After my shift at 2RPH yesterday, I took Ann and JJ to a Thai café they had stumbled upon in Temperance Lane, a a narrow alley that comes off the Wynyard end of George St. They had been to Tom Yum from Hell once before and had highly recommended the extra spicy bowl of noodles served there. Naturally I opted for the coolest available, a heat that was still considerably hotter than that available at your average suburban Thai. Yes, it was delicious.

But it was Temperance Lane that I was thinking about during the meal, for I must have passed the narrow entrance dozens of times and not once acknowledged its existence. Melbourne has lots of these alleys, all set up with cafes and cute shops, something that Sydney has failed at miserably. So many of those lanes are gone, replaced by the most monstrous edifices jammed together without regard for those on the street, a planning failure on every level.

But back to Temperance Lane. Someone sometime ago had given it this stern moral reproof as a moniker and it had stuck all these years. Apart from the Thai shop at one end, a Mexican cocktail bar sat at the other, displaying a wide range of alcoholic drinks. I wonder if anyone else had pondered this deep paradox.