Those North Shore people really have no idea of the value of anything, do they? At first look, this monthly markets held on the grounds of the Milsons Point bowling green is just another market, with food stalls, bric-a-brac and overpriced crafts. But it's the temp store holders, mostly rich North Shore-irans emptying out their garages and recent junk bought overseas, is the main reason to get out bed and stand around in the freezing wind next to the Harbour before 7am Saturday morning.

Imported Jeans? $10.
Leather shoes from Japan. $10.
Original Mona Lisa Painting. $10.

This is bargain city if you get here early enough, and holy fuck, do i mean early. You have to be here before 7am, or you miss out.

Kiribilli Markets is on the fourth Saturday of the month generally, with the odd extra one added or taken away. Check the website for details.

Is there a better cinema in Sydney? Tucked away in Glebe next to the sumptious Craven cafe, The Valhalla is my favourite place to catch a cool Sunday double feature, the latest cult Ken Loach offering or ask your favourite filmmaker a question at the weekly Popcorn Taxi Q&A.

What's that? It's closed down and been turned into offices, sucking down the rest of that section of Glebe with it? Oh fuck.

Many pubs and bars claim to make you feel like you're in your own lounge room - but the Clare really DOES resemble my lounge room. It's full of mismatched op-shop furniture, strewn pizza boxes, fellow ABC co-workers and a solid collection of current streetpress. And with mix CDs with the likes of Rock Steady Crew and Cyndi Lauper chosen by the bartenders, it has a house party vibe as the night goes on.

Yeah look, it's the only pub near my work that has a cool crowd and a non-pretentious vibe, and it was one of the first pubs to react against the gentrification of Sydney bars and "de-renovate" back to its tiled walls and back alley furnishings. The Clare is a comfy (though at times loud and crowded) corduroy oasis in a city of chrome and stainless steel.

File Under: Dive Bar.

The Clare is at 20 Broadway, Broadway.

Right in the middle of a Parramatta Road black hole, Frank's Pizza has a menu consisting of about 6 pizzas, the coffee is bad and the service is unpretentious (read: non-existent), but goddamn i love this place. You want a chinotto? Get up and get one from the fridge yourself, lazy bum.

If you want to be fawned over, go to Rockpool. If you want cheap ($12 larges!) and authenticaly delicious thin pizzas, with big communal tables, BYO with no corkage (bring longnecks, they don't care) and loud families running around the place, then this bustling and fresh pizzeria is for you. Unpretentious A favorite with local cops, students and artsy types, it's open late and it's walking distance from The Annandale. No delivery.

Franks Pizza is at 83 Parramatta Road, Camperdown.

The birthplace of the Tropest film festival, this cafe symbolises all that is soul-less and generic about modern Sydney. During the day, it's packed with obviously unemployed people in designer clothes slaving over their masterpiece screenplay on their laptop, pretending to be talking to their "agents" on their mobile phones, all the while a dozen or so plasma screens blare bad 90s music. The coffee is not bad, but the food, a rather generic and small menu of mediocre foccaccias and pastas, makes McDonalds or Subway look like a home to individualism.

I had a mate who used to love this place and would constantly be dragging me here. Why? I worked out he wanted to be "somebody", and where was he spending his time? Sitting crammed in a cafeteria full of other wanna-bes pretending to be somebody.

For the record, my favourite Sydney cafe is Cafe Berardo of Glebe (RIP), which was full of unemployed musicians and writers who at least knew they were nobodies... and the coffee was sublime.

Tropicana Cafe is at 227 Victoria Road, Darlinghurst.

The Excelsior in Glebe was home to some of the happiest memories of my early 20s. As an underemployed TAFE student at the time, this was the place a poor person could rock up and get a great nights entertainment. Their regular rotation of free bands included many future stars and under-rated talents, including Peregrine (who had like a 3 year residency from memory), Melanie Horsnell (before she did TV ads), Andy Clockwise (before he was cunt), Bertie Blackman (back when she was still a folk singer), Panda before they became Extended Family and starting selling out the Basement, Paul Greene, Tim Ireland and The Hands. Wednesday (and then Thursday) nights were programmed by Brett, the lead singer of Peregrine, and such was his friendly demeanour, he could convince anyone who popped in to jump on stage and join in on a song. Rai from Thirsty Merc would sing a future hit on a solo acoustic, Peta Morris would re-imagine her Paul Mac with Wesley Carr, Panda would lay down a 20 minute version of Rollercoaster that would blast into outerspace, ditto Peregrine with a drunken train-wreck of the Dave Matthews jammer Jimi Thing. Bertie had Andy Clockwise on drums, and has never sounded better or stronger. And it was always free and welcoming, and the music was generally always amazing. Nights ended either at some stranger's house party or the Different Drummer.

A slice of serenity in the back streets of Surry Hills, Cafe Lounge really is the only Melbourne-like little bar/cafe in Sydney. In fact, it feels like exactly the kind of place the Australian Hotel Association is petrified of. Yes, it's a dark little hole and it serves chardonnay!

It's a cafe, open late, that serves beer. HOW NOVEL! It can get packed out by Surry Hills trendies on a Friday or Saturday night, but for a quiet beer after work (and i do mean quiet - this is probably the only place you can actually hear someone across the table speaking to you), or a romantic date, this place is great. In fact, for those closet alcoholics who don't mind a drink alone, you often see youngin' tucked up on a couch reading a book with a beer: yes, such un-Sydneylike behaviour is tolerated here. Beer prices, while not cheap, have remained steady over the years, at $7 for a Little Creatures at the moment, and the coffee and cocktails are pretty good too. If you're a VB Addict, please look elsewhere.

The music was better when I used to DJ there, but it's still not bad.

Cafe Lounge is at the corner of Crown and Goulburn Streets, Surry Hills.

You know the guy. He's slightly bald, wearing shabby clothes, walks around selling ridiculously expensive hand-made, i-don't-know-what-you-even-call-them... bracelets or something. He's been walking around near the cinemas for the durations of my conscious existence. I've never even seen someone even take an interest in those skanky things let alone buy one. Maybe he's like that dude from King of Kong, except instead of video games his passion is making really shitty bracelets, and it doesn't mater if no-one buys em. What's with that guy?

If Futuristic London was the home to Ultra-Violence in Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece A Clockwork Orange, then Sydney really is the home to Under-Violence.

America, and hell even Canada these days, has school yard shooting in which dozens of people are shot dead. Spain, London and even Bali have incidents involving exploding trains and planes destorying skyscrapers. And what does Sydney have? Baseball bat wielding losers going on a window smashing school yard rampage, and some kid in a McDonalds car park shining a Chinatown-bought laser pointer at some planes (or a "LASER ATTACK!" as the Telegraph calls it). Hell, even in the relatively serene South Pacific we're an island of bliss compared to Honeymoon destinations like coup-riffic Fiji!

So, to make Sydney more internationally compeditive I suggest we introduce "Stab-a-man hour". It will be like Earth Hour except, well you can guess.

Okay about time I mentioned a pub.

Like Sydney in general, The Old Fitzroy in Woolloomooloo crams a lot of multiculturalism into a small space. There's a very London-like Fringe theatre downstairs, one of Sydney's best Laksa's from the Thai restaraunt out the back, a front bar to rival any Irish pub and a retro upstairs lounge. Thank god it remains tucked away one of Sydney's scariest streets, as this is a hidden gem. Oh, and it has Blue Tongue Ginger Beer back on tap and available by the pint.

The Old Fitz is at 129 Dowling St, Woolloomooloo.