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Monday, January 28, 2013

the best coffee in geelong

ladies and gentlemen. i am a native of the bayside town of geelong. i was born there, schooled there, called it my home for my formative years.

until now, it has been (in my eyes) a disappointing and beanless coffee wasteland. bean squeeze gave me some kind of reprieve over the last couple of years (plus the closest one to my parents' house is right next to the mill markets) and while it's still a solid place to coffee i finally visited the COFFEE CARTEL in breakwater.

and i am in love.


for those unfamiliar: breakwater is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. the cafe is surrounded by industrial buildings and factories and hardly any houses. it kind of looks like the place the bikies hang out. which is cool.


they roast their own coffee out the back.*


there were lots of people there on the saturday arvo that i visited.


my skinny latte was very delicious. nice and strong and a brilliant flavour. quite distinctive and delish. it was relatively pricey at $4, but bigger than you'd get from the equally pricey market lane coffee in melbourne...


they do teas and all kinds of coffees, food and cakes and everythink. comfy places to sit and the folks working there were nice.


the local rag confirms it is the best.
visit their website.

* the lady (unwittingly) pictured - how random is this - was my mama bear's form two maths teacher.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

...the more they stay the same

I have in my possession a curious rejection letter from 1953.

Unfortunately, we shall have to tell you frankly, as we would have done if you had inquired in advance, that we do not feel justified under present conditions in undertaking books of fiction by unknown authors. Both manufacturing and general costs are very high indeed in this country, and there has been a slump in the market for hard bound fiction, partly due to necessarily high prices, and partly due to the tremendous sales of paper covered editions.


They go on to say that if she were willing to finance her book they could perhaps take it on. Pretty sure this kind of offer is happening around the traps at the moment...

It's oddly comforting to know our struggles are not new, that the medium can change but the stories will go on. And we still read hardback books, we still buy them. And I'm considering buying an ereader. The world won't end if I do.

I don't have Miss Thompson's manuscript, but do have some of her short stories. And her own life was more fascinating that any book, even though much is still a mystery. She and I are not done with each other yet!