I went out for dinner tonight with old school mate, Anthony and his friend, JT, at the newly opened, “Benzin” restaurant in Surry Hills. Although we hadn’t planned to go there, a two hour wait at Billy Kwong’s, meant we had little choice. However, I’m glad we did, because Benzin is great.
Located in what was “Fuel” in “The Clock Hotel Complex”, the waitress told us, and I’ve since confirmed, it’s a “sibling” to Sailor’s Thai.
There was only one entree on the menu last night: deepfried prawns wrapped in noodles with a sour plum sauce, but it was terrific, so it didn’t matter there was no choice.
We chose three mains out of the menu of about a dozen choices, all priced around $18-25 and were more than happy with what we were served. There was a terrific beef green curry with roti, a sublime squid salad with cherry tomatoes and, best of all, a tremendous duck dish.
We were also really happy with the deserts which consisted of a variety of ice-creams, along with delicious mung bean tart. The secret ingredient in the mung bean dish was caramelised schallots, though the waitress only told that after we’d guessed, as she says they generally don’t tell people for how adversely most might react to an onion-based desert.
The wine list was also good, and even though we had two bottles, the meal, including a shared entree, three mains, and three deserts was just $55 per head. What a bargain.
“Life’s been just one big blur since Zach missed out on winning Big Brother”, I said to a friend yesterday, when they asked how I was. Of course I was joking, but I was nonetheless disappointed that Zach just missed out on winning BB, as he was my favourite character this year. And of course, as late as Monday night, Google was reporting my site as the #1 site for the phrase “Go Zach”.
That said, I also really liked the wild, whacky bogan from Perth, Michelle. I mean, I think she would have driven me to drink, had I lived in the same house as her, but I still liked her. And maybe the reason why was that she was similar, both physically and in personality, to a good friend of mine. “Hey have you been watching BB? There’s a woman on there who reminds me of you”, I said to my friend, to which she replied, “No way, how can you say that? Yeah, well, maybe just a bit”.
The BB finale was the highlight of my Monday night, possibly because it took up most of Monday night due to the delayed result.
The last few evenings have included a work-related dinner at a terrific restaurant called Ottomans at Dawes Point (great food, great location), a visit to the Lewisham Hotel last night, and tonight has just been a night at home watching television.
The next week is nowhere near as busy as the last one. There’s yum cha on Sunday, a couple of exhibitiony-arty things. I think the highlight will be going to Helpmann Awards on Monday night.
“We’ll miss you when you go back”, Pat said to me last night. I’ve been home in Lismore for the last couple of weeks, and have really enjoyed being here. I’ll be back for Christmas, and maybe another trip before then. I see the Lismore Show is on at the end of October, so I might return home for that.
This is a photograph of Michelle and me, taken at the Lismore Show in about 1975.
Though we lost a lot of photographs in this year’s floods, some of the past weeks has involved going to Officeworks, printing off the very best that have been digitised, framing them, and putting them back on the walls.
For several years now, it’s been a family routine to go through old photo albums, and either scan or photograph the collection and back them up. We’ve done hundreds (maybe thousands) that way. As it’s been a group effort to select the photographs for digitising, it’s also been good fun, as we’ve remembered (or sometimes not) the circumstances/situations.
So my advice? If you have some old photographs, digitise them and back them up. You don’t necessarily need a scanner. You can just use a mobile phone or camera.
“I’ve backed everything up to Google Photos”, I told a relative last night. He asked if that was going to be enough, wondering if I should also back them up to a hard drive. I told him I didn’t think Google was going to go broke anytime soon, and also mentioned hard drives are more likely to go under a flood than Google is. Of course, there are lots of other backup options, too.
Though Lismore still has a long long long way to go, this trip has been characterised by a greater sense of optimism. There is still a lot of trauma in the community, including amongst family and friends. As someone from “away”, I find people still talk about what happened during the floods earlier this year. They want you to know.
I was in Spink’s Park the other day, taking a photograph of the Queen Victoria Fountain, and a man stopped to talk. I think he assumed I was not from Lismore, a visitor, and he wanted me to understand what had happened here. We chatted for quite a while, and I explained my connection.
Queen Victoria Fountain in LismoreQueen Victoria Fountain in Lismore
I went into a local shop the other day and saw a photograph I took (and put on Twitter) on the counter in front of the register. I chatted with the couple who owned the store about their experiences, both with their business and home which had been impacted by the floods.
“That’s my photograph”, I said with surprise and delight at Lismore Embroidery the other day. They’re selling discount clothes right now. “They’ve been through the floods”, they warned. “So long as it has been through a washing machine since, I’m happy”, I replied.
This has happened a lot.
There’s a short-hand conversation you can have with people in Lismore about this. You just need to ask where they live, and you know instantly what they’ve been through.
It’s different in Sydney (and elsewhere).
“(In Sydney) people’s eyes just glaze over when you talk about the floods. When they ask about the flood and want to know how it’s going, they expect you to say it’s okay. We’ve mopped up, and we’re getting back to life as normal. But when I tell them it’s pretty fucked, they lose interest. Let’s keep the conversation alive, as there’s so much ahead of us,”, I’ve told a number of people.
As we chatted over a family dinner the other night, I was amazed to hear about the number of extended family and friends who are living in “pods”. Pods are caravan-like accommodation that has been provided by the state government. Others are “couch-surfing”, going from house to house, and staying with family and friends.
Looking a little more peaceful than during floods, the Wilson’s River at Lismore. Looking a little more peaceful than during floods, the Wilson’s River at Lismore.
There’s a stereotype that people from Melbourne tend to popularise that Melbourne and Sydney are somehow different: that Melbourne is cultural, arty etc and Sydney is a little superficial. Here in Sydney, we don’t give a second thought to any perceived difference… I mean, why would you bother?
While looking at the Sydney Morning Herald today I observed some interesting similarities and differences, in terms of what readers in both cities actually find interesting in their newspapers.
The most viewed story in Sydney concerned Australia’s controversial Miss Universe entrant, Erin McNaught, who has been handpicked to appear on one of America’s top TV talkshows with billionaire Donald Trump, while in Melbourne, it was a story about Oxana Malaya who learnt as a young child when she was brought up by a pack of dogs on a rundown farm near the village of Novaya Blagoveschenka in Ukraine.
The big issues for readers of “The Age” included the weather (surprise!) as Victorians awoke to the chilliest morning for almost 12 months, today, with temperatures falling well below zero in cold spots around the state. They were also interested in the story of a man who cut off his own penis in a drunken bet, and the discovery through Google Earth of a small-scale model of a piece of territory in China complete with snow-topped mountains, streams and valleys and the
Readers of the “Sydney Morning Herald” were also interested in the Google Earth story. There was also a big story about a stabbing, as an 18-year-old man was in hospital with a 10 centimetre cut to his throat after it was slashed with a knife in Sydney’s east this morning. Unlike our parochial cousins down south, Sydney-siders also had an interest in the Middle East crisis.
Both cities were very interested in the news that Jessica Rowe is pregnant and that speaks volumes too!
SMH and The Age
Goodness knows what I’ll see on the front page of “The West Australian” tomorrow.
Despite the distance between my home in Sydney and Patsy’s in Lismore, over the last few years, I’d become consciously aware of my older and last remaining sister’s daily routine.
I knew when the cleaner came, when the home-assist nurse arrived for her showering, what she watched on television, and what time she’d have lunch.
She would often have a nap after lunch before settling in for her afternoon television viewing, or playing Solitaire on her tablet.
The best time to call was either mid-morning, or between five and six at night. From four to five, she would watch Neighbours and the Bold and the Beautiful. She’d then catch Deal or No Deal. We had to vary the return recently when its time slot shifted to 7:00 PM.
Although we had been close our entire lives, she took on a mothering role from a very early age. Our connection deepened more recently into a routine of daily phone calls after I got sick a couple of years ago. She was genuinely concerned about my welfare, especially living alone —she worried I might fall or that my diabetes would flare up leading to more health problems.
This text from Village Voices, Surry Hills was a teastament to Patsy and my caring family in Lismore.
Living in Sydney without close family, with me being a two-hour plane ride away, was a constant worry for her. Our calls varied; sometimes long, sometimes just a quick 30 seconds: “How are you going? You’re good. All right, talk to you tomorrow.”
Then, a couple of Sundays ago, the routine broke. I rang, and she didn’t answer. Usually, if she was busy, she’d call back straight away, but she didn’t. Her husband rang me back from the home phone: “Pat’s a bit sick today.” Within a few hours, the decision was made to take her to hospital, and she died the next morning.
Those daily phone calls have ended, and I’ve felt it most, being back in Sydney over the last few days.
The last time I saw her was when I was in Lismore at the beginning of September, after attending a family funeral in Brisbane. It was the funeral of my nephew and his son, who were tragically killed. Their deaths were literally a front-page newspaper story; they were hit by a drink-driver while going to get an ice cream. My nephew was 33 and his son was four. It was a terribly sad funeral, but also a poignant celebration of two young lives, richly documented with photographs and videos.
Then, just a couple of weeks ago, one of my dearest friends lost her son in a road accident in North Queensland. He was a single dad to two young children, aged 11 and four, who are now in the care of my friend, who is in her late sixties. She will be a great carer for them. This was also a big news story in the papers in Townsville & Cairns.
In a strange and sad twist of fate, Patsy had also made the front page of the paper, due to the Lismore flood in 2022. The slideshow at her funeral I put together featured photographs from throughout her life, but perhaps the most dramatic was the photo of her being rescued from the rising waters, which made the front page of The Australian and was featured prominently inside The Daily Telegraph
Patsy on the front page of The Australian
In some ways she never quite recovered from the flood. Aged 74 at the time, she was rescued, literally through the kitchen window, along with her husband and grandson. I remember the phone calls of that night as I passed on all of the latest flood information, and tried to contact emergency services on her behalf. I genuinely thought she might drown that night.
While preparing the eulogy, I looked for quotes and inspiration, which led me to her rarely used Facebook account. The feed is mostly full of people wishing her a happy birthday. Yet, her one and only post spoke volumes. I think it might have been what she wanted to say to us all on the day. The post was simple: “life is short, don’t be sad for too long.”
Waking up from an induced coma is a strange kind of homecoming. You return to your body, your life, your people—but you also return from somewhere else entirely. A place that felt real, sounded real, and in some moments, made more sense than the hospital room you eventually open your eyes to.
I was placed in an induced coma a couple of years ago, and since emerging from that coma, I’ve had time to reflect on the incredible, often absurd series of hallucinations I experienced while under serious pain medication. I’ve had surgery before—appendix, cyst removal—but nothing prepared me for the vivid, sprawling alternate universe my mind built this time.
One of the more amusing hallucinations placed me on the sixth floor of the hospital, where I became convinced a full television production crew was filming a documentary about amputations after overseas holidays. A friend of mine who works in film even joked later that she’d happily handle the release forms for the non‑existent documentary. At the time, it all felt perfectly logical.
Another hallucination transported me to a hospital that doubled as an ABC Radio station in regional Victoria. In that reality, a nurse was also the breakfast‑show technician—checking my vitals one minute and adjusting the faders the next. I remember thinking, “Well, that’s efficient.” I’m not sure why, but they were playing an album by Grace Jones and Vince Knight as their only CD.
There were others. Many others.
I believed I was being moved between temporary hospital wards around Sydney and told a friend we should make a documentary about the staff. (Honestly, I still think that’s a good idea—but it can wait.)
I dreamed of being in a vast open space where someone kept buzzing a door no one could open. I asked a young person if I could borrow their mobile phone, only to be told, “Oh no, our generation doesn’t use mobile phones anymore.” That should’ve been my first clue that I was deep in hallucination territory.
At one point, I became absolutely convinced that a piece of medical equipment was a 1990s mobile phone and tried to call friends on it.
Some moments were less funny—like the fear that my “toxic faeces” would destroy the hospital plumbing, or the belief that a nurse was holding me hostage and threatening to blow up the building.
Looking back, I can see how external conversations seeped into my unconscious mind and were magnified into full‑blown cinematic experiences. It was like dreaming with the volume turned up.
For days after waking, I clung to the belief that some of these hallucinations were real. I even wondered whether my phone’s location tracker might confirm my “trip” to Victoria. Unfortunately, the phone was switched off, so the mystery remains unsolved.
Recently I’ve been speaking to some other amputees for a podcast, and they’ve told me similar experiences.
One woman told me about the night her elderly mother received a 3 a.m. call from the hospital. Doctors had already amputated below the knee, but the infection was so severe they needed to go higher. Her mum simply said, “Do what you have to to save a life.” That decision stabilised things—but the coma that followed brought its own strange reality.
She described it perfectly: “Being in a coma feels like you’re living a life that you’re not actually living.”
Her hallucinations were just as surreal as mine. She was in ICU near the helicopter bay at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, so the constant sound of choppers wove itself into her dreams. Somehow, she became Lara Croft, flying over the MCG on a mission to assassinate Eddie McGuire.
We laughed together about the sheer nonsense of it all, but there was comfort in knowing someone else had lived in that same blurred space between reality and imagination.
She told me about the moment she realised her own hallucinations weren’t real: waking up and proudly telling her best friend she’d spent the night racing mattresses on the hospital roof. Her friend burst into laughter, and she knew instantly—none of it happened.
That moment of recognition mirrored my own. The slow, sometimes unsettling process of stitching reality back together.
For me, friends and family found themselves confused. Some thought I had lost my mind and were facing “the new reality of James”, while others recognised what was going on. A friend who was a nurse previously humoured me, another family member, also a nurse, burst into laughter at the stories I told her.
Emerging from a coma isn’t just waking up. It’s recalibrating. It’s learning to trust your senses again. It’s accepting that your mind, under stress and medication, can create entire worlds that feel as real as the one you return to.
Talking with another amputee who had lived through the same disorienting mental landscapes helped me understand that these experiences aren’t signs of weakness or confusion—they’re part of the brain’s wild, protective, sometimes hilarious response to trauma.
And if nothing else, they make for some unforgettable stories.
I may not have raced mattresses on the roof or produced a documentary from my hospital bed, but I did live a whole other life for a while. A strange, vivid, impossible life.
Looking down from the window, it’s hard to tell if the snow is masking green fields or the frozen expanse of the Stockholm Archipelago. I flew in during the dark, and my memories of flying here in the summer months are far too distant to lean on now—those long, golden Nordic days feel like a different lifetime.
Normally, I’m a dedicated aisle seat person. As an amputee, it just makes life infinitely easier for getting to the bathroom or having that extra bit of floor space to stretch out my leg. I know that for the people sitting next to me, it sometimes means they have to wait a beat longer to shuffle past while I navigate the space, but it’s a trade-off I usually have to make. However, today the woman at check-in offered me a window seat in the fourth row. I paused for a second, but contemplating the rare opportunity to see the Swedish landscape in proper daylight, I immediately said yes. There is something grounding about seeing the world from 30,000 feet, especially when you’re heading toward a city / area as visually stunning as Stockholm.
Checking in at an airport is a much more formal “process” for me these days. I usually request wheelchair support to help navigate the sheer scale of modern terminals. The reality of the situation is that it’s often a incredibly long walk to get to the plane, and in the case of today’s flight, ours was parked at one of the furthest possible gates. I had a really good chat with the young woman pushing the wheelchair. She told me she had been to Finland many times because her father is Finnish, but she hadn’t actually done much additional travel outside of that. She looked quite young, perhaps just starting out in her career, but she was incredibly professional and kind.
Back home in Sydney, the process of going through airport security is usually quite fast. The attendants there instantly notice I have a prosthetic, and we have a silent understanding of how the screening will go. But being in a much colder climate and wearing long pants, it wasn’t instantly obvious to the staff here that I had a missing leg or that I was wearing a replacement. When they asked me if I could take my shoes off, I had to explain that I couldn’t—at least not easily. She understood why immediately, and the situation was handled with total grace. Interestingly, I had a woman perform the pat-down today. In Australia, that process is almost always strictly divided by gender, so it was a small but notable cultural difference in how security is managed here.
The other big transport difference I noticed today was on the Metro. I got onto an extremely busy carriage where every single seat was taken. Almost instantly, a younger woman identified my need for a seat and offered hers to me. It was a moment of genuine kindness that felt remarkably seamless. It stands in such stark contrast to my experiences in Sydney. Even when I’m wearing shorts and my prosthetic is clearly visible, I often have to be the one to speak up and ask for a seat on a crowded train.
I’ve thought about why that is, and I think the problem in Sydney is that most people are simply so absorbed by their phones that they don’t even bother to look up and see who is standing in front of them. People in Stockholm have mobiles, of course, but they seem far less “consumed” by them than people back home. In Sydney, it’s now quite common to literally have someone run into you while they’re walking on the street or even crossing a busy road because they won’t take their eyes off the screen. I haven’t seen that happen once since I arrived in Stockholm. There seems to be a different level of presence here.
The flight from Stockholm to London was a very pleasant two and a half hours—a perfect duration that doesn’t leave you feeling entirely drained. I’m treating this part of the trip as an important “greatest hits” side quest. The main agenda items are taking in the ABBA Voyage show—which I’ve heard is a technical marvel—and seeing a new modern stage version of Yes, Prime Minister.
It’s been almost 20 years since my last visit to London, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much easier the journey from Heathrow into the city has become. I caught the Piccadilly line and it was remarkably straightforward; I emerged from the Underground and arrived almost immediately next to my hotel, The President at Russell Square. Before I arrived, I’d read various reports about the “mountain” of stairs I might need to navigate at certain London stations. As an amputee, stairs—especially wet or crowded ones—are always a bit of a mental hurdle. I was bracing myself for a struggle, but thankfully the lifts were all in working order, making the transition from the platform to the street completely painless.
Tonight, I had dinner with a dear friend and former colleague from Sydney who now works at BBC Radio London. She was kind enough to give me a guided tour of her workplace, and as a long-time ABC person, I couldn’t help but notice the striking similarities between the two organisations. From the specific types of broadcast equipment to the general “ordered chaos” of the workplace configuration, it felt like home. It turns out there are also a huge number of Australians working in the BBC newsroom; it seems we really do get everywhere.
It was a funny sensation to be in an environment that was simultaneously familiar and entirely different. As I entered the building and waited for my friend, I played a little game in my head, trying to work out what different people’s roles were based on their appearance and how they carried themselves—comparing them to the archetypes I know so well from the ABC. The most significant difference I noticed, however, was the cultural diversity. The BBC felt much more representative of a global city, with many more “brown faces” among the staff than I usually see in our Australian newsrooms.
I also had a bit of a fan moment, taking photographs in various locations around the building that I recognised from the brilliant comedy show W1A. For anyone who hasn’t seen it, it’s a pitch-perfect mockumentary that satirises the BBC’s own corporate culture—the endless meetings about nothing, the management jargon, and the absurdly over-complicated “solutions” to simple problems. Standing in the actual lobby where those scenes were filmed was a highlight.
Over an excellent meal and a great bottle of wine, we spent several hours catching up on the massive changes in our respective lives. It’s been nearly ten years since she made the move to London, and while we stay in touch on social media, I realised it’s probably been five years since we last sat across from each other in person. We were the very last people to leave the restaurant, lost in conversation.
She was also an excellent ally to have when it came time to negotiate the public transport for the trip back. It had started to rain, which made the London streets pretty slippery, and some of the stairs we encountered were quite steep. My prosthetic can be a bit unforgiving on slick surfaces, so having someone there who understands the rhythm of the city was a huge help. Thankfully, all the lifts were working at the stations we needed for the return leg too.
After several days of bracing against the cold and wearing heavy long pants, it felt like a total luxury to finally put on my short pyjamas and hop into bed. Being an amputee means I have to keep a very close eye on the skin health of both my “good” leg and my stump. The combination of the biting outdoor cold and the dry, blasting central heating indoors had caused my skin to become quite itchy and parched. I applied some moisturiser, and the relief was instant. I think for the rest of this trip, I’ll try to wear shorts whenever the indoor environment allows for it, just to give my skin a bit of a break.
