A Dark And Appropriate Reward

MELBOURNE'S daily curiosity, The Phage, features on this morning's front page the news that two prominent local architects are at odds and that one of their amorous partners, the columnist Jill Singer, has been sending vitriolic emails to mutual friends and associates. Why the paper believes this is a matter of immense interest to Melbourne, where the paper leaves so many other interesting things unreported, is another of the mysteries that will be laid like grave goods at the feet of the newspaper's corpse when it expires.

Still, the article does serve a minor public good, as it establishes a principle good parents attempt to incalcate in their young: Do bad and, one way or another, you will pay for it:

Singer went into detail about LAB's financial situation and Bates' own difficulties with depression post-Federation Square...

One never wishes ill on others -- not too many others, anyway -- but the tidbit that at least one of the designers paid some sort of price for the eye-wateringly ugly Wank Palace that dominates Federation Square will be welcomed by all passersby who feel compelled to avert their gaze from the gimmicky, look-at-me sensationalism of the now-feuding architects' abomination. Only in a world where governments have replaced the wealthy as chief patrons of the arts could this testament to ego-driven aesthetics have been funded. If one of its creators was bitten by the black dog, then a little misery is no less than he deserved for inflicting this on an otherwise lovely city: