I Love Max

Max Brenner opened in Brisbane in October 2010. It's on Stanley Street, South Bank tucked on a side alley, a few steps across from Ginga Japanese restaurant.
You can't miss his sexy bald doodled head, and that chocolate-colored awning beckoning from afar.

Max Brenner is your non-schizoid Willy Wonka. Passionate nevertheless...

The sign inside reads, "I invite you to watch, smell, taste and feel my love story." Makes me want to throw a tantrum like Veruca Salt, stomp my feet and grab it all.


We Brisbanites have to queue for everything. We've queued for San Churro, we've queued for Max Brenner. And after the first Australian Zara fashion store opens in Sydney, mid next year, thirty-five years since the world's first Zara store opened in Spain, we Brisbanites will still be queuing for our own Zara.

The queue.
I told you there was a queue...

I waited a good twenty minutes in that queue while my boyfriend, Shane went hunting for a free table. Both the outside and inside tables were packed. We were lucky to find a seat inside, across a zany splash of colourful Max art.



Good things come to those who wait.
I had Max's signature chocolate souffle with sides of whipped cream and strawberries.
Shane had a sensible hot milk chocolate in a thick Max Brenner mug.
I knew he'd regret not having dessert! Soon enough we were both tucking into the melting white and dark chocolate center of my dense souffle.

I love Max.

15 Writers

A popular trend among writers on Facebook is to list fifteen influences.

Here are mine:

1. Oscar Wilde - for his truthful, agile wit
2. James Michener - for his humanity, love of travel and cultural understanding
3. Edward Rutherford - for his genius in merging history and storytelling
4. Alexandre Dumas - for creating fine swordsmen and noble causes
5. Baroness Orczy - for the Scarlett Pimpernel and really, for setting in motion dual-identity characters such as Zorro and Batman
6. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - for the Little Prince, his insight and humanity
7. Fyodor Dostoyevsky - for his grasp of human psychology, his darkness and eloquent expression
8. Pierre Choderlos de Laclos - for his diabolical wit and his understanding of human games
9. Hans Christian Andersen - for his imagination, for the Little Mermaid
10. The Brothers Grimm - for their imagination and for bringing horror to Fairy Tales
11. Anne Rice - for scaring the hell out of me with the Mayfair Witches and for her sensual, opulent style. For creating the coolest organisation ever written about: The Talamasca. The true lady of supernatural fiction.
12. William Shakespeare - for his wit, depth and his unsurpassed facility for the English language
13. Charles Perrault - for his imagination
14. David Morrell - for creating characters and plots that have fascinated me
15. Robert E. Howard - for creating Red Sonja and for impregnating my childhood with Sword and Sorcery