Pete is back again – in fact, he never left! Drop your first world problems here Westsiders!
Hey Pete here’s an interesting question for you. The last two times my partner and I have eaten out we’ve ended up striking up a conversation with the people at the next table. It was quite enjoyable to be honest and I recommend it. Yet when I mentioned this to a couple of friends, they were both horrified. Is there something wrong here?
Paul, Spotswood (via email)
Paul there’s definitely something fishy here my friend and it’s not the anchovy. Maybe your friends are just jealous that you’ve enjoyed yourself while seeing ‘other’ people, I totally get it too, last time you were out with ‘those’ friends they were probably just on their phones, or possibly too busy stuffing multiple flaky curry puffs in their gobs to bother conversing with you. I say forget them and focus on the new, exciting restaurant relationships you’re building. I’ve had them too you know. It was from another time and place; she was some sort of second-rate, ex-soviet state heiress, with a heavy accent and even heavier makeup. She called me ‘darling’, and prattled on about the rich and powerful men she’d loved and lost. Needless to say I was enchanted from start to finish, the finish of course being the moment I realised she had left me with the bill and swiped my faux-leather jacket!
Need you to settle an argument Pete, what’s “too much” Vegemite? I have been accused…
Amelia, Seddon (Facebook)
I suppose like anyone of my generation and standing Amelia, you expect my immediate answer is going to be a firm and resounding “there’s no such thing as too much Vegemite!” Wrong! Too much Vegemite is very much ‘a thing’. To help me illustrate the point, think back to Forrest Gump’s friend Bubba and his famous shrimp monologue (do it in a Southern accent); “there’s fried shrimp, broiled shrimp, fricassee shrimp, pineapple shrimp, shrimp salad, shrimp sandwich…” And so it is with Vegemite. Too much Vegemite is; “a lot of Vegemite, a little bit of Vegemite, a spread of Vegemite, a smidgen of Vegemite, a whiff of Vegemite, the sight of Vegemite, the mention of Vegemite, the thought of Vegemite, the invention of Vegemite…”
Pete the other day in our very own Williamstown I spotted a well known TV star. Before I tell you the rest of the story, what’s the etiquette when it comes to hassling celebrities in the street?
Simon, Williamstown Beach (via email)
Oh Simon, you didn’t, did you? Oh goodness me, you did. You embarrassed yourself and everyone else within earshot with your loud giggling and shameful squealing over Richard Wilkins. Or was it worse? Was it Kochie? Please tell me it wasn’t Brian Taylor, though in your defense, you did say ‘TV star’ so that seems unlikely. Local or international? If it was Jerry Seinfeld all is forgiven, you could easily have roped him into a quick rendition of the Soup Nazi episode, albeit with an Aussie twist. “NO KEBAB FOR YOU!” Though Jerry has a reputation for being more stand-offish than stand-up these days, so it probably wasn’t him. Wait – I’ve got it! You were in the Williamstown Botanic Gardens when you spotted Osher Günsberg, host of The Bachelor and you quickly plucked a nearby rose and rushed over to him with it! Then the minders pounced and you wrote me this email from hospital!? (I mean the garden’s minders of course, you can’t just go picking flowers whenever you feel like it you know, a bit of westie justice right there…)
