ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
A Brisbane-based insurance assessor is in Sydney this week, attending meetings and tying up loose ends before the year is out.
Which is code, Dylan Brock says, for doing half days with the senior Harbour City-based executives, heading to the pub for lunch, and not coming back.
They found themselves in a pub today, somewhere in the heart of Sydney, when one of Dylan’s coworkers turned to him and uttered the words every pretender in the Emerald City hates to hear.
“You know this is a Merivale venue?” he said.
Dylan didn’t.
“Yeah, right. This place is mad. A bit dear, but look where we are. And we’re not paying, either, so who cares?”
Over the course of lunch, Dylan was told by his new friends that people from Sydney’s cool suburbs tend to turn their nose up at Merivale establishments. He laughed.
“What are these spoilt hipsters complaining about? The bartender wasn’t a jerk to me. It’s bright. Chock full of suits, but I’m a suit. It doesn’t pong like the fucking [Brisbane] jazz club, out there in the freaking mangroves. You won’t get your head booted off your shoulders by some lunatic in thongs like you would at the Colmslie Hotel on a Thursday evening,” he said.
“Trying to sneak into Fridays, getting your arm twisted off by some fringe Reds player. For fun. Climbing up the tree at Fridays and having the son of some fucking Wallaby managing the place threaten to kill you if you don’t climb back down. Going down to Felon and having some kid nick your RMs clean off your trotters from under the table and chuck them in the River. For fun. Nah, this place is nice,”
“Spoilt people these Sydneysiders are.”
Merivale received backlash locally here in Betoota some years ago for purchasing and renovating the Dickless Parrot Hotel in the French Quarter. While some were initially up in arms over the sale, they got over it with time.
More to come.
