As it’s now exactly one month until the Eurovision Song Contest final, I thought I might start sharing each day some of my favourite moments from Eurovision and Melodifestivalen (the Swedish contest).
This is from Loreen from Sweden who won with Euphoria in 2012. Interestingly, the first Indigenous woman to win the contest (Berber from North Africa). The year afterwards, she performed her winning song at Sweden’s #melfest with a choir of students with a hearing disability.
It’s absolutely beautiful, and will bring a tear and absolutely joy to even the hardest heart. And I was there!!!!
On Saturday night, Colin and I went to see a play “We’ll Always Have Wagga” at the Newtown Theatre. Inspired to enjoy a little nostalgia on the play’s basic premise that everyone has a connection with Wagga Wagga, we made our way in the much welcome rain on Saturday night.
Synopsis: Bella had it all while attending Uni at Wagga: a promising acting career and the love of her life, Adrian. Ten years later she’s back in Sydney, single and working in a café. Her latest ex-boyfriend Sonny is stalking her, her heavily pregnant ex-best friend Gina won’t let her forget her woes and her co-worker Daria – an ex-cult member with serious mental problems – is no help at all! Her only salvation is her best friend Heath, who can’t seem to stop telling people exactly what he thinks of them! Bella’s life is ready to explode when Adrian walks into her café – and back into her life – with his fiancée, Josephine in-tow.
I don’t mean to be harsh, but we really shouldn’t have bothered, as we both thought the play was poorly scripted, poorly directed, and poorly acted. Enough said.
Last night, we also hit the town for something far more pleasant, a late night cabaret show at Statement Bar featuring Hayden Tee. As a performer, Hayden has come a long way since the regular late night spot at The Stables which we used to attend regularly. A little beefier than he used to be, he’s also grown as a performer: more confident, more rounded, more authentic, and with a wonderful voice. But most of all, more authentic, lacking some of the youthful nervousness evident in the days of “Muftee”. Hayden has grown into a really wonderful performer, and last night’s show was a joy to behold.
Tonight, I went to see a preview of “Clubland”, a new Australian film set in Western Sydney. The film stars Brenda Blethyn (the English actress probably best known for her role in Mike Leigh’s “Secrets and Lies”) as a formerly famous stand-up comedian, now working daytime in the canteen at Silverwater Prison, but spending her nights playing the RSL clubs, and dreaming of her “big break”. Although blessed with two wonderful sons, she’s deeply unhappy often hitting the bottle, and she maintains an unhealthy level of control over her son’s lives. The film is really terrific, genuinely warm and sad (and I cried a little towards the end), but also funny, though not in a “belly laugh” kind of way. Honestly, one of the loveliest Australian films I’ve seen in quite some time. It opens in May.
And then of course, I came home tonight to watch the Academy Awards. I mean, they’re basically the same each year, aren’t they? Some lame-arsed comedian delivering lame-arsed jokes and then, when they don’t get a laugh, they’re somehow being ironic. Lots of young actors and actresses I’ve never heard of, belated recognition for actors and directors previously ignored for most of their career, varying degrees of applause for the “death roll” of a bunch of people I’ve never heard of, and the occasional moment of honesty and sincerity, such as Forrest Whitaker’s acceptance speech. Sorry, I should stop, shouldn’t I?
At Saturday’s BBQ, I’m sure I bored a couple of people here and here with tales of Swedish pop band, West End Girls, who do covers of songs by Pet Shop Boys.
Not content with boring two people, I thought I’d bore you as well…
The transformation of “our end” of Crown Street continues with the imminent closure of another long-term local business.
For as long as I’ve been living in Surry Hills, I’ve been popping in to our local “variety store”. As befits the area, it’s more than a “two dollar shop”, selling a variety of “stuff”. Most of my purchases have been around various plugs for electronic equipment, wrapping paper, and picnic gear. It’s also been a great place to pick up half a dozen wine cheap, replaceable wine glasses and some laundry detergent or dish-washing liquid in preference to Coles.
Coles really has taken over the area for many of these types of purchases. You see people going in now just to purchase a bottle of milk, especially with the self-serve terminals which make it – usually – so much faster.
I guess the problem for our Variety Store was that they weren’t selling anything you couldn’t find at Coles at a cheaper price. The selling point for me, though, was always convenience. It was just a few hundred metres away. And I liked that it has been owned by a lovely couple. When I saw the “closing down” sign the other day I popped in to say g’day and wish them all the best. It’s been apparent sales have been slow for a while as they’ve had a number of sales in the last twelve months. As I wished him the best, he told me he was looking forward to a new less busy life.
They’re open for three more weeks with a “half-price sale”, so I plan to pop in a few more times to help make sure their shelves are empty when they leave.
And the future for the store? Presumably, it’ll be replaced by a cafe, a restaurant or day-spa, as seems to be more and more the case with “our end” of Crown Street.
Today, I’m sharing an interview with former NRL referee Bill Harrigan from my own career archives, having worked in radio for a fairly long time.
I’m not too sure how many people outside of dedicated Rugby League fans remember Bill now, but back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he was a legend—the face of refereeing in the game. When he released his autobiography, The Bill Harrigan Story, I interviewed him about his life both on and off the field.
🎙️ Summary of the Bill Harrigan Interview
In this interview, Bill Harrigan offers a rare perspective on refereeing Rugby League, explaining that he can’t enjoy the game like a spectator because he’s constantly focusing on rules and angles, noting that television angles often misrepresent his view. He addresses the public perception that he is “arrogant” and “up himself,” stating that his autobiography was intended to change that view by revealing his background as a police officer and his personality. Harrigan recounts a terrifying experience in 1985 while serving with the Tactical Response Group during the Bathurst bike riots, where he was fire-fighting police officers hit by Molotov cocktails and had to run for his life after chasing a rioter. He clarifies that he left the police force not due to fear, but for the opportunity to become a full-time referee in 1995. Finally, he shares the humorous anecdote of appearing on the dating show Perfect Match in the early eighties to win a travel prize, admitting he and his match “spiced it up” for the cameras even though he was seeing someone else. He concludes by expressing concern about his career prospects after retirement, noting the financial necessity of finding a new job immediately.
🎙️ ABC ARCHIVES: Interview with Bill Harrigan
Bill Harrigan: First. I’m involved in the game that much that it’s a methodical thing where I’m just going through the rules and watching the play and calling the shots and all that sort of thing. So I don’t get to enjoy it like a spectator does in the grandstand all back in, you know, sitting in their lounge room. And that’s why I’ve got to go home and watch it. And I haven’t had an opportunity yet. I’ve been too busy since the grand final. But in saying that too, I get a whole a different view to what you do. And a lot of people make this mistake. They go, oh, why didn’t he see that forward pass? But they’re seeing it from the camera angle or from where they’re sitting in the grandstand. Now, when I’m down on ground level, I’m looking through I’ve got a different angle completely. So I’ve got a different perspective of it. I’ve got players in front of me. Um, I may be looking at something else and just miss something. And yet people say, oh, how could he miss that? But they’re seeing a completely different angle to what I am.
James O’Brien: Do you ever get confused by what’s going on? Do you ever find yourself thinking, hang on, stuff’s going on here. I don’t know what’s going on.
Bill Harrigan: You do that sometimes if you get a pinball effect. And that is when someone kicks the ball and then it hits somebody and it ricochets off him and hits somebody else and then hits somebody else, and then all of a sudden somebody’s got the ball and running and you’re thinking, what happened there? And then you quickly replay it back in your mind and you go hit him. Went to him, went to him. It’s okay. Play on or you go knock on.
James O’Brien: So even though if it’s not immediately obvious, you still can sort of recount things.
Bill Harrigan: Yeah. The biggest thing is to try and get it right. And so sometimes you may have a, it might only be a second, second and a half delay in making a decision, but that seems like an eternity to everybody else because you’re thinking, jeez, he blew that whistle late. What’s going on? But what you’re doing is you’re replaying it over in your mind and you’re going, bang! Yeah, that happened, that happened, that happened. Oh yeah. Play on or do this. And that’s why the delays there.
James O’Brien: Now you’re out and about promoting your autobiography. Why do you think people want to read the Bill Harrigan story?
Bill Harrigan: Um, well, I’m hoping I’ve got a profile big enough and people are interested enough to pick up the book and have a look at it. And when they do, and they read about it because it’s not just about football and about my refereeing days. It’s about days in the cops and growing up and my beliefs and that sort of thing. But I think the biggest thing that I’m trying to achieve there is there is a perception of who Bill Harrigan is or who I’m like.
James O’Brien: What do you think the perception is?
Bill Harrigan: Well, the perception is that this bloke’s up himself and he’s arrogant and all that sort of thing. And and my wife had that at the start with the guy who wrote the book with me, Daniel Lane. His attitude was, yeah, this this bloke’s Hollywood. He’s certainly changed. When you pick up the book and you read it, I think you’ll change your opinion.
James O’Brien: There are some really interesting little bits of trivia in the book that I came across. I mean, obviously we know the big picture story, but there are a couple of nice little stories that I hope you might tell. Uh, in the mid eighties, you were part of the Tactical Response group of the New South Wales Police. You were in a pretty dangerous situation in Bathurst at Easter with the bike riots. Can you explain what happened there?
Bill Harrigan: Yes. Nineteen eighty five Bathurst bike races. And every year it’s. And it’s not bikie gangs either. It’s just bikers who go up there and some of them then drink too much. Think okay, let’s have a bit of fun. We’ll go out and we’ll rock the police compound. And so they start rocking it with bottles and rocks. Then it becomes Molotov cocktails and soaked toilet rolls and petrol. So they’re all flaming on fire.
James O’Brien: How old were you at the time?
Bill Harrigan: Um, back then, I was twenty five years of age, and I’d been, uh, two and a half, three years in the elite Tactical Response Group. I was in that from day one when it first was put together. Um, we’d trained for it. We got called up to help protect the twelve police officers that were just up there roaming the, you know, the hill and policing the hill just as they normally would. Um, they come under fire. So we got called up there. Out we went. By this time, there was a crowd of, you know, around four thousand people had surrounded the compound and the compound was on fire. The roof was on fire. They were out there trying to put that out. There was bottles and rocks being slammed all over the place, and we had to run out and try and stop the crowd from attacking the compound and just disperse them.
James O’Brien: How scared were you?
Bill Harrigan: Well, I was packing it. Yeah, absolutely. packing it. And, um, you know, you can put a lot more blunt than that, but we won’t. Um, but I was very scared out there. I was fearful for my life. Because in the end, as things happen, I got blokes standing beside me getting hit with Molotov cocktails. And the first hour and a half I was the fireman of of a particular line which had twelve fellows in it. If a molotov cocktail or a firebomb come over, I would run to where it looked like it was going to land. If it landed amongst our team, we wouldn’t break our line. You had to stand there and and cop it. So when it shattered, the petrol would flame and it would engulf that person. So we had fire resistant uniforms and everything on, but you still were lit up. My job was to straight away douse him with the extinguisher, put him out, and then if he had got on me, then whack it off on me as well. So that’s what I did. For the first hour and a half. One police officer, he panicked. He turned and ran. He broke the line and was running away. And I had to chase him. You can see me on footage running after him, um, trying to put him out with this extinguisher. Then after that, I went off the fireman’s position for other reasons, and I come back out into the line. And then we were called to charge, and we’d charge forward and move the crowd back, and then we’d have to regroup when we heard the whistle. And on one occasion, there was one guy who was urinating in bottles, throwing him at us, hitting us. Coppers were going down left, right and centre from this guy, and two of us chased him and we got that close to him when we heard the whistle blow to come back and reform. And both of us thought we’ve got him. And so we just went that a little bit further, chasing him, and all of a sudden we’ve chased him too far and we found ourselves amongst a crowd that then turned on us, and we end up having to run for our lives.
James O’Brien: Was it incidents like that which convinced you to leave the police force?
Bill Harrigan: No. I only left the police force eventually because I was offered the job full time refereeing. And that was something.
James O’Brien: That because you were doing part time refereeing at this stage, weren’t you?
Bill Harrigan: Yeah, I was still part time refereeing, and that was back in eighty five. And I went full time in ninety five.
James O’Brien: Was it was it a hard decision or. Um.
Bill Harrigan: No. It was. Well, yeah, it took a long time. But in the end I always I thought I was juggling refereeing and family and police work. So at the end of nineteen ninety five, I was going to retire. All I wanted to do was have one year with the new expanded competition. Because Perth had come into the competition, Auckland had come into the competition, then Super League came along in ninety five and offered full time work for referees. And so I said, yeah, that’s me. I want to have a go at this. And then I didn’t have to juggle everything around.
James O’Brien: The other bit of trivia I found from reading your book is that you were once back in the early eighties on the notorious TV show Perfect Match.
Bill Harrigan: Yes, I.
James O’Brien: Was. And you were picked.
Bill Harrigan: And I was.
James O’Brien: Picked. Okay. Can you tell us what happened there?
Bill Harrigan: Yeah, I went on that, and that was well before I was a first grade referee. So I was just unknown back in those days. But I went on I had the travel bug and I thought, yeah, I’d love to go on this. And they’re giving prizes out to travel to Bali and cruises and all that sort of thing. Why not? Yeah. So I’ll go on it. I went on there, fortunate enough to be picked, had a weekend trip to Bali, um, came back, told our story, went back on the show, ended up being the perfect match. As far as the Dexter rating goes with Wendy, the girl that chose me. We had a seventy five percent match rating, so we got an extra prize. We got one stereo system each, and I just thought the whole thing was fun and it was a great time.
James O’Brien: But you were seeing someone else at the time?
Bill Harrigan: Yes. So I had another girlfriend and I met her after I’d already applied for the show. And so I said, look, I’ve applied for this perfect match, so, you know, should I go on? And she said, yeah, that’d be great, go on and have some fun. So I did go on it. And when we came back, Wendy and I did say, look, ten couples go away each week. Only five get back on the show to tell their story. If we don’t get on, let’s make it. We really didn’t get on. So they want us to go back on the show. And if we do get on, let’s just spice it up a little bit to make it look like we really did get on well. So we still get on there to get the next prize. Yeah. Um, we got on, so we spiced it up, but it was just too spicy.
James O’Brien: See the showman even then, weren’t you?
Bill Harrigan: Yeah, I suppose so.
James O’Brien: Got me in terms of your future. Now what? After you retire from being a referee.
Bill Harrigan: If I decide to retire in the off season, which is what I’m contemplating, whether I come back again for another year or not. Um, I hope that there’s something out there for him in the media. I really I’m at a loss because I had seventeen and a half years in the police. Um, I’ve given that away and I’m thinking, okay, what am I going to do now? And, you know, the money that I’ve earned from refereeing is not enough to turn around and say, hey, I can give this one. No wonder I’m nowhere near what the players earn. So I have to get a job. So as soon as I retire, I’ve got to go and get a job. Otherwise mortgage and food on the table and everything just goes out the door. Um, so I’m just like anybody else there. What I’m going to do, I don’t know. And certainly that will come into consideration.
I often tell younger colleagues that we’re lucky these days to get one scroll on a mobile phone, perhaps two. If you don’t communicate the core point in the first couple of sentences, the message is lost, because no one gets that far. Sounds pessimistic I know.
This concept of having only one scroll’s worth of attention is the direct digital descendant of the newspaper industry’s term: “Above/below the fold”.
The term originated with broadsheet newspapers, which were physically folded in half for display. The “fold” was the physical crease in the middle of the page. The top half, or “above the fold,” was the prime real estate reserved for the most sensational headlines, captivating images, and lead stories—the content designed to grab a passer-by’s attention and compel them to buy the paper. Anything placed on the lower half, or “below the fold,” was considered less critical and was at risk of being ignored.
On a computer screen or mobile phone, the “fold” is the line at the bottom of the screen. “Above the fold” is the content you see immediately when a page loads, and “below the fold” is the content you must scroll down to view.
A good example of this is the email header. I’ve taken to front-loading crucial details in the email subject or the very first line of the body—things like the time, date, venue, and subject matter of a meeting. Yet, I still inevitably receive replies asking: “When is it on? What’s it about?” IT’S IN THE FIRST FREAKING SENTENCE!!!
I’ve also noticed a significant increase in the sheer lack of acknowledgement. I’ve sent emails for both work and personal projects and received no reply at all, not even a delayed one. I don’t mean a detailed response, but simply an acknowledgement of receipt. This has happened quite a bit lately.
This effort/attention mismatch was brought into sharp focus when I was asked to review and make recommendations about a significant work project. I dedicated a large amount of time to this project, but when I handed in my final, detailed review, I knew immediately from the look on the requestor’s face that he never actually read it. He’s gone now.
When a platform like Microsoft Office offers a simple reaction tool (like a little ‘:-)?’ emoji), a basic one-line reply would be far more helpful: “Thanks for the information, I’ll look into it,” or “No, I can’t do that.” The silence suggests a reluctance to commit to anything, which is possibly a separate issue altogether.
This new dynamic stands in stark contrast to the way we learned to communicate formally. I was thinking the other day about learning to write letters as a child and mastering the difference between when to sign off with ‘Yours faithfully’ versus ‘Yours sincerely.’ We learned these conventions, but the urgency and addictive nature of modern connectivity have rendered them effectively obsolete.
To combat this, I now adopt a ‘scan-first’ approach. I write key information in bold text within the email body to make it immediately obvious and easy to scan. Ultimately, though, all I’m really looking for is a quick acknowledgement of receipt to confirm the message has landed, and read.
I contrast, I’ve taken to listening to longer podcasts, and people are bringing long-form TV shows. Maybe we’re entering a post-reading era?
As I approach my 60th birthday, have I simply become a grumpy old man?
Today I went to see a preview of the movie version of the “This American Life” radio program. A radio show as a movie? It’s not too surprising, in some ways, because the program has a strong visual element to the story-telling. In some ways, the movie was like a snapshot of the program. There were monologues, there were interactive pieces, there was music, and there was some story-telling which I’ll later describe as “reading out loud”. As such, the movie contained elements of the radio show I really like, but also elements I really dislike.
I’ll start with the “dislike”. I really don’t like the “reading out loud” elements of “This American Life”. By that, I meant those elements where someone has written a short story and they come on a read it. For me, the short story is something you read off a page, where your imagination can really go wild. In stark contrast to some of the people I spoke with outside the movie later on who said, “Oh no, I love the reading out loud moments, I’ve discovered so many new authors through this show”, “reading out loud” just doesn’t do it for me.
For me, “reading out loud” can often sound overly “rehearsed” and therefore, not entirely authentic. It’s a generalisation, of course, since people like David Sedaris can ably take their written words and turn them into something quite dramatic. He’s an exception, though. For me, many of the “reading out loud moments” can “sound” quite predictable and very similar. They all seem to be presented in a style which seems highly derivative of the attitude and vocal intonation of an amalgam of Hunter S. Thompson and Tennessee Williams, with a bit of “beat poetry” thrown in.
Although there are many occasions when practice and rehearsal can sound “real”, quite often it doesn’t sound authentic, because people tend to speak in short sentences and phrases. Most people don’t speak in complete sentences, and when you hear someone reading out a long and complex sentence, my gut-feeling is they’ve spent a lot of time thinking too much about the words, and in being clever. They’ve forgetten the emotion and the honesty that comes from the oral tradition. A generalisation, I know, but it’s just “my thing”.
It’s an idea which, I acknowledge is probably in stark contrast to what I love about “This American Life”. I love the use of music, sound effects and dramatic pause. All of those elements can be rehearsed also and lack a degree of authenticity in their delivery. But for me, these elements add a wonderful element to talk radio that’s often under-estimated. It’s the element that talk radio, even without the use of music, has a strong musical quality. It can be like a symphony, with a beginning, a middle, and an end, with quite moments, dramatic moments, and mid-tempo moments also. “This American Life” incorporates sound beautifully.
There were moments today when I was deeply involved and moments when I was deeply disengaged. Without wishing to spoil the viewing moment, there’s a wonderful story from a woman who talks about her experiences with the American singer, Taylor Dayne. The story has a great narrative, and she uses pause and effect beautifully to tell a wonderful story. And there’s a great punchline to the story. There’s also a wonderful story about a man who is blind who talks with both humour and sensitivity about how he explained to his young daughter (under the age of five) that he couldn’t see, and how she progressively began to understand it. In contrast to what I said above about the use of music and sound, another story, about a man whose family moves to the country, which uses sound and music at a wonderful level, lacked direction and a clear sense of narrative, in my view. It just never went anywhere.
And that brings me to the substance of the film. I just never had a sense of where it was going and why they were doing it. “We spent a lot of money on this, so please support it”, Ira Glass says at one point in the film.
There’s one sketch which I think sums up the “why bother” feeling. It’s a segment where a famous American radio presenter interviews a guest, is entirely engaged with her subject, and as soon as the interview is over, totally loses interest in the subject. Those of us who have been on radio, and have worked in radio, laughed out loud. We got the point of it all, and then laughed out loud. But the sketch then went on and on and on in a weird, self-indulgent kind of manner.
For me and others I spoke to afterwards, the general consensus was the film was far too long at over two-hours. “Maybe I’ve just got a short attention span”, I said to a colleague today who in the afternoon asked what I thought of it. “Seriously, when they got to Act 6, I thought the film would never end” I told her.
