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My wife is out abseiling in the Blue Mountains, and I am of course far too chicken to do such a thing, so while the cat's away, the mouse will...blog.
One of the most striking things to an outsider is the bias of the Australian media against the Liberals and John Howard. If you think, as I do, that there is a left-liberal bias at the BBC, it's salutary to see how the bias here extends way beyond state TV and into newspapers. At least in the UK there are other trusted sources of news on TV and in print. I've barely read a newspaper article here which has not portrayed Howard as a liar who is due his come uppance, and that's just in the reports. Among commentators it seems to be axiomatic that any thinking person wants Rudd to win. And on TV the tone is relentlessly anti-Howard.
It's an even greater tribute to his political skills in winning since 1996 that Howard has done so in the face of such a hostile media.
Sydney itself is a beautiful city. Parts remind me of Boston, parts of Manhattan, and parts are, obviously, sui generis. This is my first time in Australia and it's not remotely, as I feared it might be, a pale imitation of the US or Britain in a time warp with sun. Australia feels, rightly, proudly Australian. I can see why people come here and don't want to go home. It has - almost - everything. The food is, without a doubt, the best I have eaten anywhere in the world. I had the single greatest meal of my life at Tetsuya - and I have eaten at the Fat Duck, the French Laundry, El Bulli and countless other world renowned places. The level of quality and ingredients in basic bistros is astonishing. As for the service...well, it puts Brits to shame.
Just before leaving we took my parents-in-law to Le Gavroche to say thank you for everything. The meal was atrocious. The food was average. I am making no claims for my own cooking when I say I could have cooked a better meal. The service was a disgrace - the waiters were either incompetent or rude and surly, and no one seemed to care a damn about anything, let alone to know anything about the food they were serving. To be fair, they left off the service charge without my having to delete it, but I have been there twice now and both times have found it to be, at its best, no better than an average bistro.
I'll be writing more soon about the difference in service culture, as I will about the one great disappointment here - culture. I had high hopes. The performance of Tannhauser which we saw at the Sydney Opera House last week was shockingly inept - like an embarrassingly bad school play. Anyway, enough for now. I have a honeymoon to get back to.