Book: The ESV Bible
Thanks to a late catch-up read this afternoon, I managed to finish reading through the bible (including reading the New Testament and the Psalms twice) this afternoon. I would highly recommend the M’Cheyne plan if you’re searching for a new year’s resolution along the lines of "Read my bible more" – it gives you a chance to get through the whole thing in a realistic timeframe, at just four chapters a day (give or take the short and the long chapters).
Now with added cooking herbs! Somehow, I’ve managed to keep most of these plants alive (there have been a few tragic casualties along the way. See you next year!
Don adán coffee. Shop 2, 65 Parraween St Cremorne. Nestled in an arcade at the back of the Cremorne Orpheum is another outpost of this café. This café is proudly South American, and the background noise is a mix of the barista’s conversation and the radio.
Seating is split between indoor and outdoor, on small tables covered with an artisic collage of newspaper cuttings and other printed material, then covered with something waterproofed.
Coffee is made strong, with some earthy flavours, and they have a range of different iced coffees on the menu. They have a café helado on the menu, a long black poured over ice, which I haven’t seen elsewhere.
Campos Coffee. 35 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe. Stays true to its heritage as a converted house with a choice of seating: table and chairs or armchairs and couches. From 11am each day, you can sit on the balcony or upstairs, earlier it’s just the ground floor, overlooking Glebe Point Road, the espresso machine, and the kitchen.
Coffee is good; an intricate fern tops my skim latte. Better still is the tall latte, just a hint of coffee through the thick haze of milk. An old favourite of mine.
Toby’s estate coffee. 362 Military Rd, Cremorne. This place is a combination of deli and food court style eatery. After ordering at the counter, you’re directed to a bench where there’s self-serve water, cutlery and serviettes.
The conversations of fellow diners is drowned out by the background music: some ambient jazz. There’s lots of light; high ceilings, and a skylight combined with coporate style interior design that wouldn’t be out of place in a government building.
Coffee takes a little while, arriving with a too foamy head, and very hot. Flavour-wise, though, it’s good: a worthwhile place to stop for a coffee.
Movie: Babel
The Tower of Babel is the bible story where God confuses the language of the people on earth. The uniting element of this film is seeing people from a range of different languages and cultures fail to communicate with each other.
A somewhat depressing, but clever film that interweaves a series of plots and characters through a single tragic action. It feels like a little bit of a sell-out, in that the American characters are played by name-brand actors, and seem to have a happier time of it than all the others.
If you’re not a fan of complex plot, character driven films with dialogue in a range of languages (including sign language), and / or you’re averse to adult content in your films, steer clear. If this still sounds like your kind of film, you’ll most likely enjoy it. There’s certainly enough suspense and character drama to make an interesting film.
Jesus and the Victory of God – N. T. Wright
I was starting to wonder if I’d ever make it to the end of this book – as was the person who generously loaned me the book these past months.
Wright here spills a lot of ink, and quotes a lot of other scholars. His purpose? To define who Jesus thought he was, and what the various events of his life (as recorded in the gospels) would have meant to someone sitting in the audience. To explain this, he goes into a lot of detail as to what the 1st century Jews were expecting from a Messiah.
Then, just as you start to understand Wright’s thesis, he mentions Jesus’ resurrection, and then says that it will take him another book to go into any detail about this at all… it was like the ending to the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie, where you realise that there’s going to be another sequel.
Wright is clearly a scholar with unusually broad knowledge of the literature (scholarly and ancient) surrounding the New Testament, and this work will reward the diligent reader with a small sample of this knowledge. The reader gets a sense that Wright is taking more of a historical than a literalist view of the gospels (preferring not to touch such hot potatoes as the Transfiguration, for instance), which makes me a little uncomfortable in recommending the book, but really, it’s only going to be read by those with an abiding interest in theology.
A shorter version of the same content exists (a shorter book, in fact) if you’re curious, but not curious enough for over 600 pages.
544 Bourke St, Surry Hills. A converted house with a lot of fairly confronting artwork on the walls, radio playing in the background. Service was lacking: no-one gave me a menu, even after waiting at a table for a few minutes. Neither did anyone stop me on the way out. Granted, I could have made more of a fuss about it, but it’s not something I see happen often.
Coffee: unreviewed.
Has anyone else had a better experience at cafe niki?
Caffe di stefano coffee. A quick crossing of king st from the cinema and you’re there. A remarkably high-ceiling-ed building, this place offers a range of cakes, and more substantial meals.
Coffee takes a long while to arrive, but when it does, it’s worth the wait. My offsider for the visit rates it at 6.5 out of 10, which is a fair assessment. There are no awards to be had here, but it’s far from a bad coffee. Mild flavour, no bitterness.
Mokambo coffee. Once upon a time, this place (6 king st) was a vegetarian café called the Green Iguana. Now, under new management, it’s an al new café with full kitchen and espresso bar.
It’s hard to tell the flavour of the coffee from the affogato the ice cream masks the coffee flavour with its sweetness. A latte tells a different tale: it’s a bit like grinders coffee; middle-of-the-road, nothing fancy, but drinkable.
Food is reasonably priced, not cheap, but not extortionate either.
