So how do I sum it up? Boring! Expensive for what it offered! And extremely ordinary food.

Where do I start? How about with the maître d’hôtel who mumbled some sort of greeting and, when I explained we had a reservation, seemed to be concerned he was expecting half the entire suburb of (boring) Beaumaris to turn up. The four occupied tables suggested this wasn’t going to happen. It wasn’t as though everyone had decided not to eat last night – the Lobster Cave next door was positively buzzing.

We could then move onto he fact we sat for ten minutes at out table before we were even asked if we’d like a drink. Not to worry, it gave us a chance to take in the wonderful atmosphere, which consisted of a bunch of boring as bat shit 80s songs playing in the background. Guess what? Chuck e’s in love.

The menu was largely unspectacular. At a venue where I was expecting to shell out more than $200 for the two of us for dinner, and was more than happy to do so, I thought it was very disappointing.

The tasting plate as an appetiser with our drinks (yep, we finally got them) was OK, but at $23, should have had double the amount of food on it. And given we told them we were sharing, why would they only put one mussel on the plate? And one mushroom?

Carol’s pan fried scallops, chorizo and capsicum puree for entre was disappointing – very bland, with the puree adding absolutely nothing to the dish. My tempura battered oysters with wasabi mignonette was a major disappointment. The batter was soggy – I’ve actually seen better batters produced by my local fish and chips shop. The mignonette just tasted like lime juice.

Our mains were also disappointing. Carol thought the ingredients in her risotto were good, but where was the chilli? My bouillabaisse, which is supposed to be the house specialty, was terrible. My dictionary says that bouillabaisse is a “highly seasoned fish stew made with at least two kinds of fish”. It turned up on an ordinary dinner plate, instead of a bowl, which is how I would have thought most people would serve a stew. And “highly seasoned”? It had a flavourless sauce of some sort spread over it.

The ordinary experience continued with the $35 bottle of Mornington Peninsula Pinot we had, which was unspectacular.

We decided not to bother with deserts or coffee – we’d had enough. At this point, we moved on to the best part of the night – the taxi turned up within 3 minutes of me booking it on my iPad.

Citrus @ Beaumaris – you need to lift your game. Big time. A good starting point would be to start offering better value. And give your food some character.

Prior to 6:00am this morning, or 0600 hours in pilot speak, about a dozen aircraft took off into the south. This is the direction where there are houses that are closest to the airport, including mine. Conditions were benign, which meant that those aircraft could have taken off to the north or on the cross runway.

You may find this surprising, but my wife and I actually prefer to sleep a bit later than 6:00am on a Sunday morning. Unfortunately, we didn’t get that opportunity this morning.

You need to show a bit more respect to the local residents, Royal Victorian Aero Club. What happened this morning was disgraceful!

Hey Tim Lane, Stephen Quartermaine and Robert Walls (you especially Robert). And all of your colleagues who are radio and television commentators.

The bloke on the left here is Ray Chamberlain. Or Umpire Chamberlain would probably be better. His name is not Razor Ray. Nor is his name Ray. Well, it is, I suppose, but I don’t often hear you referring to Nick or Nick or Nick. It’s usually (Nick) Riewoldt or (Nick) Dal Santo or (Nick) Maxwell.

Equally, the guy on the right is Brett Rosebury. He’s one of our better umpires, certainly better than the previously mentioned Ray Chamberlain. His name is not The Umpire.

Can you and all your commentator mates start treating them the same and stop trying to elevate some of them onto pedestals in the same way that we expect you to with the players please.

They are just umpires and you are contributing to the situation where some of them seem to think that they, rather than the players are what people go to see on a weekly basis.

A colleague, Doug, put me onto Radio Paradise recently. I am surprised I haven’t found it before this – I’m constantly on the lookout for what I consider to be quality streaming radio stations on the net.

These guys, Bill & Rebecca, play a fantastic, eclectic mix of modern and classic rock, world music, electronica and more, as the banner says above.

The other thing I like about it is that you get to hear a bunch of artists from around the world that you wouldn’t necessarily hear on Australian radio. There’s no ads, and just a very short back announce every three or four songs or so.

I encourage you to check it out by clicking here.

So today, I went to The Age web site to check the list. It could be my failing eyes, and I didn’t have my glasses on, but nowhere could I find reference to the list. Hmm, is this the same newspaper that wants to make a return to quality? Good call I’d say.

I then searched for “queens birthday honours” in my browser and the first hit was for www.itsanhonour.gov.au. Ah, that’ll be it. No, firstly you get to click on a database link for all recipients, ever. Not quite what I wanted.

Next you get referred to the Attorney General’s web site, to try and find the copy of the Government Gazette where they are listed. Too hard!

Finally, you get referred to the Governor General’s web site. I’m assuming that’s where they’ll be, but I won’t know just now – the web site’s down.

So to all those who received honours, congratulations. It’s just a pity it’s so damn hard to find you.

The State Ombudsman is, in turn, investigating the OPI.

I have a simple question. Who’s investigating the State Ombudsman?

A friend suggested yesterday that I need to include a GOM warning on my Twitter posts, and I guess by extension, my blog posts.

BTW, I was assuming by GOM, she meant Grumpy Old Man. I suppose she could have meant Good Ol’ Man, but somehow, I don’t think so.

It made me actually go and do a count of the number of “negative” blog posts recently – to my horror (promise), seven of the last nine have involved me having a rant.

I just want everyone to be reassured that I really am a very happy, easy-going sort of bloke, not prone to outrage or the like.

I am sure this recent negativity can be put down to being laid up for the last five weeks with two slipped discs in my back. There’s no telling what being stuck in bed and not being able to work can do to one. Yeah, that must be the reason.

And just to prove that things have turned around, I promise not to blog (rant?) about my recent experiences with the medical profession (and I use that last word advisedly).

Have a lovely day.

The reason is that we have gates at the front of the property and people are here irregularly during the week. We’re comforted by the fact there are two dogs, one of whom is a rottweiler cross, who will happily tear your arm off if you decide to jump the gate though.

For some reason, United Energy needs to physically see its water meter, love it, caress it, make passionate love to it, etc regularly, as well as noting down the numbers on it.

I ask the same question every year – why doesn’t United Energy allow me to take a photo of my meter and send it to them? My water provider allows me to do that. I can either call them, e-mail them something, or even SMS the meter reading to them.

United Energy, you need to come into the 21st Century!

Troicki has played a great point and clearly beaten Murray, but one of the ball kids has prematurely run onto the court, thus the point must be replayed. Troicki quietly disputes the ruling, but then goes back to receive the replayed Murray serve.

Andy Murray – you had the opportunity to demonstrate superior sportsmanship by throwing that point. You knew you weren’t entitled to it. You were clearly beaten when the point was played the first time. But you didn’t, did you?

You just lost me and, I am sure, a massive number of tennis-watching people around the world. I hope you lose this match and that your generally unimpressive performances continue throughout the rest of your career.

Unfortunately, you have just demonstrated one of the fundamental problems with professional tennis. It is generally played by people who are absurdly overpaid for what they do, and who, in a lot of cases, lack any sort of grace, humility or SPORTSMANSHIP.

People have claimed I don’t like Malthouse because he’s associated with Collingwood. NOT TRUE! Did you hear that AN (you know who you are)? It’s not true.

I dislike Malthouse because I think he’s a goose. In most press interviews he does, he’ll try and do something quirky to make us think he’s some sort of comedic genius. Not surprisingly, he’s not recognised as such. I’ve never seen his posters up in lights for the Comedy Festival.

I also dislike him because he lacks credibility. Last year, he was accused of calling St Kilda player, Stephen Milne, a rapist. It was actually worse than that, but I’ll spare you the profanity. Malthouse publicly denied the accusation.

And before I go any further, don’t bother coming back at me because Milne is a St Kilda player. It would be the same if it was Fred Blogs from Geelong or Artie Pharnarkle from Fremantle.

It was only when the overwhelming evidence came forth that it was exactly what Malthouse had called Milne that he came out and apologised to him. Where’s your credibility, Mick?

So it was no surprise to find out that Malthouse, while commentating on radio, has accused a player of blatant cheating when he falsely claimed to have scored a goal that was kicked through by an opposition player.

You know what, Mick? What you should have said was “I decline to comment because I have no credibility, as I demonstrated when my side played St Kilda last year”. You are the last person who should be calling someone a cheat!