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Champagne weekend Sydney 2008

July 2, 2016 by David Herd

Weekend with Stingy

Champagne weekend Sydney

Champagne weekend Sydney in 2008 was on the menu when I spent a weekend at a friends home in Point Piper. He worries about being seen on the internet, so to protect his privacy we will just call him Stingy. I imagine a whistle-blower will tip him off about this post and he will complain as usual. I would like to stress nothing in this personal photo blog of mine is intended to cause him any discomfort. It is in fact a salute to a very successful businessman.

I would like to emphasise my policy regarding my photo & travel blogs, should any person be offended or concerned by material I have posted, please contact me direct and I will immediately remove it.

Champagne football Sydney is my personal photo history not part of my travel blog.

I was very lucky when Stingy lent me one of his cars to use, extremely lucky when it turned out to be a Lexus. 🙂

City skyline from Vaucluse

I took advantage of my flash transport and did a little tour around the eastern suburbs.

Coogee Beach

A deserted Coogee beach, I have many memories of the local pubs where I often visited in my 20s.

Stingy is the big guy in the middle

Peter Hobbs and Peter H on the right. Peter H is another guy who is paranoid about his name on the internet. We are at the SCG to see the Sydney Swans play the Richmond Tigers.

Sydney Cricket Ground

This wonderful sports arena with this beautiful members stand, which was built in 1886, holds countless memories for myself and millions of sports fans all over Australia.

Stingy & friends

John Martin aka Pothole with his Chinese girlfriend and Lee O’mara are here with Stingy at the Woolahra hotel. Pothole lives in the same condo as I do in Pattaya 2 hours south of Bangkok, in fact he accompanied me on a quick trip to Koh Samui only last week on June 20 2016.

Woolahra Hotel

Sadly Pothole lost his best friend John Griffin just a few months after this photo was taken after he lost a long battle with cancer.

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Bar Reggio

Friday lunch at Bar Reggio is a long term tradition for Stingy and his friends, located in Crown St Darlinghurst, it is a lively Italian restaurant that serves good food and allows you to bring your own wine.

Back to Stingy’s palace

Every wall upstairs and down is cluttered with paintings.

Running out of wall space

A great example of how to make a terrific home look less attractive. 🙂

A Stingy lookalike

They could be twins. 🙂

Champagne weekend Sydney, I’ll drink to that.

I’m not generally a champagne drinker however I will make an exception for Dom Perignon. 🙂

Great kitchen

This is certainly one of the nicest homes I have ever stayed in.

Stingy’s liquor cabinet

There is no shortage of booze in Stingy’s house, as you can clearly see Jim Beam is his preferred poison.

Ten years have flown by & now in 2018 aged 70 Stingy has given up the booze. So many years of heavy drinking have finally caught up with him. The doctors advice was crystal clear, stop drinking or die.

Geriatrics R Us.

That’s Stingy (2nd from the left) in December 2017, he has lost an incredible amount of weight being off the booze.