Since its inaugural festival in 2009, VIVID Sydney has quickly established itself as the best reason to get out of the house as the city descends into its antipodean winter. 

If The Lifted Brow was a band, then we could look at its first 16 issues as a series of most excellent singles and EPs.

You wouldn't expect to find talks about designer suburbs, presidential campaigns, conceptual art and the soft power of Tasmania at a writer's festival. But the 2013 Sydney Writers' Festival thwarts expectations. 

Forget the HBO static or the Showtime lasers: the true sign of quality programing is a portly man staring down the barrel of the camera and drolly intoning: “Good evening ladies and gentlemen.”