point out the alleged houses of Meg Ryan and Ice T.

We travel on to Sunset, along Hollywood past the Chinese theatre and the stars, before looping back to Venice, to the indie boutiques of Abbot Kinney, which reminded us of Brunswick or Smith Streets. All the while ignoring the Tom Tom’s insistence that we take the shortest route–the freeway–instead choosing the suburban back streets where we admire the large Spanish style houses and manicured lawns. I had been nervous about driving in LA but it turns out to be easy and fun. Having the top down on a sunny day probably doesn’t hurt.

Tags america, hollywood, Honeymoon, santa monica, travel, us, usa

Well That Was A Bit Embarrassing, Wasn’t It…

Post author By Matt Armstrong
Post date 13/08/2012

I got up early this morning before work to watch the Olympics Closing Ceremony. I have to say, having seen the lineup, I didn’t exactly have high hopes, but after the delight that was Danny Boyle’s Opening Ceremony I thought that they might just pull it out of the bag once again.

It didn’t quite turn out like that.

There was something rather poetic, though, about the shabbiness of the way things drew to a close. It had seemed, from this distance at least, that throughout the games, from the moment that Opening Ceremony began right up until 5 minutes to 9 on the Sunday evening, Londoners–heck maybe even the whole of the UK–had shrugged off the default British cynic mode and embraced the wonder of it all. No more was there talk of security lapses, of G4S, of LOCOG and the brand police. Now we just focused on all those great performances. On those Six Super Saturday Gold Medals. Mo. Jessica. Bradley…

Now suddenly it was all coming to a close and as it did so it seemed as if the organisers were saying to Brits everywhere: it’s ok. Things will be back to normal tomorrow. Here is something you can be sarcastic about again.

It was what we had all feared the opening ceremony might have been. Essentially those embarrassing twenty minutes from Beijing with David Beckham and the London bus, only padded out to three hours. Not so much a Symphony of British Music as just whoever happened to be available and said yes, with some shocking sound production to boot.

Where the Opening Ceremony was a socialist indie kid fantasy with a subversive hint and a sense of humour, this was a return to a world of MOR mediocrity and the cult of vacuous celebrity (I mean, come on, Kate Moss and Russell Brand? These are your role models to #inspireageneration?)

The Opening Ceremony had the suffragettes.
The Closing Ceremony had the Spice Girls.

That is about about all you need to know.

Tags london 2012, olympics, uk

Melbourne Music

I’m Not Doing Requests

Post author By Matt Armstrong
Post date 01/02/2012

This is a bit weird, innit? You all sitting down like that…

So says Mr Gallagher, three songs into his set, to his hitherto entirely seated audience at St Kilda’s The Palais theatre.

Do you have to sit down? I mean, have they told you that you have to sit down?

<pause>

Well stand up then…

Thanks Noel. Someone had to say it. Thus began an entertaining hour and a half of old Oasis songs, stuff off his new album, and the occasional spot of banter. I was pretty happy with the mix of songs — including as it did, acoustic versions of Whatever and Supersonic, as well as a smattering of those great early B-Sides (Talk Tonight, Half The World Away, It’s Good To Be Free…), although it apparently wasn’t good enough for some of my fellow audience members, who started yelling out song titles at random in between tracks.

I’m not doing requests, says Noel. I didn’t spend 20 minutes last June working on this setlist for you lot to shout out random shit.

…Especially if you’re not wearing any merchandise, you cheap bastards…

One person who was wearing the merchandise was the kid sitting a couple of rows in front of me with his mum and dad, wearing his brand new Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds T-Shirt. He must have been about 14, and therefore wouldn’t even have been alive the first time I saw Oasis live (back in December 1994 at the Liverpool Royal Court…) Sheesh. That makes me feel old. Where did all that time go?

Tags australia, Gigs, melbourne, music, Noel Gallagher, St Kilda, The Palais

Blogging Media Shoddy Journalism teh internets Twitter

Old Media

Post author By Matt Armstrong
Post date 24/01/2012

I’m a little behind on this one, but I found this recent message from the old media rather amusing:

Bloggers terrorizing politicians? Well that will never do. That’s your job, isn’t it Rupert?

Also, while I’m at it Rupe, do try to remember that if you’re going to make claims about what results a particular Google search returns, you might not want to do that on the internet, where such claims are laughably easily verified.

Tags rupert murdoch, twitter

Australia Blogging

You Don’t Bring Me Flowers

Post author By Matt Armstrong
Post date 18/01/2012

So. No posts since September would appear to suggest that I have become a person who does not blog.

I’m not entirely sure how this happened. Maybe it’s Twitter’s fault. I used to look at the world for things that made me think “I should blog that”. But that’s so very 2004. Now if I see an amusing typo or a funny sign I just think “I should tweet that”.

Sure, it’s more immediate, but is it as satisying?

I always thought that moving to Australia would be the catalyst for some sustained blogging–oh look at those cultural differences, how amusingly different is Aussie life–but I don’t think my cultural observations got much past laughing at the fact that they use the word Manchester to mean bed sheets. And maybe it’s too late now that I’ve been here for three years. Have I assimilated too much to notice how odd the Aussies are?

Well, we’ll see.

I think I wrote down “write more blogs” as a new year’s resolution about 12 months ago. So obviously that worked well. If I’m claiming it’s for 2012 then I’m already three weeks late. But hey it’s a start. And isn’t admitting you have a problem the first step?

This has been a post about nothing. But a public post about nothing, which is the important bit. Let us see how we go.

Media Shoddy Journalism teh internets UK

Mr Pot, Meet Mr Kettle’s Web Presence

Post author By Matt Armstrong
Post date 12/09/2011

Just catching up on a couple of recent Private Eyes, I couldn’t help notice that they chose to conclude a story about recent problems at the Times Literary Supplement with this somewhat surprising paragraph:

The resulting outcry is awkwardly timed for [Sir Peter Stothard, the editor of the TLS], since to access his organ online is to find utter chaos. Already a laughing stock because it is reached via the Times’s “entertainment” division, the TLS’s website has been “under construction” for so long, even Stothers himself felt compelled to admit the process “has tested the patience of readers and writers alike”.

Ahem. Well now. I’d link to the story in the extensive archives on Private Eye’s comprehensive, modern and easy to use website, except that Private Eye don’t seem to have got round to making it yet…

Come on guys. Of all the things you can criticise other publications for, I really don’t think you should have a go at their website until you’ve sorted out your own.

Having said that, when I visited the Private Eye site just now I did see that they have started to embrace the modern age. My subscription apparently entitles me to exclusive “digital downloads”:

Please note, as one of our valued subscribers, you have full free access to all digital downloads and content as well as your print copy of Private Eye every fortnight.

Except. Oh…

Tags Private Eye, TLS, website, websites

Australia Festivals Media Melbourne New York TV US

MWF 2011

Post author By Matt Armstrong
Post date 01/09/2011

As someone was pointing out in The Age the other day, this city sure loves a festival. Pick any time of the year at random and you can be sure that a festival of some kind will be taking place at that very moment. Just as some world cities are on a permanently heightened terrorism threat status, Melbourne seems to be on perpetual risk of festival. Careful where you stand now–some culture might break out at any time.

Clearly we have neither the time nor finances to attend them all–you’d literally never stop–but every now and again we somehow find ourselves at a disproportionate number of events attached to a particular one. A few years ago it was the comedy festival; another year we binged on short film at the St Kilda Film Festival, and this year we ended up “doing” the Melbourne Writers Festival.

Somewhat surprisingly, every time I would mention to someone that we were seeing the festival’s big international name, Jonathan Franzen, in conversation at the beautiful BMW Edge theatre in Fed Square, I was mostly met with only blank stares (seriously? He wrote The Corrections! He said no to Oprah! He’s, like, really famous…) Well, I’m a big fan whether you’ve heard of him or not, and although I still haven’t found the time to read Freedom (the curse of walking to work means that I’ve lost my novel reading time), I’ve read everything else. He was an entertaining and articulate speaker and the hour flew by. Even the audience Q&A segment (which can sometimes be excrutiating) was very entertaining. I particularly enjoyed Jonathan’s rather endearing habit of pausing to think before answering a question. Clearly this is a man who does not fear an uncomfortable silence. Maybe I’ll start adopting this strategy in job interviews. Or maybe not.

The following night we were back in Fed Square to see the live recording of the ABC’s Q&A (the Aussie version of question time), hosted by the always entertaining Tony Jones–a sort of cross between Dimbleby and a slightly friendlier Paxman. As the producer assured us before it kicked off, it really is live–not for them the luxury of a 10 second delay. Perhaps one might have come in handy, though, judging by the fact that they accidentally put this to air:

That was supposed to be a short pre-show promo in which Tony Jones introduces the panel, but unfortunately someone put the audio feed live just early enough for the unfortunate punchline to the warm up guy’s joke (“…85 year old Sudanese woman”) to be broadcast to Australia’s living rooms. I can’t imagine what people at home must have thought (the setup that they didn’t hear was something along the lines that the makeup artists who were at that moment dabbing foundation on the panel are so good that underneath it all Tony Jones is actually that aforementioned 85 year old Sudanese woman…)

Oops.

Still, all of that did mean that I made my second appearance on Aussie telly: many years ago I randomly switched on Channel Ten to see my stupid laughing head in the audience of that year’s Melbourne Comedy Festival Gala. This time with the aid of the pause button, a bit of Where’s Wally type fun backed up with the knowledge of exactly where I was sitting and what I was wearing I was able to locate myself in the crowd pulling a stupid face. Between the two of us we’ve now appeared on three of the five terrestrial channels–Sal was with a group of girls interviewed by Channel 7 at Flemington many years ago–so that just leaves Nine and SBS. I wonder if we can make it onto the other two? Channel Nine is probably achievable if I hang around on Dorcas Street in South Melbourne for long enough in October while they’re filming the next series of The Block, but SBS could be tricky: I guess I’d either have to go on Countdown or get my kit off…

Our third writers festival event in as many days was an evening of foodie indulgence at the new Vue de Monde up the top of the Rialto tower in the company of chef and owner Shannon Bennett talking about his new guide to New York. It was enough to make me really want to go back to New York–just a shame it’s not quite as accessible from here as it was from London. Still, a lovely evening with some great food and wine. We even got to shake the man’s hand as he signed our book for us.