Merry Christmas and a happy 2013, from all of me at Culture Mulcher. See you in 2013 xox

The pleasures of a surfing town. In Coolangatta on the Gold Coast, the diamonds are scattered out to sea.

Hi-rise in Paradise: In the built environment of Surfers

The image: Post-phoning the dinner conversation.

The images: Gregory Crewdson, Gustave Courbet, Jeff Wall and Hokusai — searching for “a perfect moment.”

A tour of four Victorian country gardens: a heavenly season of dry plantings, dams and spring blossoms.

Diagnosis: Infected right eye (Vet: “Puppies can pick up anything.”) FILE UNDER: picture album / new dog / oddities Toy poodle, black 14 weeks old 2.4 kg Name: Mighty Baxter (aka Houdini, aka Antoine Batiste, terms of endearment: Poveretto, Piccirillo) Traits: Cheerful, playful, willful, needy, grubby, but not greedy Loves: Chewing/nibbling/tearing — paper, cardboard, cloth; [...]

And so to table. One thing I recalled from our last visit to Italy was the restraint shown with alcohol. You seldom saw a local have more than a glass or maybe two at dinner. Very civilised. This despite the vino de casa usually being light and easy. But today we are here for the [...]

Holiday Notebook: When in Rome, check out what the Romans do. It’s hard to dispute that a noticeably high percentage of locals carry off that hard to pin down quality we call Style. Tuesday at Rosati: Espresso at Cafe Rosati in the Piazza del Popolo. (QUite likely the original of the old wannabe Rosati in [...]

What does a cop eat for breakfast? Vanilla rice porridge with poached quince, followed with a double-shot macchiato, chased by a single macchiato. Hard-core but nice, and now he can keep affording it. What baby cops break their fast on, I dunno — MuckMuffins? Our good cop is an older fella, into his 60s, street [...]