Front Page
The Cost of Entry
What it Takes to Belong They still live in the city, work in it, travel through it, and remain visible in it. But they are saying no more often now: no to the extra drink, no to the second stop, no to crossing town on instinct, no to the kind of evening that only works...
Bilson at Table My Favourite Duck
"I often view with evil intent families of ducks walking towards the ponds in Centennial Park."
Roads to Nowhere A city besieged by construction
"We've put up with it because we are building tomorrow’s Sydney. We must do our bit. That’s life in the big city. We’re not anti-development, we’re just…. exhausted."
On Hospitality A philosophy on dining behaviour
"Much of the romance of food is generated by people with idealised versions of what their childhood meant... Their hospitality industry becomes Rosebud; a nostalgic rendering of what unconditional hospitality looks, tastes and smells like."
Lunch with Friends Fratelli Paradiso with Luke Storrier
"The key to a local eatery’s longevity is to be found in the ability of their sommelier and owner to contain their greed; Fratelli hits the mark with only one or two investment-banker-priced wines."
This Perfect Day Losing Anthony Bourdain
Call someone you haven’t for a long time and tell them that you’re thinking about them. Invite someone over for a meal and cook for them. Let them know they can tell you anything.
2018: A Space Odyssey How Sydney artists are re-entering the inner city
"Somewhere that is a place for ‘the other’, the people who fall a little bit through the net.”
Getting Southerly Busted At North Bondi RSL
The image of Bondi is one of glitz and glamour… But the salt-blasted reality is somewhat different; the old weathered remnants of what was known locally as Scum Valley still often win out.
Books That Change Lives, Apparently Iranian existentialists, chick lit grandmas and spitting in Morse code
How to win the Facebook competition to see who has the most exotic home library.
Something Better The old masters give Beck’s sound a new shine
“Great music can create some great perspective shift. Like a sudden stunning view. Or a moment out with friends when you’re all laughing. Where life opens up and everything is bigger and brighter.”
In the Zone Sam Doctor’s images from Fukushima
“It’s like when parents have a missing child and they keep the bedroom in the same way.”
Heroes Just for One Day A new skatepark opens in Sydenham
Maybe like the art of skateboarding itself one can hover here on the fine and happy edge of this camaraderie and something messed-up and free-falling in at least a few of these youths’ lives.
The Allergic Frontier A case study in video game addiction
“The veneer of fun erodes over time. When you become sicker, you use more – to detach from reality.”
Down by the Old Canal A walk by the most polluted canal in the Southern hemisphere
By the Alexandra Canal, people gather in groups of twos and threes, their reflections incandescent in the grey, putrescent water. It could be Kyiv or Tbilisi, but it’s Sydney.
When It Is All Just About Okay John Cheever and his flower of confusion
Maybe there is the warm, uncomplicated glow that comes over us when, after so much time and so much hurt, things are finally just about okay.
The Story of Beatriz Exploitation of migrant workers in Sydney’s local suburbs
Beatriz* migrated illegally to Australia so she could send money back to her family in the Philippines. There, you have to pay the hospital a deposit before they will treat you. In Australia, Beatriz doesn’t have Medicare – when she needed an operation, friends helped her find a discreet doctor, and she paid in cash.