It will always be Fanny’s

The big news headline for me yesterday was that 84 people got COVID in Fanny’s.

It sounds ruder when you say it out loud. I almost called this blog post “Getting it in Fanny’s” but decided against it because I’m a middle aged woman, not a sniggering teenager. But it was kinda tempting.

If you’re not from Newcastle, I should explain – one of the city’s hottest nightclubs in the 80s and 90s was called Fanny’s.

Luckily for the owners, they dodged the superspreader puns by renaming the venue The Argyle House in 2013, but it will always be Fanny’s to me.

The moment I saw the photo of Fanny’s, which is actually a historic landmark that was built in the 1860s for the Australian Agricultural Company, the memories came flooding back.

There were two schools of clubbers in Newcastle in the 80s and 90s. You were either the Fanny’s and Jolly Roger type or a Crazy Horse/Leroys kinda gal. I will never forget dancing to Prince’s 1999 at the Crazy Horse/Leroys as we counted down to midnight on New Year’s Eve 1999. It felt so momentous.

That said, my favourite Newie nightspot was a gay wine bar called the Gunfighter’s Rest. It had the BEST fluoro flashing dancefloor and introduced me to one of my favourite dance bands of the era, Erasure.

I only visited Fanny’s a couple of times and I don’t remember much about the interior, other than the sticky carpet. But I think it will be etched in the memories of those 84 COVID victims for a very long time.

While I have no intention of going to a nightclub any time soon, and they wouldn’t let a fossil like me through the doors anyway, it’s a stark reminder of how fast COVID spreads indoors in close quarters.

Despite the super-spreader event and more than 500 new cases in NSW yesterday, WA has finally declared it will open its borders in February … but they won’t let you in without a negative COVID test.

Travel isn’t going to quite the same for a very, very long time, even domestically.

Apparently 50,000 people raced across the Queensland border yesterday when it reopened. The queues at all the COVID testing places in my neck of the woods have been insane.

I won’t believe I’m skipping Christmas until I actually hop on that plane, which reminds me that I’d better get my ducks in a row.

I’m currently trying to get my Christmas presents wrapped and in a row. Travel prep is next on the list.

Do you have any festive getaways planned?

Song of the day: Erasure “A little respect”