Sydney's only daily newspaper (i count the Telegraph and MX as being nothing but gossip-columns to be used for wiping windscreens or mopping sewage overflows), The Sydney Morning Herald started life in 1831, and has been consistently going downhill ever since. Long ago a bastian for strong international correspondence and indepth coverage, in recent years it's grown to be a haven for underpaid 21-year old "sociology" journalists who endlessly hate on Gen-X and the baby boomers, the odd contradictory opinion piece, and lots of wire stories. The only original and strong journalist left from the class of '31 is Economics Editor Ross Gittens, a rare leftie and humanist economist who explains every nuance of the global economic system in a way that even a whingey, desperately lonely, late-night blogger can understand. I reckon he should be our treasurer one day, except for the fact he actually cares for people - that might work against him in politics.

And despite being left-leaning, The Herald is also elitist, something The Chaser pointed out beautifully back when it was a satirical newspaper and not an adjective. In a satire on the Herald in 1999, it jokingly pointed out the Herald's editors also had concerns for its readers in the western suburbs - West Pymble, West Turramurra and West Gordon. Ha!

But despite the fact quality has gone down at The Herald, and despite that content has been reduced and/or is endlessly recycled and that freelances are getting paid much less than they used to... god, I'd kill to write for 'em one day. Because it's the only proper newspaper we've got left in this town.

Formerly with the much more confusing name of "Sydney Harbour Casino", Star City is where dreams come true. Especially if your dream is losing all your money to the pokies and travelling home in a minibus.

Essentially the same as Melbourne's Crown Casino - but without the glorious riverside locale, food court, cinema complex or array of bars, Star City is Sydney's premier gambling location. But that's not all. There's also the Showrrom theatre which has the latest jukebox musical or 30 year-old musical revival, popular undoubtedly because of the parking. There's also a fake fountain, a cafe with some of the most expensive and worst coffee in Sydney, a sports bar that's always empty, a convenience store, an Irish pub with all the ambience of a Westfield shopping mall (with music to match) and a Chinese noodle resteraunt with one of the most mediocre laksa's around. But I hear the gym recently had a firing range put in, so at least that's something new put in.

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.

Congregating around the more affluent suburbs of Balmain and the Lower North Shore, Sydney's Yummy Mummys are recognised by their designer maternity wear, their industrial strength strollers that cost more than most second-hand cars, and the fact they aren't at work during the day.

Are these the model wives of multi-millionaire bankers and stock brokers? Or just the model wives of millionaire lawyers and solicitors? We'll never know.

And if you work in a cafe, they'll order a coffee in a way you've never imagined possible before: with half the milk soy and luke warm, half cold skim and the coffee half decaf, with the foam not too thick.