Miami is best known for vice, Vice and art deco. But in the past decade it’s also become famous for hosting the equivalent of Schoolies Week for wealthy art buffs — Art Basel | Miami Beach — the “|” is essential, apparently.

It now rivals the original Art Basel in Switzerland for the title of the world’s largest art fair, and this year attracted 263 of the world’s fanciest commercial galleries, showing over 2000 artists. More than 40,000 visitors flocked to the fair, many sporting berets and nearly all overusing the word “darling”. Honestly, it’s not just a stereotype, they actually do that.

I love e-books. Have read the buggers for years. From using a dinky PDA to an iPhone, from old CRT screens to wide screen LCD monitors and currently on my plethora of Android devices, I have read books in electronic format for longer than I care to admit.

Which makes it odd for me to say that e-books give me the shits.

Don’t get me wrong, I love e-books as an idea and I love reading them. What I hate is that none of the people involved in selling them, bar a couple of unique examples, really get e-books.

Stanley Kubrick isn’t the first filmmaker to explore that which, in essence, unites mankind. But, with Dr Strangelove or: How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), I’d say that he is the first to suggest, with equal measures of cerebral political satire and derangement, that what unites mankind is our blind submission to fear and the orders established by authoritarian rule to both perpetuate and abate it. If you think Kubrick’s interpretation is somewhat absurd, slightly ludicrous or downright convoluted then you’ve either seen the film before or you’ve got an inherent grasp on the major themes and overarching tone of Dr Strangelove.

I met Dave Graney in South Melbourne, between rehearsal and gig; he is as always immaculately, exquisitely and uniquely attired. We take a stroll down Clarendon Street looking for somewhere quiet to grab some calories and Do This Thing.

As we walk we’re chatting about the inner suburbs, architecture, the bar/pub/venue scene and all kinds of stuff. I ruin the mood of course, being shallow and stupid enough, when talking about a new bar, to make reference to “a Dave Graney style”. He cuts me off, seemingly offended by the implication that there is such a thing.

“I don’t think about style ever, not at all.”

Have a look at the TV guide at the moment and you’ll see we’ve rolled around to that glorious part of the year where writers take a well deserved 11 months off and the schedule fills up with reality programs. Australia’s Got (An Amazingly Low Pool Of) Talent, Dancing With The (Washed Up or Never Quite Were) Stars and So You Think (People Give A Fuck If) You Can Dance and their ilk are here again to relieve us from entertainment, information or debate on the box. While the genre is mostly the fault of shows like Survivor and Big Brother, it’s the Idol franchise that I’ve been thinking about recently.

In a full day’s tribute to the stunning, late Elizabeth Taylor, one of the big screen’s fieriest women, The Astor Theatre presents three of her most iconic films.

It’s been two years since Duncan Jones’ debut feature film Moon (2009) hit cinema screens and there’s been an air of excitement and anticipation for his follow up ever since.

A bold directorial debut, Moon displayed Jones’ formal and tonal talents as a filmmaker. Its effective use of abrasive sound and an incredibly isolating mise-en-scene were on par with its intense ethical questioning; a film brave enough to offer conviction without resolve.

The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein, is the ducks fucking nuts. The most fitting endorsement I have heard of it comes from MSNBC's Rachel Maddow; “The only book of the last few years in American publishing that I would describe as a mandatory must-read. Literally the only one.”

Circular Quay on a sunny autumn day is a thing of great beauty. The harbour ripples diamond azure like a silken sheet, framed by icons at every angle. For all the cheesy postcards, the clichés and fatigued promotional footage, on the right day and with the right brain it is hard to imagine there is anywhere on Earth more sublime. Add to that a great big fuck-off platter of fresh seafood and the presence of an utterly enchanting media celebrity ethicist and your humble scribe is elevated to a plane of nirvana that losers like the Dalai Lama will never reach.

I’ve been pretending to know how to write shit about shit for nigh on three years now. A combination of this fine periodical and its charming, intelligent and stunning editor (who has a rubber arm when it comes to red wine) I have gotten away with many a published rant. However, it wasn’t until last month, when I dared to suggest that grunge music was shit and a bunch of snot nosed Poms saved us from it, that I experienced the vitriolic response worthy of a proper writer.

If you survived last month’s quota of sitting in darkened rooms then take in a quick dose of Vitamin D and get ready for more of the same in April. With Melbourne’s most iconic film house, The Astor Theatre, celebrating a milestone 75th Anniversary on Sunday April 3rd, including a special screening of the 1933 classic King Kong, there are more than just five reasons to get excited about that silver screen in April…

In 1995, as the twentieth century’s decade of meh drew to its middle, it seemed music was drowning slowly in the muddy, swirling waters of the Wishkah. The era of glam rock had passed and arenas, once heaving, lay empty and moribund. Angsty, moody, stubbled bands of thin angry-naughts had taken over the radio and were busily grunting out the soundtrack for a generation of ‘misunderstood’ teens to hate their parents to.

Despite doing everything the guide books told me not to do, which meant I caught a shonky taxi and paid well over par, the drive into town from Tan Son Nat International Airport was a wonderful introduction to Ho Chi Minh City.

Unlike the drive into Bangkok (where you contemplate self immolation through a mixture of sheer frustration and the narcotic effects of two-stroke exhaust fumes) the trip into Vietnam’s largest city, otherwise known as Saigon, had me sticking my head out the window in wide-eyed wonderment.

Here in Melbourne we like to think of ourselves as a cultured bunch and we have a plethora of cultural institutions, festivals and independent cinema exhibitors constantly coming up with more entertainment than we have time to see. So, in the interest of helping everyone out, I’ve collated a short list of what you really ought to get yourself along to during the cinematic month of March in Melbourne.

It’s not news to anyone that The King’s Speech is one of the best films of 2010. If you are one of the few people who haven’t seen it yet, then make some time, sneak past the ushers or download it on someone else’s internet. It is one of those rare films where everything, the acting, direction, script, sets, photography and costumes are all almost faultless.

‘Land of Siam’ is a new Thai restaurant in St Kilda. It is a restaurant every local should know about and embrace as his or her own. Open now for almost three months this neighbourhood treasure is open seven days a week. It offers a prompt home delivery and take - away service out of its small shop front, the number for which should be on everyone’s speed dial. Dine in meals are served in the comfortable dining space behind.

Anyone who has had to put up with all my shrieking on social media lately will know that The Tribune has been experiencing some technical difficulties over the last few weeks.

As it turns out, my laptop is not a coffee drinker. Goodbye to all my carefully set up files, my million and one vital links, all my remembered passwords AND MY ABILITY TO GET ANYTHING AT ALL DONE.

Very few books endure the way really good children’s books do. It has something to do with the way you fall in love with a book and its characters when you are a child. Suspension of disbelief is easier; imagination and emotional response to fictional characters comes more naturally when you still believe in magic a little bit. I still get warm nostalgic feelings about books by Enid Blyton, E Nesbit and, of course, Clive Staples Lewis.

Following my trusty Former’s travel guide, I decided to try one of the recommended restaurants: Nu Teras. Described as nothing beyond casual-dining, I thought it would be best to bring my laptop and do some typing. However, where I’m sitting now is FAR from the solo-dining, emailing writing, restaurant I was expecting.

I should have picked up earlier that there was something special about this place. It seemed everyone I spoke to knew exactly where this place was, and they all showed a sign of surprise when I – the sweat-drenched, back packing, student – asked for directions.

Dave Graney isn’t a musician that you like, or love, or even get. Dave, you can only dig, and I really dig the Dave.

From the first time I heard his world-weary, get-me-the-hell-outta-this-small-town vibe, I was hooked. The clothes, the laid-back yet wildly pretentious sensibility, and the smooth smooth tunes, all these things combined and created a world in which my twenty-something idiocy could finally feel comfortable. Does that sound dumb? Stiff shit.

Enid Blyton was born in August, 1897, the eldest daughter of an adoring father and humourless, resentful mother. Her early years she remembered as being idyllic, filled with rambling walks with her nature-loving father, who lovingly encouraged her creative instincts and protected her from a mother who thought a daughter’s place was in the kitchen, learning the domestic skills required of a ‘proper woman’.

Fairytales and wings, caressing and lying: neither one of us believed we could marry forever and always love. When summer comes, maybe with my old friends, we will laugh and cry along the blue grass of a beautiful sunny day and understand the value of love. Now, with new people and the last rain of winter, we sit at a coffee shop in Spain, viewing the water line knowing that with your soul I am never alone. One good day when you are alone, you will understand the water and that it’s not the same. The time is now, to be the Australian traveller.

ABC1: 9:30 Wednesday

ABC2: 9:30 Thursday

Has anyone seen this little gem yet? It’s very, very unusual American TV. It’s clever without being precious, the lead actress, Toni Colette, is not pretty in the American actress sense of the word, she doesn't appear to be starving to death and, to cap it all off, she can act!!

In early 19th century, poverty-stricken London, young tearaway William Thornhill works on the Thames as a lighterman, ferrying cargo and the landed gentry back and forth across the river.

Well, Tonstant Weader is off wandering around France at the moment and, with this being the Children’s Issue, a review of Alexandre Dumas’s classic novel The Count of Monte Cristo seems appropriate.

While it’s not specifically a children’s book, everyone I know who has read it did so the first time in their early teens. I say the first time, because it is one of those books you come back to over and over again.

I feel like a dying gazelle being picked over by hyenas right now. It’s been, dear readers, a difficult month. However, given some time, this will all be history and I may see it with a little more perspective.

Reading some light history of bygone eras often helps me put a better perspective on my own life. For most people at most times, life was brutish, nasty and short. Most of the teeming billions who lived before us had lives of hardship, sickness and injustice. We are not meant to be happy, readers, we are just meant to be alive.

I’m right there with the vampire genre.

Bram Stoker, Keifer Sutherland, Boris Karloff, David Bowie, Keanu and Winona, Buffy and Angel. I even read all the Anne Rice books, that’s how willing I was to put suspenders on my disbelief and buy into the whole terrifying-bloodsucker-with-awesome-hair-who-lives-forever-and-always-bites-the-girl-in-the-end thing.

L’Epicerie is in an unlikely precinct at 265 Glen Eira Road in Elsternwick. You will find it tucked discreetly between a garage and an odd looking bakery, in a small commercial strip away from the purposeful bustle of Ripponlea. Reassurance, however, follows the moment you glimpse through the windows and walk in the door of this small and charming establishment. Nestled in leafy Elsternwick but believably from provincial France, L’Epicerie is everything you would expect of a French wine bar come bistro.

Some legal fiction

An Amateur Art Critics Review.

The lovely and I were in Bendigo recently, and, as I am an unstoppably trendy and immensely cultured individual, we went down to the gallery to have a bit of a gander at the Archibald prize exhibition. Well, in truth, it wasn’t really because of my undying love for art and all things refined.

There’s music you have on in the background at a dinner party, or you half listen to at a bar, during the lulls in conversation. There’s music you dance to, and there’s music you can’t fully appreciate unless you’re sweating in a mosh pit.

Bono, Neil and the way the cookie crumbled - a book review.

I was Bono’s Doppelganger

by Neil McCormic

(Penguin, $22.95)

5 *****Stars

Warning (if you care): Plot Spoilers Follow

How I came to see Sex And The City is irrelevant, other than to say it was caused by an injured sister-in-law, pre-paid tickets, and me being a wonderful husband who would crawl across broken glass for my lovelywife. By the end of the evening I was wishing there’d just been some broken glass, or perhaps a cheese-grater with which I could masturbate.