The label on the tape says simply “Home 96 and Dreamworld”. Though I’m a little sketchy about what’s contained on “Home 96”, I know exactly what “Dreamworld” means. In the mid-80s (or thereabouts) we went on a family trip to the Gold Coast theme park and hired a video camera. I don’t think I have watched the tape in thirty years or more.
Dream World 1980s
And so today, I paid a visit to Ted’s Camera House (now named “Ted’s World Of Imaging”) and asked them to digitise the recently discovered VHS tape. It won’t come cheap to have the video digitised, but I’m hoping the excellent quality of this awesome company will deliver some wonderful memories of the past. Gosh, I hope the tape is still playable, and I hope I haven’t taped over these timeless family memories.
In “ten working days” I hope to be able to report.
But the thing I noticed most about today in the city was how quiet it was. “It’s like Christmas Day”, I posted on Twitter.
Though it should be peak hour on the first day back at work, this was Elizabeth Street at about 5pm today.
And a little bit later, here’s Crown Street, Surry Hills.
And then I also noted this abomination.
Everyone goes on about Easter Buns being for sale on Boxing Day. But I think this is the real scandal!
I recently had an email from someone interested in the oral history project I had been involved in back in 1998, celebrating twenty years since the first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Although I have a copy somewhere in my extensive CD collection, I needed to touch base with my friends Glen and Greig who had been instrumental in putting the project together. They came up with the idea, they found the talent, and they made it happen. All I did was chat with a few people, and hopefully got them to tell their stories as well as they could, and create the audio. The premise for the project was simple: for Sydney Pride Centre, we would get together a bunch of people who had participated in the first Mardi Gras and ask them to tell their stories.
Cover for the oral history project released by Sydney Pride Centre in 1998, commemorating 20 years since the first Mardi Gras.
I remember at the time of doing the interviews of being in awe of these people who had quite simply participated in something quite amazing, but who hadn’t really thought of it in those terms at the time. The aim of the project was to document in some way the experience of the many “ordinary people” who had taken part in the first parade and protest.
Thankfully Glen and Greig were able to find the original audio files, and so to make these more widely, here they are, hopefully never to be lost again.
Eight people at two tiny tables in a cheap and cheerful in Sydney’s Chinatown. $10 per head. What a great way to spend Monday night. Here’s all that was left.
I could have stayed in bed all day. The last week has been exhausting, and I could have happily slept until lunchtime. But I woke early and there was something special waiting outside: it was snowing. Although there has been a little bit of snow in Stockholm since I arrived two weeks ago, it’s mostly been very light. Today, however, we had some good falls. Not that I’m an expert on snow, mind you. I’m sure the Swedes would describe it differently, but I was impressed.
“I know Swedes are sick of the snow, but I find it very exciting and exotic”, I told a couple of blokes I shared a breakfast table with. Steffan from a small town near Orebro had come to Stockholm for a fortieth birthday party. And Doug, a retired Toyota employee, turned school teacher, was here to speak at a conference. We all agreed it was great to meet people from around the world.
“Normally Swedes sit by themselves over breakfast and don’t talk to others.”, Steffan commented. It was then I told them the story of the great advice I was given before my last trip. Talk to everybody, and always say yes to an adventure (or words to that effect). Both commented on how far away Australia is. “It’s a long way even to Asia” I told them. Over breakfast we shared stories about our lives, as I kept a keen eye on the snow outside the window.
For me it was a day for hotel changeover. For most of the next week I am staying at the appropriately named, “Hotel Micro”. I don’t think I need to explain it’s budget with a capital b. So between leaving the rather lovely (and exoting sounding) Scandic Anglais and and moving to the more precisely named hotel, I spent a couple of hours in the Scandic Anglais lobby. It was great to watch the snow, listen to people speak, and generally enjoy the ambience which included a soundtrack from the likes of Sade and Bo Kaspers Orkester.
“Is one o’clock too early for a glass of wine?”, I asked myself, as if I didn’t already know the answer. So I popped up to the bar and ordered a glass of chardy. “Ah, Commonwealth Bank”, the bloke behind the bar commented, adding, “You’re from Australia? You speak good Swedish”. He was being polite of course. He then went on to tell me that he had lived in Australia for five years, attending UNSW. “So what brings you to Stockholm?” I asked. “Girls, of course”, he replied.
Last night when I went out for a drink at Torget (caught up with a bloke I met the other week), and today, I noticed how much the vibe in Stockholm seemed to have changed since I left for Malmo, Copenhagen and Helsingborg last Tuesday.
The snow and ice is still around, especially in the parks and gardens, but they have have all but disappeared from the streets of Stockholm. This means you can walk without the fear of slipping over, and I guess because of this, people seem to have more of a spring in their step and a smile on their faces. I didn’t hear it myself, but apparently last night, there was a bit of a party in the street outside the hotel. There’s a popular nightclub opposite, and at three am, there were enough people out on the road making enough noise, for the police to come around and close off the street.
“It’s been such a tough winter” people have told me on many occasions, with almost three months of sub-zero temperatures in Stockholm. Both officially and in practice, spring is now here. Of course, people are still wearing big puffy coats, but their faces are no longer half-hidden by scarves and beanies.
Well, that was until late this afternoon. I wandered around Sodermalm this afternoon enjoying the experience and taking some photographs. But by that time the snow had set in fairly firmly, and bit by bit, people began to disappear from the streets. The forecast for tomorrow is bright and sunny, so I’m hoping for LOADS of overnight snow, followed by one of those spectacular sunny Stockholm spring days. Fingers crossed.
View from the lobby at Scandic Anglais
The news from Sweden – photos from a sex club scandal involving the police minister
Ahead of meeting up with some mates for dinner tonight, I called in to The Midnight Shift on Sydney’s Oxford Street for a G&T. I’d arrived early, and I figured a G&T would be a nice way to kill 15 or 20 minutes. To my surprise, Deni Hines was also there.
Although I “grew up” with Deni Hines, I’m more familiar with her mother, 1970s Australian pop icon, Marcia Hines. “When I told my mother I was playing The Midnight Shift, she told me she played here when it was Men Only. I’m proud to say I’m second generation to play The Shift”, she said.
I also remember when The Midnight Shift was Men Only. Unofficially for many years, but also officially, as they usually excluded women for footwear reasons. “You’re wearing open-toed shoes” they would often explain as the reason why women were not allowed to enter.
I wish they had been a little more honest, and just said something like “There are times when women want a women-only space, and times when a men want a men-only space, so I hope you can appreciate that”. Not only would that have been a little more honest, I think that would have also have led to much less conflict. I can imagine there would have been more occasions when people would have said, “OK”, rather than get into fights about definitions, as I know my friends and I sometimes did.
Deni Hines at The Midnight Shift
2015, and life is different. And on a Queen’s Birthday Weekend, I couldn’t help but notice the bars on Oxford Street were awfully busy. On a normal Sunday night, there would often be handsful of people at bars like The Midnight Shift and The Oxford Hotel. But tonight the bars were full, and even places like The Oxford which normally struggle for patrons were charging a $15 entry. So after a G&T, some Deni Hines, and dinner, it was home for bed (and some blogging).
It’s Thursday night and I’m at home (obviously), reflecing on a pretty amazing week.
It all started on Sunday morning, when news broke of the terrorist attack in Bali. When I woke, I saw the news on “The Insiders” about the attack. As details were sketchy, it took about 20 minutes of internal debate before I was sure about the enormity of what had occured. I was in at work within an hour, organising coverage.
As to the attack itself, the country is truly perplexed. “Did we bring it on ourselves by so openly supporting America or is it just the way things are now?” On Sunday night, John Howard appeared on Sixty Minutes. Even now he’s on television speaking. You can almost hear him thinking to himself, “I didn’t expect this. What the fuck do I do now?”. He looks like a kangaroo blinded by the headlights. Tragically, it’s been revealed the American consulate was warning Americans to get out of Indonesia a few weeks ago. The Australian Government was also told we were serious targets and it’s only today the Federal Government has asked Australians to leave Indonesia. I don’t know how the country will jump. Will the country seek retaliation or will we wonder whether or not 20 million people in this part of the world can really do anything about it.
Anyhow… on a brighter note. Last night I went to the launch of, “Kerryn and Jackie: The shared life of Kerryn Phelps and Jackie Stricker”, the new “tell all” book. According to the publishers,
“Kerryn Phelps is the controversial head of the Australian Medical Association. Jackie Stricker is Kerryn’s wife and executive assistant – a former teacher at a Sydney private girls school whose teaching career was ended when the couple were outed by a tabloid newspaper. This is a frank and fascinating account of their life together.”
The book launch was held at Aria Restaurant, presumably because it was the restaurant where Phelps and the former Federal Health Minister, Michael Wooldridge held their “kiss and makeup luncheon”, after their nationally reported “falling out”. The restaurant is located at East Circular Quay, on the doorstep to the Sydney Opera House. The room in which the launch was held overlooked Sydney’s Oyster Bar.
The view was spectacular as the opera singer, Deborah Cheetham (White Baptist ABBA Fan) performed some lovely arias. We were told that Deborah (and her partner, Maxine) are friends of Kerryn and Jackie’s. Another friend, stage performer, Todd McKenney (Boy From Oz) performed a toungue in cheek re-write of “The Lady Is A Tramp”.
Another friend, the broadcaster, Alan Jones, officially launched the book. Jones is a paradox. He’s a supporter of the arts. He spoke of the modern sophisticated Australia, where “opera can be sung at a book launch”, He told the crowd of the value of cultural diversity. He quoted the poetry of “John Donne”.
I also met Jackie’s mum and dad. They were quite candid. I asked her mum (aged 73, but looking 50), about her involvement in the book. She told me it was a much better book now than it was at the beginning and admitted that she had provided a fair deal of feedback. Jackie’s father seemed quite philosophical about the experience, telling me he felt a little uncomfortable being thrust into the media spotlight, but recognised the relativity of it all. He related the experience to that of Voyager 2, the spacecraft which took a photograph of the earth as it left the solar system, revealing a small tiny blue dot. He said, “You have to remember, we are just a tiny blue dot, but if you have a toothache, it’s the most important thing in the world”. I was told it was a “very Jewish” thing to say.
I haven’t actually read the book, so I don’t know if it’s a “good read” or not. Already it seems some in the media have tired at their “openness”, particular about the diffucult relationship with Kerryn’s daughter. “That’s more than I wanted to know” is perhaps the attitude of many Australians to people like this. One broadcaster I spoke to said complained about the level of detail, arguing, “they’re just not that interesting!” I’m not sure who the book is for.
As I walked through the streets of Glebe last night I wondered how many people would recognise my tie. Was I from the CIA or the FBI or was I a member of another unknown unit in Sydney for just a couple of weeks. As I sat down in a small cocktail bar on Glebe Point Road and drank a glass of Pinot Grigio, I wondered if people would look at me as if I was a member of the Federal Police. In case you hadn’t recognised it, it’s the official APEC tie.
I was in Glebe last night to see Bishop John Shelby Spong speak at Gleebooks. I read one of his books, Sins of Scripture few years ago, and was quite interested in what he had to say, especially as his new book is called “Jesus For The Non-Religious”.
His view of Jesus is complex. Although he believes in God the creator, he doesn’t believe in the human-like supernatural being which he believes we, as human beings, have created. “You ask a horse what God looks like and he’ll describe a horse”, he told us.
As a follower of Christ, Spong argues against the notion of Jesus as a supernatural being. Rather, he argues Jesus was more than just an enlightened human being, he was “fully human”. Although I can’t articulate this myself, I think I understand what he means.
The central thesis of last night’s talk was that, because the Bible was written decades after the death of Jesus, there was a degree of embelishment in what was written. Subsequently, he believes Jesus the man became Jesus the supernatural.
That said, he said he acknowledges the contradictions in his own belief system. Despite this apparent denial of the supernatural, he says he believes in God running through all of us. He also believes in the afterlife, though he doesn’t accept the idea of heaven and hell, and he says he find its difficult to articulate what he does believe the afterlife means.
So yes, an interesting evening, and not what most people would be doing on a Friday night.
Otherwise, the last few days have been busy both with work and social life. Socially, there was Wednesday night drinks at the Lewisham, and Fruits In Suits at Slide. So yeah, an interesting couple of days.
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Hello James, is that you serving the Tina Turner t-shirt?
Hope the tape digitises OK and provides many a happy memory.
It is very expensive to have such things made digital. I bought a second hand VHS tape player to convert the our tapes to DVDs. It was time consuming but the result was fine. I’d better think about converting the DVDs to digital cloud storage now. Surely cloud storage won’t go out of date???
Yeah that’s my plan. The offer was for DVD, and then I said I’d prefer cloud or USB, and that was $20 extra, as I don’t have a DVD player anymore either. Once I have it as an mp4 or whatever, that will be good.
Hello James, is that you serving the Tina Turner t-shirt?
Hope the tape digitises OK and provides many a happy memory.
Yep, that’s me. Simply the best!
👍👍 Hehehehe!
Tina tee = gay.
It is very expensive to have such things made digital. I bought a second hand VHS tape player to convert the our tapes to DVDs. It was time consuming but the result was fine. I’d better think about converting the DVDs to digital cloud storage now. Surely cloud storage won’t go out of date???
Yeah that’s my plan. The offer was for DVD, and then I said I’d prefer cloud or USB, and that was $20 extra, as I don’t have a DVD player anymore either. Once I have it as an mp4 or whatever, that will be good.