The critical question in the Sydney versus Melbourne debate is –
Does Melbourne know it’s on?
Sydney sure as hell does.
From QANTAS captains welcoming passengers to ‘the greatest city in the world’ to the Sydney Festival slogan, ‘A Great Festival for a Great City’[1], Sydney is gauche, parochial and boorish.
Proof is Sydney’s obsessive dubbing of local sites ‘iconic’. By the way Sydney, consult a dictionary on what that word means.
Here’s an unbiased assessment of 3 of them.
The Opera House is pretty at sunset but as a venue its nasty. Its once cutting edge design was superseded by any number of buildings long ago.
Inside, the public areas are cramped and the bars as tiny as they are scarce.
The seats were designed by the acoustician and the acoustics by the upholsterer.
If you’re disabled, don’t bother. If you want to take a leak, use a bottle.
This might come as a shock, but other cities have opera houses! They may not have been elevated to the ultimate i-c-o-n status, but even a Sydney resident might be impressed by La Scala, Teatro Colon or the Paris Opera.
The National Trust says that Harry's Cafe de Wheels is not only a “quintessential Sydney icon”, it’s an institution. So is Villawood.
Located between a four lane road and a harbour backwater, Harry's has dished out pies since the 1930s. Some stock could be original.
To be fair, the service is considerate - food cooled to avoid mouth burn and drinks warmed to avert too great a contrast.
The rear of the Cafe affords a fine prospect of Her Majesty's Australian Navy ships disgorging bilge into a stagnant lagoon.
Customers can test their reflexes swatting flies and dodging seagull shit. And at night, motorists can dodge inebriates as they jauntily totter into the street. Police manning a recent speed trap joined in the merriment, laughing as drunks showered cars with half eaten pie 'n peas. Ha ha![2]
There are few Sydney landmarks of which its residents are prouder than Bondi Beach.
Though its only 5km from the CBD, visitors feel a world away from the big city bustle. Except for those days[3] when every man, woman, child, backpacker, carjacker, halfling and hobbit sit squeezed together, buttock to jowl, rubbing coconut oil into their hirsute abundances.
The beach is 150 metres from the shops - across a six lane road, a median strip, a footpath, a car park, another bigger footpath, another road and a promenade.
If you’re an out of town surfer, the locals will give you a memorable welcome.
The life guards use a public address system operated by the profoundly deaf with auxiliary mobile loud hailers, just in case you missed your orders.
Get there early to play chicken with the beach cleaning tractors.
If you’re from a country other than Australia and want to experience Bondi after dark - register with the local constabulary and move in groups of 20.
With both a south-easterly aspect and no protection from the northwest, the beach is blasted by southerly squalls and baked by westerlies - sometimes on the same day.
Don’t worry, if you’re too cold or hot, you can always seek relief in the piss warmed surf.
These 3 places maybe iconic to some, but they’re comic to many.
And that’s just fine.
I’ve recently returned from Pig City in Brisbane.
Those people might have skin cancer and bad clothes but they don’t give a toss if they’re cool or anybody likes their city. This suggests they just might have their shit together.
If Pig City had been in Sydney, the crowd would have been checking itself out, not the bands. Of course, that wasn’t a bad idea when Chris Bailey was on stage.
If Melbourne is the golden retriever of cities, Sydney is the foxy constantly trying to sniff the big dog’s arse.
And Brisbane?
It’s the old blue heeler asleep in the sun, occasionally waking to lick its balls.
I think we all know – particularly the men - which has the greatest appeal.
[1] When Schofield presided over that, Dublin was celebrating its millennium. There was not a relative epithet to be seen. Dublin was content with being Dublin. Sydney needed to reassure itself that it was, err… New York? [2] In keeping with the carnival atmosphere, Harry’s Café de Wheels actually has no wheels!
[3] Those falling in summer.
