It’s Monday morning and I’m still on holiday. I’m half-watching Bert Newton on television, ahead of a few social engagements including a preview of the new documentary, “Spellbound” which is about to commence screenings in Sydney.
NSW Palliative Care ConferenceNSW Palliative Care Conference
I’m feeling quite good about life at the moment, having just had a few terrific days in Griffith in Southern NSW. I was invited to perform the MC role at the NSW Palliative Care Conference which involved two days of solid work and then some time off to enjoy food and wine. I asked Damien if he’d like to join me which he did and we had a terrific time.
After doing a few things at home – and town – on Thursday morning, including buying a few ties, socks and a new belt, I flew down on Thursday afternoon, with Damien following on the evening flight. The first point of call was the Griffith Regional Theatre where I met the conference organisers and then I was taken to our accommodation, the Mindon Serviced Apartments.
A few hours later, it was drinks at the West End Winery where I recognised some other people from the Mindon Apartments. They introduced us to another couple who were also staying at Mindon. Talk about instant connection, and we spent quite a bit of time together over the next few days.
Damien in Griffith apartment with lots of wineGriffith Visitors CentreGriffith Cemetery
Although I had some feelings of trepidtation about the conference – it’s the first time I’ve done something as extensive as this – I think things went pretty well, and I was thanked profusely for my efforts over the two or three days.
The Conference dinner was held at the Gemini Hotel which was fine, and which included a reasonable band which played a couple of ABBA songs. We all had a dance which was videotaped and shown at the conference on Saturday.
Damien and I also went out for dinner at the Michelin Restaurant, which is Griffith’s finest dining experience. Terrific stuff. Excellent food.
On the Sunday, we toured the region, visiting De Bortoli Winery for a Sunday brunch, Whitton (not much there), Leeton (had a good time chatting with the owner of the Leeton Hotel), and finally having a swim at Narrandera.
Overall it was a magnificent weekend and both Damien and I had a great time. Here’s to many more…
“So how have you spent the last few days”, I asked the mother of a family from Houston I met on the food tour the other day. I randomly ran into them on the Djurgården ferry. “We’ve been on a tour of the Old Town, we got some segways, we’ve been on The Archipelago and we’ve done some shopping,” she told me. “And what about you?”, she asked. At that moment, I had to think. “Oh just eating, drinking, and dancing”, I told them with a grin. And yes, indeed, that’s how I’ve spent the last few days, and I’ve loved it.
As I mentioned, the food tour on Sunday was good fun. And I actually “made friends” with another guy on the tour, an English guy called Mark. He told me he also loved travel, and as we wandered around we just kinda clicked.
“I’m going to see one of your countrymen tonight”, he told me, referring to the comedian, Pam Ann. I’ve never actually seen her perform live, although she’s a regular at events like Mardi Gras with her hilarious, very honest and biting “take” on the gay scene. Although I’d noticed she was playing Stockholm Pride, I hadn’t bothered to book a ticket, until just randomly I decided I would go to the theatre and try for one. I ended up with an excellent ticket in the fourth row. The show was really funny. She really “nailed” Sweden with some very accurate observations, as well as the more “obvious” quotes like… “What is it with you people? You speak like you’re permanently underwater”. I’d definitely go to see her again. After the show, my friend and I had a wine or three at Torget, my “regular” at Gamla stan.
Pam Ann at Stockholm’s Södra TeaternPam Ann at Stockholm’s Södra Teatern
After a late-ish start (I needed to do some washing), I headed out for lunch on Monday at Urban Deli, one of the places we had visited on the food tour. Some meat, some olives, a glass of wine, and a Bundaberg Ginger Beer. It seems to be the “hip drink” at Urban Deli, as all three tables near mine were enjoying it.
Lunch at Urban Deli in Stockholm
It was a perfect drink for a warm summer’s day. There’s a Swedish saying, even a pop song called, “Sommaren är kort” (Summer is short) which is definitely true. “It’s been a late start to summer” my friend Sandra told me. But by Monday, summer had definitely arrived. The weather was spectacular.
Swedish summer
Mark and I caught up again on Monday night, having booked dinner at the nearby Flying Elk which is a kind of a gourmet pub with Michelin status. I really liked the space. I really liked the service. But to be honest, I wasn’t overwhelmed with the food. It was good. But not great.
As we’re in the midst of “The Season Of The Gays” (last week was Stockholm Pride, this week is the Euro Gay Games), once again we visited the overly crowded Torget for a couple of drinks and a few people watching.
Earlier, I’d already flagged with Mark the idea of going to Victoria’s, the famous schlager night which I’ve been to in Stockholm on several occasions. At first, I knew he wasn’t convinced. I realise I hadn’t really done a convincing job, explaining why he should experience a bar where a bunch of Swedes of all ages since along to classic Swedish language pop songs. But after an hour or so at Torget, I convinced him on the basis it “was near his hotel anyway”.
Within minutes of arriving he was convinced it’s probably the most fun, you can have in Stockholm on a Monday night. “What I really like is the mixture of young and old, straight and gay, and they’re all totally into it”, he told me. We spent an hour or two on the dance floor before finally calling it quits. (Graeme – as you’ll see from the photograph, there’s a new band playing there, replacing “Hallå hela pressen”.)
Monday night at Victoria’s in Stockholm
On Tuesday I visited The Spiritmuseet, where they have two excellent exhibitions at the moment, which I’ll write about later.
And then on Tuesday night, I caught up with Sandra and Robert. They’ve been in the United States for the last few weeks, visiting family. Despite a bit of jet lag for them, we had a wonderful catching up, and we’ll see each other more after my trip to Rome, which starts tomorrow.
So yeah, how have I spent the last few days? Eating, drinking, and dancing. “And loving it….”
Here’s a song I heard while on holidays which I’ve been listening to a fair deal since I’ve been back. The song is by a French singer, Mylene Farmer. Without oversimplifying, think Madonna, think Kate Bush, think Kylie, think Tori Amos. This song was the first release from her current album which topped the French charts.
Dead sexy, eh? This afternoon I’ve been listening to the album nice and loud (not enough to disturb the neighbours) and dancing around the lounge room. Ain’t life great?
The only unfortunate thing is I’ve discovered I’ve turned into an “arms and hips dancer”. You know the look I mean? You have your arms stretched out right above your head while you shake your hips in time to the music. I’ll be wearing little shorts next…
Nooooooo……
Otherwise, it’s been a simple day relaxing after last night’s dinner party where we “literally” sat up til dawn chatting about life, the universe and everything. “Do you realise it’s 3am?”, I said at one point. “Ah well, let’s go and get some ciggies” was the response. I didn’t smoke.
I made a guest appearance on ABC Radio in Australia tonight, talking about the songs that inspired ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” and the songs inspired by it.
Andrea Ho: This is Nightlife on ABC Radio. Let’s take a moment to go back in time. Let’s go back to nineteen ninety four. And this movie I know you know it. It’s Muriel’s Wedding.
Andrea Ho: This is Nightlife on ABC Radio. All around Australia. Now can you believe it’s been fifty years since that masterpiece came out? It was the lead single from ABBA’s nineteen seventy six album arrival. It was officially released on, depending on where you were in the world August fifteen or sixteen now went to number one in Sweden, obviously, but then number one after that in Britain, Mexico, Belgium, the US, South Africa. Wow. How about that? So what better excuse to hit the dance floor and celebrate this weekend? Someone who’s going to be doing that is ABC Radio exec James O’Brien. He’s going to be joining in the celebrations in Australia. Hello there James.
James O’Brien: Hi there Andrea.
Andrea Ho: People will remember you on the radio from the radio in different contexts.
James O’Brien: And certainly one thing that people in Lismore may remember me from, from forty years ago is I used to host a radio show on the local community radio station, where every week for five years, I hosted a program playing ABBA music. It was called ABBA The Scrapbook.
Andrea Ho: And it would have been quite modern music back then.
James O’Brien: It was. They were still currently releasing songs.
Andrea Ho: Wow. Okay. After that, then you went on to the ABC and the rest is history. So welcome back into the studio. Now, what is it that makes Dancing Queen so good?
James O’Brien: I think it’s a bunch of things going on, one of which it starts with the absolute opener with that piano tune sound, which is so good. It’s a good, feel good kind of song. It’s lovely and innocent, you know? It’s about the girl who’s seventeen years old, and she just wants to go out on a Friday night and dance. And how beautiful is that? I think it’s been one of those songs which has been reinvented over the years too, in lots of different ways, although it’s the original version that is so memorable. And in fact, the song was based on someone else’s song. Back in the seventy four, George McCrae had a song called Rock Your Baby, which you may remember, and they used that as the inspiration for Dancing Queen.
James O’Brien: But over the years there have been lots of other versions too. For example, the earliest inspiration I can find is from Elvis Costello.
Andrea Ho: Elvis Costello did a version. What?
James O’Brien: He didn’t do a version. He really loved ABBA, and he did some versions later in his career. But Oliver’s Army. Let’s have a listen to Oliver’s Army and see if you can connect with the Dancing Queen riff.
James O’Brien: I recognize you can hear the piano.
Andrea Ho: You actually can,
James O’Brien: And it was apparently one of the musicians in his band said, look, we just need something to make this song a little more interesting. And that’s what they did. They basically went back to Dancing Queen, which was a huge hit a couple of years earlier and incorporated it into that song.
Andrea Ho: Wow. Elvis Costello, who knew for all of you music snobs out there, and I know that I count myself amongst you. You and I, we’re friends. There you go. Elvis Costello, even he looked up to ABBA. Okay. Who’s somebody else who we should know a bit more about and who loved ABBA?
James O’Brien: U2
Andrea Ho: Really?
James O’Brien: Back in the nineties, you two were probably the coolest band in the world, weren’t they?
Andrea Ho: They looked down their nose at everybody. Everybody knew it, you know. Bono, the edge, all of them. I don’t see them. And ABBA, even in the same universe.
James O’Brien: Okay, so at the time, they were cool, but ABBA was very uncool. But they performed in Stockholm, and they invited Björn and Benny onto the stage in Stockholm at Global Arena to perform dancing Queen. Have a listen to this.
Andrea Ho: Listener. That is U2 singing “Dancing Queen” and James O’Brien, t he thing I find most fascinating about that clip is not so much that you U2 were singing it, although that is shocking in itself, but it’s that their crowd of fans and people who are attending to see you two knew all the lyrics and sang along.
James O’Brien: Yeah, and that was about the time that ABBA started to become popular again. So a couple of years later, they were featured in the film Muriel’s Wedding, an Australian film, and also Priscilla, Queen of the desert. And so that’s really when ABBA started to go from being very daggy to being popular again. And, you know, I was talking to one of our sports commentators here at the ABC, and he told me about his five year old son who’s obsessed with ABBA. So who would have thought, fifty years after dancing Queen came out, it would still be a big hit song.
Andrea Ho: All right, so who’s somebody else who we should know about? Because lots of people have covered ABBA, of course, but you’ve got some other really great examples.
James O’Brien: Yeah. Another Irish example now, the great singer Luka Bloom and his brother Christy Moore. They also recorded a version which they performed on stage, and they described this version as a traditional Swedish folk song.
Andrea Ho: You know, James, if I had been dropped here by aliens and had never heard dancing Queen. But I knew Luka Bloom’s music, or indeed Christy Moore’s music, which I do, I would have thought that was one of their songs.
James O’Brien: Yeah, it’s a beautiful thing, and it’s got that lovely melancholic feeling about it too. I think that version.
Andrea Ho: And exactly the way that he’s brought it into his style of playing and his style of singing, in fact, his style of storytelling, he brings that Irish storytelling sensibility to his version.
James O’Brien: Yeah. Luka Bloom has done some other great covers. For example, I Need Love by L.L. cool J.
Andrea Ho: That’s actually pretty funny. That is fantastic.
James O’Brien: And also his version of wishing on a Star by Rose Royce. Yes, he’s beautiful as well, you know.
Andrea Ho: I’m going to reassess my view of Luka Bloom. He’s one of the world’s great cover artists. Amazing. Okay. Do you want to try something that sounds a little bit different?
James O’Brien: Yeah. This is possibly my favorite cover version of all time. Of dancing Queen. This was released in about two thousand and four by a Swedish funk band. A jazz trombonist called Nils Landgren.
Andrea Ho: And Nils Landgren is really. Well, I know his music. Yes.
James O’Brien: Have a listen to this version of dancing Queen, which is very, very different.
Andrea Ho: Well, Swedish musician Nils Landgren in the house. James less dancing queen vibes for me. More Tina Turner private dancer vibe.
James O’Brien: It does feel like Private dancer, doesn’t it? Absolutely. But he’s got a whole album called funky ABBA, which has got all these ABBA songs in that, in that kind of style, which is beautiful.
Andrea Ho: So it just goes to show that the song can be done in lots of different ways.
James O’Brien: I’ve heard a bluegrass version. I’ve heard an old style jazz version. If you go onto YouTube and just look for dancing Queen cover versions, there is so much out there.
Andrea Ho: Okay, so it’s quite a resilient song. It stands up to many different treatments. Is this true of all ABBA songs, or do you actually feel that this is perhaps peculiar? Like something special in their oeuvre?
James O’Brien: There must be something special about it. Because I think a billion plays on YouTube or something like that. It’s one of those songs that now, if you are a DJ looking after maybe a forty plus kind of audience at a party or whatever it is, put on dancing Queen and the Floor Will fill and everyone seems to know the words.
Andrea Ho: Which it’s going to do tonight. Yeah. Everybody who’s out and hears dancing Queen because hopefully somewhere everywhere where there’s a DJ playing tonight, they will actually have that on their list. Oh they should. Right. So is it your favorite ABBA song, do you think?
James O’Brien: It’s my favorite? It’s pretty close to my favorite top five. Absolutely. My number one would be the Winner Takes It All, which is that beautiful song about a breakup, their own breakups, and which is just so poignant and wonderful. So that’s probably number one, to be honest, but dancing Queen could be two or three. I think.
Andrea Ho: Okay. It’s not even.
James O’Brien: And it’s because it’s a very different song. You know, it’s still got that lovely, sort of almost melancholic feel about the, you know, the innocence of youth that, you know, and all she wants to do on a Friday night is go out dancing, not sit there looking at her mobile phone.
Andrea Ho: Yeah, I know times have changed, haven’t they? James O’Brien. So glad that you could come in and actually share some reflections on ABBA and dancing Queen for this particular anniversary. I mean, ABBA, beloved by Australians from Muriel’s Wedding all the way through to this particular movie. I think I might leave us with just these sounds. Enjoy the rest of your night. Have a really great Friday night.
James O’Brien: Thank you very much.
Andrea Ho: Thanks so much, John. Thank you. James O’Brien, ABC Radio executive and lover of ABBA.
It’s Wednesday night and I’m sitting here all alone in front of my computer. I’d still happily be alone, but do you know where I’d rather be?
I’d like to be sitting in a bar somewhere, with a scotch and soda, listening to live music. Or I’d rather be at Palm’s Nightclub on Oxford Street dancing to some great retro tunes.
I love music. I listen to music for at least an hour each day: it makes me happy, it makes me sad.
My God, I wish this COVID-19 thing would end, and we could all go out again, listen to music, and dance. I can do it at home, but it’s not as much fun.
I also like take to photographs at gigs, and these are a few of my favourites.
Måns Zelmerlöw at Stockholm Pride
September (Petra Marklund) plays Sydney, Australia 7.11.08
Robyn at Oxford Art FactoryElectric Fields at the National Indigenous Music AwardsSports at Taronga ZooStockholm Pride on Expressen
The placement of the apostrophe in The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest confuses me. I thought it would have been The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.
“The subtitles don’t exactly match the text”, I whispered in the ear of my friend Grant.
“And isn’t it great that we can recognise this?”, he responded.
We were sitting in the Dendy Cinema at Newtown watching the third and final in the Millenium series by Stieg Larsson.
Grant has read the books in English, and I’m about half way through a chapter in the first book in Swedish (it’s taking a while).
Both of us have been learning Swedish for some time, and both agreed it was a bit of a breakthrough moment in terms of understanding Swedish.
“Swedish films with English subtitles are a good way of improving listening skills”, I suggested to him at the pub later, especially if you can try to ignore them, and only look down to the text when it becomes confusing.
For me the confusing parts were when they got into reasonably vocab-intensive speeches, and when a few of the people spoke with regional accents. The doctor who looked after Lisbeth when she was in hospital, for example, was a little hard to understand to my ears trained on a “Stockholm accent”. Michael Nyqvist, however, who plays Mikael Blomkvist has beautiful diction, and I found him quite easy to follow.
The film also has a lot of “Stockholm porn” as we like to call it: some great instantly recognisable images of places around Stockholm such as the stairs leading down from Mossebacke. “I used to live near Lisbeth’s apartment”, Grant said at one point. “And I’ve stayed in the hotel, Scandic, where Peter Teleborian stayed in Stockholm”, I added.
Luftslottet som sprangdes
We watched the film a little differently to a lot of other people I guess, most of whom I’m sure were just there to see a good film.
I haven’t read any of the reviews, though I know one reviewer on ABC Local Radio described the film as boring, little more than a courtroom telemovie. And on top of that, he argued it wasn’t a very interesting courtroom. Fellow blogger, Victor, also expressed the view the film has a rather limp ending.
This third film lacks a bit of the action of the second film. About the most graphic thing you see is the removal of the bullet from Lisbeth’s brain early in the film, and later, when she takes revenge on her crazy half-brother.
This film is a lot more cerebral, and a lot of the time is spent in and around the courtroom. It also seems to be a film which brings to a conclusion some of the plot-lines. After all of the death and destruction of the previous two films, you might even say it has a “feel good” quality to it.
The fascinating thing I’ve found about watching all three films now is that, despite their length – all about the two-and-a-half-hour mark – they’ve always maintained my interest.
The other thing I mentioned to Grant at the pub was a BBC documentary I saw on Youtube about the success of Scandinavian crime fiction.
One of the fascinating arguments in the documentary is about the centrality of the assassination of Swedish PM, Olof Palme to the mindset of the Swedes generally, and in this type of crime fiction in particular. Zoom up to about the 30 minute mark to see this particular focus.
Although a number of people have come forward to admit to the assassination, it remains an unsolved crime, and there’s an undercurrent of conspiracy theory the government knows more about Palme’s death than has been revealed. There are lots of undercurrents of government cover-up in the Millenium series also.
It’s a documentary worth watching.
After the film we had a beer or two, and then it was off to Oxford Street for a catch-up meal at a local Thai restaurant. And then, watching about 20 minutes of Polly’s drag show at Stonewell.
“Do you have any advice, any tips for people here in Lismore for when the reporters and camera operators come knocking on doors at the end of February”, I asked Melissa Doyle, the former “Sunrise” co-host who was in Lismore on a tour promoting her new book, “Fifteen Seconds Of Brave”.
I was really interested to know her thoughts (from an ‘insider’s perspective”) on how local people should handle what is inevitably going to involve TV camera “door knocks” when the 12-month anniversary of the catastrophic flood comes around.
In setting up the question, I mentioned how my family had become quite adept at speaking to the media over the last twelve months. I’ve been able to help along the way, I mentioned, but on a couple of occasions, television crews have just turned up, unexpectedly. “Some of them have disappeared pretty quickly once they got their story”, I told her, “but others have taken a more long-term interest in telling the story of what happened here”.
Sophie McNeil is one such reporter. She’s a former ABC reporter, now working for an organisation called “Human Rights Watch”. A few months ago, she saw a few of my flood stories on this site and contacted me, not knowing of our common ABC connection. She was keen to do a story about how “disadvantaged people” had gotten on during the floods.
Her story was published earlier today, focussing on older people and people with disability.
The article concludes :
Australian authorities failed to take effective steps to protect those most at risk from foreseeable harm of the catastrophic flooding in the New South Wales (NSW) town of Lismore in February 2022, Human Rights Watch said today.
Such extreme weather events are expected to become more frequent as a result of climate change.
Human Rights Watch found that NSW and local authorities did not provide adequate flood warnings, evacuation, or rescue support, leaving older people, people with disabilities, and those who were pregnant facing life-threatening circumstances with little government assistance.
The article mentions a few of the people she spoke to, including Pat and Jack
On the evening of February 27, Pat Bobbin, 74, her husband, Jack Bobbin, 82, and their 17-year-old grandson, Sam, were at home in South Lismore. At about 8:30 p.m., a member of emergency services came to their door and told them to evacuate but offered no assistance.
It was already dark and some roads were already cut off by rising flood waters.
Pat had moved her car to higher ground during the day. She has mobility issues and relies on a walking stick to get around: A chap come around, door knocking and said, “Evacuate.” But at that time, if we had evacuated, we wouldn’t have got through on the town side. It was bloody dark. And the town side had water … My grandson was going from front door to the back door, sort of thing, and he’s saying to Pop, “It’s coming up the stairs quick! And I thought, “Oh jeez,” because I’ve got crooked legs. Then the next thing the water was coming through the floorboards. I got a chair and I got up onto the kitchen cupboard. And the water, you could see it coming up, up and up. And then when it got up around the legs, you could feel it creeping up your legs. By the early morning, flood waters inside their elevated house on stilts were quickly rising. Emergency services eventually rescued the Bobbins’ just as the water reached over Pat’s shoulders. She says she and Jack would have drowned if it wasn’t for her grandson who had a mobile phone and did not stop trying to reach emergency services, despite many failed attempts to get through: He was better on the phone than anyone. I only used my mobile for emergencies. My daughter upgraded me, and I hadn’t quite learned how to use it, I just used to only have it to make a call and receive a call. But lucky we had Sam there. We wouldn’t have made it out, I don’t think, if he hadn’t been there.
People in Lismore know these stories far too well. Sometimes, it feels like the rest of the country has lost interest. But because the story has been picked up internationally by Human Rights Watch, I’m hoping it will keep the story alive, and bring it to the international audience. “If Australia can’t do it, what does that mean for the rest of the world in places like Bangladesh”, Sophie said to me in a conversation this week.
When I asked Melissa Doyle the question about keeping the story “alive” I got a little bit teary.
“Hands up who knows someone who has been brave in the last nine months”, the person doing the Q&A with her asked. Of course, EVERYONE in the room raised their hands.
“There was nowhere more special to begin the tour”, Melissa said in the book about eight people she has met in her career who have endured very difficult life experiences and came out the other side.
“The stuff in inspirational calendars doesn’t cut it”, she said, referring to those “keep positive” affirmations you often see.
However, she said the common theme amongst those she interviewed for the book was the need to “maintain perspective”. “They all said it was important for them to recognise what they have, not what they’ve lost”, she said.
“Some people delayed their interviews for the book”, she said, saying some found they couldn’t speak about their experiences.
And that’s why I asked my question about the inevitable reporter doorknocks. Her advice was how important it was to have people in the community to do that role.
And that’s when the Q&A convenor mentioned a family in South Lismore who had been very public about doing that.
Eli, chatting with local vlogger, Scotty Brizzle.
And that’s when the host, herself, got emotional. Eli and his family lived through two floods this year, and then this week, having moved into new rental accommodation, their house caught fire. Yes, seriously. The community is rallying around them, which is so good to see.
Melissa Doyle speaks at Lismore Library about her book.
“If I’m to be totally honest, If I’d been through something traumatic, the last thing I’d want to do is talk to someone on television”, she admitted.
