The virtual world – research and commentary on Australian arts and culture

When I established my blog ‘indefinite article’, a couple of years back, it was because I wanted to research and comment on Australian arts and culture. This is my main blog that gets most views. It seems to have taken off. I’d always thought that, given the specialist subject matter – after all it’s not a popular culture blog like a cooking one – that it would grow steadily but no more, which all along is what I had wanted. The rate of growth has surprised me. Now, I’m starting to focus on the other blogs that have played second fiddle – about short humour, gardening and cooking and creative writing.

When I first established my blog ‘indefinite article’, a couple of years back, it was because I wanted to research and comment on Australian arts and culture, something I know something about from working for over 35 years in the arts and culture sector. I could have written about other subjects but that would just be me expressing my opinions like every other man, woman and their dog (and cat) on social media. ‘Who cares?’ I thought. ‘indefinite article’ is irreverent articles about contemporary Australian society, popular culture, the creative economy and the digital and online world – life in the trenches and on the beaches of the information age. This is my main blog and it’s the one that gets most views.

Ages ago I used the phrase on this image, thinking that I had very cleverly been the first person to think of. Recently I saw the same phrase, virtually word for word, on an Internet meme. Whether my words just drifted around on their own and were picked up and reused or whether, more likely, it's just a case of a good idea appearing at the same time in many different widely separated places, is hard to tell. There are no secrets or possessions on the Internet. Here's my illustrated take on the meme.

On the morning of 25 February it passed 8,000 views and is now just over 100 views short of the next milestone of 9,000 views. It seems only a short time ago that I was celebrating having passed 7,000 views. That amount represented the total views from when I effectively started the blog, when I left the public service in late February 2014, to 25 February this year, a period of just under two years. My most recent jump of 1,000 views, from 7,000 to 8,000, took just 5.5 weeks. Three days later I was already a quarter of the way to my next thousand, 9,000 views. I seem to have settled around 1,000 views a month.

Provenance - knowing where good things come from

It took me only five years but I finally found my way to Provenance, the legendary regional restaurant established by chef Michael Ryan in Beechworth in 2010.

As regular visitors to Beechworth for decades, we had stayed there six or seven years ago in the accommodation tucked away at the back of the garden behind the restaurant, long before Provenance and long before the accommodation was refurbished. We had eaten in the restaurant as it was at the time. It was called of course The Bank, reflecting the original role at the height of the gold rush of the old 1856 Bank of Australasia building on Ford Street.

The entrance to 'Provenance' and the old bank that houses it.

Originally from Adelaide, with a background in chemistry, Ryan established Provenance with his partner, winemaker Jeanette Henderson, after almost a decade of involvement in the region. He was previously Head Chef at Milawa Cheese Factory and then won awards for Warden’s Food and Wine where, incidentally, we have eaten several times.

One of the best in regional Victoria
Provenance is widely considered one of the best restaurants in regional Victoria, in a tiny state that contains many good regional restaurants. In The Age Good Food Guide 2013 Michael Ryan won Chef of the Year and the restaurant was named Regional Restaurant of the Year and awarded two chefs hats. It was also listed in the Gourmet Traveller Top 100 Australian Restaurants in the same year. I had been meaning to eat there since it was established and given how regularly we travel to Beechworth and its surrounds I was amazed I hadn’t been earlier. It took some time but it was worth it.