I read somewhere the other day a statistic that one in three people over the age of fifty or something like that would live to 100. I could be wrong. I could have misread it. But even if it’s not actually true, the weight of evidence suggests we’re all living a lot longer these days.
In contrast to my mum and dad who both died in their sixties – cancer and heart disease – I’m HOPING for a reasonably long life myself.
Nonetheless, at the age of forty-five I’m conscious that I need to have my “affairs” in order in case I’m hit by bus or affected by serious illness. And so that’s why a couple of weeks ago I went to a financial advisor, and why this week I went to make a will.
Until now I’ve never really had much of a desire to make a will. As well as the fairly common reason of not wanting to think about my own mortality, I don’t have a partner and I don’t have children. On top of that, it’s reasonably likely that all of the people I’d like to leave things behind for, will either die before me or soon afterwards.
So I had to sit down this week and think really hard about the “disposal of my assets” in the event of my death. That was a hard thing to do for reasons above. But eventually I hatched a plan in my mind and went along to the Public Trustee and made my will.
I chose the Public Trustee precisely because of the reason I could be “alone” when I die. I’m not meaning to be dramatic, but it’s worth considering that at this point in my life I don’t have a partner or children (the logical people to deal with such an event), and that my closest and immediate family lives in Lismore and Brisbane. So, although I’ve spoken to a family member about being my will’s executor, I’ve got the backup of the Public Trustee who can look after things in case there’s no one around.
“Can you TRUST this person?” was a question that I was asked on several occasions by the bloke looking after my will. I wonder if the same question would have been asked if the executor had been a partner and not a family member?
It was a fascinating process to go through as a single person without parents or dependents: who do I want to leave my assets to, and who would I trust to ensure it happens.
As I watched episode one of “Tales Of The City”, I looked over at the beautiful rainbow sunset out the window. Although I’ve flown many, many times I don’t think I’ve ever noticed something like that before. As much as I wanted to lean over and take a photograph, there was a man in the window seat who I decided not to disturb.
I noticed he was reading “Quadrant”, the conservative journal. This took me quite by surprise, as the audience for Quadrant is now quite small. Niche, you might say. Twenty or thirty years ago I remember reading the magazine as part of my university studies. Though I remember it was conservative-leaning then, I don’t remember it being as conservative as it is nowadays. I’ve read a few articles online, and it’s definitely taken a swerve to the more extreme right, with views different to my own on marriage equality and the ABC. As I looked over, I saw the headline featured the word “Muslim”. With that, I went back to watching “Tales Of The City”.
I have all three series of the TV production on DVD, and so on the weekend, I backed up the first series, as something to watch during my time in Hobart. I’m back here for a few days, and then I’m returning to Sydney.
Also on the weekend, we caught up with some friends visiting from the United States. He’s American; she’s Dutch, and they’ve been together for almost twenty years. He”s retired; she’s still working. She first came to Australia about ten years ago, and this was their third visit together. With only limited annual leave, they’ve discovered a real affinity with Australia, and really enjoy their time here.
On Saturday we wandered to the Opera House where the Homeland Indigenous Arts Festival was on; and spent some wonderful leisure time sitting in the Botanic Gardens, enjoying the sunshine, the breeze, and some wonderful chat.
On Sunday, we travelled to the Central Coast, for a terrific lunch overlooking the water. Along the way, we enjoyed the wonderful landscape you can see from the train. It’s an awesome trip, and one I’d recommend for visiting tourists.
Later on Sunday I went to movie, and then ever later still called in with a mate for a drink at Sydney’s Stonewall Hotel. Every Sunday night they have a lip-synching competition, where a bunch of well-lubricated people are encouraged to take to the stage, put on a wig, and lip-synch to some well known pop divas. It’s great fun.
Ordinarily, it’s a bunch of ordinary people you wouldn’t recognise in the street. But on Sunday night, as one woman took the stage, I instantly recognised her as Elaine Crombie from Black Comedy, amongst other shows. I’m not sure how many other people recognised her. She was awesome as she performed initially as Whitney Houston, and then later, brought down the house, as she was joined on stage by some others to perform as Tina Turner. Awesome. Totally awesome!
Despite the late night, I made it to work in Sydney fairly early, ahead of heading back to Hobart.
This time around, I’m staying in an apartment above a coffee shop run by a beefy man (possibly bear) with a beard and a bun, and a hairdressing salon called Bespoke. I’m not sure if I’m cool enough, but it’s home for the next few days. It seems like an area full of restaurants, bars and public art. Yes, it seems like home.
What is it about rain and the Queen’s Birthday Holiday? Although I can’t be sure, since I haven’t checked the records, it feels like it rains every year on this holiday in Sydney. In some ways, that’s okay, since rainy day holidays can be just as much fun as the summer ones. Life indoors, cooking, socialising and so on, can be a great way to spend the long weekend. You don’t HAVE to go away.
So for me, yesterday was reasonably quiet with just a bit of shopping and cooking. And then today, has been, and will be a day for going out for dinner. A friend and I went for lunch, today, at the Bavarian Bier Cafe in Bondi. He’s having some respite respite time at an aged-care facility there. One of his concerns about moving to Bondi was that it’s sometimes difficult to get to and from the city via public transport. Today, however, I had a dream run, as it took just over thirty minutes to get from my place to his. And then tonight, I’m heading out to The Balkan. Well, if the rain holds off. Lots of meat and potato for me today. :)
But the absolute highlight of the day has been receiving an email out of the blue from someone who worked with my dad back in the late 70s and early 80s.
Bertha Ann Dunn and Albert Bernard O’Brien 1982
It was my pleasure to work with John at LBH from early 1976 til his retirement in 1981. Johnny at that time was almost as old as my grandfather and i was fresh from school so he stumbled into the job of mentoring me. I’ve only written to tell of my great admiration for him, his quiet wisdom and general no fuss attitude to get the job done. He was certainly well liked amongst his work mates and i still think of him often when one of his lessons comes to mind.
Isn’t that the most beautiful email? I was sitting on the bus coming back from Bondi when I read it and almost got a little embrassingly teary.
He’s right too. Dad was a wonderful, gentle man. I was only sixteen when he died and there are many times in my life when I would have liked a little of that wisdom. I would also have liked to have gotten to know him when I was old enough to know him as a man, and not as my dad. Unbelievably, it’s almost thirty years since he died (the anniversary is June 22). Can you believe time passes so quickly?
My mind was taken back this weekend, to my last visit to Stockholm in 2017. In particular, to Gröna Lund, the amusement park on Djurgården, located on one of the central islands of the city.
Gröna Lund
Swoon
Although you would normally associate the idea of an amusement park with a story that is light and fluffy, the film Swoon (original Swedish title “Eld & lågor”) tells a far deeper story of crime and corruption, as the original owners of the park, and a nearby park across the road competed for customers in the 1940s.
It was one of a couple of films I attended this weekend, and was part of the annual Scandinavian Film Festival in Sydney.
Eld & lågor
In some ways, Swoon had the feel of “Moulin Rouge”. There were moments of hyper-reality, and modern pop songs from the likes of ABBA and Bon Jovi were taken back to the 1940s in style to provide the film’s backdrop.
Amidst the crime and corruption, there was also a love story between a man and woman from the competing families. And there was the story of Lennart, a brother who was homosexual, who has an interesting story also. In the midst of the love story there was also darkness, both in plotline, and cinematically with most of the scenes set at night.
The film was released only a few months ago in Sweden, and so it was great to have it showing at this year’s festival.
The Man Who Played With Fire
The Man Who Played With Fire
Even more “dark” was the documentary film, “The Man Who Played With Fire”. Though best known around the world as the author of the “Millenium” trilogy, Stieg Larsson was also an active researcher and activist against the political extreme right wing in Sweden. This film goes deeply into the story of why he was so interested, what he and others did, and, more fundamentally, what caused the rise of neo-Nazism (in the 80s and 90s in Sweden), and how it has been transformed.
The film describes the relative “failure” of neo-Nazism and right wing terrorism in the 1960s and 1970s. By the 1980s, the large-scale bombings of (for example) Bologna, were replaced by day to day violence against immigrant communities, the establishment of “Viking Rock” to fund the movement through CD sales, and an increasingly mainstream (dress icely, cut your hair short) “outward appearance” which would eventually see political parties like “Sweden Democrats” end up with parliamentary representation.
Throughout all this, Stieg Larsson (and others) were writing books, newspaper articles and appearing in the media, warning about the rise of neo-Nazism. Though I have a long-term interest in Swedish politics and culture, I had no idea there was such a story of violence (including bombings and murders) occuring during this period.
The film was about 100 minutes long, and it was compelling throughout.
The White Crow
Oleg Ivenko in The White Crow
And then today I also went to see “The White Crow”, the biographical film about Rudolph Nureyev. Beyond a scant understanding that he was one of the great dancers of his generation, and had defected from the USSR, I had little previous knowledge of his life story.
A story which began as he was born on a train in the 1930s. Though his family was poor, he had a natural talent, and eventually became of the USSR’s great dancers. The film portrays his curiosity of the outside world from a very young age. The film jumps back and forward between his early life, his life in Leningrad, and finally, his life in Paris.
I enjoyed the film very much. It’s visually very beautiful, and the ballet, of course, is superb. But of course, there’s also the complexity of his life story that also intrigues, and made me come home immediately, and read as much as possible as I could about him.
It’s late Monday afternoon and I’m thankful my family are safe and sound.
They don’t have any power, they don’t have any food, and they don’t have any clothes.
Like, seriously no clothes aside from the ones they were wearing when they were evacuated from their homes in South Lismore.
Anyone who has ever been to Lismore knows the city floods — hardly a year goes by without the river coming up.
The first big flood that I remember as a child was in 1974. All around Lismore there are signs that highlight that.
The ’74 flood was the biggest on record. But I remember my dad’s sister-in-law Eileen Crummey/O’Brien — a well-known local First Nations woman — talking about floods of similar heights to this week’s in the days prior to European settlement.
Back in ’74 the CBD was inundated as well as parts of North and South Lismore. All of our family’s houses in South Lismore escaped the worst because our houses were built on stilts, as is pretty common in Lismore.
But this year’s flood has gone so much higher.
In ’74 the flood peaked at 12.15 metres. This time, the flood will peak 2m higher than that!
During the 1954 flood, Mum, Dad, Granny, Uncle John, and my four older sisters had to live in the roof cavity of their low-set house for several days as the water swirled below.
Almost 70 years later and only one member of the family survives; my sister Pat. Never in her wildest dreams did she think she would ever be in that position again.
But, today, she found herself sitting on a chair on the kitchen benchtop, with water up to her chest.
She lives in a high-set house now and, when this flood has peaked, she will have had about 2m of water in the upper level of her house.
Pat’s husband Jack and their grandson Sam stood in the water as they waited for boats to rescue them.
I checked in with them all a few times overnight but by early morning I suggested they evacuate.
“Can you get out? I think you need to get out,” I told Pat.
By that time, they had already moved their cars to higher ground and the water was coming up, so they were effectively trapped in their houses.
Thank God the rescue boats arrived in the early daylight hours. They were assisted into the boat via a narrow kitchen window and were taken to the nearby Ballina Street Bridge.
Pat is a little bruised from the experience, but thank God she’s alive.
When I spoke to them on the bridge, there were about 20 other people with them.
The SES told them they couldn’t transport them any further at that stage as they still had another 200 people to rescue.
However, Pat has a lung problem, and her resuscitation machine was covered in water, so an ambulance was called to come and pick her up to take her to Lismore Base Hospital.
Jack and Sam went to the evacuation centre at Southern Cross University until later joining other relatives at a home in Goonellabah, which is up on the hill.
Rescue boats on the Ballina Street Bridge
Everyone has also been joined by my niece Karran and her young family who took refuge in the roof of their two-story house in South Lismore.
I never ever thought I’d recommend that Karran would need to grab a ladder and climb up into the roof, but that’s just what they did.
“That’s what Mum and Dad did in ’54, and I think you should do that too”, I told her.
After a few hours, another family member was able to use his fishing boat to rescue them. This involved a long ride over several kilometres to finally reach safety. The depth and the strength of the fast-flowing floodwater made it frightening to travel in.
“We were at the same level as the electricity wires,” Karran told me.
“I kept the girls’ faces covered — so they couldn’t see anything.”
We all know it’s likely some people have drowned.
No one in Lismore expected such extreme flooding. Both recent arrivals and long-term locals like my family never expected anything worse than the ’74 flood.
It’s been a roller coaster of a day for my family in Lismore, and me. We’ve stayed in touch hourly, though there’s a bit of radio silence now, as mobile phones have started to run out of charge.
“We don’t have any power, so I’ll have to go and sit in the car or go around for a drive,” Pat’s daughter Michelle joked when we spoke earlier today.
I’ve done a couple of spots on ABC Radio today to tell the story of what they’ve gone through. Everyone needs to know how bad this is, and when the time is right, I hope people will support my beautiful hometown.
It’s Saturday afternoon and I’ve just arrived back from an interesting walk around Central Sydney. I feel pretty good about life and pretty good about the world. And I really enjoyed my walk, so I thought I’d share a few hours of my life with you.
As it was Saturday, I started off the morning, as usual, watching “The Simpsons” and “Will & Grace” on Foxtel. In the case of both programs I never really liked them when they first appeared on television. Indeed, when “The Simpsons” were a part of “The Tracey Ullmann Show” I considered them a painful interruption. Now, however, they’re both firm favourites and I really enjoy a couple of hours on the couch watching them.
Concerned, however, that I’d spend the day on the couch, I decided to head out for some sunshine. Walking down Crown Street, I cast my eye briefly towards the Surry Hills Markets. The markets have been going for several years now, and although they’re very popular, they don’t do all that much for me. Like the annual “Surry Hills Festival”, I both love them and hate them. I love them because they display a great sense of community. I hate them because they’re actually pretty daggy.
As I walked down Oxford Street, food was high on my level of consciousness. Walking past Starbucks and countless number of “gay cafes”, I found myself having a coffee and almond tart at a really nice little patisserie. I really hate those “gay cafes”. You know the ones where tables of men sit watching the world go by, eating bad tasting and overpriced food and coffee, served by skinny young things with too much attitude.
From there I wandered further down Oxford Street, bought one of those great aloe vera soft drinks I like so much at the IGA Supermarket and then spent half an hour of so enjoying the sunshine in Hyde Park. It’s interesting to lie there in the sun and consider the close physical proximity between those who, like me, are reasonably well off and can enjoy laying on the grass and those who are very poor, homeless, and for whom laying on the grass is a reality.
I then walked over to St Mary’s Cathedral and went in for a few moments of prayer. Am I being the best person I can possibly be? Am I living the lifestyle I should? Am I behaving in my personal and work relationship the way I should?
Upon leaving St Mary’s I was reminded that it’s Hiroshima Day, so I wandered over to the rally in the park. I remember as a teenager and young adult that Hiroshima Day was always an important day on the calendar. Maybe that’s because I grew up in Lismore on the NSW North Coast where the peace movement was strong? Maybe it was because memories of the Second World War were still high in the minds of people I knew. But now, sixty years since the end of the Second World War, just a small crowd, maybe a couple of hundred, were gathered in Hyde Park. It almost seemed as if there were more people selling buttons for Friends Of The Earth or copies of Green Left Weekly than there were people listening and absorbing the messages.
I then walked up through town, finally ending up in Chinatown where I had steamed dumplings in a small cafe in the Burlington Centre.
Yesterday marked another gathering for our First Sunday Roast Club—a tradition a group of four of us has kept going for the last couple of years. True to the name, we aim to get together on the first Sunday of every month to track down a great roast and document the experience along the way. We were a bit late this month, and we’ll be a bit late next month also, due to our commitments.
Unfortunately, we were one person down this month. One of our crew has been motorcycling across the desert in Mongolia of all places! He has been sharing some wonderful photographs of the trip, but we certainly missed having him at the table.
For yesterday’s lunch, we headed to BrewDog at Redfern.
While the inside of the venue features a striking industrial design that nods to its railway history, we decided to soak up the fresh air and opt for an outdoor table instead. We thoroughly enjoyed the venue, the atmosphere, and the meal itself.
At $35 each, the roast hit the spot. While we all agreed there was probably a bit too much Yorkshire pudding on the plate, the individual components were fantastic—especially the roast potatoes, which were particularly wonderful.
Aside from our Sunday lunch, it has been a pretty quiet week mostly spent outside of work hours diving into my podcast, The Limb Shift. Last week, I interviewed three fascinating people. I have already written about one of them on the blog, and I am currently working through the other two episodes. Stay tuned…
Meanwhile, I had some noisy visitors on the weekend.
I’m used to a handful of Little Corellas (white cockatoos) dropping by my balcony, but on Satrday the trees outside my place in Surry Hills were absolutely packed with hundreds of them. A gorgeous, albeit deafening, addition to a Saturday afternoon!
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4 Comments
Years ago my parents were updating their wills and they wanted my opinion on certain provisions they were proposing but I wasn’t interested in discussing the matter prinicpally because my view was it was their wills and a matter for them to determine the contents as they wished.
My parents were annoyed by my lack of interest arguing that as their sole descendant it was important for me to be consulted and be in agreement.
Now, years later, with both parents deceased and like you with me having no partner nor children I have a better appreciation of why they put so much thought into their wills.
Andrew – teeheheh
Victor – yes it’s interesting to hear about how important it is for gay men and lesbians to make sure their partners are protected in the event of their death, but it’s equally important for singles took, i reckon.
Years ago my parents were updating their wills and they wanted my opinion on certain provisions they were proposing but I wasn’t interested in discussing the matter prinicpally because my view was it was their wills and a matter for them to determine the contents as they wished.
My parents were annoyed by my lack of interest arguing that as their sole descendant it was important for me to be consulted and be in agreement.
Now, years later, with both parents deceased and like you with me having no partner nor children I have a better appreciation of why they put so much thought into their wills.
I hope you spelt my name correctly. I don’t want any complications.
Andrew – teeheheh
Victor – yes it’s interesting to hear about how important it is for gay men and lesbians to make sure their partners are protected in the event of their death, but it’s equally important for singles took, i reckon.
Oh, Andrew, you know that it’s *my* name he needs to spell correctly!
But you’re right, James. It’s important for everyone, no matter what their situation. And you also need to remake it if your situation changes, too.