Anthony Malloy

I was sad to read today that the Astor, as we know it, will probably close soon.

It’s sad that such a wonderful experience will be lost on future cinema goers. No more plush lobby, no more piano music, no more spectacular light show as the curtain rises, no more Astor choc tops, no more dreadfully uncomfortable seats that gave you a back ache if you stay for the entire double feature. I guess the writing was on the wall when they recently stopped sending out their famous calendar. It is comforting to know that archaeologists digging up Melbourne in the centuries to come will probably wonder why all these tiny rooms were thickly covered in theses strange posters. Sigh.

I guess though we, and people like us, are part of the reason we will have to say goodbye. We have a young family, we have a great home theatre set up, we’re watching our budget and a DVD of the films we want to watch now costs less than two tickets, two choc tops, some lollies and something to drink. Sometimes a lot less. If we watch at home we don’t have to worry about baby sitters, parking, cold nights, people who don’t turn their phones off and those seat induced back aches. Of course we miss the wonderful atmosphere, but these days, we are happy with the trade off.

And that’s almost as sad as losing The Astor.

Well, here’s a first for Between Coffees – a guest blogger.

It’s Grand Final week so that means we’re preparing for our annual Grand Final BBQ, the highlight of which is the presentation to the winner of this year’s footy tipping competition. The lucky winner gets to keep The World’s Ugliest Trophy for a whole 12 months so I’ve asked my mate, and blogger-before-blogging-was-blogging, Daniel Bowen to reflect on his all too brief time with his trophy.

Over to you Daniel….

2004 was a golden year for me, at least in terms of footy-tipping. I entered both the competition at work, and Tony’s competition. To my surprise, I came equal first in the work competition, netting several hundred dollars in prize money. But that was nothing compared to the joy at discovering I had won Tony’s competition, and thus earned my right to the perpetual trophy.

The trophy is a prized object. Don’t listen to Tony when he says he got it unwanted a couple of years ago, and that it sat in his garden catching leaks from the gutter. It’s actually an item of great value. Originally made by convicts in Van Diemens Land around 1810, it was a decoration in the house of a Dr K.W.Smith of Hobart. Smith passed it down to his grandson, who took it with him when he moved to Melbourne around 1855, where it fell into the hands of Tom Wills. Wills used it as a prize for the winning team of the very first football game, which started on August 7th 1868 at the MCG, concluding on September 4th of that year.

Just how this prized trophy got into Tony’s hands is unclear. There are rumours of a late-night poker game, and O-Week prank and large amounts of alcohol being involved.

In 2003, Miss Marita Cullen won the competition and held the prize. In 2004 it was me, and for the past year, I have had the privilege of having it in my house, displayed prominently. Many visitors in the last twelve months have remarked upon its beauty.

Alas this year, my footy tipping performance has been somewhat less spectacular.

Effing awful, in fact. I am saddened by its departure from my home. But life goes on. And hey, at least my team made it into the finals, before beginning its inevitable downward spiral.

And so this Saturday, I will regretfully hand it back, so it can be awarded to this year’s winner.

It’s an odd day indeed when out front gates and the car port gates don’t get opened but today was one of those days. Somehow we managed to get through a whole day with what was in the house, save for a walk up to the milk bar to get some ham for home made chicken parmas.

Tradition demands we use the car tomorrow; it’s Sunday and that means Stink and I go to get the bread, coffee and papers from Yarraville tomorrow morning but when we get back I may shut the gates and see how we go again. Just think, two days without a car, the money we save will probably be enough for a house deposit.

Thanks to wonderful knitting talents of Catboy I’m now ready to jump in my x-wing and go blow up some death stars.

There’s really nothing more sad than an aging Star Wars nerd is there? But I couldn’t be happier, thanks Rob.

It was public transport day today as my car was in for its 45K service. After Rae dropped me off in the morning the plan was to catch the train home and pick my car on the way. It’s an hour or so trip door to door so I packed my iPod, looking forward to sitting back and catching up on some podcasts. The last time I planned on catching the train and taking my pod I ended being laid up in bed with gout.

Thankfully there was no repeat episode today so I walked down to the station, listening to EarthCore. Standing on the station I was hassled by some young guy. I pressed pause most reluctantly, thinking he was someone who was going to invite to a prayer meeting (where have all those people gone?) but he was just looking for Swinny.

As I finished pointing him in the right direction I noticed a guy standing there in a blue shirt grinning at me. “Great”, I thought, “the prayer people have found me after all.”. It was then I realised this guy was actually my great friend Mark. He was doing some relief teaching at a school just around the corner and was heading off to check out a new place to live. I wonder if the Germans have a word for “happy coincidence that occurs on a train platform that once again prevents you from listening to your pod”.

Well, it took me almost a year but I drank enough Hudsons Coffee to get my free travel mug. Two take away tall lattes on Sunday morning pushed me over the edge and now I have a shiny Hudsons beaker sitting on the bench that I will probably never use. Thing is the only time I buy coffee at Hudsons is when I’m in Shepparton as there’s none around where I work or live so it’s going to take a while to get a matching one for Rae.

A slightly better reward came our way via Fly Buys last week when we got a new digital cordless phone. Our old cordless was beginning to feel its age and its range was diminishing by the day but with more pressing budget concerns it was on our list of ‘things we’d really like to have but will have to wait a long time for”. Now, thanks to a special offer, I can walk around the house sipping my coffee from a stainless steel beaker. Ain’t life grand.

Bert is now four weeks old, and while I should be happy we’ve all made it to a month without going mad from sleep deprivation I’m finding it hard to raise a smile this afternoon because tomorrow I have to go back to work.

Yes, the time has come. Even though I love my job, I’ve got lots of exciting projects underway at the moment and I work with a great bunch of people who it will be good to see again I don’t want to leave my boy. Sigh. What a sad sap I am. I guess I’ll have more than my fair share of time next year when I’m going to be a stay at home dad but he’s changing day by day now. Ah well, I guess it will make getting home all the sweeter.

The last couple of days we spent up in Shepp so mum could show off Bert and the relations who hadn’t seem him down here could finally get to see him. (Of course, this was a great excuse to add a heap more photos to Flickr) The town is changing so much there’s very little left of what makes Shepp Shepp to me so this summer I’m heading up there for a weekend with my trusty camera in tow to try and get pictures of what’s left of my memories.

And now I’m back at work and we try to settle in to some sort of routine I’ll get back to blogging some more. Promise.

Fathers Day, 2005 and I’m a very lucky man. Presents from both of the kids, a lovely cooked breakfast, afternoon tea out complete with lemon tart – who could ask for more?

Phee gave me this mug, my 5th Tigers mug, but the most precious gift was a card with Phee’s finger prints and Albert’s foot prints.

I’ve been tagged by Daniel.

List five songs that you are currently digging – it doesn?t matter what genre they are from, whether they have words, or even if they?re not any good, but they must be songs you?re really enjoying right now. Post these instructions and the five songs (with artist) in your blog. Then tag five people to see what they?re listening to.

Okay, this should hopefully be simpler than listing my all time favourite songs.

Five songs I’m currently digging :

Fathers Day – Weddings, Parties Anything.
Given the time of year it’s not surprising this is getting a bit of play but I’ve always loved this bitter sweet tale of a dad separated from his son. The final plaintive ‘I haven’t always been a single man…’ as the song fades gets me every time.

Dance Me To The End Of Love – Leonard Cohen
Nice depressing start to this list. Hmmm. The caf? up the street was playing a ‘Best Of’ when we were then last week so Leonard has been on high rotation of late. Love this song.

The Whole Of The Moon – The Waterboys
I remember I first heard this song on holidays in Melbourne when I was a kid. It was on one of those new fangled FM stations (probably EON FM) that we didn’t yet have in Shepparton and I was blown away – the sound of the ‘comet, blazing it’s trail’ had me hooked and I’d stay up night, listening on my newly purchased ghetto blaster hoping they’d play it just once more. 6 Music have played a live version a couple of times over the past fortnight and I’m hooked all over again.

The Walls Come Tumbling Down – Style Council
This song is just cool. End of argument.

The Same Old Walk – Paul Kelly
I discovered a CD copy of Under The Sun sitting next to the stereo the other day. This was the first Paul Kelly album I heard. I remember Jo, a friend at uni, telling me of this really cool guy called Paul Kelly and he had really great music. I had a tape of the album and this story of lost love still rocks almost 20 years later.