Coffee closes, T opens

It might take a lot to stun everyone in Hobart on a day that we found out one of the Veronicas is gay, but the impending closure of our Starbucks is causing quite the concern among the inner circle of Hobart. Today of all days, just as the Mercury launched the new section in the local paper, "T", which is apparently going to be like the Confidential section in the Herald Sun, but with less recognisable faces - think less film premieres, more people sipping wine at someones 21st - our social elite getting their own section in the paper is cause for celebration nonetheless. I've been trying to think if, when we lived in Penguin, we counted as local identities. Maybe in some way, but probably not, because my mother wasn't into that sort of thing, but we really could have been. My problem, and the reason I'll never be in "T" is twofold (I was really close to making a T for twofold joke...didn't quite work). Firstly, I'm never sure where the happening events are. No one tells me, and I certainly don't get invited to them. Secondly, I don't do well at pretensious events. I'm not good at dressing up - the boss before the boss we had now, who I hated, like, even more than I hate Brian McFadden, was always trying to better us and he took us for one function to the royal tennis club. It was really horrible, watching gay men play royal tennis, but it was palatable for the free wine and cheese. However, later that night I was royally sick on a mixture of cough medicine, rum and wine. Let me hold the pose, I think I hear the photographers from T coming...

I'd imagine that people who drink coffee end up in T, and I hate coffee. There's an excellent Starbucks in Melbourne, a really good one that does fantastic Ham and Cheese toasted sandwiches, but the one in Hobart I can honestly say I've never been into. This is for a number of reasons - mostly, I'm not a fan of the mall, in case the big black girl who used to run it tries to steal my wallet again. Actually, it's all about location. I'm not comfortable in the location of it, because it's where Red Herring (the surf store) used to be once upon a yonder. Red Herring never made me feel comfortable, because it was the first place I ever really felt old in my life. And that was when I was 19. There was something impossibly youthful about the people who worked there - you know that joke in the Simpsons where the MTV VJ has a watch on that counts down until she turns 21 then she gets fired? Was that the Simpsons? Anyway, I think Red Herring was like that. I was always served by impossibly perky 10 year old surfer dudes, and there's just no way I can convincingly pass myself off as a "dude" in those situations. The whole building had this weird cosmic energy that made it impossible for anyone over the age of fifteen to shop there, and I don't think if I went into Starbucks, even with a copy of No Logo by Naomi Klein under my arm to try and look trendy (do the kids still read that?), I could shake that energy off.

I always fancied being a writer though, and I think I could easily pass my days in a Starbucks style environment - although this would get in the way of my plans to find a local pub, and drink myself to death while calling the barmaids darl all day long. The Starbucks in Hobart, as I said I've never been in, but I hope it was like the ones in Melbourne that sold co-branded CDs by funky African artists or Miles Davis or something. I'm hardly Naomi Klein (this is more publicity than she's had in a while) but I'm always a bit uncomfortable seeing the funkiest, coolest Nigerian trumpet player of the 50s having their work sold in a multi national conglomerate dedicated to shutting down mum and dad coffee shops. Maybe they don't do that in Hobart. I know at the one in Melbourne they sell little coffee satchels so when you get home, you can re-create Starbucks in your own home...actually, that's not a smart idea. I actually found the one in Melbourne, at least at first, to be really achingly trendy. I knew I was in the wrong when the book I chose to read while I was eating my foccacia - that really average book Matt Hardy (not the wrestler) wrote about supporting St Kilda which was basically "Chapter 1, footy cards, remember them!" and son on - was pretty much not in keeping with the left wing vibe, the funky Nigerian trumpet playing, and obviously buying something called "a foccacia". In a Hobart context, it was like reading FHM at the Republic Bar - not a good idea.

So if Starbucks is closing, where will the artists, left wingers and trendies go for coffee - same place as always, the Uni. I haven't been up to the uni since my, er, lapse in study concentration. Anyway, again, I wasn't cut out for coffee shop life at the uni. One day I was wearing my gold liver bird motif Liverpool away top (you know the one, the one John Barnes scored at the Dell in?) when I decided that a hard day of playing E-Fed wrestling on the computer deserved a tasty sandwich. Sadly, I wandered into a circle of social hell, ie, the trendy uni coffee shop. I heard a girl with glasses mutter something really darkly about my top, and the sponsor in particular, Carlsberg, saying that it was wrong to walk around promoting alcohol sales especially if children saw it. I looked around and saw people in berets, Camus discussions, and felt really, really awkward, especially as I had my Liverpool top on and was carrying a copy of Fair Game, the Cindy Crawford movie. Still, I had to strike back just a little bit, so I yelled "John Howard rules!" and ran away, leaving much disgusted muttering, beret throwing and the sound of coffee being spat out, double take style. What can I say - they just weren't my kind of people.

So farewell Hobart Starbucks...maybe you'll come back one day...hope to see you in T...maybe Kasia Z can re-open you...

The new Anne Maree Cooksley and the fine art of dating footballers

KasiaZ
Originally uploaded by JungsPN

I was really pleased to wake us this morning in a transcendent glow that everyone is waking up to what a terrible coach Mick Malthouse is, that oil is getting cheaper, and most of all, that Anne Maree Cooksleys mantle as Australias premiere model slash actress slash champagne sipper at a premiere is under threat. Somehow, it made it into the newspaper that Chadwick Models star model Kasia Z, exciting, the ex girlfriend of Grant Smillie, has possibly, maybe, if you squint, got off with Lance Franklin, the Hawthorn player. I'm excited by this, as I'm excited we're entering a golden age of AFL Wags, of kiss and tell exposes in the Herald Sun, of players girlfriends ending up hosting travel segments and weather reports, taking the jobs of Jaynie Seal and Monique Wright. What Twigley started, I hope Z can continue - I was upset that the Herald Sun comments section on the story the Miss Z may have snogged Mr F to be disappointing. So many people took the time to say "who cares", but I was disappointed in this attitude. I think the pursuit of minor celebrity, of marrying a footballer or being someone like Jake Wall (TV hopeful) is an important aspiration. In fact, what is a blog, but not a desperate hope for some kind of minor fame - we all want it, don't pretend we don't.

I've mentioned a few times the important role the WAGs of the local football team in Penguin played - namely, at 1/2 time scraping the mud off the teams boots with a Paddle Pop stick. I was always aware growing up if a girl had to choose between average old me with my brains and collection of stickers, and a guy who could play football, I was always going to lose out to guys who could play football. This is accepted in Tasmania, although it is still a shame - I wouldn't mind having a crack at Miss Z, but it's not going to happen, I don't play football. This was made abundantly clear to me on one semi legendary round the pubs rumour/apocryphal story/but it was really true discussion when someone told me there was a game in the South of Tasmania one day where the rickety old manual scoreboard at a ground had the same score on it at 3/4 time as at 1/4 time. This was because one of the local girls had taken a footballer into the scoreboard, paid the attendants to leave, and, well, kept the scoreboard ticking over in another way. I've seen some very ugly footballers with some very ugly personalities, and yet they all date stunners. Oh well, such is life I guess, I think that most of the footballers I knew in Penguin ended up alcoholics or bankrupt or mired in some kind of scandal, almost like Gods payback for being able to pick the towns most beautiful girls. It was almost karmic allignment.

I don't know if there's a male equivalent of a WAG or a group equivalent of the WAGs. It'd obviously be the HABs, but it's not really as punchy. I certainly didn't date, say, the beloved and lovely Kathryn Harby, the worlds best looking netballer, but I did secretly have a relationship with a netballer at the local level for months, albeit, one of the worlds laziest relationships. I went to one function as a handbag, a HABag if you will (I like that) with her, at the casino, that I snuck out of the house to go to. It was something, I think a best and fairest dinner, or an end of season function. What was interesting was that all the netballers got up and danced really vigorously while the males (and lets be honest, the lesbian life partners) who were brought along uncomfortably gathered in the corner - a glimpse into Brownlow medal night, as we picked at our shrimp cocktails and discussed generic bland topics. My girl ended up being the good samaritan and taking some of the girls home, so I stood there, idly biting my nails, and I felt really uncomfortable as the girls talked about their sexual conquests, how much they were going to drink, how much sex they were all going to have in Germany, and the size of their boyfriends, er, manhood. As a study in role reversal, it was a classical night, I really should have taken a pen. I didn't like being a handbag, but I was still in at least some kind of inner circle that was exciting, had cheap drink and delicious prawn cocktail. No wonder girls line up to go the Brownlow...

I think back to that night a lot, it was definitely a really strange night, I ended up standing outside waiting for a cab in the rain like some kind of discarded minor celebrity groupie. I also think back to a night at Crown, when a footballer from Melbourne, and by that I mean the team, not just the city. One of their players, off a big win, was stumbling through the casino clearly on drugs. Our party looked over and saw him stumbling through, trying to spin the chocolate wheel and take chips off peoples tables. Security, genuinely, was awe struck that he was even there, and was letting him do it, until he tried to grab someones wig off their head. At that point, security had to intervene, and they threw him out, into the car park, and no doubt went off to phone their contacts at the Herald Sun with a juicy story. We saw him an hour later, lying in the gutter, barely moving, and we were going to take a photo, and he looked like the single greatest hobo in the entire world. At which point his impossibly angular, impossibly glamourous, impossibly blonde girlfriend in a million dollar dress looked at him, drunk off her head, muttering "some place you got us to sleep tonight fucker" and lay down in the gutter beside him, wrapping herself around him. Nice work, I guess, if you can get it...

Welcome to the world Kasia, yer gonna love it...