Is there something fishy about Perth price increases?

I had a resentful swipe at Fosters in my previous post in response to their underhand profiteering in sizing down their Cascade Premium bottles while keeping the price the same. Apart from dudding clients by offering less value for money, they changed the bottle size by stealth – it was a fait accompli by the time they released the news, the bottle shops having already replaced the old bottles with the new stock, thus ensuring consumers had no opportunity to stock up on the larger bottles before the downsizing came into effect. I’ll be drinking Becks from now on…when it’s on special.

On to today’s topic. I’m wondering if there is some sneaky, Fosters-like profiteering going on in Perth as a direct result of this bloody boom and the bucks those who have hitched a ride on the mining industry are throwing around with abandon.

It’s common knowledge that house prices here have shot through the stratosphere, along with rents, but the reasons for that are transparent and well documented. I’m referring to the staggering increases in some food prices. Continue reading Is there something fishy about Perth price increases?

Of Guy Sebastian, Australian Idol and a Muppet Named Monty

This is going to be nasty.

I’m queasy from taking Voltaren to mask back pain that’s persisted for weeks. Working my asterisk off at various projects yet making no money. Rats have eaten every one of this year’s bumper crop of backyard organic tomatoes before they ripened. And I just read that greedy fucking cheats Fosters are reducing the size of the bottles of my favourite drop, Cascade Premium, but not reducing the price.

So when I clicked on the Daily Telegraph “blog” headline slamming Guy Sebastian for slamming Australian Idol, I had my best sneer all ready, wrestling my gruesome pre-breakfast features into something that could go straight on to a horror movie poster un-Photoshopped. Continue reading Of Guy Sebastian, Australian Idol and a Muppet Named Monty

The Smokin’ Eldorados at The Hydey

The Hyde Park Hotel – known locally as “The Hydey” – is one of the last character pubs left in Perth catering for original rock bands that haven’t broken through to widespread commercial success.

There was once a thriving Perth indie circuit, with roots going back to the 70s. The Vic Hotel, Steve’s, the Shents, the Fitzgerald, the legendary Hernando’s Hideaway (Perth’s own short-lived CBGB’s, home to The Victims and other first-wave Perth punk bands) – all once great alternative band haunts – have been turned into samey faggoty glass-and-chrome hotel-cum-eatery-cum-café yuppie joints, or have been demolished in the advance of ‘progress’. Perth’s good at that. Anything with character is targeted and eradicated. What a shiny little city we have here. Perpetually just-unwrapped.

Anyway, I popped into the Hydey for the first time in a while a couple of Saturdays ago. Roddy Radalj had invited me to check out his new band, The Smokin’ Eldorados. Continue reading The Smokin’ Eldorados at The Hydey

movie reviews + occasional other musings