 3 Mountains |
gouge [noun] – an act of extortion; swindle; [verb] – to extort from, swindle, or overcharge.
Something that really irks me about the fine country I live in is the gouge mentality of its commerce. I know it’s most likely a worldwide phenomenon but it’s seems especially prevalent in Australia which is meant to be the land of the fair go and egalitarian principles. The gouge, I theorise, is the reason our tourism industry is failing. For years it has relied on ‘fresh meat’ from Japan, Singapore and, now, China. So why, I guess, would you as an Aussie tourism operator provide value for money when you can gouge unwary travellers who are unlikely to return anyway? |
| For locals the archetypal gouge is ATM fees. These absolutely sh*t me. I know, I know these are like $2 per transaction but its the principal of the thing. a) I am accessing my own money and b) the buggas pay zero interest on it. The banks claim they are simply passing on the fee that bank x charges for bank y customers to use the ATM. But don’t all these cross bank fees pretty much cancel themselves out? It’s worse when your a customer of bank b (for blue) whose ATMs are rarer than hen’s teeth hence pretty much forcing me to pay for each and every ATM transaction. |  No gouge here |
 We're effluent |
Whatever I paid for the 3 Monts from La Brasserie de St-Sylvestre in St-Sylvestre-Cappel, France it was most definitely not a gouge. This superb beverage came attractively bottled complete with a cork. The beer is named after the three mountains that surround the brewery in Flanders. The Mont des Cats, The Mont Cassel and the Mont Noir. It is one of the brewery’s specialty beers and is drawn from wooden barrels. These lads are right into their beers and even provide the technical detail sheets for each beer.
The 3 Monts poured a very light gold colour with a strong head. It had rich taste that only got richer as you drank more. It packed a satisfying 8.5% ABV. This is no Euro mass produced lager with the associated astringent taste. Will definitely be enjoying this again. |
back of the ferry
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Felt the tourist gouge on Fraser Island. “sumptuous buffet” was excreble. ATM fee should simply be banned. Andrew Wilkie should tack that on to his pokies bill and he’d have a show. Still waiting to hook in to the Maudite. Love a big bottle of big ABV beer with plenty of complexity.
…and the gouge continues. See http://bit.ly/y6Jky8. To those that argue that banks are providing a service and need to recoup costs for security, installation etc of said ATMs – they can recoup this thru the interest they earn on my deposits on the long term money market.