Bendigo Gallery has a terrific street presence - huge close up photos of alabaster white classical bust sculptures, appropriately setting the mood for a mix of the modern and old.

Inside the gallery are two (typically) large white rooms set next to a more traditional room:

"These rooms were designed in the grand European tradition (notably the Tate Gallery, London) with polished wood floors, ornate plaster arches and cornices, and diffused natural sky-lighting through rooftop lantern towers."

If you visited the NGA annexe when (during it's St Kilda Road renovation) it invaded the Museum's old digs on Russell or have been to the Art Gallery of New South Wales then you'll immediately recognise this kind of room.

During our visit we checked out the Experimenta House of Tomorrow - an exhibition I had been consciously avoiding for most of last year.

Best of the bunch was Patricia Piccinini's detailed "Young Family 2002-03" from her "We are family" series- and Marcus Lyall's hilarious "Slow Service" which uses a high speed video camera to capture the moment his subjects were pelted with pizza, custard, pea soup, etc.

Also on show was Bookplates from the Corrigan Collection, Bendigo Art Gallery - and we didn't dwell long on this. To my mind an exercise in padding - it could have made a fascinating poster of ephemera rather than being strung out across four walls.

Tracey Moffatt: Fourth. Weak pseudo-paintings consisting of hand-coloured style images from the Sydney Olympics broadcasts. Have a look for yourself.

I just realised I know one of the exhibition curators - Liz Hughes - I was once an overacting extra in her short, Cat's Cradle:

"At a factory with blazing furnaces, workers leisurely talking or looking in newspapers, don't even notice the family as it walks toward a furnace, carrying the corpse."

"workers leisurely talking or looking in newspapers" is code for my bad acting. Small world.

42 View Street, Bendigo Victoria 3550 Australia
Entry by Donation. Ph: 03 5443 4991

Dsico (that no talent hack) is the Mr. Potato Head of Mashup & Bootlegs, he currently has Alchemy's DJ Residency on SBS FM - 92.3, Saturdays, 1:00am - 3:00am.

Palace's Cinema Como has just been renovated into a deep, slick black and silver temple for workshippers of the silver screen.
Cnr Chapel St and Toorak Road, South Yarra. Telephone: 9827 7533

The Lb (as in pound) bar - is a smallish, nifty bar that captures the essence of Melbourne's al fresco footpath dining - and only metres away from the catwalk of Chapel Street. The menu is pretty much limited to toasted pide bread but they offer some tasty variations. Make mine the bratwurst! Now if it only had air-con...
5/566 Chapel St Sth Yarra Phone: 9826 1114

Mr Wolf - a supreme pizza restaurant now inhabits the culinary space that was Luxe. In a world of wannabe designer pizza huts, Mr Wolf blows away the competition.
9-15 Inkerman St, St Kilda, VIC 3182 Phone:(03) 9534-0255