Bits of work in progress - yes, I have beer while I'm crafting. It helps keep me sane, it does. There are other vices best indulged in hot weather too. Lemon sorbet topped with fig gelato in a cone. From Crema, over on Lygon Street, where every other shop is a gelato shop that is bursting at its seams with hot, sticky people desperate for a bit of something sweet or cold. Or very possibly, both.

Another really delicate flavour is Pear, from Tutto Benne just south of the Yarra.

More vices discovered in the last week: a lovely little cupcake shop down Degraves Street that bakes a really sublime red velvet cupcake. Tuesdays are mini-cupcake day. We nibble through each cupcake not because we are dainty, but to make each last longer. Four cupcakes later, with every remaining ounce of willpower, we [try to] stop drooling at the uneaten cupcakes, in rows behind the glass counter, and leave in a dignified manner. Alas, I had neglected to bring my camera. More reason to go back, I tell the flatmate.



It was chance, I say, that brought King Worm into existence. In a bid to draw one silly item for each successful crack at the crossword puzzle, King Worm came into being after a spell of wracking my brains for a five-letter word for 'elicit, bring forth': evoke, five-letter word for 'tomb, vault': crypt, and 'sanctuary': asylum. King Worm, it appears, has had a forked tongue long before his coronation.

One day, if feeling so inclined, I'm going to get King Worm tattooed someplace.