| TRIED AND TESTED What is it? The form says: “Fill out this FREE Personality Test. Know the factors that affect your life. Bring it in today and receive your results. There is no obligation. This is done with the idea that people can know and improve themselves.” The lowdown I go back to the head office the next day and am assigned to Miss K. I explain that I don’t want to fill out my contact details and she says that’s fine. An assistant puts my answers through the computer and five minutes later Miss K shows me the scores and how they reflect my personality, relationships and career. The results are in the “normal” and “desirable state” sections (none in the “unacceptable state” category) and this seems accurate. Tell me more Would I do it again? |
Base urges- restaurant reviews
| Cotton Ward |
| Base Urges
MANCINI’S WOODFIRED PIZZERIA RESTAURANT The occasion was a Sex and the City video marathon held at my place, wherein a group of single straight women and a gay friend sat around to watch several fave episodes of this cast of straight women acting like drag queens. The gay bloke cried at all the wrong bits and we girls chatted non-stop through the whole thing. The buffet was laid out with themed food: only foodstuffs featured in ads in NW magazine (which runs lots of stories about the show) or ads shown during Sex and the City. Consequently, the tables were loaded with blocks of Dove chocolate, Mini Magnums, Vanilla Rush (a new chocolate drink), low-fat chocolate-chip cookies and non-fat yoghurt. And Cosmopolitans, of course, served in chilled crystal glasses garnished with lime slices. The only thing missing was the main course, which was fixed with a quick call to Mancini’s, just around the corner. We avoided the gourmet pizzas (avocado!) and went for small serves of the traditional margherita ($9.50), vegetarian ($10.50) and pescatore ($12.50). Someone wanted a spaghetti marinara ($12.50) and there was garlic bread ($3) all round. The mozarella cheese on the pizzas was deep and creamy, the kalamata olives were exceptional and there were mussels in their shells in the marinara. Overall, the pizza bases and garlic bread tended to be soft in the middle with a light outer crispness and our fingers were lightly coated with ash from the woodfired oven. The young delivery man was assessed as being capable of having a good relationship, though we agreed that his inability to provide a receipt could have signified a fear of commitment. Order time We were told our order would take How it travels Well, but the pizzas might need a quick zap under the griller. Leftover potential Pizza and spaghetti are OK reheated, but throw out any leftover garlic bread. Bottom line About $20 for two. Video match Sex and the City, particularly the “Cock a Doodle Do!” episode which features the return of Mr Big (who looks deliciously Italian). DUMPO’S 109 Crystal Street, Petersham, 9518 3588 I’d wanted to order Greek takeaway to fit in with a philosophy night at home where the topic was to be “Jennifer Aniston – how can she be so miserable despite being beautiful, rich and married to Brad Pitt?” The plan was to discuss this while watching the new series of Friends. However, despite living in Lewisham for 18 months and meticulously keeping the takeaway leaflets stuffed in my letterbox, I had none from Greek restaurants. I was further astonished that, despite a tonne of such leaflets received daily, once I’d thrown out repeats, only 21 restaurants had advertised during this time. The breakdown was: Italian 9, Thai 5, Chinese 4 and modern Australian/British 3. Ignoring several guests’ apprehension about the name, I ordered from Dumpo’s, which offers Chinese/Malaysian/Singaporean dishes. The place doesn’t look as trashy as it sounds – it features large prints of paintings by Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir and Monet on one wall and big mirrors on the other. The fish fillet with chilli and spicy salt was a chunky, battered piece, quite hot and salty, Order time 35 minutes, home-delivered. How it travels Well – no reheating needed. Leftover potential Bottom line About $10 a person. Video match Addison Chinese Take Away Food This takeaway establishment promises “reasonably priced dishes” with the “object of catering for families and working people”. It’s cheap, popular and the servings are huge. I often order the Mongolian beef and rice. It arrives in a rectangular takeaway container and is enough to feed a small eater like me for two nights. At $3.90, it works out at $1.95 a serve and disproves Mum’s maxim that cooking at home is cheaper. We managed to spend less than $30 on sweet corn and crabmeat soup ($2.10), shredded chicken and egg flower soup ($2.10), garlic seafood combination (the most expensive on the menu at $10.70 for prawns, squid, scallops and onion), king prawns with cashew nuts ($8.20 for prawns, carrot, celery and peas), Mongolian beef and rice ($3.90) and two small serves of boiled rice ($1.10 each). Order time How it travels Leftover potential The bottomline Video match |
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Running scared
| An old hearse is the ideal vehicle for taking a ghostly ride around the city.
My friend Squeamish and I are in the back seat of Elvira, a black 1967 Cadillac hearse, beside a sign warning “No food, No drink, No sex”, and we’re about to embark on a Weird Ghost and History Tour of Sydney. The tour promises to feature crime locations and sites of “suicide, sex, suffering and scandal” and it departs, appropriately enough, from a Kings Cross car park. We’re accompanied by two other tourists, Copper and Ms Manchester. “Is this your first time in a hearse?” asks our guide, the softly spoken hearse whisperer Allan Levinson. “It won’t be your last.” He provides a plastic folder with information and photos to flick through during the tour. When he mentions that Elvira had been used as a funeral hearse for 30 years in California, and carried thousands of people to their final resting place, Squeamish screams. Later she feels queasy when there’s a brief reference to scabs forming after floggings. During the next two hours we experience what it’s like to turn heads as Elvira attracts admiration during our drive through Double Bay, Point Piper, Darlinghurst, Paddington, The Rocks, the CBD and Woolloomooloo. “Draw the curtains if you don’t want to be the centre of attention,” Levinson suggests, but we enjoy feeling like superstars and wave regally to passersby. Elvira provides most of the spicy prerecorded commentary, while Levinson adds humorous asides. The tour starts with scandal, such as the politician who died in a hotel room wearing a “loaded” condom, and moves on to the famous. We drive by the church where Elton John got married, and the hotel where Bill Clinton, Princess Di, Neil Diamond, Madonna and George Bush stayed. Then we get to the ghouls. We’re treated to stories of Sydney spirits including the one with a bowler hat who wears boots, the nun who wears a grey habit but has no feet, the derelict who plays the drums during quiet moments at the Opera House, the bloke who slams shut heavy steel doors, and the floating head that drifts through a toilet block. There are also the unexplained events at various buildings the lights that switch on and off, items that are mysteriously moved, the banging shutters, a light in a hospital ward that rocks to and fro when a patient’s death is imminent, and the ghost of a drag queen in a women’s toilet where the cubicle door swings back and forth. What impresses us most are the sights we pass every day and have never noted before, such as the beautiful gothic Mortuary Station near Central Station. And the fact that the latter was once occupied by 30,000 headstones. Later we stop at the Harbour Bridge for soft drinks, biscuits and peanuts, which are stashed in a small coffin. We resume the trip by cruising past a top-class brothel, a former sexually transmitted diseases clinic, the hotel where the Beatles stayed, and the heroin shooting gallery. Back at the car park, Levinson gives us five pages of extra history notes to take home and a free video of Elvira’s first movie role in a short film made at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. Squeamish, it turns out, enjoyed the experience. So much so she spent the rest of the week scaring herself witless by reading an excellent ghost book Levinson had recommended, The Ghost Guide to Australia by Richard Davis. Tours operate every day: 11/2 hours $49, two hours $65. Phone 9555 2700 or visit www.destinytours.com.au |
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Hostess with the mostest
| Next time you hold a party, surf the Net first for tips on making it memorable, writes Cotton Ward.
Birthday Express.com www.celebrateexpress.com/bexpress Print out free colouring-in posters of dragons, unicorns and fire trucks and connect-the-dots pictures for children’s parties, courtesy of Birthday Express.com. Here you’ll find a party planning wizard, customisable checklists and recipes. It suggests keeping children’s parties to no longer than 2.5 hours as “young guests will be excited” and “mishaps may occur”. Best to put those cherished Franklin Mint pieces out of reach then. How to throw a party www.connect.net/ron/howtothrowaparty.html “Don’t use a sheet,” warns Ron Turner, of Texas, who loves throwing toga parties. Follow his step-by-step guide on how to tie a toga correctly, and then accessorise (such as with plastic swords) and G-rate it (“wear gym shorts underneath”). Take note of his rough guide for calculating beverage consumption: simply determine whether your guests are mainly “normal” (allow 2.5 drinks per person for the evening) or “alcoholics” (2.5 drinks per hour). Go straight to the Party Animals section to find the top games, as judged by this UK-based hospitality company. Highlights include “the Psychiatrist” (where you ask each other a lot of raunchy, rude and tactless questions), toilet games (“Mummy wrap” – the site advises that you have the video camera handy for this one), various drinking games and “games to annoy the neighbours” that involve a lot of shouting and rapid jumping up and down. Party 411 Outwit, outlast, outplay, outparty. Yes, Survivor is one of dozens of themes outlined at Party411.com, where every detail is included. For example, Survivor party guests should only be allowed to bring along two “luxury items”. Then they can play immunity challenges where they have to eat gummy bugs. The site advises that if you ever want to see your friends again you’d better make sure they don’t have to vote each other off, or else you could be left standing alone with the winner at 9pm. eHow to Be the Life of the Party http://206.67.52.250/eHow/eHow/0,1053,4126,00.html Make a grand entrance by carrying a kazoo and announcing your arrival, advises Elvis Terrier, who has written this guide for the eHow site. He suggests you should flirt a lot, but “don’t end up alone in a room with someone” because then you’ll miss “your chance to shine”. Also, avoid anyone lurking by the food or doors because they’re not “likely to be interested in conversation”. Hmm, sounds like the ideal spot so you won’t be approached by anyone following these guidelines. Bucksweekend.com You’re organising a buck’s night, so you have to get the groom legless, strip him and handcuff him to a lamp post, right? Not so, say the folks at Bucks Weekend.com, who fancy themselves as “Australia’s premier buck’s night organisers”. A choice of packages combines paintball, fishing, golf, scuba diving and outings to the races. Take the Super Saver option (provide your own transport) and save $45 per head. The site wears like a badge of honour a review it attributes to this paper – “every bit as crass as you might expect” – and one glance at the home page justifies the comments. What’s Going On.com Nothing good on this weekend? Then visit What’s Going On.com, which lists the best parties and events worldwide. Each event features ratings such as: “do it before you die”, “down and dirty” and “potential to see blood”. Recommended events when we visited included the “Love Parade” in Berlin and the running of the bulls in Spain. Or pop over to Finland for the “Wife Carrying World Championship”, in which you can win your wife’s weight in beer. Housewarming parties www.hgtv.com/HGTV/project/0,1158,FOLI_project_14894,FF.html Hand out name tags that look like welcome mats, suggests entertaining expert Dana Christine, then encourage guests to wander throughout your new abode by placing appetisers in the hallway, the main course in the next room and coffee in the kitchen. For dessert, treat your guests to a frosted cake that features a picture of your new home created out of icing. Easy. Martha Stewart.com For dinner party ideas, visit the American doyenne of domesticity, Martha Stewart, who has built a $1.2 billion media and mail-order empire on home hints. The “entertaining 101” section has food and drink menus for every occasion, and graphics to show you how to fold table napkins correctly and make table decorations. There’s a right way and wrong way to do everything, and Martha knows best. Tupperware Wear as many different types of clothing, shoes and jewellery as possible, stuff your handbag with bizarre items and be prepared to lie a lot whenever you attend a Tupperware party. Why? Because they always play those games where you score 20 points for wearing gold, 40 for athletics shoes, 75 if your name is Pat, and so on. And for what? One of those plastic mats that open every jar and bottle. Tip: you can buy the mats for about $2 at Woollies. Making a date Plagued by fickle friends who can’t agree on a time and place? Ask them to take part in an online poll from evite.com (http://evite.citysearch.com) where they can vote and agree on details. Then send an electronic invite from the same site. |
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In your wildest
| Cotton Ward travels to the land of Nod to unravel the meaning of your dreams.
Ask the Dream Doctor Do you know the meaning of elevators in dreams? If you do, you could win a free analysis with the Dream Doctor, Charles McPhee, the former director of the Sleep Apnoea Program at the Sleep Disorders Centre in California. He runs an interactive site where you can submit dreams for interpretation. Head for the Teen Zone area – they have the most vivid dreams with subjects such as “Time bomb”, “Blind driver”, “Still angry” and “Kill a jaguar”. Dream Tree www.dreamtree.com The history of dreaming is fascinating. Aristotle thought dreams could indicate illnesses. The Chinese built dream temples that judges would visit to gain wisdom. Ancient Egyptians believed the gods infiltrated the dreams of their royal leaders. This article by Gail Bixler-Thomas explains the importance of dreams since ancient times, and the debate over whether they have meaning or are useless memories being dumped by the brain. Sigmund Freud – The Interpretation of Dreamswww.psywww.com/books/interp/toc.htm This third edition of Freud’s book was first written in 1899 and is pretty heavy stuff. If you can’t get through it, just try relating everything you’ve ever dreamt of to sex. Freud says that when he worked on the “problems of the neuroses” he had “often gone astray”, but his work on dream interpretation restored his self-confidence. The Lucidity Institute “Many people have said their first lucid dream was the most wonderful experience of their lives,” says Dr Stephen LaBerge, the founder of this site. Lucid dreaming is when you’re aware that you’re having a dream. While some people worry they’ll become so addicted to pleasurable dreams that they’ll “sleep their lives away”, Dr LaBerge reassures us this is unlikely because we have a limited amount of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. The Quantitative Study of Dreams By analysing the dreams of people from several industrialised nations it was discovered that Americans have the highest occurrence of physical aggression. Overall, though, aggression, misfortune and other negative emotions were more frequent in the dreams of people living in poorer or preliterate countries. The papers posted at this site are the results of studies run by researchers at the University of California. The studies Association for the Study of Dreams Like a scene straight out of Ghostbusters, the Association for the Study of Dreams, Working with colour in dreams Prominent colours in your dreams have positive and negative connotations says author Bob Hoss, who has written a book on the subject. He outlines a method for selecting the most relevant colours and matching these against a chart that lists statements associated with each colour. There are a few surprises: yellow seems like a cheerful colour but according to Hoss it can mean “unfulfilled hopes have led to uncertainty and apprehension”. The Nightmare Project Serial killers, spiders, bogeymen under the bed … they’re all here in more than 200 nightmares, thanks to collator Walter Marconette. “Nightmares tell us that our happy, serene lives can be ripped away at any moment,” says Marconette. “They taunt us with the suggestion that … evil just might triumph in the end.” Hellish scenarios include “Subterranean god”, “Satan’s child”, “Killing spree” and “Date with death”. Dream Gatherers www.dreamthread.com/gather.html Ever had a dream that prophesied an event and it came true? The team at DreamThread would like to hear from you. Site creator Ariadne Green is a counsellor who specialises in dreamwork and shamanism. “We call for dreams answering a variety of global questions,” says the site. “Prophetic dreams can have an incredible impact on the global community.” Green is particularly interested in anything you’ve dreamt about the influence of the Hale-Bopp comet or political and social events. Crop Circles – Their Meaning and Connections to Dreams www.greatdreams.com/crpcirc.htm Crop circles are “symbolic messages” made by an “unknown higher intelligence”, say Joseph Mason and Dee Finney, who’ve spent 10 years researching the phenomenon. They believe crop circles are related to dreams and human consciousness. The most impressive section features crop circle photos next to drawings of symbols from dreams and visions. “Messages from ‘spirit’ and/or ‘alien/ET’ influences are coming to us in various ways … and we NEED to know what they mean,” they implore. Drug nightmare Want more refreshing Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep? Don’t try marijuana and alcohol as these usually cause a “REM rebound” where you experience long REM nightmares when the drug has worn off. LSD-type drugs can induce longer REM periods, but they’re also illegal. |
Cotton Ward 