The Little Dum Dum Club - Live Double Comedyyyy Extravaganza

November 20, 2016

First recording of the Little Dum Dum Club

12th November 2016
6:30 pm
European Bier Cafe - 120 Exhibition Street, Melbourne

Voting for whether they should do a live show in Thailand greeted me when I walked in. I voted “no” just to be contrarian, and because Chandler’s Thailand fascination deserves to be reigned in.

Second recording of the Little Dum Dum Club

The show was pretty good value, going from 6:30 pm (ish) through to around 11 pm. They recorded two episode of the podcast and then ended with a selection of deliberately bad character standup at the end.

Of this show, and especially the last portion with the bad standup in it, is part of the reason why I think I like the Little Dum Dum Club so much. It’s like listening, and going and seeing an ongoing...thing. It’s like a series of in jokes that you need to have listened to the past episodes to understand. Not just things like Rad Dad, but June Northern, but also the ‘door story’, duck sandwich, the pyjamas, mousse and all the other in jokes and references. The Little Dum Dum Club has its own canon, its own body of work told over 300 plus episodes.

To begin the afternoon / evening was another in Tommy Dassalo’s Fiverr erotic fan fiction summaries of his and Chandler’s day.

For the first recording Tommy and Karl were joined by Tom Ballard, Dilruk Jayasinha and Adam Knox.
For the second recording Tommy and Karl were joined by Fiona O’Laughlin, Joel Creasey and Nick Cody.

With line ups like that, $41 is a pretty good price given the nearly four and a half hours (minus breaks between) of comedy on the night.

The final part of the show was the “horrific stand up show” featuring various bits of character standup from Tom Ballard, Tommy Dassalo, Fiona O’Laughlin, Dilruk Jayasinha and Karl Chandler.

First up was Karl Chandler in his notorious pyjamas, doing jokes from one of his first sets, as mentioned in a previous podcast.

Next up was Comrade Tom Ballard, the socialist left’s comedian for those who wanted to feel guilty about asylum seekers and being white and...stuff like that.

After that was the Baby Bogan himself, filling out a nappy was Tommy Dassalo with some very interesting jokes about babyhood and life.

Following that was a fantastically interesting performance from June Northern herself, mentioning Fiona O’Laughlin and starring the vacuum cleaner that once tried to end it all.

Then was racially diverse in the worst possible way, Dilruk Jayasinha, as an Indian taxi comedian.

Finally, everyone’s favourite comedian, loved by RSLs everywhere, Gary Chook. The audience chanted ‘Chook, Chook, Chook,’ as he made his way on stage. Karl Chandler had left the building to be replaced by Chook, a man who looked like he was ready to pick a fight with anyone who disagreed with his politics or humour.

It was a strange end to fantastically funny, but odd night.

The Grand Trailer Park Taverna

November 20, 2016

I should have gone to the Imperial Hotel for a chicken parma.

I was eating early because I was going to the Little Dum Dum Club which began at 6:30 pm.

I was going to go to the Arbory, except the weather was in the process of shifting from muggy to cool with a wind slowly blowing through the city and I was dressed for the latter so I didn’t want to go from where I had parked (Federation Square) down to Flinders Street station (where Arbory is) and then back up to the European Bier Cafe on Exhibition Street where the Little Dum Dum Club would be later in the evening.

I could have eaten at the European Bier Cafe, but I wanted to try somewhere different.
Often, when looking for places to eat in the city I turn to ParmaDaze.com which offers a good, single minded review of all things crumbed chicken-based.
Then in my searching I found Burgers of Melbourne not as detailed as ParmaDaze, but it’s certainly an interesting site if looking for real images of burgers, albeit a bit Instagram-styled images. Their site has a fairly detailed star rating breakdown, and gave The Grand Trailer Park Taverna a good rating.

I went into The Grand Trailer Park Taverna having looked at the menu online and thought that it would be an interesting place to go and try.

The interior was interesting, it’s got a food truck / trailer park sort of hipster aesthetic. Completely built inside with no readily apparent real original elements to it, as it’s on the second level of the building so everything that was within would have had to fit up the stairwell or perhaps through the balcony by crane.
The interior style they had created within was well realised.

I ordered the ‘David Chang’ - “Premium Aussie beef patty, American cheddar cheese, streaky bacon, egg, tomato, butter lettuce, sliced beetroot, special burger sauce & America mustard on a toasted brioche bun” $18.50
Maybe it’s my own fault for ordering something with fairly inconsequential sorts of flavours.
But that said, something like the ‘Mighty Melbourne’ from Grill’d which contains “Grass-fed lean beef, tasty cheese, crispy trim bacon, free range egg, a couple of slices of beetroot with salad, relish & herbed mayo.” manages to make for a fresh tasting and enjoyable burger, for several dollars less than the Grand Taverna.

I ordered beer battered chips with the burger, and a pot of coke. The latter of which was served in a big jar / mug thing.

In short order, possibly 10-15 minutes my burger arrived. I didn’t take a photo of it, and am glad I didn’t because that time taken would have allowed even more of the heat to drift away from it.

The burger and indeed the chips were, optimistically, warm. Near the back of the burger it was slightly warmer than the rest of the burger.

There were no real dominant flavours in the burger. It was warm, filling but it was all a bit...bleh. The mustard and special burger sauce had no real defining flavours to it. The butter lettuce looked like it was regular iceberg lettuce from looking at it before biting into it, and somewhat browned on the end at that.
The most positive thing I could say is that it was filling.

The chips were good, well, good enough. They were well battered, nice flavour, they’d been cooked in clean oil. They were vaguely warm, though retained their crunch even as they shifted towards room temperature.

I’m sure people hipsters and people in their teens and early to mid-20s enjoy this place. Booths, big tables, high stools and benches to sit at. It’s got a retro American aesthetic to it that speaks to a certain style, it’s all very...well designed. Well constructed to a point. It’s the point that kinda got me looking around, knowing that aside from the kitchen the whole space had to have been constructed from scratch, making it a very fake space. Perhaps fake is the wrong word, it’s well ‘designed’ but it’s been quite constructed in order to get there.
Maybe that element doesn’t matter, I’m not sure.

But I think whatever the design aesthetics of the space the food should speak for itself, and, it was rich, but no defining flavours. Soft, but no real contrasting texture. I couldn’t really describe one specific element of the burger except maybe a hint of the American mustard. Not even the beetroot provided much contrast as it like the egg was swamped by the ‘special burger sauce’.

Creation of the Acrow Prop

October 26, 2016

I got into an argument the other day with my dad in relation to building and the things that hold up supports when building is going on.
I contended that the devices used to support structures while building, including support structures that the builders were standing on was scaffolding.
While my father contended that they were “arcoprops”.
I conceded defeat upon inspecting the devices which were holding up a structure. These had a screw arrangement and were single pieces used to support buildings and platforms to a desired height during the building process.
During a later ‘conversation’ / time for my dad to gloat that I was wrong he conceded that the “arcoprops” were related to scaffolding.

It got me thinking about what these “arcoprops” actually were and how they came to be a product.

As, unlike scaffolding, which has been around since we built anything above head height, these “arcoprops” are something that’s been designed and engineered. There’s a screw mechanism to them; they have been engineered and designed for purpose.

“Arcoprop” would seem to be a mis-pronunciation / mis-hearing of their name. The name for the original device is “Acrow prop”. “Arcoprop” could be a pronunciation difference, a long A at the start rather than a short A.

Wikipedia has a disappointingly short article on the Acrow prop. But at least it gave me somewhere to begin searching for a more detailed history, or more detailed information and a time frame to limit my search to regarding this device.

In 1935 Swiss-born William “Bill” de Vigier arrived in London, with £50 in his pocket, he set up a small workshop under Bow arches in the East End. There he made steel props which were adjustable for length by means of a robust screw thread. The name of the company comes from his solicitor who helped him set up said company a Mr A Crowe; de Vigier adapted his name on the grounds that it would be easy to pronounce and near the beginning of any alphabetical listing. <source:The Telegraph - Obituaries - William de Vigier>

That’s the summary history of Bill de Vigier from his obituary in the Telegraph and it’s this history that is cited on several sites and on a few different Wikipedia pages.

Reading into history provides a somewhat more interesting and detailed account.

William Alphonse Olivier de Vigier, born on the 22nd January 1912, best known as “Bill”, was schooled at Mrs Steiner in the Hermesbühl Schoolhouse in Solothurn, which he was expelled from the school for being an “extremely energetic child”. He was then sent to a Catholic reform school in Marseille. After that he attended a boarding school; La Châtaigneraie in the Canton of Vaud by Lake Geneva. After finishing school his father had wanted Bill to follow the family tradition and go into law, Bill was vehemently opposed to this and instead found a job at the engineering company Scintilla in Zuchwil near Solothurn. He completed a commercial apprenticeship with Scintilla in 1931. Scintilla is now part of Bosch, a part of Bosch which specialises in power tools for professional and domestic markets. In the late 1920s however it focused on magnetos for cars and planes.

Bill de Vigier then went to work at the Von-Roll factory in Klus-Balsthal. The Swiss company still exists to this day, focusing on electrical generation and power systems.

After this Bill went on to Madrid to work for Spanish company Telefónica. Which seems to be a telephone and communications company. Their history page is somewhat lacking on explanations of what they did when Bill was there.

Whatever he did there didn’t last long as he became ill and returned to Switzerland to again work for Scintilla where he was made responsible for the company’s correspondence in German, French, English and Spanish.

Now somewhere between 1932 and 1935 during the Great Depression which also affected Switzerland (and most of the world) there is something of a gap in de Vigier’s history. My guide and primary source is “100 years Bill de Vigier” which doesn’t fill in this gap very adequately.

This gap must hold something of interest, and more importantly would hopefully reveal where his inspiration came from for the Acrow prop.
His employment up to this point was with technical companies, those who produced magnetos or communications equipment. While it’s possible that he would have interacted with people in the construction field there doesn’t seem to be anything in any of the histories or information concerning Bill de Vigier or the Acrow prop that I’ve been able to find.

The only place I can fathom where he might have had some contact with construction materials (though why I’m not sure) is that in 1930 Bill served in the military, he was assigned to the Solothurn Fusiliers (Fusilier Company I/50). After training as a non-commissioned officer in Liestal, he was promoted to the rank of corporal but he was denied a more advanced career in the army because they said he lacked leadership qualities. In the future when he was running Acrow he would become the boss of over 10,000 employees.<source:100 years Bill de Vigier>
Reading up on fusiliers it seems that, while it’s the lowest rank in the army, in Switzerland it’s both the lowest rank, but also one where the soldiers do a lot of random (and menial) tasks. So it’s just about possible that Bill, while serving in the army he became inspired by building props and support structures and hung onto that idea until, after working in various industries set out to London to make his dreams a reality. (Note, I’ve found no sources for this, this is just my speculation based on available facts.)

In 1935 Switzerland (like many other parts of the world) was in the grip of recession. 24 year old Bill de Vigier left Switzerland for London figuring he’d have better chance for success there. He arrived in London with only 1,000 francs (around £50) with only an idea for an adjustable scaffold prop.

Realising that there was no one in London that could help him realise his idea he decided that he would have to manufacture it himself. He rented a small premises under the railway at Bow arches in East London.
Around this time Bill approached a well known local solicitor Arthur Crowe to establish the company but the cost for doing so was £32, far more than he could pay, given that the deposit in the arches was £15 (they were £30 per annum), and on the offices around the corner in Charterhouse square £4.

He persuaded Arthur Crow to give him six months credit on his fee and, partly out of gratitude and partly on the basis that it would always come near the top in any directory or listing, he used the solicitor’s name for his new company which became Acrow (Engineers) Ltd. The name was also used for his product the Acrow Prop. <source:Building Products Online>

Arthur Crowe’s name is spelt with and without the ‘E’ in various sources, I’ve kept it with an ‘E’ as that seems the most frequent spelling of it.

Bill is supposedly to have said of the company’s founding:

“The lawyer who organised the founding of my company was a certain Mr Arthur Crowe. That gave me the idea for the name of the company. What particularly appealed to me was the fact that the name began with an ‘A’. The advantage was that the name ‘Acrow’ would come first in any alphabetical list. Furthermore, the word ‘Acrow’ is easy to pronounce in every language and is easy to remember.” <source:100 Years Bill de Vigier>

While Bill was in London, after he’d set up the company, though before he’d begun to properly manufacture any of the Acrow props he ran into an old friend Switzerland Willi Landauer, later another friend joined them Albert Bauscher (whom everyone called George), and the three of them decided to invest £50 each in the new company. <source:100 Years Bill de Vigier>

At this point Bill had around £150 in working capital to begin his company, which in 2016 is equivalent to around £9,600. It’s still not a huge amount to begin a company with. But seems it was enough, Bill hired three workers who along with Bill himself working 14-15 hour days manufacturing the props. Bill spent his Sundays wandering around London looking for building sites where he might be able to find and convince new customers to get interested in his new Acrow props. <source:100 Years Bill de Vigiers>

For three months he was unable to find any builders that would be interested in using his props, until he came upon the firm Sir Robert McAlpine & Sons and Peter Lind & Company. Both companies saw the potential in Bill’s Acrow props and placed limited orders with the Acrow company.

By 1938, just three years after arriving in London with an idea Bill moved the Acrow company to a ‘proper’ factory in Slough. <source:Building Products Online>

By 1939 they had produced over 40,000 Acrow props and were producing 100,000 props a year. The history beyond this point becomes a little less ‘one man with an idea and a factory’ and something more of a company expanding across the world. However, even with these expansions, floats on the stock market (this happened in the UK in 1949), Bill maintained 51% of the shares in the companies. In 1956 he was honoured with Knight of the Swedish Royal Order of the North Star.

Expansion followed for the company throughout the period from the 1940s all the way to the 1980s, notably during the period 1968 to 1975 where the number of Acrow’s employees effectively doubled from 4,500 to 10,200. During this time Bill was also on the board of British Airways and amongst other achievements negotiated the first landing rights for British Airways to land in China in 1978.

Advertising (1954, October 27). Construction (Sydney, NSW : 1938 - 1954), p. 24. Retrieved October 25, 2016, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article224517942

By the 1980s, when Bill retired his concern was handing over the control of his organisation; he wanted to give the employees and directors a chance to take over through employee buyouts.
During this period some international versions of Acrow disappeared, Acrow Australia for example was bought out by Boral Australia.
Interestingly recently in 2010 Boral Formwork & Scaffolding changed its name, rebranding to Acrow Formwork and Scaffolding Pty Ltd (Acrow).

The original Acrow UK also faltered during the 1980s recession in construction and finance, and sometime between 1980 and 1984 Acrow Engineers (Formwork and Scaffolding) was acquired by Leada Ltd which then formed the company Leada Acrow Ltd, a division of the HAT Group (an accountancy firm begun in 1975).

Acrow continues to this day with it defined by British Standard BS 4074:1982 “Specification for metal props and struts”, which was replaced by British Standard BS EN 1065:1999 “Adjustable telescopic steel props. Product specifications, design and assessment by calculation and tests” and BS 4074:2000 “Specification for steel trench struts”.

Covers of the Future

September 26, 2016

I was recently looking at various sites like Buzzfeed, Gizmodo, io9 and others that basically take a set of images and say some fairly obvious things about them to create a piece of content that will attract some views.

I’ve been in a bit of a creative blackhole for the last few months, so I thought I'd try my hand at it to see how hard it is.

I recently came across a bunch of science fiction story magazines and decided to take photos of their covers, which provided me with a great source of images to try and create some content from.

I unfortunately didn't take photos of the inner covers which would have provided me more details than I currently have. Publish date, publisher, the other stories in the magazine, the artist. Had I known this is what I was going to do with them I think I would have taken down more information.

Astounding Science Fiction October 1957 - “Ribbon in the Sky” by Murray Leinster

It’s basically FaceTime or any sort of video chat. Albeit more bulky. Although temperature today remains the killer with most electronic devices won’t function below 0º Celsius, although they will survive down to around -20º.

Analog Science Fact & Fiction June - “The Weakling” by Everette B. Cole

Fantastically science fictiony and just a bit of the creationist faff. Humans and dinosaurs living and working together. Or alternatively and better more so, dinosaurs on an alien planet that humans come across and use them as pack animals? Perhaps not.

Astounding Science Fiction November - “Cat and Mouse” by Ralph Williams

This is one of the somewhat more staid covers; not containing anything that’s amazingly science fiction-like. A hipster in a flannel coat off to put out a fire. The gap in the trees is a bit odd, almost like they’re a fire barrier or something to the hilly countryside beyond.

Analog April - “Blind Man’s Lantern”

When I saw it this cover made me think of a piece of art I saw online a few years ago. “White Castle” by Yuri Shwedoff. Looking at them now the similarities aren’t that close, just the presence of a spacecraft and horses.

Now a few covers with similar themes, though more likely stories with similar themes, I didn’t have time to read everything contained within the magazines unfortunately.

I’d broadly call these the ‘savage’ vs the learned man. First a literal savage vs the intelligent men with guns in their city, the second the elite vs the workers and finally the 'explorer' vs the savage indigenous.

Future Science Fiction No.2 & No.10

These two covers, which are two of three that were in the pile that I took photos of share a similar theme of a blonde woman on the cover.
The blonde woman on an alien planet and presumedly Earth, in both she’s the ‘outsider’, preyed upon by the space butterflies in No.10 and oggled by the soldiers in No.2.

Astounding Science Fiction, stencil tagged covers.

The stencils are something I didn't notice until I started to compile and arrange the images into galleries and format them for this page. Not every Astounding has a stencil of some kind in the upper left corner, but enough that it seems like it was some sort of indicator to the reader.

Finally some a few more images that wouldn't fit into a specific grouping or analysis, but nonetheless are interesting and noteworthy.

MICF 2016 - The Little Dum Dum Club DrunkCast™

April 22, 2016

Sunday 17th April 2016 - 10:30 pm

There’s an episode of Married... With Children, which according to the Married... With Children Wiki is called “Take My Wife, Please”, it featured the main cast dressing up as The Village People and singing YMCA over and over again.

That episode was what came to my mind upon seeing Tommy Dassalo, Karl Chandler, Josh Earl, Nick Cody and Dilruk Jayasinha walk out onto stage.

Karl and Tommy had supposedly prepared for 2 days prior to get costumed and write lyrics, or rewrite lyrics to YMCA.

They performed the song more than once, and it was only after multiple listens did I actually hear most of the lyrics. In the lyrics there was mention of Karl Chandler’s phone number, chocolate mousse the phrase ‘Hey Mates’. Both his phone number and the ‘Hey Mates’ was in place of the YMCA part of the song.

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Before the DrunkCast got started proper the crowd was already quite raucous, but I was glad that I had a seat, it was on the isle and that it was padded (the seats 2 years ago weren’t and my arse was sore near the end).

The DrunkCast was somewhat (very) shambolic, it was very much a case of all the comedians letting go.

Around maybe half of the way through the DrunkCast Dilruk tried to take over hosting duties, as he appeared to be one of the least drunk comedians at the drunk cast. It was also something of a sausage fest, the only two female comedians present were Demi Lardner and Celia Pacquola.

The beginning of the end of the DrunkCast™

Around 3/4 of the way through things began to take a somewhat raunchier tone.
Mostly a lot of nudity courtesy of Nick Cody (exposing a testicle) and Daniel Sloss, wearing a kilt the way a Scotsman should; with nothing underneath. Revealing, at one point all to the crowd.

Then, after that point nearing the end, things took an even more raunchy tone.
It was kinda like, if someone was writing slash fan fiction involving a variety of comedians and then just got bored and said ‘and now they kiss’. There was lots of man-on-man kissing, it all looked unexpected, but very...theatrical. Except with lots of tongues.
Also Tom Ballard got underneath Daniel Sloss’ kilt.
At the very end everyone was trying to dack Karl Chandler, Adam Richard seemed to succeed, though I only realised this after reviewing my photos from the night.

The final end of the DrunkCast™ with Adam Richard succeeding in dacking Chandler

MICF 2016 - Tommy Dassalo - “Little Golden Dassalo”

April 21, 2016

Sunday 17th April 2016 - 8:45 pm

I arrived to Tommy Dassalo’s show having left Felicity Ward’s show early, well I walked out of it early, not just to get to Tommy’s show.

“Little Golden Dassalo” is something different from Dasslo’s other shows from previous years, although in some ways there is a theatricality to this show that in little parts has built from previous shows in the past.

I think it was in his 2014 show “Dreamboat” which he also had a bit of audience interaction in them throwing stuff at him near the end.

In this show there is a whole book for people to read with along while he performs his show. I admire his confidence to give people a book to read while he performs, as surely that would mean that people aren’t giving him their utmost attention, if they’re looking down at the book.

In some parts I already knew the story behind the story of this show, because Tommy had talked about it in various bits and pieces on his podcast “The Little Dum Dum Club”. But the podcast in retrospect was like the ‘special features’ to this show. I already knew some of the stuff that was being performed, but here in his show Tommy has crafted and scripted and polished into a narrative story of its own.

I really enjoyed Tommy Dassalo’s show, for the comedy, for the humour and for the theatricality that it had, this theatrical element set it in a different league from the other shows I saw this comedy festival. I’ll definitely be seeing his show next year, as, I’ve seen his show for the past couple of years, and each year it’s developed and built upon previous shows. In both stories told and the actual performance of it, it’s developed and changed.

MICF 2016 - Felicity Ward - “What If There Is No Toilet”

April 21, 2016

Sunday 17th April 2016 - 7:30 pm

Felicity Ward’s show is about mental illness and irritable bowel syndrome. Two things which some might squirm at being mocked, though Felicity reassures the audience that it’s okay to laugh at it. They’re true, taken from her life. It’s something I like, true or at least sourced from the truth, comedy.

I was seated in the front row, a mistake that I would later find was something of a mistake, though fortunately at the end of the front row.

There were a lot of concepts and information in this show that I’m sure people with a mental illness would immediately identify with. I was familiar with many of them, mostly due to family and friends talking about things like that, and from donkey’s years ago when I studied psychology in high school. I could understand a lot of the things Felicity talks about, personally I’ve never felt the levels of anxiety she describes in her show, but she makes it very real.

There’s some great production / direction from her crew, with changes in lighting when she goes ‘inside’ Beryl, and with her facial expressions it really sells Beryl as a unique complicated and terrible personality lurking within Felicity.

Around 3/4 of the way through the show I was looking at my watch, because I was thinking of going to Tommy Dassalo’s show, which was at 195 Swanston Street in the Downstairs Lounge of the The Grand Mercure Hotel. I’d walked from there down to the ACMI Cube where Felicity’s show was to test how long it took, 10 minutes, it’d take maybe a little longer up hill. So I was hoping the show would finish on time.

As the end of the show came Felicity talks about how she’s spiritual, though not religious. This leads into her hanging up a board of religious lyrics. I want to say the song was called ‘Father Brown’, but I know it isn’t because that’s a TV show. But it’s close enough, she then explains she / we’re going to have a sing along, so she hangs up some lyrics and gets everyone to stand up.
At this point I think that she’s just going to just sing and dance to the audience.
She says something like ‘I promise it’s not religious’.
Then she starts to shout, encouraging everyone to sing with her, punching your hands into the air.
Now, at this point I wasn’t the only one not singing and waving my hands around (probably), I was definitely not the only person in the front row now doing it. One other guy wasn’t doing it, but was shouted at by Felicity.
I thought ‘no, I’m going to hold steadfast, she’s not...oh wait’, so, I did not have my arms crossed, I had my thumbs hooked into the pockets of my jeans. Not singing and not waving my arms around either.
Felicity said something along the lines of ‘come on...’ I did not want to disrupt her final show of the comedy festival, nor did I want to disrupt the rest of the audience’s fun by doing anything that would disrupt things, so I just gave her a slow shake of the head, hoping that would be the end of it.
Nope.
She was still on stage, but she was able to get quite close, me being tall and her bending down she was face to face with me. Enough that all I recall at this point was her face and hat framed in my vision.
I decided I’d had enough, I wasn’t going to be bullied into doing anything, especially as I’d paid to be there and I wanted to leave to get to Tommy Dassalo’s show. So I gave her a small wave and I think even a smile and walked out of the show.
I recall some people making ‘aww, no’ some noises, but kept my gaze on the wall and ahead to the door and walked out.

@liquidparanoia Hi Gareth. So glad to hear from you. I was worried id pushed a but hard.
— Felicity Ward (@felicityward) April 17, 2016

MICF 2016 - The Little Dum Dum Club (4)

April 21, 2016

Sunday 17th April 2016 - 3:00 pm

The final recorded live podcast of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival of 2016.

The guests were Wil Anderson, Anne Edmonds and an American comedian, who heckled Karl’s show the previous night, who Karl hadn’t seen for 2 years prior to that point.
I’m sure his name will be in the podcast when it comes out and I’ll fix this post then, but I do not recall what his name was.

Wil Anderson arrived on stage wearing one of the Dum Dum Club’s “I’m Aware of the Little Dum Dum Club” hoodies.

This podcast they decided not to do the thing, which every other show they’ve done, and that’s to get the guests to move along one seat, which always seems to confuse everyone. Probably because Tommy and Karl don’t explain this.
The way it should happen is that each new guest ends up sitting next to Tommy and everyone moves to the stage left (audience right) by one seat, this time they were all seated in the way they came on to stage.

One thing that was discussed, brought up tangentially by Wil was that how at some point in the future when someone searches for the Westgate Bridge, the Little Dum Dum Club comes up instead of the website for the Westgate Bridge. In the same way that now if you search for ‘tofo-‘ TOFOP comes up rather than TOFOG Russell Crowe’s band which the podcast is named for.
For that to happen, I think both Tommy and Karl and the fans will have to work a little harder to make that happen.

End of the fourth Little Dum Dum Club MICF live recording 2016

During the podcast recording it looked like Tommy, Karl and Wil all got through 2 pints of beer each.
I’m not sure how they’re about to put away that much beer than a few hours later do a show, just the remembering stuff and what to do must be a little bit taxing after a few beers. Or perhaps not, maybe in the comedy environment you learn how to carry your alcohol.

MICF 2016 - Guy Montgomery - "Guy Montcomedy"

April 11, 2016

Sunday 10th April 2016 - 6:15 pm

At past MICFs I had been finding a whole lot of comedians I wanted to see and filled up my schedule to see as many as I could on the days that I was up in Melbourne, typically the weekend because I had season passes to podcasts.

This year I only decided to buy a season pass only to The Little Dum Dum Club.
There’s also been few comedians I really wanted to see.
So instead I’ve been going up, seeing The Little Dum Dum Club and then deciding if I wanted to see anything else while I was up in the city.

Which basically means I look through the website/guide for anything on from 6 pm - 7 pm, because after 4 pm when The Little Dum Dum Club finishes I don’t want to hang around in the city forever.

Forgot to take photos inside the venue, this I took after the show

I chose Guy Montgomery because his show was on at 6:15 pm, it was in the Forum Theatre (and therefore close to where I’d parked at Federation Square) and because he was a New Zealander. As since it’s the Melbourne International Comedy Festival I figured I should see some international comedians.

There’s some things I like when I see comedians.
Narrative comedy.
Some semblance of truth.

Neither of these were in Guy Montgomery’s show "Guy Montcomedy".

He also picked on me, though I was in the middle front row, so that’s to be expected. I tried not giving him much as I thought he just wanted to kill some dead air in the room.
But he came back at me more than once. So I admit I did challenge him / heckle him a little bit.

Looking up at him was a little straining on the eyes, I’ll admit that, my fault for sitting in the front row.

But he did keep me engaged, even if not everything was immediately amusing.

He’s a somewhat physical performer, using the small stage.
He also revealed that the room he’d performing in the Forum Theatre “Pizza Room” is indeed a room, with a pizza oven in it and it weirdly forms part of his act in a sort of tangential sort of way.

MICF 2016 - The Little Dum Dum Club (3)

April 11, 2016

Sunday 10th April 2016 - 3:00 pm

I got there a little bit late to get a front and centre seat, still front, just side, which meant I couldn’t see the last stool on stage.

Supposedly there was a judge from the Melbourne International Comedy Festival at the show. Because Dum Dum is a registered show at the MICF it meant that it could be nominated for something at the MICF.

Dave Anthony was on the show this week. I wonder if he’s just doing the rounds of all the live podcasts at the MICF?

Nick Cody was also on the show along with David O’Doherty.

If there was a judge there this afternoon...I’m not sure what they thought of it. Going into The Little Dum Dum Club live is a little bit like going into a TV series midway through the season. It’s got its own language, in jokes and references. Most of them offensive and inappropriate, even with context.

MICF 2016 - TOFOP Live

April 11, 2016

Saturday 9th April 2016 - 10:15 pm

I jumped and grabbed tickets within an hour or two of the tickets for this going on sale. Last year the tickets sold out **really* quickly, so I wanted to get a ticket to TOFOP live.

Unlike The Little Dum Dum Club or I Love Green Guide Letters, both those podcasts are on in the early afternoon. TOFOP live was on at 10:15 pm. It started around 15 minutes late it and went on until a bit past midnight.

When I arrived around 10 minutes early there was already a group of people inside the foyer drinking and waiting. I went in, looked around and thought ‘this smells of beer and BO’ and decided to wait outside on the footpath.
By 10:10 pm there was already a crush of people waiting outside on the footpath and it just got worse from there.
By this point people were really trying to cram into the foyer, I saw a woman in a wheelchair either coming in or going out and people were pushing in front of her to get in.
TOFOP Live was a ticketed and allocated seat event, which means it didn’t matter if you were the last one in, you were going to get your seat.
Perhaps everyone was just gagging for a drink, I don’t know, I’m not a huge drinker, and drinking in that foyer with that many people would have been like a sauna rather than any sort of pleasant drinking establishment.

TOFOP Live stage with Jen Kirkman "hologram"

When I actually got inside and got to my seat I realised that it was actually quite a good seat. I knew I’d got one close to the stage, but just under the dress circle, which I thought meant I was far back, but it wasn’t that bad. I had an isle seat, which is always a desired thing for my self. I like to have somewhere to put my legs and stretch out, especially as I knew that TOFOP, like all live podcasts would overrun.

The guests joining Wil Anderson and Charlie Clausen were: (surprise international guest and guest Charlie number one) Dave Anthony who’d snuck into the country to do a live podcast recording, which was surprising. Felicity Ward (who wasn’t a surprise because I saw her outside getting tickets for some mates). Celia Pacquola, Daniel Sloss, Lindsay Webb, Justin Hamilton and a British comedian whose name I didn’t hear because the people next to me decided to leave after Daniel Sloss finished on stage.

The other star of the show was John Deeks.
Who was amazing.
He also had a laundry trolley full of mystery numbered beer.
John Deeks was almost like Kryten to Wil and Charlie’s Lister and Rimmer.
That’s what I thought basically, TOFOP as a big live Red Dwarf episode. There was just something about Deeks, Wil and Charlie’s performance on the night that made me think like this.
The show did over run, and as the evening went longer the guests had less and less stage time. Daniel Sloss I think was the last guest who was on stage for any normal amount of time (normal for a live podcast where they’re usually trying to manage their guests against banter on stage). By the time Lindsay Webb and Justin Hamilton showed up, they were on stage for perhaps 5 minutes, maybe no more than 10 minutes.

TOFOP guests getting a selfie with the audience

It was amazing to see a live TOFOP, in person, rather than listening to it. Especially as I didn’t get to see the first one (which is also the lost live TOFOP because of a corrupted memory card). Last year’s I heard.
I did wonder if maybe having it in a venue as large as the Comedy Theatre mean that some of the intimacy of a podcast was lost.
All the podcasts I’ve seen in the past have been in small to medium-sized venues, Steele Saunders has even had a live podcast or two in his apartment.
Small and intimate, is really a podcast’s area rather than theatre-sized spectacular. It made it a bit more show-like, without any of the preparation or organisation. Which is very typical of TOFOP really.

MICF 2016 - Joel Creasey - “The Crown Prince”

April 11, 2016

Saturday 9th April 2016 - 8:15 pm

The queue for Joel Creasey’s show was massively long, covering at least half a dozen shops along Swanston Street.
They also opened the doors late and as a consequence the show started late. Not too much of a concern as I had an hour between the end of Joel’s show and the next show I was seeing.

Celebrity.
That’s what Joel’s show should be called.

The show starts off a little weirdly with a highlights package of all the shows he’s been in.
I thought for a moment he was going to come out from the stage in some sort of performance piece when the two stage hands went out onto stage to draw back the curtains. But it was for the projection screen rather than anything amazingly interesting.

I don’t know whether this was to highlight Joel’s search for celebrity and fame or to illustrate to the audience who he was.

From what I could tell from the audience around me there were a lot of over 40 people seeing his show, which was a little bit odd.

There are 14 lights overhead and 10 folds in the curtains behind Joel Creasey, so I was definitely engrossed with the content.

I went to Creasey’s show because I’ve thoroughly enjoyed his shows in the past. But this show, just...it was a series of events in his life without a cohesive narrative structure to it.
I’m something of a fan of narrative comedy, so was hoping for something like his previous shows I’d seen in the past.

The show is mostly about celebrity and Joel’s search for it. There are plenty of funny moments throughout the show. Which are definitely enhanced if you’ve followed everything he’s done, which might explain the video summary at the start of the show, but there’s not enough context without the video to allow his stories to reference back to that video.

I’m not sure what I was expecting from Creasey’s show, something like the last two perhaps? I wasn’t really expecting it to be about gossip and celebrity, which in retrospect perhaps I should have. I knew there’d have to be some stuff related to that because of his involvement with ‘I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here’ along with Channel 10. But I guess I didn’t realise how much of a focus it would be.

Maths and real world

April 05, 2016

In high school, when learning maths I always asked ‘how am I going to use this in the real world?’. Which I never asked for English or Literature or things like that. But maths I saw as something which seemed useless at the time of learning. That it should be be justified.

Now, in my adult life I do use the more complicated bits of maths occasionally, stuff that I didn’t think I would ever use, and probably proclaimed as such in maths classes.

Image by Morley41Wiki (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

One part of maths education that I do value that was drummed in during all the lessons was ‘show your working’. I used to show a lot of my working, going vertically down the page, especially in algebra, where each step allowed you to work it out.
I liked that showing your working allowed you to work out where you made a mistake by working backwards.
It’s something I continue to this day, when working out stuff, I reverse my final result to work out if it still makes sense, if the result reflects where I started, etc.

Pythagoras’ Theorem a^2 + b^2 = c^2, is something at the time I never thought I’d need. But it’s something that I have found I’ve needed to use very occasionally. And needed to use the sine, cos and tan...uh...things. I was working out angles and couldn’t actually remember all of that. I got the three measurements of a triangle but then needed to get online to work out the angles. But I got more than halfway there.
Although one thing I don’t understand how to do, and distinctly recall being told ‘don’t worry you don’t need to know’, is how to do the square root that you need to do to get the final answer out of Pythagoras’ Theorem.

The other day I was trying to work out the area of a back garden. I’d used Google Earth to gain the measurements, but then needed to work out the area. Of a garden which isn’t a regular shape. After copying out onto a piece of paper to help visualise it better than on Google Earth it’s a rectangle and a right angled triangle. At that point I realised that again, high school maths actually works in the real world. Base x Height / divided by 2 (or as I remember it in my mind ‘base times height over 2’) for the triangle and length by width for the rectangle.

I feel like I want to find all my maths teachers from high school and say, thank you, some of the stuff you taught me did stick in my mind and I have used it, in the real world.

MICF 2016 - Wil Anderson - “Fire At Wil”

April 04, 2016

Sunday 3rd April 2016 - 6:00 pm

‘Harsh’. That was a friend’s assessment of my thoughts after seeing Wil Anderson’s show "Fire At Wil".

I am and have been a great fan of Wil’s comedy, the first show I saw of his was in the late 90s or the early 2000s, I think it was the former. I’ve blogged about his previous shows in 2013, 2014 and 2015, and enjoyed them all. This was the first show that I exited feeling somewhat underwhelmed.

At one point during Wil’s show he says “this isn’t a TED talk”, but that’s what it seemed like at several points during his show. I’ve watched funnier TED talks than some of the content in Wil’s show.

For this show there didn’t seem to be an over-arching theme to the show, just ‘commentary on the world and events’. It seemed lacking some cohesion throughout the show compared to previous years.

There was some content I just didn’t connect with. It wasn’t directly the Adam Goodes content, but all of the AFL content I just did not get. I would go as far to say as I just don’t care enough about AFL to be aware about it. Context, I just did not have enough context for the commentary / jokes to work for me.

Tony Abbott and his downfall to Malcolm Turnbull was another topic that Wil covered during his show. For a lot of it, commenting on how good a subject Tony Abbott was for comedy purposes and how lacking Turnbull is as a subject for comedy. Abbott worked and did so many things that writing comedy concerning him and his political (and other) machinations was easy, so easy Wil comments he had two shows last year to take advantage of all the content.

A lot of Wil’s content seemed like it had been written last year, in response to things that happened last year. The Liberal spill that brought Malcolm Turnbull to the position of PM, the Barnaby Joyce vs Johnny Depp’s dogs, the Adam Goodes booing etc, it was all just stuff that seemed like stuff that was a little bit too much in the past.

Wil admits during the show that he’s a lefty, not something of a surprise. But what did feel like a surprise, unlike previous shows is that a lot of his content came across as preachy, and more TED talk than comedy show. I wouldn’t have made the connection had he not said it. And in some cases it was even more than a TED talk. TED talks offer insight, and I’m not sure I got that tonight.

I want to say I enjoyed the show, but some parts of the show just did not connect with me at all, at some points I found myself counting the speakers behind Wil and the lights above him (12 lights), and I considered at one point about just leaving. Not because I was offended, but just because I wasn’t enjoying myself. Yes there were funny parts, but there were also many parts where I didn’t laugh, but many parts of the audience did, so perhaps it just wasn’t working for me. Which I guess is part of comedy, that it doesn’t work for everyone consistently, laughter is a reaction, not something your can force.

I wanted to laugh, I wanted to enjoy this show, because I’ve liked Wil Anderson’s shows in the past, I listen to his podcasts (TOFOP, FOFOP, and Wilosophy), I have a ticket to the live TOFOP at the MICF. But as much as I wanted to enjoy this show, it didn’t quite work for me. I wouldn’t say I didn’t laugh, because I did, I just didn’t laugh nearly as consistently as everyone else in the room. It was a chuckle, at most of the humour in the show, rather than a ‘I can’t breathe from laughing’ sort of humour.

I think the other side of this is about price. Wil Anderson’s show is thus far the most expensive show I’ve purchased at the MICF at $54.33 ($45.58 for the ticket plus $8.75 ticketmaster fees). I think if the show had cost less I would not have as high expectations of a good laugh as I did. But because it was higher priced (yes, I acknowledge it was a Sunday and therefore that’s reflected in the price), but still I also acknowledge some of my disappointment is reflective of the price paid for the ticket.

I’ll still buy a ticket to his show next year and will continue to listen and support TOFOP/FOFOP etc, but his show this year just didn’t work for me.

MICF 2016 - The Little Dum Dum Club (2)

April 04, 2016

Sunday 3rd April 2016 - 3:00 pm

The mic problems continued this week.

Someone cancelled on The Little Dum Dum Club, which means that Dilruk was called in again. He’s evidently Tommy and Karl’s substitute go-to whenever something happens.

The guests for this, the second live podcast were the aforementioned Dilruk Jayasinha, Hamish Blake and Nazeem Hussain.

There was some follow up from Karl Chandler’s 40th birthday and guest Hamish Blake gave Karl his Nando’s black card, which it turns out is expired and has no credit left on it..

There were significant microphone or speaker issues around 3/4 of the way through the show, where upon you could only hear extremely deep tones through the speakers. Which was fine for everyone except Tommy who couldn’t get his voice down that low.
So from that point on, they were just seemingly trying to project, while still using the microphones where were supposedly still recording, or rather the equipment was registering the sound.
Which was fine from where I was sat in the front row, but I did wonder how much the people in the back rows could hear.

Greg Larsen was the fourth guest, um...playing the racist Nando’s CEO Garry Nandos from Moorabbin, who supported apartheid and child slavery. It was at this point that the mics stopped working. Possibly it was a sign.

Pints of beer consumed by Tommy, Karl and Hamish

Live podcasts are fantastic value for money, even if there are 10 minutes of whale noises. No where else at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival are you going to be able to see comedians just chatting and being funny. Yes, it is inconsistent. Yes there’s sometimes problems. But it is hilariously funny. It’s unrehearsed, yet Tommy Dassalo and Karl Chandler still manage to steer the comedy boat. It might take on water occasionally and threaten to whack its mast against the Westgate Bridge, but it’s an amazing voyage.

MICF 2016 - Daniel Sloss - “Dark”

March 29, 2016

27th March 2016 - 6:15 pm

Daniel Sloss is a Scottish comedian that I’ve heard more than I’ve seen, I’ve heard him on FOFOP a few times and found him funny and I saw him earlier in the day at The Little Dum Dum Club live podcast. Where he didn’t get to say much, but was involved in some unintentional slapstick in the background while Sam Dastyari was talking.

First thing to note. Roxanne, the venue that Sloss’ show is on at, 2 Cloverlid Place is up a lot of stairs.
When I got to Cloverlid Place, which is just within Chinatown, just off Little Bourke Street, I was informed by the yellow T-shirted MICF guy that it’s “just through the door on the second level”. I’m sure I went up 6 flights of stairs to get to the second level, maybe it was 8, I don’t know. I know I did stop half way and wonder if I was stuck in a M.C. Escher artwork.
The second level, however is just where you wait, where you queue for Sloss’ show. Then when the doors actually open you need to climb up another storey to the third floor.
The third floor had a lot of empty room and seemed to span two buildings, there was also plenty of room up there, so I can only assumed the venue only wanted to run one bar on the second floor.

Daniel Sloss’ show “Dark” was somewhat dark in humour. But I really appreciate dark humour. There were several points which took unexpected turns.

Sloss speaks from his life, his experiences and his thoughts on the world. He admits he doesn’t have the aged experience of older comics that can speak from their lengthy experiences out in the world.
But what he had to say was funny and honest.

Some people may be offended when seeing Sloss’ show. But he will make you think about it, and will make you think about why you’re being offended.

I wasn’t offended by any of his material.
If I had one criticism it was that from where I was sat (front row, centre audience right, on the isle), when he acted out some things on stage he had his back to us / half the audience which meant that we couldn’t really see what he was doing. But it’s a minor quibble, I should have sat more in the middle of the seating.

Sloss is a great comedian to see, he’s also a great storyteller. His stories were vivid. Perhaps it was my imagination filling in the gaps, but I feel like I can picture the road in Scotland with its aftermath of rubber, the house with the mistaken flowers and the unvisited museum.

MICF 2016 - The Little Dum Dum Club (1)

March 28, 2016

27th March 2016 - 3:00 pm

Things got unexpectedly political and unexpectedly slapstick.

The first Little Dum Dum Club Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2016, is now in a decidedly nicer venue the European Bier Cafe on Exhibition Street, which is a so much nicer venue to walk into than last year’s which was near the Maccas at the Flinders Street end of Elizabeth Street.

Tommy Dassalo looked much more rosy cheeked than the last time I saw him which was for the Little Dum Dub Club Christmas show last year.
Or maybe it was just that I was sitting in the front row.
I certainly panicked a little bit when Karl Chandler threatened; glass in hand; to stage dive into the crowd.

They’re the hosts of the Little Dum Dum Club podcast, of which this was the live version, I perhaps should have lead with that, but there’s other reviews where I do introduce them.

The guests for this first show of the MICF were; Dilruk Jayasinha, Ronny Chieng and Daniel Sloss.
Dilruk was looking surprisingly svelte. Ronny too was looking much more lithe.
There was a surprising amount of discussion by Ronny about the size of Daniel Sloss’ penis.
Which only left me with questions.
Mostly about how Ronny Chieng came upon the “aftermath”.

The fourth guest was unexpected, unexpectedly political and unexpected that a politician would be a fan of the Little Dum Dum Club. Enough to buy a tshirt and be a Patreon supporter.
Sam Dastyari, or more correctly Senator Sam Dastyari is member of the Australian Labor Party in the Australian Senate.
Apparently also a fan of the Little Dum Dum Club, enough to make some references to various things that have been in The Little Dum Dum Club podcast.

While Dastyari was on stage it seemed the microphones chose this point to stop working, or at least one of them did, which lead to some interesting, almost slapstick-like work to try and get them working by Ronny Chieng and to a lesser amount Daniel Sloss. But mostly it was Ronny Chieng, who at one point, to see (or more to the point hear) if the microphone was working held the microphone up to his ear.

Apparently BuzzFeed was also at the live podcast show. Supposedly they contacted Dastyari and said they tried to contact Tommy or Karl to confirm things and were met with the level of incompetence and dickheadery that is the podcast in general. And therefore weren’t even sure if there was even going to be a podcast / show on today.
I do wonder what they made of the content of the first Little Dum Dum Club live podcast of the MICF 2016.

Commercial Property for $50,000 in 2016

January 12, 2016

While researching my previous post I came across some commercial properties for sale, around the same areas as the previous search. Country towns around Victoria.

First a few terms to be aware of freehold and leasehold. These terms don’t come up a huge amount, certainly not when buying regular property, but commercial property is sometimes a bit different.
These terms definitely come up if you’re looking at a commercial building like a pub, the history of which I’ll get to in a moment.

Freehold basically means you own the building and the land sitting on top of it. Most domestic property purchases are freeholds.

Leasehold means a few different though similar things. In terms of things like cattle stations, big farming properties and the like they are under “99 year leases” or long term leases, usually from the state or federal government. Essentially you own the properties and anything on the land but the land itself is retained by the owner. Real estate agents and other commentators often call 99 year leases ‘essentially for life’. But they’re not if you have any sort of succession planning whereupon you wish to pass the property onto your children or if you’re a business retire and pass it onto other managers.

In terms of businesses particularly pubs (which is where I first encountered the term) a leasehold relates to the business. This is what you’re purchasing with a leasehold. You are purchasing the ‘hold on the lease’. With a pub it’s probably more technically or historically the right to operate a business on the land, including the pub.
If you’re ever looking to buy a pub a freehold (the land and the pub) is much more preferable than a leasehold (just the business).

Why this is notable for pubs goes back to breweries, they would historically have purchased the the pub or the land, in order to have somewhere to sell their wares, then a publican would run the pub. The publican would have the leasehold and the brewery would have the freehold.

Another slightly easier way to understand it is leasehold = business. Freehold = land.

For this search I’m realcommercial.com.au I’m using this site and used its sister residential site simply because the image display gallery functions better for quick searching. There are other sites, for instance one of my favourite travel accommodation information sites Gday Pubs has a page of pubs for sale and lease.

The freehold / leasehold difference becomes quite evident when looking at commercial properties.

This property 73 High Street, Maryborough, Victoria 3465
It’s listed as “The freehold is offered For Sale with the business otherwise a lease to market will be drawn up.” Below this is listed “Business - $50,000 plus SAV Freehold - $150,000”. SAV means ‘stock at value’. With this property your $50k is only buying the business, not even the stock, the SAV means they want you to pay for this in addition to the business’ price.

Here’s another property: Gilbert & Jury, 128 Barkly Street, Ararat, Victoria 3377 which states “option to also purchase the freehold premises from current owner”. It’s for sale for $45,000 neg plus S.A.V.

Moving onto properties that you might actually be able to afford in the $50k range it’s important to think on why you might actually hand over the not-so folding stuff for a commercial property versus a residential property. In my last post I explored the latter as if you were buying it for yourself to live in or enjoy etc.

But for this commercial property search I’m using somewhat different parameters to weed out some of the results from the property searches.
For this search I’m looking at property which you might lease out, in order to turn a profit, so your $50k actually works for you better than it would sitting in the bank.

Of course, putting the green stuff in property is by no means safe, but there is some reward over having it in the bank.
Although in this price range it’s not going to be amazing, and you’re unlikely to see huge growths for such a small outlay.

I’m going to be looking again in Victoria, and I am excluding properties that you could buy (freehold) but couldn’t realistically rent out, because a lot of the cash is in the purchasing of the business and freehold.

This immediately disqualifies any listing that has phrases like “take the reins” or “be your own boss”, and anything that includes “SAV”. Although I should point out for those seeking a change of scenery and business this is a possible way to do so, buying and running a business.

First up is 16 Oke Street Ouyen Victoria 3490 It’s currently leased at $100 a week to a second hand clothing and items seller. All up it’s got 4 rooms. Ouyen’s a town that sits at the junction between the Calder and Mallee Highways, so while it is a country town it’s not as remote as some that I mentioned in my last post.
$100 isn’t amazing.
As a commercial property the tenants should be paying everything. You would need landlord insurance, but that’s all.
Also keep in mind that if you ever need to inspect the property it’s a 4 hour 40 minute drive from Melbourne, 450 kilometres. At that point you’re closer to Adelaide than you are Melbourne.
Your income would be (before expenses) $5,200.

This is actually the only commercial property I’ve been able to find which sits on its own title and is a whole building for under $50k. Moving forward things get more complicated and smaller.

I’m listing this property, which is $19k above the $50k limit simply because it lists how much rent you’d get per month, this will inform the following property, which is within the $50k range but doesn’t list monthly rental rates.

52/57 Malcolm Place, Campbellfield, Victoria 3061
This is a storage unit. For sale for $69,000
Currently returning $380 a month.
Yearly income would be $4,560.
The listing for this says “Ideal property for a Self-Managed Super Fund.”, it’s 38 m².

214/ 310 Lorimer Street, Port Melbourne, Victoria 3207
This is a little closer to Melbourne, it’s for sale for $50,000-$55,000.
It’s 21 m². Slightly smaller than the above property, but also cheaper.
Basically it’s a garage space. 4.1 metres x 5 metres.
It’s very close to the city, down by Fishermans Bend.
While the rental income isn’t listed I would guess given its lower price that it’s probably $1-2k cheaper so for comparison’s sake I’ll say it’s yearly income would be: $3,000.

Now, onto the commercial property where you don’t even get walls.
All you get is space. But with the $50k you can buy in the CBD. You just don’t get a huge amount for that $50k.
Yes. It’s a car park space.
Things I don’t know about buying a car park space is what sort of fees are involved, I would imagine there would have to be some sort of body corporate / strata fees, even though it’s just a car parking space. There would have to be some sort of public liability implications.

There’s a range of parking spaces for sale, I’m just going to list two because they each list the rent you’d get on them.

Lot 666/58 Franklin Street, Melbourne, Victoria.
$38,000.
It’s located on level 6.
Rent is $180 a month.
Yearly income: $2,160.

Address not listed, just “located just off Elizabeth Street”
$36,000
It says it’s close to “RMIT, Queen Vic Market”. Which is what the above property says as well, so it could mean it’s anywhere as within the CBD you can be close to both of those within reason.
Rent is $220 per month.
Yearly income: $2,640.

In conclusion income per year:
Ouyen property: $5,200
Campbellfield storage unit (over $50k): $4,560
Port Melbourne storage unit (rent not listed, but given its lower price I’d guess $1-2k cheaper): $3,000
Franklin Street car park: $2,160
Unlisted address just off Elizabeth street: $2,640.

On the face of the it the Ouyen property would deliver the best return. But there is the inherent danger with a commercial property in a country town that the business may fail and then you have to be able to get another tenant. Something that might be tricky.

There are a lot of storage units around the CBD and in the inner and outer suburbs. Probably as the listings suggest good for a self managed superfund where you’d buy it for your superfund, then (if you’re self employed) lease it from the superfund and store stuff in it. Or rent it out for lease and hold it in your superfund, waiting until you’re able to sell it and gain the (reduced tax) returns. I’m no expert on self managed superfunds (I’m neither an accountant nor a lawyer), I do know the rules are complicated and you need one or both of those to set one up.

Car parks are something that there’s always going to be demand for in the CBD, but buying a car park is much like buying an apartment and it may be that any additional fees will eat into your income.

Personally, even with the dangers involved I think I’d go with the Ouyen property. It’s something on its own title. It pulls in the most yearly income. You could maybe create a liveable space at the back of the shop, a one room bed / living room and then a kitchen in one of the other spaces as well if need be if you wanted to try and rent it out as a house / business.

Property for $50,000 in 2016

January 10, 2016

Let’s say you’ve got $50k, maybe you’ve inherited, maybe you’ve won big on the horses or doggies. Maybe you’ve found a case containing 50 thousand of the green-not-really folding stuff (it’s polymer after all, it doesn’t really fold, and 50 thousand of them are definitely not going to fold).

But I digress, let’s say you have $50k or so and want to turn that cash into something physical, something wholly physical in one big chunk.
You could buy a vehicle. There’s plenty that you could buy at that price and they will all universally depreciate immediately after you hand over the not-folding stuff.
Cars are quite a poor investment.
Although you can enjoy it on a daily basis. Unless it’s a classic car, then you probably won’t want to enjoy it on a daily basis.

So, how about your own piece of land, house or other. A piece of land to call your own. Impossible, perhaps, yes in the inner city, the inner suburbs and the outer suburbs. But if you look a bit further out (or rather a lot further out). Then, maybe you’ll find something.

Going to realestate.com.au (or Domain.com.au) and putting in $50k (the lowest amount it’ll allow) into the max price field and selecting House and Rural from the property type menu reveals 119 total properties for Victoria (the state I live in).

Side note: I’m not including stamp duty (also known by the State Revenue Office as “land transfer duty”) in the $50k price range because it’ll be just below $1000 at $950 and you’ll need around $1k to $2k factored in for lawyer’s fees and other things like that.

Now, first thing to realise. If you’re looking at property with a structure on it, I’d optimistically call some of these structures “houses” but some aren’t, if you’re looking for properties with structures you’ll get less land and they’ll be less impressive than the land-only properties.

One other thing to realise is, unless you have a good knowledge of country towns, you will spend a lot of time zooming out on Google maps trying to work out where a town is.

The first house that turns up in the search, well the first probably liveable house is 6 Coghill Street Manangatang Victoria 3546. The first question is probably ‘where is Manangatang?’. According to Wikipedia it’s a remote town in north-west Victoria. It’s about an hour and 45 minutes to Mildura or an hour to Swan Hill.

So what do you get for your $49,000?
2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1 lock up garage.

it’s not awful. It’s dated and it is probably made out of asbestos (this isn’t really an issue unless you start breaking it up).
This could be a good place to buy, the town has a hospital and a school, it’s got a pub and a post office. It’s a Victorian country town, except it’s got the benefit of a hospital and Primary to Year 12 school. The town also has a (heated) swimming pool. Given its population of 480 it’s somewhat surprising.
It looks to be a grain farming community judging by the silos.

Next up is 51 McCoy Street Eddington Victoria 3472, also for $49,000 is described as “renovate or detonate”.
You could, if you were drunk and very optimistic live here.
Once again in the ‘where is this place’ game Eddington is according to Wikipedia a small town on the Loddon River in Central Victoria.
The town is practically non-existent as a ‘town’, and has a population of less than 100. Most notable thing the town has appears to be the river and the golf course.
It’s about 170 km or around 2 hours to Melbourne, so it’s close..ish.

Now to round off these houses are structures which aren’t houses, but are interesting enough that you might want to spend some cash on them.
Two are former churches and one is a former Masonic hall.

63 Main Street Lalbert Victoria 3542
3 Roberts Rd Woomelang Victoria 3485

30 Harriett St Toora Victoria 3962

Lalbert and Woomelang both are churches.

63 Main Street Lalbert Victoria 3542 looks to be in pretty good condition, priced at $45,000. It’s a weatherboard single room church. “Formerly St Andrew’s Anglican Church ” It’s got 2 front rooms and 2 smaller rooms with an outside toilet block and a lot of wood paneling.
Now onto ‘where is Lalbert?’, it’s 45 kilometres or around half an hour to Swan Hill.
It’s got what appears to be a pub and maybe a petrol station, and of course grain silos.
The benefit would be that it’s not far to the next sizeable town Swan Hill.

Next up is 3 Roberts Rd Woomelang Victoria 3485, priced at $29,000.
This does not look like a very good buy. Someone, the owner I presume as they’re selling it themselves has had a go at renovating it, with half-stripped of paint boards in the interior and exterior. According to the listing it is an “Ex St Georges Church of England , built 1911 and is a federation carpenter gothic style church”.
Woomelang, in our ‘where is it in relation to other stuff’ game is about a hour and a half from Swan Hill. According to Wikipedia it’s a town in the Mallee region of Victoria. The town appears to have a general store, and that’s it.

Finally, the Masonic Hall.
30 Harriett St Toora Victoria 3962, this one doesn’t have a price, just “offers invited”, so it could be over the $50k limit and I wouldn’t have included it in this list, except it’s somewhat interesting and is probably the best maintained out of all the properties thus far.
Toora is 50 kilometres from Leongatha around 40 minutes from it.
But it’s got enough shops to not be remote, a Foodworks, Bendigo Bank, newsagent. It also has a primary school and pool.
The benefit of this structure is it does have all the facilities to make it a house. It’s got a kitchen (albeit a hall-style one), a bathroom and two large rooms, and it’s a unique building.

Moving on, what if you want land?
You’re in a much better position to get land for $50k. So I’m going to be a bit more picky as there’s 643 results for land, acreage and rural in the realestate.com.au search. So let’s say you want something a bit rural and nature related, maybe a view, maybe something in the forest, something without many neighbours.

Even narrowing it down to this you end up with a huge list of possible properties, so I’ve narrowed it down further. The following four properties are at the most $40k. They are all in the mountains near the alpine region of Victoria or near the border. I’ve narrowed it to this because well, it’s a nice region of Victoria.

To begin, 5010 Great Alpine Road Ensay Victoria 3895 priced at $39,000.
It looks rather nice. according to listing it’s “surrounded by running water on three sides by the Little River and the Tambo River”. A perfect getaway spot with plenty of room at 3900 m². Ensay has a winery and also a pub. It’s 80 kilometres from Bairnsdale.

Next is the most expensive block at $40,000.
558 Combienbar Road Club Terrace Victoria 3889
It’s got a less space to 5010 Great Alpine Road at 2241 m², it backs onto a single creek. Club Terrace doesn’t have a Wikipedia page.
It’s about 60 kilometres; around 45 minutes to Orbost, which would be the nearest sizeable town. As Club Terrace exists more as a region. You reach it off of the Princes Highway.
The listing also states “includes three caravans”, which I’d count as a negative. There also appears to be shed on the site as well.
2692 Bullumwaal Road Bullumwaal Victoria 3875 is priced at $35,000 for 1288 m² of land.
This property is much closer to Bairnsdale at 28 kilometres, around 35 minutes. It’s reached by a long dirt road.

Finally the cheapest at $19,000. 17 Dowling Street Bendoc Victoria 3888
This is the least isolated block / private block as it appears to be within the township of Bendoc.
Not that Bendoc is busy, there is neither a Wikipedia page nor a Google Street View of the location. According to Publocation and Gday Pubs there is a pub in Bendoc - the Commercial Hotel.
The next closest town is Delegate, New South Wales. Yes, Bendoc resides quite close to the New South Wales border. Delegate is only 18 kilometres away around 20 minutes. Delegate isn’t a huge town, but there’s a pub and general store. Unfortunately there isn’t a Victorian option, all the towns larger than Bendoc are at least an hour and 50 minutes away. Being Cann River or Orbost.