It’s Tuesday night and I’ve just been to the launch of the new Richard Glover book, Desperate Husbands, at Shearers Bookstore in Leichhardt. Oddly enough, I’ve just discovered today there’s two h’s in Leichhardt, which has come as quite a revelation.
The last few days have been reasonably uneventful as I’ve slept in, watched television and haven’t done very much at all. I love holidays! An example of my general malaise is that it was only at 5pm today that I heard about the terrorist raids. I’m reassured though, by the cab driver who brought me home who asked if I knew anything about these raids he’d just heard about.
My other favourite cab driver today, who took me to the book launch, I discovered was listening to Vega 953. Curious, I asked him what he listened to for music before Vega and he replied WS-FM. He was in his late 20s/early 30s. And then, when I told him why I was interested, he told me he mostly listens to 702, but turned the radio over because he thought I looked like such a cool dude that I wouldn’t like 702. He told me he thought Vega was also boring and that Rebecca and Tony had no personalities. This made me smile.
Anyway, nothing else to report except that I turn 40 tomorrow. My plans for the day include a walk around the botanic gardens, lunch with Colin, a “Swiss Cellular Treatment For Men” (bought for me 12 months ago), followed by drinks at Henry Henry. I think it will be a good fun day.
One of the odd things about staying in a Youth Hostel is the uncertainty of which language to use. Over breakfast this morning, for example, I didn’t know whether to “God Morgon”, “Good Morning” or “Guten Tag”. Any one of these greetings in themselves would have been fine, it’s knowing which one to use to which person. Mostly, I’ve found people have resorted to a word that sounds something like “Hej” and “Hi”. The same goes for “excuse me”. Do I say “forlot” or “entschuldigen”? Mostly, I’ve just smiled in an “excuse me” kind of way. Most people are assuming I’m Swedish, though I hardly have the typical Swedish features. I am, however, developing that lightly slightly sunburnt look many Swedes develop at this time of the year.
Sometimes my attempts at the Swedish language have been successful, other times not. Today, I concluded however that I must be speaking Swedish with an Australian accent. At the Tourist Centre, I purchased one of those electricity converter plugs, saying hello, paying for it, and then thanking the attendant in Swedish. He responded with “Thanks Mate” in a broad Aussie accent.
The most difficult experience I’ve had with language, though, was today in an Italian cafe. The owner spoke mostly Swedish and a little English, but I couldn’t understand either, due to the presence of an Italian accent. And, she couldn’t understand me for exactly the same reason. Thank goodness, her daughter was able to translate.
As I mentioned yesterday, my German language skills have also come in extremely handy. On the downside, remembering all this German has sometimes confused my Swedish, due to some similarities between the languages.
It came in handy last night, though, at Torget. Torget is a gay bar attracting a more mature crowd just across the road from the Gamla Stan metro station. It was like no other gay bar I’ve ever been to. On the left-hand side as you enter, there were seats and tables for dinner, in the middle was a large area for standing, and then on the right, there was a raised seating area.
Seated along the raised area, like a bunch of wall-flowers looking down on the passing parade below was a group of mostly middle-aged men. I sat on a chair just below the raised area, but still close enough to listen in to the conversation of a couple of German blokes checking out those around the bar. It was very amusing, especially since they seemed oblivious to the fact that I, and probably others, COULD understand what they were saying.
Although the Swedish have a reputation for being alcoholics, I didn’t see much evidence of it last night. There was only one bloke in the bar who I would describe as “blotto”. Clearly, white wine is the choice for the young and dandy about town, while the older crowd mostly drinks beer. I drank beer, choosing Carlsberg Hof as the only brand of beer I actually knew. I was also pleased that it was actually reasonably priced. In all, I spent about $20 for the entire night.
When I ordered my third beer (in about three hours), the barman gave me a strange, slightly disapproving look. “Heavens”, I thought to myself, “that’s not even binge drinking in Australia”.
And so after that third drink, I caught the metro back home and hit the sack within minutes of arriving at the hostel. In a room of mostly middle-aged independent travellers, like myself, there was only one who snored. I was pleased because I had fears of being known as “the fat old bloke who snores”. Thankfully, that reputation goes to someone else.
I sighed when I saw the weather this morning. The beautiful “Svenska Sommaren” had turned into the wet and windy Swedish summer. “This is a typical Swedish summer”, according to a bloke I met this morning. He was in charge of the tour boats and was doing his bit to meet and greet some of the customers. “When I was a young twenty five years ago”, he said, “We used to have very hot summers, and now it’s sometimes warm and sometimes cold and wet”.
Even though the weather was pretty shitty, I decided to go on the “Royal Canal Tour” anyway. While the crowd of mostly older couples sat inside rugged up, I walked out to the back of the boat. While they sat with rain-soaked windows, I had a great view and could still hear the commentary.
It was just as interesting as yesterday’s tour; maybe even more so, as there was a lot of discussion about how Sweden had changed dramatically in the last twenty or thirty years. The tour emphasised many of the debates about development policy, and there was a wry comment about how there was a “working shipyard which HASN’T been converted into apartment blocks”.
It might sound odd to say this, but in some respects, the tour reminded me of the trip between Perth and Fremantle. Obviously quite different landscapes, but similar in the sense there’s still a lot of parks and gardens along the riverside which haven’t been developed.
As we toured, the guide specifically mentioned us passing “the house of a member of the pop group, ABBA”. I can’t be sure, but I suspect it was Bjorn’s house we passed. And if that’s true, I’m reasonably sure I saw him jogging along the riverside. He was dressed in black, wearing a cap, but I recognised the beard and the facial structure. Of course, I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am. Stop stalking me!
We made it back in time for a quick look at the Dance Museum, which was interesting enough, before heading off for a tour of the Swedish Parliament.
Swedish Parliament
In many respects, the Swedish Parliament is a bit like most modern parliaments. They have a prime minister, a government, an opposition, something resembling a question time, parliamentary committees and so on. Interestingly, though, they have just one house, with the bicameral system abolished in the 1970s. Also, interestingly, people sit in the parliament according to where they’re from, geographically speaking, not along party lines. They have this characteristic in common with the Norwegian parliament, and I think it’s a very interesting response to modern democracy. Perhaps, just perhaps, it goes some way towards promoting a cooperative, less adversarial approach to government?
I struggled with the weather for a while today. It got really well and really shitty for a while. And you know how in Sydney when it rains, every other shop has umbrellas for sale? Well, not in Stockholm. I looked everywhere for an umbrella to no avail. For a while, it was starting to get me down, as I became soaked through. Thankfully, the microfibre towel which Colin gave me before leaving came in extremely handy.
As the weather improved, I wandered around the back streets of Gamla Stan. I came across some really amazing little streets and took some great photographs. It was then, approaching the Nobel Museum (very interesting, especially the speeches by previous winners which you can listen to), I had another ABBA experience. I noticed some of the buildings which they had famously been photographed in front of during the 1970s. It was a lovely moment.
Early in the morning in Gamla Stan
Finally, I found a good internet cafe this afternoon, Cafe Edenborg on Nyra Storgaten in Gamla Stan. For the cost of a couple of soft drinks, I was able to check my email, upload some photographs, and post my diary entry from last night.
I don’t know what I’m going to do tonight. I’m back at the youth hostel right now. We’ve watched a kid’s show, the news, and after much channel swapping, the room has settled on “The Simpsons”. Truly international.
Twenty five years ago, aged seventeen, I travelled to Germany (well, West Germany as it was then), with a group of school-mates and our teacher. I was in Year 12 and I’d been learning German for a number of years. Sometime a couple of years early, one of us had the idea of fund-raising for a trip to Germany, and so that’s just what we did. As well as the fund-raising, I also had a part-time job, and after two or three years, we had enough money to actually do it in May 1983. The memories of that trip remain incredibly vivid for most of my adult life. But particularly today, as I’ve walked around Berlin, many of those memories have come flooding back.
I remember the incredibly long overnight train trip from Frankfurt, being woken in the middle of the night for passport check (I couldn’t find mine for a moment), and then arriving in Berlin itself. I remember our day trip to East Berlin, and in particular, I remember going through one of the border points in Berlin (I remember it WASN’T Checkpoint Charlie), and going on a brief tour of East Berlin with an emphasis on galleries, museums and things like that. The East German tour guide was very proper, as I recall.
Later during our time in Berlin, I have an incredibly vivid memory of standing in the Tiergarten near Brandenberg Gate, where there were two guards goose-stepping their way around. Along with my two school-mates, Louise and Amanda, we waved at them, hoping for some response. Nothing. Nothing. And then finally, a very brief raised hand in response.
Travelling back to West Germany in the daylight hours, I also have a very vivid memory of seeing a school outside the train window, which declared with a huge sign that “The sun always shines in East Germany”.
A lot has changed in twenty five years, obviously. For a start, I’m staying in what was East Berlin. And so far, I’ve yet to wander over the border into what was West Berlin. From my perspective, it’s like visiting a whole new city, because in some ways it is. However, there are a few buildings I’ve recognised from that brief day-trip to East Germany. There’s been a wonderful sense of dejavu.
For a while the memories were a little overwhelming and I found myself a little overcome. “This is a total mindfuck”, I thought to myself at one point, reflecting on how different was the experience now. Not only because Berlin has changed dramatically, but also because I’m now seeing it through the eyes of a forty-two year old.
It was funny in a way: while travelling on the train yesterday through areas of what was East and West Germany, I struggled to remember where the former border was. I thought maybe there would still be some evidence in the style of architecture. There were maybe a few buildings here and there that looked quite run-down, though I couldn’t be sure if that’s just because they were in rural towns, or if it was because they were part of what was East Germany, still in need of some EU refurbishment. It’s much more evident in Berlin itself.
To get a sense of those places I couldn’t visit in 1983, I went on a tour today, promoted as “The New Europe Free Tour”. Although ostensibly a free tour (on a philosophical basis, the tours are run by people who believe everyone should be able to access such tours) they ask you to tip to tour guide, which I was more than happy to do, since he was excellent. His name was Paolo, by the way, and he was an English bloke with an interest in archaeology and architecture.
The tour lasted about four hours and visited most of the really important historical sites around the inner part of East Berlin, with an emphasis on Nazi and Soviet history. Paolo had the gift of the gab and told the stories really well. In particular, he seemed to have an interest in the stories of the more controversies surrounding some of the buildings and monuments.
A lot of the history I already knew, but there were many things I didn’t know. For example, I had no idea where Hitler’s bunker was (it’s underneath what is now a carpark), I didn’t really understand the story of the press conference stuff-up which led to the opening of the East German borders in 1989, and I didn’t know a lot of the more recent re-building of older buildings. There’s a square, for example, which features a number of buildings destroyed during WW2 which has been completely re-built. There’s also a bit of revisionism going on with a once-popular spot in East Berlin (The People’s Palace) which is now being torn. Ostensibly the reason given is asbestos, though it’s always been a symbol of the East which those in the West have long despised.
It’s been a pretty intense 24 hours in Berlin, and in some ways I’m a little disappointed I’m only here for a short time. Still, the experience has given me a lot of good reasons to come back at some point in the future.
In other news, I’m continuing to meet some very nice locals. I went out for a drink last night at a bar called The Sharon Stonewall, which curiously enough I was told, is owned by an Australian woman. While there I met a couple of blokes sitting at the bar who I chatted to for quite a while. I’m sure they were both quite mad, but they were kind and friendly and invited me into their conversation.
They also invited me to another nearby bar which I’m struggling to remember the name of, but which was an absolute hoot. In the underground disco the DJ played an eclectic mix of hit songs from the last thirty years. I was in absolute heaven. I might head back there later on tonight. It won’t be a late one, though, as I have a flight to London to catch later tomorrow morning.
This is Myra Demetriou, 90 years old, and refusing to leave her home. She lives in Sydney in public housing with “million dollar views”. She opened up her home for a couple of houes this morning to encourage awareness about the campaign to stop the building in which she lives from being pulled down.
If you’ve ever crossed the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and looked over to the Sydney Opera House, there’s a good chance you’ve also seen the Sirius Building. Let’s not beat around the bush, it’s ugly. It’s a classic example of architectural brutalism.
Despite its ugliness, the building has been home to a number of people for around forty years. Many have been there since the 1970s, when the NSW Government approved developments in Miller’s Point which forced people out of existing public housing. The Sirius Building was the replacement. And now, forty years later, the NSW Government wants to move those people on again. Or should I say, “has moved those people on”, because there’s just Myra (and I think one other resident) refusing to leave.
This morning, for a couple of hours, the group campaigning to keep the building did their best to “humanise” the story of Myra and the many other people who have lived in the building. Amidst a strong campaign in the media that “people in public housing shouldn’t have million dollar views”, it was awesome to meet Myra. It was an absolute privilege to be invited into her home. “Do you mind if I take a photograph?”, I asked her. “Of me?”, she said with a surprised voice. “So long as you put it on Facebook and tell everyone about this”, she added.
Also speaking this morning was the building’s architect, Tao Gofers who located the building’s construction within the context of 1970s green bans, the activist work of Jack Mundy and the women of Kelly’s Bush.
I distinctly remember the first time I heard the pitch for Vivid Sydney. I was working as the Content Director at ABC Sydney when the station was approached with a proposal: would we come on board as an official media partner?
Sitting in that meeting, listening to the grand vision, I remember thinking it sounded incredibly ambitious. The core concept required a massive leap of faith. The organisers genuinely believed they could convince hundreds of thousands of Sydneysiders to voluntarily leave their warm living rooms in the dead of winter to wander around outside in the dark. To make the gamble even riskier, May and June are notoriously wet months in Sydney. It felt like a beautiful, luminous gamble against the elements.
Vivid became a juggernaut. Yet, in the years since that first pitch, the weather has remained a major personal gatekeeper for me. It dictates my entire approach to the festival. Last week, true to Sydney’s winter reputation, it was absolutely miserable and wet. But when Monday night this week rolled around, the skies finally cleared, and the pavement dried up.
Weather isn’t the only variable I have to calculate these days. The sheer size of the crowds has become another major factor. There have been years where the festival felt overwhelmingly busy—a shoulder-to-shoulder sea of people that made casual viewing nearly impossible. Monday night offered a tactical window. I figured a weekday evening right after a big pocket of rain would keep the massive crowds at bay.
Throw another major life adjustment into the mix—my right lower leg amputation a few years ago—and the equation changes completely. Navigating major public events now comes with a layer of apprehension, primarily driven by the real risk of losing my balance or falling over.
But on Monday night, the stars aligned. The conditions were right, and I had a mobility scooter to get around.
Navigating crowded public spaces on a mobility scooter or a wheelchair can be incredibly challenging, to say the least. The crowds can still be a bit of an issue, as people wander around taking selfies or staring into space. Sometimes they just don’t see you, and you often find yourself having people running into you simply because they’re not paying attention. Added to that, it’s dark, so I actually ended up turning on the light on my scooter to help make myself more visible.
Even so, on this particular evening, it was surprisingly okay. While there were certainly those crowded, distracted moments, it was nowhere near as intensely congested as my previous excursions.
Part of that felt down to the design of the festival this year. The event is much more spread out across multiple, distinct venues rather than being tightly packed into a singular, dense pathway. Because of that geographic dispersion, the immediate “wow” factor of a concentrated sensory overload wasn’t quite there for me this year. The impact felt a bit more diluted.
That said, the night was still thoroughly enjoyable. I’ve always been most drawn to the installations that purposefully combine light and music, creating a cohesive, immersive atmosphere. Being able to pause, watch the lights dance in sync with a soundtrack, and take a photo in a reflective installation without being completely swept away by a wave of pedestrians made the experience feel uniquely personal.
There are actually a few other venues across the city hosting festival events this year that I might still attend, but I’ll just have to see how it goes over the coming weeks. Everything depends on balancing the conditions on the night.
Vivid has transformed completely since that initial pitch landed on my desk at the ABC all those years ago. And while my own way of moving through the city has transformed too, there is still something pretty special about seeing Sydney lit up in the middle of winter—especially when you manage to catch it on the perfect, dry Monday night.
Post Script : I wandered out again last night (Sunday night) with a group of friends. It was much busier. Thankfully, the scooter helped get us all through the crowd. “You’re like Moses with the Red Sea for us”, one friend joked.
I went to the Opening Night of the Sydney Film Festival where the film, “Ten Canoes” was shown.
The film’s significance is three-fold: it relies on a non-linerar story telling model; it’s the first feature film almost entirely spoken (with subtitles) in an indigenous language; and there are no white people in this movie. As a result, the film escapes one of the usual conventions (and weaknesses) of films about Indigenous Australians. In having no need to examine issues associated with black and white Australians coming together (or being in conflict), the film makes a bold statement about the occupancy of Australia over thousands of years. Unlike films like “Rabbit Proof Fence”, this is not a film for white Australians to feel guilty about, as they just don’t figure within the film’s framework.
At it’s basic plotline level, this is a love story dealing with the story of a young man in love with the youngest of his brother’s three wives. As he struggles with his place as a younger man in his community, he is told a parable of sorts of another young man in the same situation to give him an insight into why he must wait, and why he must gain patience.
Both the “modern” and the ancient stories are told with the same actors. But because the story is sometimes told in a non-linear way, and because the film is shot in both black and white, it took me a little while to understand how the story was being told. It wasn’t until maybe one-third of the way through the film that I was able to understand it on the different layers upon which it was being told. I wonder if, with repeated viewings, the story might take on new layers, as is the case with Aboriginal stories, or am I, perhaps, reading too much into it?
One of the most beautiful aspects of this film is the narration provided by David Gulpilil. Combining humour, warmth, and intelligence, Gulpilil makes this story both compelling and accessible.
The landscape of Arnhem Land is also beautifully filmed. From the crocodile infested swamps, to the stone country, to the vast scrub flatness, I was literally taken there by the film. Although I have never been to Arnhem Land, I’ve come close, having been to the top end of the Northern Territory a couple of times. It was nice to be taken back there by the film, and to recognise the meaning of phrases like “stone country” and to understand the significance of crocodiles and wetlands.
It would have been easy, though, just to let the landscape overtake the film, and that’s perhaps why much of it is in black and white, re-emphasising the importance of the story.
After the movie, we went to the Opening Night Party which was terrific. Lots of champagne, more prawns than I thought existed, and a chance to catch up with some people I haven’t seen for a while including one who is seeing thirty-eight films at the SFF.
Even if it isn't a full moon, it's pretty close to it, wouldn't you agree?
It’s a chilly night in Sydney.
We’ve had a beautiful sunny day in Sydney, but with hardly any cloud around tonight, there’s been nothing to keep the warmth in.
I was actually hoping for a bit of cloud tonight to keep the warmth in, as tomorrow morning I’m going to be in Martin Place at an ungodly hour.
Tomorrow, every radio station breakfast show in Sydney is involved in a live broadcast from Martin Place. Well, if you exclude Kyle and Jackie O…
So we have t-shirts (and scarves) and everyone’s been told to wear a singlet or a black-skivvy (and being the ABC we should have no shortage of them) to keep us warm.
So it’s an early night to bed for me after a reasonably busy and interesting day.
The next few days are reasonably busy with work actually, so don’t expect much in the way of a “life update” until the weekend.
