Located on the corner of Parramatta Road and Norton Street, to call this cafe unassuming would be to hype it up too much. It's pretty average in every respect - the coffee, the foccacias, arancini and croissants are all merely sufficient. But in a city where every place tries to outdo everywhere else - this is a refreshing change.

If you're ever awake before dawn and in the area you're probably familiar with this place because it opens at 4:30am. As a result, I wound up spending a large chunk of my high school muck up night here in 1997 as i had nowhere else to go, and on many a sleepless night have trecked over for a super-early pre-work brekkie of lame ham and cheese croissant with the ham only slightly warm, and strong coffee.

After getting dumped once many years ago and not being able to sleep I rode my bike over to Leichhardt at 4:30am to have brekkie, and there was a nature doco on the tele in this cafe which featured lengthy shots of elephant fornication, and i thought, 'Great! Even the elephants on the tv in this shitty cafe at 4:30 in the morning are getting more sex than me right now." I don't know why that memory stays with me, but it does.

Bar Dei Castelli is at 395 Parramatta Road, Leichhardt.

Seriously, most of the fun nights I've had in my twenties have somehow involved this man in some way, as DJ, organiser or generally just the glue holding it all together. He's just always there. No matter where you are - a crazy warehouse party, an illegal beach party, a rowdy pub, a bush party, a crazy gallery opening, Health Club - you just turn around and he gives you a high-five. He's ubiquitously Sydney.

Okay okay okay, so the bits of the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony i saw out of the corner of my eye in the pub last night were pretty damn impressive i have to admit. But let's not forget the Sydney Olympics, its Opening ceremony and how uniquely Sydney they were.

Sure Beijing has a rotating 3D multimedia globe with cascading aerialists, thousands of glowing percussionists, perfect military-like synchronisity and the world's largest 3D LCD keyboard, like the one Tom Hanks played in Big (but with little chinese people popping out).

But we had lawnmowers, mambo shirts and hills hoists. Also compared to Beijing, one thing that was uniquely Australian about the Sydney Olympics was our little slices of non-comformity and protest. Remember all the volunteer geniuses wearing Triple J t-shirts trying to win a publicity competition? Midnight Oil wearing Sorry Suits in direct defiance of the attending Prime Minister? Nikki Webster turning into a smarmy mole? The torch almost not lighting and being stuck halfway up a waterfall, but getting there in the end.

Yes, the Sydney Olympics were great and very Sydney. And look at the great legacy we have: great public transport and... errr... a fuck off big stadium. And Fatso the Fat Arsed Wombat. Viva 2000!