Though it may seem I’m on a “holiday” right now, I’m actually working quite hard. The days haven’t been necessarily overly long, but they’ve been fairly intense. After two years of working from home, face-to-face daily interactions can sometimes be quite exhausting. I’m also juggling aspects of my “regular job”. Nonetheless, there have been many moments of extreme pleasure.
Today, for example, we did an outside broadcast of ABC Darwin from Mindil Beach. During the dry season, the regular Thursday markets attract many hundreds of people. But today, there was an added attraction.
Darwin is currently playing home to a 17-country combined military operation. The massive fly-over attracted thousands of people. “I’ve lived in Darwin for 40 years and I’ve never seen crowds like this”, Nik, my Uber driver told me as we headed down to the beach. Nik seemed to know a lot about aircraft. He told me he had just spent five weeks in Greece, where his cousin in a fairly senior pilot.
“It’s bigger than Territory Day”, a colleague told me.
I was surprised by the size of the crowds too. And the noise of the aircraft during the flyover.
Thousands at Mindil Beach to watch a major international defence operation, and ABC Darwin was there.
Doing a “live outside broadcast” from a beach seems like it’s a pretty easy job, but from my own experience as a radio presenter over many years, I know it’s quite exhausting. “The hardest part is having to smile for two and half hours”, I told our presenter, Liz, with a laugh. Radio people aren’t used to being in public. Behind the scenes, there are concerns about practical things like how you get a broadcast signal from a beach, without power, and with thousands of people using their mobile phones at the same time.
Awesome job by the ABC team, inc Liz, Clarkie, Daleen, James, Maree, Nick, Saskia, Teghan and Rebecca, who was back in the studio.
In contrast to the very “modern” way of broadcasting, I’ve discovered some wonderful pieces of history in the Darwin office.
Spotted these on a shelf at the ABC Darwin office. It was like most of my career in technology in chronological order.A bit of history in the @abcdarwin office. The flag that flew from the ABC building at the time of Cyclone Tracy is on the wall, not far from the radio studio.
The impetus for starting this blog (twenty years as ago) was as a travel record for a 6-week role working at ABC Radio Darwin (then named 105.7 ABC Darwin). In the last few days, I’ve been re-reading (with a smile) those earlier posts. It was my first management role at the ABC, and I’m so glad they trusted me not to mess it up. Twenty years later, I’m back for a short time while a couple of the local managers take a break, and I’m so pleased they’ve trusted me again.
Oh, and did I mention the military personnel were very cute> :)
So, it’s the end of 2016, and I’m currently in Lismore where I’m spending time with my family. Although I’m working through the Christmas/NY period (while colleagues with families take a break), it’s been great having a few public holidays on the back of the weekends. It’s been a busy year at work, as you may have read about in the papers. Though I should emphasise it’s been far more difficult for colleagues than it has been for me, it’s not been a year without challenges. “Did you take an overseas holiday this year?”, my nieces partner asked me at Christmas lunch. “No, it’s been a ‘work year'”, I told him, and indeed it has.
Thus, my only travel this year has been domestic. I’ve visited Canberra (twice), Brisbane (twice), Adelaide, Hobart (twice) and Perth. Though it was mostly for very pleasant work-related activity, there was a sad occasion too: the death of Eoin Cameron, the long-time Breakfast presenter in Perth. I first met Eoin in 2002 (I think), and then in 2004, I was the manager of the radio station there, and so got plenty of time to know him. Though many people often spoke about how “difficult” he could be, I really genuinely liked him. I’ll never forget the early morning phone call I received from Sarah, our manager there, telling me, Eoin had died from a heart-attack, only several weeks after retirement. It makes you think, eh?
Eoin Cameron
As you’ll have noticed from this blog, I really love travelling. I love sight-seeing. I love eating. I love new experiences. This year, I’ve had to “live” some of the overseas travel experiences vicariously through friends, who’ve had trips to Greece, Italy, Sweden etc. Also late in the year, friends Dan and Liesbeth who live in the United States spent a couple of weeks in Sydney, which allowed me to also be a tourist in my own city. For the first time EVER, I took a proper Sydney Harbour Cruise. Highly recommended.
Family-wise things haven’t been too bad this year. Though one family member has been causing my family some grief, things seem to have settled down a little. Hopefully, it’s not just Christmas or the new girlfriend that’s turned things around?
Though it’s been a “head down/bum up” kind of year, there has still been lots of time for “extravagance”. Earlier in the year, Damien, Kristen and a friend Glen and I splurged on dinner at Noma.
Noma comes to Sydney
Noma is the Danish 5-star restaurant which had a 10-week pop up in Sydney, offering their wonderful culinary interpretation of different things to do with Australian ingredients. I was also lucky enough to be on a table which won a lucky door prize for dinner at Aria.
Pie made from dried scallops and lantana flowers.
Marinated fruits
It’s also been a year where I’ve been able to explore other passions including photography and genealogy. In February, I went on a photo walk, and in April, I got to hang out with fellow descendants of James Rixon and Amelia Goodwin, as a headstone was unveiled at James’ grave at Windsor in Western Sydney.
William Rixon and Ann Hoare Descendants
There was another bright spot, too, recovering the history project I co-produced for Sydney Pride in 1998, featuring oral history interviews with some of the original Mardi Gras ’78’ers”.
And in a lovely combination of both my personal and professional life, one of the absolute highlights of the year was when my nephew Sam, part of my former primary school, South Lismore paid a visit to the ABC, and I was able to contribute to the tour, along with fellow Lismore boy, Robbie Buck, the Breakfast presenter on ABC Radio Sydney. I’m home for Christmas and Sam is still talking about it now.
Robbie Buck, Sam Bobbin, James O’Brien
Other highlights of the year have included attending a Ramadan Dinner at NSW Parliament House, the opening of Sydney Chinese New Year, Australian Of The Year events in Sydney and Canberra, the Lucia Celebration at Sydney’s Swedish Church, the opening of a film produced by my friend Michaela, ABC Radio’s “Sing Out Sydney” event, and many other things. In the midst of a busy year, I am very fortunate, and I honestly appreciate and count my blessings.
2017? Though currently in Lismore, I’ll be back in Sydney for NYE. It’s not as if I have any plans though. I’ll happily watch the fireworks on television and go straight to bed. My friend Sue and I are travelling to Spain in October, and I’m also likely/possibly traveling to Sweden in May. See you on the other side.
“Why are there so many people here?”, one of my friends asked. “It’s simple”, I said, “Summer has finally arrived in Sydney”. We were desperately looking for a table at Opera Bar at the Sydney Opera House, where we had tickets to see Bernadette Robinson.
Our table of four was lucky enough to score a table early enough so we could enjoy a bottle of wine and some nibbles. You’ve got to have a seating strategy at Opera Bar on Thursday nights, I’ve concluded, especially when the weather is so completely spectacular. Blue skies. A warm night. A cruise ship. The Bridge. The Opera House. It doesn’t get much better.
Sydney Opera House
Well not until you go inside The Playhouse when Bernadette Robinson is performing her show, “Songs For Nobodies”.
Bernadette is a wonderful singer and actor, and a very talented mimic with a wonderful ability to create the voices of some of the greatest female singers of the last century: Edith Piaf, Maria Callas, Judy Garland, Billie Holliday and Patsy Cline.
But this show was more than just mimicry and show tunes. It wasn’t a paint-by-numbers musical. No, it’s a show based around the idea that all of these artists have fans, people who have met them and who have been touched by them. So you have the character talking about their life, and how and why they connect to all of these wonderful, yet often tragic performers.
In the case of Edith Piaf, there’s the character of a woman from English and French origins who is living a fairly ordinary life as a librarian in the English countryside. Each year on her birthday, she travels to Paris to visit the Edith Piaf Museum. Her reason? She says it’s because her French father met Piaf years ago during the Second World War and was helped to escape.
Another character who I loved was an Irish nanny who recounts a story of being on board a yacht owned by Aristotle Onassis, and who is attempted to be seduced by Onassis, and whose life would have improved dramatically, until she hears the voice of Maria Callas, and realises she could never compete.
My favourite character was that of a fairly ordinary journalist who secures an interview with blues legend Billie Holliday, and whose life and career changes for the better afterwards. Meanwhile, Billie Holliday battles the booze and heroin. The journalist is honest enough to recognise the exploitation she may also have committed.
All of the characters were, in my view, well formed. They had depth. They touched my soul with their sometimes distressing honesty.
Bernadette goes from character to character and barely raises a sweat. We knew because we were in the second row.
She’s an amazing actor and singer, and the standing ovation, which I reckon happens every night, was well deserved.
There’s something kinda distressing about having workmen on your door first thing on a Monday morning.
You’ve woken up, you’re thinking about the week ahead, you’re trying to make an important fashion decision, and then you have to deal with two strange blokes installing a new intercom.
They weren’t strange blokes, of course. In fact, they were quite nice. And they did their job quickly and quietly. One down, 31 to go, they must haver been thinking to themselves.
And to be honest, I’m pleased I was allocated first thing on a Monday morning and not 10am Tuesday or something like that.
“It’s almost back to normal, though they say it will be 2025 before it’s really back to normal”, my next-door neighbour commented as we spoke today.
We often chat in the stairwell, or the common area, or outside the garbage room. She works in designing fabrics and furnishings for the hotel industry, and will often spread fabric out on the floor outside my apartment.
When COVID hit, she was instantly out of work for several months, as was her partner, but they seem to be going okay now.
I had a similar chat with my neighbour on the other side the other day. I was having a coffee and cake for afternoon tea at a local coffee shop, and he stopped by and we chatted for quite some time. He was also out of work for a while, but also seems to be doing okay now.
In the last week or so I’ve also felt things were almost back to “normal”. Despite the thousands of daily cases, and the daily deaths, the city seems to be full of people again. Well, maybe not like it was a few years ago, but more than it’s been for quite some time.
Last night, after shopping at Woolworths Town Hall, I called into the pub next door and had a beer. For the last couple of years, I’ve often been the only person in there. But last night the place was full. There was only one seat left. I felt a little uncomfortable with the crowds, and so left after only one drink.
Along with a couple of friends I had attended a talk at the NSW Parliament by Catherine Fisher
Australia’s ‘golden age of radio’ gave women a political voice like never before. Dame Enid Lyons, the first woman elected to the Australian House of Representatives, said that radio ‘created a bigger revolution in the life of a woman than anything that has happened anytime. Join us for the next in our House Talks series where historian Catherine Fisher examines how Lyons and other early female parliamentarians used broadcasting to shape their engagement with the electorate and develop their public profiles. Dr Catherine Fisher holds a PhD from the School of History at The Australian National University. Her first book, Sound Citizens: Australian Women Broadcasters Claim their Voice, 1923-1956 was published by ANU Press in 2021.
Gorgeous carpet on the floor of the Jubilee Room at the NSW Parliament.
As “radio people”, my friend and I found the talk fascinating. In particular, the description of Enid Lyons as the “sonic embodiment” of “acceptable” women in public life during the 1940s. Her elocution was beautiful.
But we also laughed at the references to female voices on the radio during the 1940s/1950s. In particular, Catherine mentioned female voices on radio were often described as “shrill”. Though we’re both aged in our 50s, and you would have thought that kind of dismissal of women on the radio had disappeared in the 1950s, we have both that workplace experience. “Only a couple of weeks ago”, I told the audience during the Q&A, “…a very well known (legendary) female radio presenter I know, received a text message critical of her voice and diction, even though she has a beautiful voice and wonderful diction”. She also told me many older men and women described her as “shrill”.
I’ve actually been out a few times over the last week.
Last Wednesday, those same friends and I went to see an exhibition of “political posters” at the Lord Gladstone Hotel. As the curator of the exhibition was Damien Minton (a mate) who was an ALP candidate in last year’s council elections, there was a definite “lefty bias” to the posters. But there were still some great moments of humour.
Political poster exhibition at the Lord Gladstone Hotel
And then on Saturday, another friend and I went to see a cabaret show called “Stage Fright ein Kabarett” which is described as “an enticing and touchingly twisted, droll homage to Marlene Dietrich by character comedienne Jude Bowler. Nobody’s muse, everybody’s icon, a modern-day Dietrich – bored and mad as ever”.
It was the first time in maybe a year since I’d seen some live music, and awesome that it was some cabaret.
Stagefright Cabaret
I also caught up with friends for lunch to celebrate a 60th birthday.
What’s a birthday without lots of photographs, mobile phones and posts on social media?
And then on Sunday night, I went to the Sydney Comedy Festival to see Vanessa Larry Mitchell, a Lismore-based comedian who goes under the name “Larry Laughs Loud”. who I had seen perform a couple of times last year.
“I know your face”, she said to me, as we chatted after the show. Last year, I was the but of her jokes in a Wednesday night show at the Northern Rivers Hotel in Lismore.
We chatted briefly about Lismore.
As soon as I said where my family lived, and as soon as she told me where she lived, there wasn’t much else to say. We knew each other’s experience intimately. She, like many others, lost everything in the flood. It’s great, however, that she was able to see some humour in her own situation, as she did a monologue of about 60 minutes.
Wearing a “Larry Laughs Loud” t-shirt in Sydney recently.
Her show has the BEST NAME EVER : “Tears On My Dildo”. In the show, she admitted she had, indeed, lost her sex toys in the flood. I have a family member who I chatted to a few weeks ago who also mentioned she had “lost her little battery friend” in the flood. “We don’t need food or clothes, Jim”, she said, “…but if you could organise to send us a collection of dildos or vibrators, that would be great”.
“You booked this four months ago. You must be very organised…”, Tomo (one of the tour guides) said to me as I walked into the office of the “Tokyo Great Cycling Tour” earlier today. “No”, I told him, “I’ve just been planning this holiday for quite a while”.
When I first read about the cycling tour a few months ago, I thought it sounded like an excellent way to see Tokyo. Over the years I’ve been on many, many bus and walking tours, and I figured a cycling tour might encompass the best of both worlds: a chance to see a fair bit of the city, but still able to get out and about which you often can’t do on a bus.
Tokyo Cycle Tour
Then about a month ago, I started to get nervous when I looked at the finer detail, and read the tour was actually 26km long. Although I have a bike, and I ride every couple of weekends, I wasn’t sure my almost 50 year old body would be up to that level of endurance. Talking about it with friends, I was reminded when you’re on holiday you often walk long distances anyway, and that Tokyo was far more flat than Surry Hills.
I was further reassured when a few people older than me, and a few people obviously less fit arrived this morning. I had already prepared a “I’m Sorry, I’ll be the slowest” speech, anticipating almost everyone on the tour would be a slim 20 year old.
That said, the cycling was tough for a few people. A family of four announced just after lunch they had “hit the wall” and were planning to go back to the office. I also started to “feel my age” around three-quarters of the way through the tour. Then, as I chatted to others, I realised it wasn’t only my age, it was the fact it was 34 degrees today. Our other tour guide also told us she was finding it hard going in the heat and humidity. So I reckon if you have reasonable fitness, and you’re not planning to do it in the middle of summer, the tour would be good to do.
Drivers in Tokyo
Although we visited quite a few spots along the way, including The Imperial Palace, The Meiji Shrine, and some other less important historic locations (oh, and a confectionery store, and a restaurant at a capsule hotel for lunch), I’d estimate cycling still made up most of the tour. As I checked my “Google Fit” a few minutes ago, it revealed I walked for 127 minutes and rode for 169 minutes today, well and truly exceeding my daily goal.
My other goal today was to try to understand the Tokyo Metro. Though I gave up trying this morning (I needed to be there early), I made it back to the hotel (with a track change), and so I felt doubly proud.
Tokyo Waterlillies
After arriving home, I had a bath (with salts) which was well and truly needed. And then later I went for a walk around the nearby gay area. As I looked in some of the bars, it seemed most were full of much younger guys which is not really my thing, and I didn’t really want to be the old guy in the corner with no friends.
Tokyo
Tomorrow I’m planning to visit a few museums and galleries. After today’s efforts in the sun, I think I need a bit of indoor activity. Meanwhile tonight, I’m back in my hotel room with the air-conditioning on, and not doing any favours for climate change.
I had a wonderful afternoon at the Art Gallery of NSW, taking in the paintings in this year’s Archibald, Wynne, Sulman and Photography Prizes.
The piece which won, by Marcus Wills, The Paul Juraszek monolith (after Marcus Gheeraerts) was a truly spectacular work. With shades of Japanese anime (Howl’s Castle) and Escher, the painting could be viewed on many levels. The sheer spectacular size of the work, along with the wonderfully intricate detail, could provide hours of entertainment.
The Paul Juraszek monolith (after Marcus Gheeraerts)
Other favourites included Kathleen Vafiadis painting of Julia Gillard (with its wonderful red colouring) and Ben Quilty’s paintings of Ben Cullen (both before and after a night on the booze).
One of the interesting things I noted with curiousity, as I walked around, was the tendancy for many people to look very closely at the works. The sheer size of so many of these works demanded viewing from at least 10-15 feet away, and yet so many people were more interested in a close observation of the brush stroke.
I whizzed through the landscapes, as I’m not generally a fan, on my way further downstairs to see this year’s Photographic Portrait Prize. In my view, “The magnanimous beige wrap – part 1 (contraption)” by Vanila Netto won the prize by a country mile. Featuring a friend of the artist’s husband wrapped in a cardboard/material like wrap from head to toe, it was more in the style of modern art photography, epitomised by Tracey Moffagtt, than in the style of photo-journalism.
