Friday
Nothing much to report. I had to work late due to our broadcast of the NSW Poetry Slam.
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Problem Solved
Thank you to everyone who offered suggestions about how to deal with the crackberry. Those who suggested only using it during work hours were on the mark, I thought. And those who suggested making it clear about the lines in which people could or could not contact me were also pretty good. But I’d like to extend my greatest thanks to the person who organised for someone to break into my apartment last night and steal it.
And no, I’m not joking. When I woke this morning I went looking for the crackberry and couldn’t find it. “Odd”, I thought to myself, so I checked all of the unusual and silly places such as inside the fridge or the microwave. And so I called it, and it went straight to voice mail. “It’s here somewhere”, I thought to myself, and I’m sure I’ll find it later today. And then I went looking for my wallet, and that was missing too.
“Oh my goodness, someone has broken into my house while I was asleep”, I soon realised. Feeling a little embarrassed to have to make the call (in case I was just absent-minded), I held off for a few minutes before calling my boss to tell him I was gonna be late. And then all of a sudden I blurted it out, “I think I’ve been broken into while I’ve been asleep”.
Thankfully I didn’t lose much. Work will cover the phone, thank goodness. I’m pissed off about the camera, since it was such a nifty little thing, though thankfully all of the photographs were backed up. And there were only a few dollars in my wallet (they really should have robbed someone who hasn’t just spent three months traveling around Europe), but I did lose the cards which is a pain. Most traumatic was the loss of my Lismore Workers Club Membership Card which guarantees me six free beers when I return home for Christmas!! So yes, I can still laugh.
And I’m also quite philosophical about things. I was reassured that I wasn’t the only stupid person who has slept through a burglary when my boss told me the same had happened to him and his wife a few years ago.
In fact, today at work a few people have told me stories of having slept through burglaries. “My friend lives on the fourth floor and her house was broken into”, a friend and colleague told me late this afternoon. Also today Damo told me of a friend of his who lives on the eleventh floor of an apartment door, and was broken into.
Through sheer athletic strength, it’s not uncommon, apparently, for people to climb up the side of apartment blocks and climb through windows and balcony doors. I know, for sure I bolted the front door last night, I’m less sure about the balcony door. And I’m guessing that’s where they gained entry.
The police arrived really quickly this morning and fingerprinted the balcony door. I couldn’t believe how fast they were, as they arrived literally minutes after my report to the Police Assistance Line. “We were just around the corner”, they told me when I remarked at how quickly they arrived.
“Don’t worry about the mess”, I told them, as they came through the door. “The place hasn’t been ransacked”, I joked, “it always looks like this”.
They fingerprinted the door but nothing showed up, unfortunately.
“Are you okay? Do you need to speak to someone?”, one of them said to me, sensing the tears were welling up in my eyes at one point. “If it’s any consolation”, she told me, “they wouldn’t have wanted a confrontation if you’d woken up”.
In some ways, I’m glad I slept through it. A friend of mine who is much older than me came home a few months ago to discover a burglar in his house. I’m glad I didn’t have to confront that. That would have really freaked me out, I’m sure. No, I just slept through it all.
I guess I did, however, sense that something must have been wrong, as I woke briefly in the middle of the night. Within a few seconds, though, I was fast asleep again until half-past five this morning. It wasn’t until I was ready to go to work that I noticed anything was wrong. Nothing had really been disturbed.
The only thing that’s a little disturbed is me. If I’d been mugged or something like that I would have felt grief or anger or something like that. But because it all happened in the middle of the night while I was fast asleep I just feel odd.
While some of you might think it’s ironic that I went away for 10 weeks and left the house empty and nothing happened, I think the ultimate irony is that it all happened while I was fast asleep in my bed. If I’d done my usual trick of falling asleep on the couch watching the television it would have been a far different story.
PS… In chatting with friends today and tonight, I’ve been reminded there are some things about living in the city you just don’t tell your family in the country about. A friend reminded me she has never told her family she was once mugged. Another friend reminded me she has never told her family about her house being broken into. For a lot of people, Sydney is a scary place they don’t want to hear about. This is probably one of the stories. So if you’re a family member who reads this blog, please keep it to yourself or else everyone else will just worry. OK?
Pa Svenska
For the last few weeks, you may recall, I have been learning Swedish at the Lutheran Cafe in Goulburn Street. I have found some aspects of the course quite easy, and others quite difficult. I think I have a good ear for the language and I think my pronunciation has been quite good. My comprehension is generally quite good, seeing similarities in English and German. I have found it sometimes hard, though, knowing how to respond verbally.
Our homework for the week was to write a short introductory essay about ourselves, based on the work we have done so far. It’s really hard to say something interesting in the present tense – as we haven’t moved on to past and future tenses yet – without sounding like a complete nong. Here is an excerpt…
Jag vackner klocken fyra eller fem och stiger upp klocken fem eller sex. Jag dricker en kopp kaffe til frukost. Jag duschar klocken sju. Jag arbeter fran atta til fem eller sex.
Sedan komma hem och jag lyssna till musik. Jag lyssna pa Agnetha Faltskog, Annifrid Lyngstad och manga andra artister.
Jag ar inte gift, och inte barn.
Jag laser svenska pa en kvallskurs. Jag vill resa till Sverige.
As you can see, I’m not really ready for sophsticated conversations about life, the universe and everything yet.
Melodifestivalen 2015 #2
I’m quite a fan of the Swedish pop singer, Magnus Carlsson. To be precise, Magnus who was in Swedish pop bands Barbados and Alcazar, not Magnus Carlson (one “s”) who was in Swedish indie band, “Weeping Willows”. I even met him once, briefly, at a bar in Stockholm (see photo below). Although his obsession with recording Christmas albums is something I still don’t understand (beyond the fact they sell well), he can be relied upon for really great pop tunes. His self-titled solo album remains a firm favourite. Along the way, he has released songs in both English and Swedish, and has competed in Melodifestivalen, the Swedish finals leading to Eurovision on several occasions. Thus, when I heard the news a few months ago he would be competing again this year, I was pretty excited.
His song this year, “Möt Mig I Gamla Stan” (Meet me in the old town (part of Stockholm)” is “classic” Magnus Carlsson, and although I like it, and it has made it through to the final, I can’t help but wonder if it’s a bit “old school” to make it through to Eurovision. Over the last decade, with one or two exceptions, the Swedes have tended to vote for younger, more contemporary sounding singers and songs than the classic “key change schlager” songs they’ve been known for many year.
Aside from Magnus, there were two other songs which stood out for me this week for completely different reasons. Even though they were a bit off tune in their performance, and there’s nothing much to the tune, I thought “Groupie” by Samir and Viktor is a bit of fun, with a lyric that declares the end of the “selfie”. Totally forgettable, of course, but they had a good energy, even if the song was pretty rubbish and they couldn’t really sing. I also really liked “Forever Starts Today” by Linus Svenning, who competed in last year’s contest with “Bröder” also. It’s one of those rousing Eurovision sing-a-long numbers with a killer hook. Linus is a young guy with tats who, in Australia, probably wouldn’t be caught dead competing in a Eurovision pop song contest, but who in Sweden is totally at home.
Other competitors this week were: Emelie Irewald with “Där Och Då Med Dig” (a nice enough ballad); Neverstore with “If I Was God For One Day” (a fairly dated sounding 80/90s power ballad); Marie Bergman and Sanne Salomonsen with “Nonetheless” (a pretty song with lovely harmonies); and Mariette with “Don’t Stop Believing” (pretty good song, powerful, and with a slight Tory Amos feel to it).
Scanning The Past
Although I was a reasonably fat as a baby and I’m reasonably fat right now, there was a time from about 1980 to 1990 when I was actually quite thin. In fact, you might say I was waif-like in this particular photograph taken in about 1982. Any wonder my mum kept trying to feed me :)
I discovered this photograph which I’d long forgotten while going through some family albums with my sister tonight. The imperative for this particular bout of nostalgic activity was my purchase for her of an electronic photo frame for Christmas. I pre-loaded for her about 50 older and more recent family photographs, mindful that she had a lot of photographs I don’t have copy of. The quid pro quo was that I got copies of lots of photographs, and she got someone to load some more photographs into the frame.
We had a pretty good production line going on. My sister went through the albums identifying suitable photographs for scanning and carefully removing them from the albums, I scanned them and did the appropriate photo-shop work, and my nephew replaced the photographs in the albums. It took us maybe a couple of hours to scan and edit about a hundred photographs. Along the way there was a lot of laughter.
Here’s a couple of favourites from tonight’s activities
Family Reunion
It’s so funny meeting people who know people you know, but who not so many people know anymore. Below, you’ll see the black and white photograph of my mum and my granny I showed to an older, family member I met at yesterday’s Rixon-Goodwin Family Reunion at Windsor in Sydney’s West. Both mum and granny died back in the 1980s, and there aren’t too many people around now who remember them.
We’re both descended from William Rixon and Ann Hoare, and before that from James Rixon and Amelia Goodwin, and John Hoare and Elizabeth Love, who were all early European settlers in Australia, being a combination of free and convict settlers.
Amy’s mother, Ruby, and my granny, Bertha were sisters, in a rather complex family story involves stories of illegitimacy, intermarriage, and a fair amount of hiding the truth.
Though Amy’s life was in Sydney, and our life was in Lismore, it was terrific to chat with her about the common stories we both shared. “Oh yes, I heard about the two brothers who got all the money”, I told her. “Is that mum?”, she said, when I showed her the photograph. “Oh no, that’s Bertha”, we told her, though noting the physical similarity between the two sisters.
We’re all convinced there’s a lot more to the story of our common ancestor, Ellen Laing, and no doubt, someday, we’ll find out more about the truth of the matter. But in the meantime, it remains a wonderful mystery, a wonderful detective story.
That, and catching up with my distant cousin, Barry (Gus) O’Brien who has done a tremendous amount of work tracing one of the many other sides of my own complex identity.
“Have you done the DNA test?”, both Barry, and another relative, Kerrie, asked me. “No I haven’t”, I told them, adding that it has been sitting on my desk at work for a few months. “I’m definitely going to do the test and submit it this week”, I told them, though noting it could possibly identify more questions than answers.
SLIDESHOW PRESENTATION FROM REUNION DAY
Duration 16 minutes
Right-click and download the Power Point file (189 megabyes).James Rixon and Amelia Goodwin
Right-click and download the video file (medium resolution 196 megabyes).James Rixon and Amelia Goodwin
Right-click and download the video file (high resolution 387 megabyes).James Rixon and Amelia Goodwin
PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE DAY
William Rixon and Ann Hoare Descendants
Joye Rixon Walsh, reunion organiser extraordinaire.
Rixon Reunion 220 Years
Rixon Reunion 220 Years
Rixon Reunion 220 Years
Yearly Review – 2018
“Where will you live? Will you live in Goonellabah?”, a relative asked me on the phone the other night, when I told her about my retirement plans, which involve returning to my hometown, Lismore. “Oh no, not Goonellabah, but most definitely somewhere on the hill, probably East Lismore”, I told her. Having grown up on the flood plain of South Lismore, and having seen my family live through the anguish of last year’s big flood, the fairly vague plan for retirement in Lismore is clear on one matter: it will be somewhere on the hill.
Not that retirement is imminent, as it’s still seven years before my defined-benefit superannuation pension kicks in. But it’s something I’ve been thinking about this year, as there’s been a bit of upheaval at my workplace lately.
As you’ll have read or seen, the ABC has gone through some ups and downs recently. In the last few years, lots of my peers have either left voluntarily or through redundancy. I’m hoping when the time comes for me to leave, it will be at a time of my own choosing.
A few weeks ago, I celebrated twenty-nine years at the ABC, which is quite remarkable in modern terms. In that time, I’ve had three distinct careers, both on and off the radio. In my current job, I’m probably the happiest I’ve ever been, as it has a really good balance between fact-based decision making, and the more instinctive decision-making based on the so-called “x-factor” of creativity. This year, I also celebrated forty-years since I first started in radio.
But yes, I’m conscious that I’m not getting any younger, and often find myself in a room at work full of much younger people. I don’t get the impression they think of me as “that old bloke” yet, though perhaps I’m fooling myself?
I’m also conscious that friends and family are getting older too. And with aging comes health problems. A health problem of my own from a couple of years ago has re-emerged, and I’ve recently noticed a few skin cancers that I’ll need to get treated. This year one of my nearest and dearest friends had a major health scare. Thankfully, the breast cancer was identified early, and she has had some awesome medical support. She opted for a complete mastectomy – “cut that shit out”, she said – and is about to go in for her third round of reconstructive surgery.
In many ways, it was the year of friendship, as the most memorable moments of 2018 for me were the times spent with friends. Eating together, chatting, and doing stuff.
Aside from that, there’s no great “headline” for my 2018 – Year In Review: no major travel, no major career change, and no major romance. Even so, “the year of friendship” is a pretty good headline.
