PUZZLE ZONE
ACROSS 1. Inhale 7. Raised (design) 8. Around (that date) 10. Strengthening 12. Reflex movement 14. Low platform 16. Coral bank 17. Plan of action
20. Assured 23. Intimidate 24. Immobility 25. Slides
DOWN 1. Portion of circle 2. Proven truth 3. Complacent 4. Roamed 5. Roughly calculated 6. Proverbs 9. Main artery 11. Video photographer
13. Elect 15. Walked in water 16. Win back 18. Teenage people 19. Floats on breeze 21. Utensil 22. Poorly-lit
Puzzles supplied by Lovatts Publications Pty Ltd www.lovattspuzzles.com See page 25 for solutions.
THE MEANING OF EXISTENCE... AND OTHER SHORT STORIES
The Man Who Knew Too Much About Dinner By Stuart McCullough IGNORANCE may not be bliss, but it can help keep your appetite. Although we live in an information age where almost anything is a keystroke away, it’s sometimes better not to know. Kind of like Marty McFly, knowing too much affects the choices you make. Last week, I made the fatal mistake of looking up the name of the restaurant I was going to be eating at and, as a result, knew so much that it threatened to disturb the space-time continuum to say nothing of the fact that it totally put me off my dinner. I love travelling through regional Victoria. There are wonderful things to see, great people to meet and the food, frankly, is often terrific. But there are exceptions. On this particular evening, I was booked into the local pub for dinner. Let me say that I’ve had some pretty wonderful meals at country pubs. Eager to know what I was in for, I made the fateful mistake of looking it up on ‘Trip Advisor’. When it comes to the Internet, there’s always the risk of a rogue review. However, in this instance there was a clear consensus that I was about to take my life in my hands. There were a lot of ‘one star’ reviews. As a general rule, any restaurant review that features the word ‘grubby’ in the title is not going to inspire enthusiasm. One review had the confidence-busting title ‘Avoid Unless Desperate’. Other reviews had titles the spanned the darker side of the emotional palette including pity, with one review entitled ‘Oh Dear’, through to despair (the somewhat to the point ‘Disgusting food’) and the downright pragmatic (‘If You Need a
PAGE 20
Meal’). These were just the titles. The content of the reviews were no more encouraging. It would be fair to say that they criticized everything. The décor (‘drab’, ‘rundown’), the distance to the front bar (‘miles away’) and the
Frankston Times 24 September 2018
staff (variously described as either ‘untrained’ or ‘disinterested’) – nothing escaped the gaze of those who’d submitted a review. It’d be fair to say, however, that most of the vitriol was reserved for the food itself. Without going in to too much detail, it’d be
fair to describe the reviews as being on the harsh side. Oddly, though, one of the reviews that described the food as pretty much inedible, went on to praise the portion size. The general gist seemed to be that although the food was terrible, as least they weren’t being stingy about it; as though being served more food you’re not enjoying might somehow be a good thing. I am nothing if not agile. I might have had a booking, but it didn’t mean I needed to keep it. I could, so I reasoned, always go somewhere else. I quickly did a search for all the restaurants serving dinner in the local area. The results were, I have to say, somewhat underwhelming, to put it mildly. According to Trip Advisor, there were only three restaurants in town. One had garnered the reviews that had prompted my search in the first place. Another was closed. The third was a petrol station. The options, it seemed, were very limited. There was nothing much to do other than update my will and head out for dinner. Sometimes the Internet is an echo chamber, where lunatics go to spew bile and generally be obnoxious. Sometimes, however, it is eerily accurate. As I entered the hotel, something in my soul told me that the folks on Trip Advisor might have erred on the side of generosity. There must have been a dozen tables in the dining room. Two were occupied. Aside from the fact that it was sparsely populated, the other thing I noticed was how cold the room was. It was as though they’d decided there was no point in even turning the heaters on.
I ordered from the register, only to discover that to use the eftpos machine, I had to journey to the front bar. This was a voyage through labyrinthine passageways to a small, dim-lit room stuffed with men who were – by any measure – very, very drunk. Suffice to say, they were not three sheets to the wind so much as they were an entire Adairs superstore. That the sun had barely dropped out the sky made it seem all the more desperate. Upon returning to the dining room, I chose a seat next to the fireplace, even though there was no fire to speak of. Perhaps it was wishful thinking on my part. When my meal arrived, it was clear that this was something to be endured rather than enjoyed. The scalloped potatoes had congealed and tasted like rubber. The beans looked as though they had just been defrosted before being boiled until all the colour fell out. The chicken parmagiana was as stiff as a piece of cardboard. Were I to write my own Trip Advisor review, it would probably recommend giving the servo a try. As I was leaving, I noticed a plaque on the wall of the hotel, declaring that this was the site of the town’s very first medical clinic. It was hard not to think that this was in direct response to the menu. As unpleasant as it was, I survived the experience and lived to tell the tale. I haven’t posted my review on Trip Advisor yet; I’m taking my time. That’s because revenge is a dish best served cold and certainly not with a plate of congealed scalloped potatoes. stuart@stuartmccullough.com