Plus ça change…

I’ve been here before. Real estate agents and removalists on the phone, respiratory system full of dust, oddly positioned bruises, no available hair-bands, crumpled coffee cups scattered all the place, a slight crackle of manic urgency in the air. Laura and I moved into an apartment located less than one hundred metres from my Onslow Gardens fiefdom and even closer to my Roslyn St stronghold of old. There remain many boxes to be unpacked and whitegoods to move; a truck containing useful items like my bed is yet to arrive from Seven Hills. Nevertheless, it is not without a little sniff of panic that I sense my supply of excuses for getting my act together, for getting in touch with the world is rapidly dwindling. Pre-emptive apologies.

Not much seems to have changed in the 2011 precinct. Spray tans, yapping small dogs, a disapproving sigh constantly on the wind. I didn't need to walk past the new diamante studded petcare shop on Macleay St to realise how far I from the dreaming minarets of the Mughal empire. There are, however, great sprawling street trees and cocktail bars here. You can purchase odiferous cheeses after midnight and the butcher who plies his trade next to the dogshop is a portrait of joviality. These things are important to me. Happily I find that none of my favourite bars or restaurants have shut and that a few newbies have opened.

I must, however, note with disapproval that the tellers at the National Bank have rebranded themselves as Listeners. Is this an Australia-wide innovation?