Monthly Archives: October 2012

Tomorrow is the Trivialista-Seriousimo marital anniversary (nine years — egads!) so on Saturday we dolled up and headed off to Tetsuya, as is our yearly custom, to reflect on the year that was.

As is also our custom, we srsly indulged in amazing wine, and possibly broke a PB with a half-bottle of burgundy that set the cash registers singing at $300.  Yoikes.

Seriousimo’s directive post-consumption was interesting, though:  “We need to Google that wine and order a dozen.”

Srsly? Is old Mr Fiscally Conservative planning to do a debt-for-equity swap à la Nine Entertainment? La knows this is his particular area of legalese expertise, but a bulk order of that dropalista would require some serious financial engineering utilising the expertise of some former Babcock & Brownies. Maybe he knows something about los financiales La doesn’t — but as he doesn’t even know his internet banking details, suspect that’s unlikely.

We enjoyed a post-prandial passeggiata around Westfield Sydney. As a favour to you, dear readers, I had my best fash-scouty peepers on, and have pulled together a selection of goodies. (Best to remember that those peepers were somewhat affected by $300 burgundy, so take it all with a grain of gourmet pink Himalayan Mountain Salt.)

First up, Sass.

Full House top.The Dedication top. Love it, but find self wishing those clever Sassies would dispense with the slighty wanky names.

What I Wrote jacket. Can’t beat a bit of military chic. Helps show loin fruits and Seriousimos who’s boss.

Love this Ginger dress. Redheads are very clever.

Fancy this one, too.  Digi print, of course.

Love this Megan Park dress.  Will be sale-stalking it. Want to know what that looks like?

Just superimpose La noggin on that of the guy with the gun. And imagine that MP dress is just over that heather-clad mount. I will set los hounds on it (well, at the very least, La Poocha Trivialista, Diggers).

We even cottaged and frottaged up to some Miu Miu. Happily, that humble outlet was Seriousimo’s pick of the bunch. “Thing is,” he said, in an uncharacteristically self-reflective mood, “you can know next-to-bugger-all about clothes, but still recognise real quality when you see it.” God bless that man; knew there was a reason I married him.

Wore los Bionda Castana Christas in navy (eek, did I mention I now also have them in nude?  Secured directly from Natalia for a vastly discounted price, I swear!) for the luncheon. Boy, those shoes command respect.

Young Bambi after young Bambi in shop after shop sighed longingly and inquired after their origin. Puffed up, I felt proud that I could still show the young fillies a thing or two.

Seriousimo sensitively pointed out they were just flattering me so I would buy stuff.

Hmm.  Think we’ll make it to 10 years?

x

These are freaky, freaky times, people. So freaky they have led La to theft.

Yup, this morning I committed a minor felony — and all because of a mag.

See, I forgot to pick up my copy last Friday. So I had to steal one from the cafe underneath the Wordporium. I love those people! I would never normally steal from them!

But here’s why it was out of los hands: a semi-professional speed skim of the copy perched atop the communal bench told me there was so much that would appeal to me in this edition that I had to have it. It was like it had been produced for me, and me alone.

The cover boy is Rhys Muldoon, about whom La’s quietly fascinated. He’s going great guns in House Husbands, and it seems that the older and more dough-faced he gets, the better he gets.

But it isn’t Rhysy at all! Turns out it’s NSW Treasurer Mike Baird, but similar, non?

And a friend of mine works for MB, so I had to read that one.

Then, who can resist a mag whose editor’s wearing a fabuloso digi-print in her pic?

And look — I love buildings and bubbly too!

And cushion cut diamonds! And pink diamonds! And big diamonds and small diamonds!

And the mag has a special on Annandale, the suburb next door to Palazzo Trivialista, and home of the Junior Cost Centres’ educational mothership!

And the 2038 piece includes a photo of this lady and her sweet loin fruits…

…the self-same lady La stopped in the street last week for the express purpose of telling her how fabulous she looks with grey locks au naturel! Suspect she now thinks I’m some kind of Single White Female stalker, but I hold firmly to the maxim that when someone looks fabulous, it’s your complete and inalienable obligation to tell them so.

Srsly, though, imagine being liberated from the horrid burden that is hair colour maintenance?  Am sure if more of us gave ourselves permission to be grey we’d soon have the Middle East’s peace challenges sorted (thus helping out our fellow readers in both Israel and Palestinian Territories, Occupied.  Hello, friends!)

Then look — there’s also Mike, from Kitchen by Mike.  I love Kitchen by Mike!

Here’s a photo La took of Mike’s fabulous Kitchen a few weeks ago!

And there’s a great review of Mr Wong…oh, the coincidence!  La was supposed to go there a couple of weeks ago with Yankee Doodle and Ms Petey, but had to cancel because Seriousimo was drowning under legal briefs and couldn’t get home to care for los loin fruits.

And then there was a bit by my arch nemesis, Mr Justin North. Amazing how he rips off punters (e.g. selling a $250 Becasse voucher to Yankee Doodle, who gifted it to La, just before going bust, grrr) and suppliers, yet manages to rise Phoenix-like from the ashes to score a gig writing recipes in a glossy.

Justin, just wondering whether you’ll be donating your (the)Sydney Magazine fee back to Ferrier Hodgson so they can reimburse your creditors, including my friend Miss Doodle? We’ll await the call.

Then there’s gorgeous Bide’s Palm Beach palazzo. La loves Sass & Bide! Why, just this past weekend I was cottaging and frottaging up to their wares. Such a coincidence she’s in the mag too!

And, finally, there’s a feature on A Day in the Life of the head of acting at NIDA. Interesting and super coincidental as just last week La and La Nanny Trivialista, who’s also an actor, were chatting about NIDA, and LNT informed me that the current buzz among los luvvies is that that formerly august institution is now almost completely sponsored by Channel 7, ensuring the network gets first dibs on the prettiest and perkiest for Summer Bay duties.

This experience is called Magazindipity — that happy zone where editorial selection intersects blissfully with highly subjective personal interest.

Now, la kingdom for a 3/4 skim flat white and a comfy sofa…

X

Pressed into service just in time for this weekend’s luncheons and soirees, here’s all you need to know to attract battalions of admiring glances. Prepare for men to lay kerchiefs over puddles, sparing your slippers muddy messes, when they hear you speak authoritatively on the events of the week that was.

We’re in the… NOT

Australian Spondoolies More Expensive Than Spondies of 19 Other Top Economies. It’s not often the accusation of being a glass-half-full type is levelled at La Triv, but from now on there’s no ducking it. The upside of our highly muscular currency is that we need to do baskets and trolleys and carts more internet shopping from overseas retailers. If we have to pay the better part of $10 for a block of Bega cheese at Coles, we may as well be wearing OS-sourced Louboutins while we do it.

Gyngells Take Tiny Future Media Mogul Home From Hospital. Love this photo of the Gyngies and their new person. Love Leila looking post-partum but so happy. Love that while Gyng was at a critical stage of the Nine Entertainment debt-for-equity swap negotiations (wish I could instigate some of those for the Palazzo Trivialista finances) he left for the hospital, declaring that some things were more important than the future of Nine. And in the end he got a great result.

Roo Stages Protest At Lack Of Adequate Passenger Pick-Up Zones At Australian Airports; “Hopping Mad”, Source Says. Confirming all those cliches overseas tourists hold dear when it comes to the Wide Brown Land, this Skippy was spotted bounding about the carpark at Tullamarine. After he was tranquilised and taken to a vet, it was determined that the only damage he’d sustained was some distress and very “sore toenails from the concrete”. It’s the sign of a cynical world when one wonders if he was a plant by Tourism Victoria, and whether we’ll soon see a video of a ladyroo meeting him in an approved pick-up zone, then both of them unspooling a huge ball of string in a graffiti-ed laneway going viral.

Tracy Spicer Outs Culture Of Judging Women By Appearance In Medialand; Country Shocked And Outraged. Well done TS, nothing shocking in it to those of us passingly acquainted with the media (or anyone else, one suspects), but a great and witty piece of prose. And brave. An issue as old as newsprint,though: my boss at the Wordporium often recalls her first day as a cadet in the News Limited newsroom, when a much older male hack welcomed her to the world of journalism by calling her “Sugar Tits”.

Rae’s On Wategos Sold For $20m; Seriousimo Bereft. See, he was counting on winning the $50m Lotto on Tuesday night to fund the purchase. Of course, no-one won, so if only the sale could have waited til next Wednesday after we’d won the new and improved amount of $70m… Seriousimo and I are lucky to have stayed at the pink palace (pic above pre-dates the paint job) many times, most recently last Easter. Many memories…that many-shuttered room was where we spent the first four nights of la honeymoon and…

…this is the pool where we ‘hung’ with Ewan McGregor when he was in the Wide Brown Land filming Moulin Rouge (with Rake!!!). Ewan even referred to that white structure in the background as “Yoda’s hut”. He was deliciously indiscreet — even told us he thought Samuel L Jackson, his Star Wars co-star, was “one of the world’s worst actors.” Hope the new European, $20m-poorer owners keep Rae’s open, if only for the sake of Seriousimo.

And that’s that, for now. Enjoyez le weekend x

The paw de La… won’t be holding la breath for los hand-modelling offers to roll in

Great ladylunch yesterday with Lali and Sarah Terrific-Home. How restorative an afternoon of chin-wagging with great buddies is. Sometimes La feels srsly sorry for menfolk.

We posed for the obligatory headless ladies-who-lunch shot.

Can you believe the fabulous neck adornments displayed on L and ST-H? They were the by-product of a fruitful shopping excursion to Darling Street, Balmain, and a visit to Lotus Pod. It’s a website that ought to hang its virtual head in shame (‘neclace’, anyone?) but they evidently do great neckwear. Hope the ladies don’t mind me outing their fash secret.

The afternoon ended up at the Wine Library on Oxford Strasse, where this became the tipple of the day.

We imbibed it on the recommendation of ST-H. When she ordered her first snifter, the very cool, dude-like bartender actually came out to meet her, so rarely is he asked to pull together a Lillet on lemon and ice. I think he even bowed in her direction a tiny bit. Apparently, it’s a drink of the hospitality crowd and not normally requested by layfolk like us 40-something ladies. Huge props to ST-H, forever and always a tastemaker.

Srsly, you need to wrap your laughing gear around a Lillet at the next available opportunity. Like wearing Rag & Bone or knowing about the latest exploits of the Bondi Hipsters, it appears to immediately bathe one in an aura of cool.

En route to the Wordporium this morning, La hopped off the bus early to visit my favourite urban art installation:  Los Birdcages.

A chirpy start to the day

Well, that’s what I call them; their proper name is Forgotten Songs, and they were commissioned in memorium of all the chirpy, songful birdies who were squeezed out of the city by mean and nasty skyscrapers built to house institutions such as The Wordporium. This is a newer, shinier version of the installation, but the original one looked like this.

Photo courtesy of Jim’s Sydney – City and Suburbs blog

La preferred the older suburban budgie-style cages to the uniformly metallic ones we have now, but we’ll take our expressions of publicly-funded creativity where we can here in the byways and laneways of la Harbour City.

My Male JCC told me a story last night.

Yesterday J, a fellow smally at his school, fell over. Another small fry had the temerity to ask J whether he was OK.  Apparently, J leapt up and yelled at the assembled crowd of 4-somethings, “What the f****** hell?”

Oh my lordfather, how I laughed at the retelling of this yarn by my Male JCC. Bad Parenting 101: roll about on the floor in hysterics when your four-year-old hollers expletives (even if only in the voice of another). Then make him retell said yarn again, and again, and again…

Tweet, tweet x

La hates to be the bearer of bad news, but every now and then someone has to plate up the cold, soggy gruel of truth. So here it is…

I fear Liam’s had man work.

Feel sort of bad picking on him, considering the extremely sad circs under which he lost his lady love. But, why oh why, Neeso?!?

Onto other far more serious matters, today is a Ladylunch Day, which is the polar opposite of Dentist Day, or that old chestnut, Pap Smear Day.

My very good friend, Lali, is visiting the Harbour City from Los Brisbas en route to Bali. (How clever of her to holiday at a destination that rhymes with her name.) Otto beckons. That finger wharf is like a goddamn runway, and calls for top-shelf statement ladyshoes.  However, the heel must have some heft, so one avoids the old wedged-between-the-boards disaster scenario.

Ladyshoe, photographed against the glamora backdrop of the Wordporium

Lali and La Triv’s lunching history goes back almost as far as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off with Miss A, of Heston’s Meat Fruits fame. Here are some headless visuals of many years of supping — and posing — with Lali.

This was a dinner, rather than a lunch, but near enough…

Joining us today will be the renowned Sarah Terrific-Home, fresh off a week of solo-parenting of four loin fruits. Intravenous champagne may be in order.

The last time the three of were together for a ladygathering was in New York City, March 2011.

Sarah Terrific-Home, Lali and La Triv at Gramercy Tavern, 2011. Happy, happy days…

This was around the time of La Triv’s watershed birthday, and los ladies showered La with a gorgeous Alexis Bittar bangle.  Here it is, at the far right, worn today with two subsequently-purchased friends. Seems appropriate to take Alexis to Otto, too.

Enjoy your Monday. x

Sometimes, when travelling without junior cost centres and turbulence, one can savour the chance to remind Laself of the miracle of flight.

And the triumph, these days, that is Virgin (above, new shiny plane) and the tragedy that is Qantas (below, old grotty plane).

So why such a reflective, slightly melancholy Triv? Today, Ladyfest 2012 ended prematurely, under very stressful and worrying circumstances. BeBe Brunny, la much-loved mother-in-law of fellow Ladyfester, Brunny, ended up in surgery last night with a torn aorta, and is currently in intensive care. La and Brunny returned to Brunswick (well, where else would she live?) so Brunny could give an understandably upset and anxious Mr Brunny lots of hugs. The fest was brief, but precious. Fingers crossed for Mr Brunny’s magnificent mamma.

But, before that, this was a welcome sight at the Harbour City airport.

And this was beyond delicious.

In an effort to funk it all up a notch, treated Laself to these at the aeroporta.

L’arrived at Tullamarino and drove to Brunny’s, being careful to keep la heart rate under control whenever I was forced to share the road with a tram. Those monsters scare the bejezzers out of me.

Brunny had a gorgeous rose in her garden. Wish this was a scratch-and-smell site, as its bouquet was amazing.

Before the neutron bomb of poor Brunny’s family crisis hit, she and I hit the blacktop and headed for the Ton of Kyne. Once there and safely installed at Mollisons, we headed out and wasted no time ordering our first cocktail, a Middle Eastern Lemonade at the delicious Mr Carsisi on Historical Piper Street. This is Brunny, clutching hers in a vice-like grip. Too tart for her as it turned out, but just fine for La. Cheers!

Historical Piper Street has amazingly historical flagstones. Glad it wasn’t a teetering-heels type of weekend.

We looked at these in the divine Prunella florist, also on Historical Piper Street. They’re photos ($195 unframed, $395 framed) which look uncannily like Dutch masters. Telephonic purchasing is defo happening this week. Era of Frugality be damned.

Dinner was gobbled at the sublime Royal George Hotel. Meal was amazing, and dessert even better, especially with a little snifter of 1985 Pedro Ximenez. There was lots of ‘soil’, but — unusually in la books — it managed to be delish instead of annoying.

Walking home from dinner, poor Brunny got The Call. Unfortunately, those dastardly Middle Eastern Lemonades and Pedro Ximenezes meant we couldn’t drive back to the Wick of Bruns last night. Sleeping it off, as they say, was in order.

Back to the Harbour City. Fingers and toes crossed for BeBe Brunny.

Here at the Ton of Kyne Ladyfest 2012, we are happy fillies.

Feast your eyes on this bevy of high-brow material waiting to be ingested. Discussions have, so far, ranged across subjects as diverse as how amazingly Gwyneth is rocking 40, whether it’s time for Princess Catherine to lose the kohl detail on the lower lid, the unforgiving nature of the peplum and how Clooney repeatedly undermines his cred by dating Amazonian cocktail waitresses.

More later x

My gift to you:  the (mostly) weekly Wrap.

Ready to be better primed than a Chanel catwalk model’s face on show day? Then read on:  everything you need to know to get a leg up on this weekend’s social ladder is here, 100% fact-checked and verified. The key is to re-tell it with confidence, in your very best, this-is-for-the-cheap-seats voice.

“Mr Singh, my Tim would love to have a snip at what’s under that turban.”

PM’s Sensible Pumps Bog in Soggy, Monsoon-Affected Indian Grass; Leader Felled.  Poor JG.  She truly is a champ when it comes to re-composing herself and stealing back her prime ministerial dignity. In a nod to the new-found camaraderie among the Wide Brown Land sisterhood in the wake of weeks of anti-lady public discourse, La has refrained from including a snap of JG mid-fall. It’s something we all dread: there but for the grace of gods…

Nic and Carls Spend $1100 on Takeaways in NYC for Flight Back to France. OK, whatever. My question is, what the hell is going on with her face? Has she had an attack of the Burt Reynoldses? Carls is teetering dangerously on the verge of Bride of Wildenstein territory. Also, who cares (apart from underpaid, jaloux journalists) what they spent on takeaways? Anyone with even a glancing knowledge of their 1980s supermodels (Moi? Guilty!) knows La Bruni’s independent wealth is virtually boundless.

Lance Revealed as Drug Cheat; Dropped by Sponsors; Credibility Lost. So? Anyone who follows cycling even half as closely as La followed los 80s supermodels has always known they all cheat. Sure, he’s fibbed and been very sanctimonious about it all, but has everyone forgotten the man won all those Tours after he’d had testicular cancer and tumors in his lungs, abdomen and brain? A perfectly healthy Triv could inject and swallow all the horse steroids, androgens and T in the world and not even be able to scale one of those French Alpy hills with the aid of a velo-scooter, for gods’s sake. Let alone ride a pushie up countless of them, countless years running, and be faster than all the other sport-billy drug cheats after a near-ravaging by cancer.  Signor Seriousimo too had cancer of the man bits, and believe me, even without all those extra tumors thrown into the mix, he was sick enough.

This is Lance, not Seriousimo. The latter was lucky enough to retain what little hair he had.

I know it’s Lance’s holier-than-thou, woe-is-me attitude that’s getting up people’s schnozzes. It’s just a shame that a very inspirational story for cancer sufferers and sports fans alike has lost its shine. From here on in, it will be about how Lance comports himself, and how soon Oprah can press her couch back into service and make sure he’s on it, pronto.

Luciano Candisani/2012 Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Years of Sun Damage Finally Take Their Toll on Triv’s Face. Not news to anyone who knows La, but… I could not resist this photo. Tempted to blow it up to triple life size and use it to scare your loin fruits when necessary, or is that just me?  It’s one of the ‘highly commended’ images from the Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. Ye gods, some people are clever — and brave.

People Respond Emotionally to Sound of Babies Crying, Research Finds. OMG, really?  Really?!? Katie Young from Oxford University has found, according to The Guardian, “there is something special about the way baby sounds are processed by the brain… the sound of a baby’s cries are tagged as important even before our brains have had a chance to fully process them.” Many mothers would argue the sounds also lead to a Pavlovian desire for chardonnay and solo, one-way flights to Paris.

And while we’re on the topic of loin fruits…

Uma and Arki Announce Name of Female Junior Cost Centre.  Rosalind Arusha Arkadina Altalune Florence Thurman-Busson, in case you’re wondering. However, for ease of use, she shall henceforth be called Luna. Sheesh, srsly? It’s none of La business what anyone wants to name his or her bubalista, but this is almost up there with Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii.

Go forth and inform x

Tomorrow, La jets to the City of Laneways, then wends her way to the Ton of Kyne for the annual LadyFest with one of los besties, Brunny.

We will rest our weary heads here…

And we will sup here…

…and here…

At the latter, this lady will cook for us.

Am happy about this because it’s part of the Triv Manifesto (stubbornly, still a work in progress) never to dine at the gaff of a chef who’s a) skinny or b) unsmiling. And it’s always a bonus if said chef is willing to pose hugging would-be meal ingredients. With faces.

Hopefully this won’t feature too prominently on the menu…

…or these…

…because a bit of knob-twiddling at the Triv Media Control Console and consulting of the deity Google shows she does amazing things with those critters she cuddles.

Hopefully we will share a flute or two of this…

…or maybe one or two of these…

There’s sure to be much wagging of chins and sharing of confidences. And laying of personal development plans for the year to come. Latrivialista.com sprang from the loins of last year’s LAdyFest, with Brunny and Glammo Amo in the City of Angels.

Sometimes you need good amigos to give you a good, old-fashioned kick up the…

See you on the other side x

So today, like a good citizen of the Wide Brown Land, La toddled off to report for jury duty.

This guy came pushing his actual, real-live reason to be excused.  Was jealous.

Had to jettison this at the door, which hurt.

Decided very early on, after rubbing shoulders with Matt Day at the female Junior Cost Centre’s nippers debut yesterday, that it would only be right to channel the spirit of Cleaver Greene and make like I was being called to the Supreme Court, Taylor Square, to appear as an extra in la beloved Rake.

I put on my best concerned-and-dutiful-citizen, lock-the-b*****ds-up face, and waited for hair and make-up, the craft services van and Richard Roxburgh to arrive. But, like the tiger the little girl hoped would come back again for tea, he never did.

Made friends with a sweet fellow, we talked holidays and ABC comedy. He confessed either Dicky Roxburgh or Matty Day were welcome to park their slippers under his bed anytime. We *sighed*, jointly and collectively.

In a risky manoeuvre worthy of that Austrian who just parachuted from an altitude of 38km, La snapped a piccie inside la palazzo of justice.

Let no man decree I do less than serve the very best voyeuristic interests of the great body of readers of latrivialista.com, a readership that stretches from Palestinian Territories, Occupied to the outer archipelagos of Los Philippines. (Greetings Imelda! Did you find La by googling ‘awesome shoes’?!? Welcome, you are among friends!)

After much bloody waiting nervous anticipation, La was dismissed on the grounds of being a carer of young loin fruits.

But after all that jurisprudence, it seemed right to wander back to the Wordporium only after making a pilgrimage to Rake HQ.

Get the impression the Harbour City’s bathed in sunshine right now? You would be right.

Ciao.