12 Essays — Getting the Read of Sydney
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Sydney 5 E Essays— 12 essays — Getting the read of Sydney 1 7 Birth of a city Ditch the surfboard Mutiny and bounty Exploring the inner-city by John Birmingham, by Dan Poole, author Monocle 2 8 Just add water Cup of life The lure of seafood Drinking up Sydney by Terry Durack, by Jamie Waters, restaurant critic Monocle 3 9 If not here, where? Independent state Living in Sydney Small is beautiful by Carli Ratcliff, by Matt Alagiah, journalist Monocle 4 10 Cinema paradiso Sydney’s cast of characters Savouring the small screen Tales of the unexpected by Marc Fennell, by Hilary Bell, film critic author At least I have some 5 11 good stories to read Staying power The boats that rock Boutique hotels Sydney ferries by Josh Fehnert, by Andrew Mueller, Monocle Monocle 6 12 More than meets the eye Class act Sydney’s architecture Power of performance by Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore, by Mikaela Aitken, journalist Monocle 069 Sydney Sydney 5 E Essays— —Essays E in turn. These were the early winners and essay 01 Sydney novels losers in a neverending battle to control the essay 02 — place where, even now, vast flows of global Birth of a city 01 ‘Wet Graves’ by and human capital enter and leave the Just add water Peter Corris great southern land. Power in Sydney Mutiny and bounty Murder mystery set in Sydney. The lure of seafood 02 ‘The Harp in the South’ remains a shifting, protean thing and has — by Ruth Park been since the displacement of the first — The first settlers brought Life in the 1980s in Surry Hills. people who lived here. From buckets of prawns 03 ‘Looking for Alibrandi’ That ceaseless flow of people, the rum and uprisings, which by Melina Marchetta and crab on toast to a pile Coming-of-age story. rush of convicts and then migrants from set the template for all over the world, is another defining of Sydney rock oysters, modern-day Sydney. The theme of the city. Sydney’s peoples have the waters here run city still has its tensions but rubbed up hard and chafed against each deep if you know where is bound up with pleasure and hedonism. other from the start. all those willing to embrace Twenty years to the day after the white The enlightened first governor Arthur to dive in. its diversity – and ideally men planted their flag more white men Phillip dispatched punitive raiders to launched a small coup, toppling the spread terror in Aboriginal lands. Irish bring rum – are welcome. convicts rose up by Terry Durack, infant colony’s governor William Bligh “The early days (yes, of Mutiny on the Bounty fame) and in revolt and were restaurant critic are only three put down with by John Birmingham, instituting a military junta, in part because he was spoiling their fun. The officers who lifetimes removed bludgeon and author ran things in Sydney had made a killing so it’s not bayonet in the first trading rum and Cap’n Bligh’s anti-fun years of settlement. surprising that The city’s white policies were harshing their mellow. Bligh they still shape had also cracked down on the large land natives rioted grants they’d all been giving each other the city so against Chinese and even English If there wasn’t a founding orgy, there and favoured the interests of the little guy powerfully” Say Sydney and most people see should have been. Robert Hughes’s (aka the convicts) over the military; but migration; all of The Fatal Shore is a gripping tale of this was Sydney and so we remember this the tensions of the current anti-Muslim water: the bobbing yachts in the the settling of Australia. It gives a vivid uprising as the Rum Rebellion and not the movement are nothing but echoes of blue harbour, surfboards rising account of the epic debauch by drunken land grant coup. anti-Italian and anti-Greek feeling after on the swell off Bondi Beach or convicts and their military overseers upon The early days are only three lifetimes the Second World War. But the city takes little ferries tootling under the them in and the city comes to love them the First Fleet’s 1788 landing in what is removed so it’s not surprising that they Harbour Bridge like sea beetles. now Sydney, after the long and dangerous still shape the city so powerfully. Even the all. She always has. — (m) voyage from England. Hughes sketches geography of Sydney was laid out in those I see food. a gaudy, Hogarthian picture of a riotous, first moments of settlement, with the It’s not that big a stretch: the rum-sodden bender that first night on officers grabbing up all the best land to sea is full of food. And Sydney shore. Historians grumbled and the east of Sydney Cove and exiling the does it so well that when the sun harrumphed that no direct evidence convicts to the barren slopes of The is shining, the day is wasted if of any such orgy existed apart from the Rocks on the other side of the little inlet. complaints of Reverend Richard Johnson, It’s an east-west divide in wealth and it’s not spent by the sea, eating an especially uptight churchman who was power that persists in the city’s physical seafood. It doesn’t have to be more than capable of crying “Orgy!” structure to this day. a tourist platter piled high with should one of his parishioners take an The power structure of the metropolis lobster. A dozen oysters chilling extra sip of communion wine. is very much of the New World. The on ice, a fat fillet of simply grilled It hardly matters. Even if Sydney ossified class systems and hierarchies didn’t actually earn her party cred that did not take here in its thin sandy soil, i fish, picked spanner crab on first night, she got there soon enough. A despite the best efforts of the first ruling about the writer: John Birmingham’s Leviathan: garlicky toast or a bucket of city of laughter and forgetting, a paradise the Unauthorised Biography of Sydney won the elite; just as the officers swept away National Award for Non-fiction at the Adelaide doll-pink prawns will do the trick; of water and blue sky, much of her history Governor Bligh, so they were swept away Festival of the Arts. as long as there is water nearby. 070 071 Sydney Sydney 5 E Essays— —Essays E Without the curling 240km King prawns, tiger prawns and – 1. The rooftop tables of Icebergs shoreline that encircles the world’s our best-kept secret – school prawns Terrace in Bondi Beach for an essay 03 most beautiful natural harbour (small, sweet, wild-caught estuarine early morning post-swim breakfast If not here, where? (Sydneysiders say cocky things prawns in the markets from October of avocado smash and smoked Living in Sydney like that all the time), this would to May) are all brilliant. Check them ocean trout on sourdough, and be just another hot, dull, bland out at the Sydney Seafood Market, a supergreen smoothie. — modern city. With it we have along with scallops, sea urchins, So what if living presence; we have history; we have scampi, mackerel, snapper, sardines, 2. The fun-for-all-ages ground costs are high, the drains fresh air at every turn. We don’t giant tuna and swordfish being floor of the Coogee Pavilion, a sometimes overflow just have a life, we have a lifestyle. carved into sashimi. Crab? We have reinvented pub in the beachside and you can’t always Everything here is defined by blue swimmer, spanner crab and suburb of Coogee, for mini lobster get a late-night drink? the harbour: the civic landscape, mud crab, in ascending order of rolls with lemon mayo followed by architecture, public transport, price. Sustainable, high-end farmed a punishing game of table tennis. Sydneysiders know property prices, air quality and fish such as Petuna ocean trout, there’s no place climate. We attach meaning to it Cobia and Glacier 51 toothfish (the 3. The Cured and Cultured like home. every time we latter known as the Kobe beef of the counter tucked inside Bennelong, “Every single sail a yacht, sea) are revelatory. Just be sure to the glittering showpiece restaurant by Carli Ratcliff, person who drive over toss back any menu that promises of the Sydney Opera House on journalist visits Sydney Sydney either basa (catfish) or vannamei Circular Quay. Go for Sydney wants to eat Harbour prawns. Both are farmed, frozen rock oysters and pepper granita Bridge, stroll and imported from Asia. or kingfish crudo with iceplant, seafood by the along the Next, know where to eat your a native coastal succulent. sea while they foreshore seafood. Try wandering through It sparkles. You never get a bad coffee or a tasteless sandwich. Even average food are here. And or attempt Walsh Bay, Woolloomooloo Wharf, 4. The rear deck of the Fast Ferry is above average. From a desk in the cbd so do locals” to stand on Jones Bay Wharf and the new during the peak-hour evening it’s an easy hop, skip and a jump to the the loo seat Barangaroo precinct that has commute from Circular Quay to beach. It’s even less to a pool and there of a new apartment to reach the given us great new stretches of Manly. There’s naught to eat but are three to choose from, right on the window, straining to see the harbourside dining on the western you can buy a cold tinnie from the edge of the harbour.