Fresh fish

There is something deeply endearing about there still being a fisherman selling his catch just off Bay Street, in the shadow of the old sugar work's chimney. It's perhaps all too easy for the great influx of apartment dwellers to forget that the port in Port Melbourne is only recently centred around cruise ships. Former mayor and local resident Janet Bolitho recently contributed to an poignant piece in The Age all about the decline of "old Port".

So it was interesting reading the 3AW review of the Palace Hotel, and the reviewer's classification of pubs as old Port and new Port. Even though the Palace is technically a South Melbourne pub, I wonder whether Dow Street's Doug Beazley would agree that it manages to embrace both old and new. I hope so, because it would be a shame for these long term residents to feel uncomfortable in their own, ever changing, town.