With Attica and the Avalanches we ate, drank and tried to be merry partying for Melbourne

Spirits are low but this one-night-only virtual event reminded us of what's waiting out there: fancy food, great music and dumb trends

Smiling can actually make you happier. Right? That's what we've heard from social researchers and Nat King Cole and passive-aggressive family members for decades. The idea goes back more than a century. In 1872 Charles Darwin wrote: Even the simulation of an emotion tends to arouse it in our minds."

In 2020 the science no longer fully backs this up. But it's what I'm thinking about as I dutifully follow an acclaimed chef's advice to boil exactly 20 currants in half a can of beer and set up a YouTube livestream of a DJ set tastefully lit by a tealight candle inside a cheese grater.