For a recent birthday I wanted to assemble a very small group of my closest friends for a proper sunday afternoon catchup. Somewhere with good character, good beer, in a quiet spot that wouldn't be crowded with pokies, footy screens or backpackers.

That is why I chose the Lord Nelson. A micro-brew pub before the term even existed, their finely crafted home made ales (you can see the brew tanks through a glass window in the back) are STILL winning awards after all these years. The first time I ever tasted a Three Sheets - it was like the three course meal gum out of Willy Wonka's Factory. An amazing mix of flavours that rippled down your tastebuds like a waterfall.

Of course the unpretentious, yet not slummy vibe is good too. It's one of Sydney's oldest pubs, an old sandstone building, tucked on an out of the way corner of The Rocks. Oh and they serve pints. This and Opera Bar are my two favourite places to take tourists when in town, and The New York Times even gave it a mention recently in a great travel article about the ultimate wekened in Sydney.

While Melbourne had Nadal and Federer battling it out in the final of a sweltering Australian Open Tennis final this summer - Sydney invented a brand new type of sport. A craze that for two days at least, was sweeping the Harbour city: Shark Fighting!

In early February there were two near-deadly shark attacks in our fine city, two days in a row. One was actually in the harbour, against a navy diver who was believed to be involved in a counter terrorism exercise. If anything, having live sharks in the harbour will arguably protect our battle ships against USS Cole type attacks better than anything the navy could possibly come up with. I don't see Al Qaeda wanting to fight sharks anytime soon. The diver punched the shark a couple of times and escaped needing surgery to his thigh and hand.

The very next day Sydney's iconic Bondi beach was the target of a daring dusk attack which left a surfer with a horribly wounded arm, and he was rushed to hospital. As the attack happened at 7:30pm, i.e. well past "beer o'clock" for Aussie film crews, we unfortunately have to assume that the Bondi Rescue documentary crew had already gone home and it won't wind up on next season of the hit show.

So, take that Paris, Tokyo, New York and London - we invented a new sport this summer!

A lot of people, myself included, believe winter sucks in Sydney. There's no fireplaces, we're not fashionably equipped and most of our houses and apartments have paper-thin walls. Our cafes and pubs, with their spacious outdoor areas, balconies and harbour views, are also arguably built for the summer months. So we generally spend winter at home freezing.

Then, on what is meant to be the coldest weekend of the year, you get a beautifully sunny 23 degree day (thanks global warming), warmer than many parts of Europe and America right now during their summer months.

Thanks Al Gore!

Look, it had to be in here sooner or later. The Townie was the source of many of my ex-girlfriends and a depository for most of my food money in my early 20's. Between the age of about 21 and 22, for me, the Townie quickly went from being the dirty place you went to at the end of the night, to the place where you knew everybody and everybody knew you. How lame were we! But it arguably still is the most friendly and unpretentious late-night dive bar in all of Sydney.

Look, I haven't gone back since Coopers broke the $5 mark and everyone managed to stay the same age but somehow got five years younger than me, but if i do ever go back here is my $2 juke box triple play that would always get the night going:
1. Sweet Child Of Mine: Guns N Roses
2. Warewolves of London: Warren Zevon
3. Hey Ya: Outkast

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.

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.

Of course the main reason we live in Sydney is the beaches, which remain largely somewhat accessible to the general population if they've got a full day off in summer (most of which will either be spent on public transport or looking for a parking spot).

And the best beach in Sydney is... Freshwater. Why? A number of reasons. One is the lack of tourists, which makes it feel like a locals haven tucked away out of the city. The second is that unlike Mount Druitt, this Sydney name is actually somewhat accurate: the water is generally clean and fresh, with half-decent waves.

And the final reason is the Harbord Milk Bar, just up the street, which has the best thickshakes in the world. The best way to end a long day of sunburn, dumpings and sand up your nose, is a Harbord thickshake made from almost a whole tub of ice cream.

The Harbord Milk Bar is at 30 Lawrence St, Harbord across the street from the Vintage cellars. Get the wife to make it if you can, only she uses New Zealand's annual dairy worth in Ice Cream.

Sydney's trashbag heart oozes... well ooze early in the morning. It reminds me of how dodgy King's Cross used to be.

Ever been in Taylor's Square at 6am on a Saturday morning, and been sober? To say it's a view of humanity at its most depraved is being overly generous. You could shoot a sequel to The Killing Fields here on some overcast mornings. There's fights, injuries, drugged out ravers, drugged out gay people, young professionals up early having coffee and people jogging to work. It's Sydney's melting pot at boiling point, and considering how dangerous it's meant to be, you actually feel surprisingly safe. Maybe it's ambulances hanging around for people to hurt themselves, I'm not sure.

The City of Sydney council is looking to renovate the Square, which would be about the fourth time since just before the Olympics. Personally, I like it just the way it is now: the fountain seems to wash away a lot of the vomit and vomit smells.

One image sums up Norton Street in my mind: a young man doing tearing up the block doing a wheelie on a Vespa Scooter. Say no more.

Lygon Street's poorer little brother, this was originally Sydney's home of cafe culture and Italian food, but has in recent years become a poor imitation of its former self. It's crowded, overpriced, and with the arrival of the Forum, a fake imitation. Yes, Norton Street is very Sydney indeed.