If ever you’ve been to a pub or bar in North Melbourne or West Melbourne, it’s likely that you’ve seen Phil McInerney. Some of you might also have spoken to him.
Phil, as he’s always known, is the bloke at the end of the bar with his head in a book or, occasionally, a newspaper. A small, bespectacled man with thinning hair pulled back in a ponytail, he seemingly never tires of reading in company, with a drink—either a vodka and Coke or a Cascade Light—just off the page, and a packet of Longbeach cigarettes in easy reach.
I always wondered what Phil was reading. One night, after years of observing his nightly ritual, I asked him. At the time, he was poring over an ad in the Herald Sun. The ad outlined positions available at the City of Swan Hill, in northern Victoria. Phil said he’s always interested in the little details in such ads.
I was also fascinated by Phil’s reason for reading amid the hubbub of a bar. Most of us read in the privacy of our homes; it’s supposed to be an intimate experience. I assumed that Phil reads in bars because he likes the company. If a conversation takes his fancy, he can always join in.
Phil is non-committal on these things. It seems the appeal is the hubbub itself. "I hate silence," he says. "I can’t stand silence."
Every night, he goes to sleep with his radio tuned into BBC World Service, which is broadcast after 11pm on the ABC’s NewsRadio.
"It’s on low, but it’s on," he says.
I sit down for an interview with Phil about his bar-reading habit at the Jawa Bar, in Victoria Street, West Melbourne, which has become a favourite reading spot since opening a couple of years ago. Phil sits just behind the 1951 Jawa motorbike, after which the bar is named, that sits in the front window. The bar's owner, Darina Philpot, who grew up in the Czech city of Brno and married an Englishman, adds to the area’s store of eccentrics. Jawa motorbikes are from her homeland.
Phil collects change to make Darina’s life a bit easier. On this night, he has $36 in coins arranged in neat stacks on the bar. Darina will give him the commensurate figure in notes. It’s one of the symbiotic features, part of a genuine friendship, part of the relationship