He can be a bit of a self-parody, Andrew Bolt. This warrior against “elites” has just come back from one of his not-at-all-elitist overseas trips, and once again he’s sniffing disdainfully at the inferiority of Melbourne:
I was so scandalised I almost spilled my Moet Chandon
Because, well, we’re just so crap:
Why not visit the Eureka Tower to see a vista of … er, Melbourne! And how about those penguins?
Pardon? This is shown to people who may well have shopped in Paris, eyed the Colosseum or boated in Venice. We’re selling what will seem second rate.
Our nature is fine, but our built stuff sure lacks zing.
So… we should concentrate on highlighting our state’s natural beauty?
Nope, we should build over it:
the two don’t come together, so the best of the country seems too hard and costly to reach.
Time to rethink. An empty beach looks nice, but what would sell it is a knock-out resort in the middle, and let the Greens faint. Love our reef, but shouldn’t it be dressed up with a floating hotel?
Which reef – the one in Queensland? The Great Barrier Reef? Seriously? Weren’t you just telling us our buildings were rubbish, and now you want to shove them all over our most spectacular natural landmarks?
Then again, even if we don’t magically discover how to make these new Bolt-approved buildings “zing”, it will have achieved what’s really important:
and let the Greens faint
Sometimes I suspect Bolt would endorse the dumping of radioactive waste in Melbourne – the bits he doesn’t visit, anyway – so long as it would piss off the Greens.
UPDATE: Holy sh… last time the Herald Sun actually produced a gallery of Andrew Bolt commentary on Melbourne landmarks. Take Federation Square:
Federation Square, all surly elbows and cringing in camouflage colors – just the building for a generation of neo-barbarians with lip rings and bum antlers.
There’s a reason Andrew was concerned people might mistake the fake @AndrewBolt twitter account for the real thing.
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Poor old andy should stick to spinning polticophilosophical propaganda for the elites. Sorry, the billionaires and multinationals. That he IS apparently good for.
What is it that bolts mindless morons say when immigrants to our country don’t like the way we do things here?
And what is a bum antler?
All things to all people. And not a fricking clue.
Doesn’t Andy understand we paid good money to place that in-flight ad and attract tourist dollars here? Why is he so anti-Victoria? So anti-economic growth?
It’s probable the poor boy has long suffered from what Gerard Henderson calls ‘alienation’, not the exclusive province of ‘the left’ as Gerard would have it.
Although one should be wary of over-generalising, it’s often said that failure to properly integrate can be a problem for certain migrant groups and their offspring.
Never let it be said that Andrew Bolt is not a generous soul…he’s had a lovely holiday and he’s always sending his readers on holidays away from their minds…
Rumor has it this ‘piece’ was actually written by a Bot that has been programmed with the appropriate right wing contrarian talking points which it farts out as increasingly random click bait – Andy is still living it large in the alps!
I’ve lived in Qld for most of my life and I even lived in N Qld for a while and these floating hotel proposals pop up all the time. In the current economic climate with island resorts going broke you have to wonder why anyone would invest in a floating hotel.
Has someone hacked his account? Is it April Fool’s on the Bolt calendar?
“We were planning to see the Colosseum, but then we heard there was a floating hotel in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef” – no future people ever.
‘The Middle European and Jewish heritage of Acland St is being eroded by the wash of edgy bars and could-be-anywhere shops.’
Not sure what the problem is here. Either the free market is working and/or we are getting rid of what divides us. Andy I am confused, please explain?
I don’t think he really thinks through some of his artistic assessments. A couple of years back, after his return from another of his everyman-overseas-trips, I laughed at him for suggesting the collosseum is beautiful. No, it isn’t. It’s ugly as sin. It’s IMPRESSIVE, sure. The structure itself is awesome. But it’s not pretty – no more so than mussolini’s “wedding cake” on the other side of the forum remains. He also held up some other european palace as a splendour – it was basically a brightly-painted soviet-style apartment block. The gardens around it were amazing, but the building was a bright yellow architectural turd.
I think he’s very easily duchessed. Just my impression. Try to look past the window dressing. Just because something is meaningful doesn’t make it good.
Meanwhile, I can’t really speak for melbourne – I haven’t been there in a long time. But I very much like country victoria. Driving (back from adelaide) to ballarat then north to bendigo I think I found a place I’d really like to live. That piece of australia called central victoria really is beautiful.
Dare I ask what a “bum antler” is?
Actually, no. no, I don’t dare.
And what does ‘stonking’ mean?
Is it an an amagalm of ‘stoning’ and ‘sinking’?
I assume it means BLOODY BIG, but I’m interested in the etymology of the word.
I have it on reasonable authority that it is a tattoo on the very lower back…….
Now everyone can get their little minds out of the gutter for a bit…..dust, dust…
MoC – the true Australia is not to be found in the so-called capitial cities. They are mere epitomes of consumer excess.
Go to a country town – like Yackandandah or Bright or Maitland or Ballarat or Cessnock or Mackay or Eucla – and you will see the REAL Australia.
Angra, I was lead to believe you were British and thus would be well aquainted with what the OED gives as an adjectival derivative of the british informal noun, ‘stonker’, meaning ‘something very large or impressive of its kind’. However, the OED sheds no light on its etymological origins.
I, courtesy of the same dictionary, would point to the military slang ‘stonk’. As a noun it means a concentrated artillery barrage, as a verb it means to bombard therewith. According to the OED, ‘stonk’ is said to be formed from elements of the artillery term, ‘Standard Regimental Concentration’. There you go.
“Stonking”: an example in usage.
They could sell the top three levels to the remaining non hired-help shareholding Wiggles, each painted to their corresponding dweller. That way, whilst snorkelling, you can contemplate and appreciate their wondrous and beautiful self-made wealth.
I grew up in the UK Howard and we used the term to describe an attractive person:
“She’s stonking!”
But I am from Darkest South Wales so we may have (probably) had it wrong..
“Dare I ask what a “bum antler” is?”
See “tramp stamp”
Howard,B – I am not British, but a proud Aussie, though I grew up in Blighty for some of my misspent youth, and am familiar with local colloquialisms of the 70′s and 80′s.
Nevertheless ‘stonking’ eludes me.
Does it mean drunk?
And if you say it loudly and obnoxiously you have what passes for debate in Australian politics now. The person that sounds like the biggest asshole wins.
I never noticed them before but now all the bum antlers are staring at me.
What is “The Middle European”? Is that like “Middle America”? I.e. a media creation, a gauzy blanchmange of recognisably universal positive attributes without any of the distinctive local customs or traits that might offend viewers, and thereby their receptiveness to advertising?
Oh, I think I answered my own question.
Melbourne inferior? It could be a lot worse:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny-atudWPJ4
Maybe someone should tell Andrew to ‘Fit In Or F#@k Off’ ?
specialtask:
I guess the problem is a lack of planning and development regulations to create AB’s vision of an inner city utopia. Unlike the outer suburbs, where there are too many planning and development regulations which leave us with too many trees and endangered wildlife which take up space where houses could go.
“‘The Middle European and Jewish heritage of Acland St is being eroded by the wash of edgy bars and could-be-anywhere shops.’”
I’ll give him this one. I remember the days when my dad would take us to Acland St. for lunch and then a visit of the cake shops. Where schnitzel and mash followed a big bowl of chicken or matzo ball soup. The restaurant walls decorated in flock wallpaper, the laminex tables and multi-coloured vinyl chairs with white plastic piping. Being a child I had never seen a camp tattoo, when we were in a more private place my mum introduced me to the more horrific meaning of that WW2 marking. There was a wonderful Yugoslav restaurant which served the best mixed grill. Dessert consisted of strawberry crepes or strawberry crepes…….but it was damn good. That restaurant has been yuppified and now and serves pastey risotto marinara for $25 a bowl, or a lasagne my mum wouldn’t feed to our dog.
The old people have retired, gone or passed away and so has the atmosphere. What made Acland St has gone, ask one of the old time pastry shop owners……if there are any. It’s Brunswick St. with the scent of sunscreen
Angra
“Stonkered” is Antipodean slang for drunk.
Another in the long litany of conflicted confections served up by Australia’s not-quite-the-absolutely-least-trusted pundit.
Andy is pro *most* development: More dams! More floating hotels! More grand irrigation schemes in our great wasted north! In fact, why not more monorails!
But Andy is anti wind and other renewables: Wind farms are ugly! And unsafe! And global warming’s all a scam anyway!
..something..drivel..something.. anti green click bait… has Rusty no shame/brain/self awareness? Or just doesn’t give a shit, as long as he’s paid bigbuck$?
RobJ
An ipso facto relationship that, given your many proffered opinions here, my Anglocentric self needs no convincing of .;)
I’d be worried of you thought I was right most of the time.
At least I know how to make an emoticon appear properly. 
Oh yeah, I wrote ‘darkest’, not ‘deepest’….. Very sloppy Howard.
Meanwhile, his beloved venice has kept things just the way they were and finds itself in the miserable position of having to rely on endless lines of package-tour gawkers just to keep the lights on. They don’t even stay the night, for the most part. That, and donations from rich foreigners to fix the buildings when the angels fall off (hat tip to Berendt)
Venice might be pretty, but I think that most sane people (who aren’t zillionaires, able to carve out an independent, chained-off existence above the milling camera-wielding throng through sheer force of money) would rather actually live in melbourne. Or lots of other places, for that matter.
Florence, on the other hand …
“… though I grew up in Blighty for some of my misspent youth”
Seriously? That was your PUNISHMENT? Talk about cruel and unusual.
“I almost spilled my Moet Chandon”. Oh dear, Andrew, the elites will be disappointed – you seem to have a case of slipping ampersand. It’s Moet & Chandon, old boy. But what airline serves it, and in what class seats?
“I almost spilled my Moet Chandon”
It’s actually quite hard to spill from a champagne flute. You basically have to tip the thing over. I assume that’s why they’re shaped that way.