The delivery of meals at Sacred Heart Rehabilitation, within Sydney’s St. Vincent’s Hospital, operates like a well-oiled machine, at 7 am, 12 noon, and 5 pm. To prepare, there is a daily ritual that involves completing a green paper form, and ticking boxes for meals spanning the next 36 hours. This system works pretty well, with the only exception being when my room became a COVID case zone, necessitating phone orders which sometimes went a little awry.
A fellow patient told me during our morning gym session you can make special requests beyond the printed menu. She , like me, is a prune enthusiast who, despite their omission from the menu, successfully obtained some by simply writing the word “prunes” on the menu. I’m now inspired to follow suit. It will help keep me “regular”.
As we did our physiotherapy, a group discussion in the gym began, dissecting the menu’s merits and flaws. A physiotherapist championed the “orange jelly” as a standout item, while my preference leaned towards the high-protein, high-energy porridge. Our consensus deemed the zucchini frittata tasteless and the scrambled eggs rather pedestrian. The salads are excellent!
Considering the diverse dietary requisites and the huge output, the food is pretty amazing.
“Prune Lady” remarked, “I’ve become quite the connoisseur of hospital cuisine during my four-month tenure.” In reply, I suggested that perhaps we could do a TV show, travelling from hospital to hospital :)
In the meantime, here are some of the meals I’ve enjoyed.
There was a moment toward the end of tonight’s show when a large tear welled up, and rolled down my right cheek. It’s also the bit in the movie that always upset me: the moment when the mother died. Or rather, committed suicide.
My mum didn’t commit suicide, but in many ways, she had lost the will to live. Though not by her daughters and me, my mum was similar to Betty Helsop: also called Betty, she was undervalued and often verbally and physically abused by her broader family. And when dad lost his battle with cancer in 1982, and when I went off to university in 1984, mum became increasingly unwell. Only a few days before her heart attack, she said she wanted to leave the house where she was living with her mother and brother.
Muriel’s Wedding – You Can’t Stop Progress
That’s just one reason why the story of Muriel’s Wedding resonates so deeply with me, and why love the film so much, as I wrote a few years ago… And then, there’s the fact Porpoise Spit isn’t UNLIKE the town in which I grew up, I can almost name the characters from the movie as actual people from my hometown, and the fact that, like Muriel, I spent so much of my youth sitting alone in my room listening to ABBA songs.
Do you ever feel like you’re nothing?
When I lived in Porpoise Spit, I used to sit in my room for hours and listen to ABBA songs. But since I’ve met you and moved to Sydney, I haven’t listened to one Abba song. That’s because my life is as good as an Abba song. It’s as good as Dancing Queen.
“Are you really ready for it?, I asked my friend who I attended tonight’s show with. We knew the “black side” of the story of Muriel. Lines like the one spoken by Muriel to Rhonda on Hibiscus Island when she says:
“Do you ever think you’re nothing. Sometimes I think I’m nothing. Useless.”
…illustrate the pain she and many others have encountered.
It’s such a contrast to the often joyous feeling of both the movie and the musical.
It’s one of my all-time favourite movies. It was with a certain amount of trepidation that I went along to see the musical adaptation. But I’m really pleased to say the musical is absolutely true to the heart of the movie. There are just so many lines from the movie appearing in the musical, and I had to stop myself from reciting them out loud, as I’ll often do when I watch the movie at home.
Muriel’s Wedding – Goodbye Porpoise Spit
But it’s not a simple re-telling of the movie: there are lots of modern touches (Muriel no longer works in a video shop, for example).
And then, of course, the wonderful music by Kate Miller-Heidke and her partner, with the song about arriving in Sydney being particularly memorable.
“When you get to Sydney, your life begins…”
(or words to that effect) they sing, with a chorus still stuck in my head a couple of hours later.
And then there’s ABBA. I’d heard, or assumed that like the Priscilla Musical, Bjorn and Benny had not agreed to license ABBA songs for “Muriel’s Wedding – The Musical”. In fact, quite the opposite is true, as there are five or six ABBA songs throughout the show, and ABBA themselves appear throughout the musical as a Bjorn Again-like “Greek chorus”, The only downside? “That’s not a fucking Swedish accent, not even close”, I whispered in my friend’s ear.
The songs are terrific, the plots great, the ensemble is wonderful (except maybe Gary Sweet who could NEVER come close to the role made famous by Bill Hunter), and the young woman who plays Muriel (Maggie McKenna) is exceptional, receiving a well-deserved standing ovation.
The movie, “Muriel’s Wedding – The Musical” was a rollercoaster of emotions from tears to laughing out loud moments. Though I couldn’t possibly afford to attend the musical as many times as I’ve watched the movie, I’d definitely go again.
“This is the ABBA musical that ‘Mamma Mia’ COULD have been”, I said to my friend, as we walked away tonight.
There was a terrific response in the room to the talk given by fellow Australian, Sam Cavanagh. Sam is the Executive Producer of the Hamish & Andy Show. At the heart of his talk was an idea around how the program team treated their audience. As he spoke, with a great deal of passion, there was a real sense of excitement in the room around the idea of seeing your audience as “fans”, not “listeners.”
Many radio stations, he argued, saw their audience merely as “listeners”, whereas the Hamish & Andy Show came from the approach of seeing their audience as “fans”. Once you see your audience in that way, he argued, you can actually get closer to them, as they become more involved in what you do.
He gave some terrific examples of where the audience came along for some wonderful promotions, including one where Hamish & Andy attended something like forty family parties (from babies to adults, from christenings to “How To Host A Murder” parties), and one where they brought out Sylvester Stalone’s brother (who was a singer in the 1970s) to tour. Sam explained “we could have made it free, but we charged everyone a token amount, five bucks, so they felt like they had an investment in it”.
Sam Cavanagh, Hamish & Andy Show speaks at Radio Days Europe
On a totally different level, I was completely blown away by the talk given by Susan Marjetti from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. As the manager of the local talk radio station in Toronto (probably one of the world’s most culturally diverse communities), she explained how she and her team transformed their radio station over the last decade.
Like a lot of public service broadcasters in a similar position, the on-air line-up and listenership of the radio station remained older, mostly male, and mostly caucasian. Their goal was to transform their radio station into something which more closely resembled the city in which they were based. It wasn’t anything about being “politically correct” or anything like that, she argued, saying there was a strong business case about meeting one of the public service goals of the public broadcaster (to broadcast to all Canadians), and about growing their audience in the future. “If we don’t get this right, we’ll be a precious emblem to a dying elite”, one of her colleagues said to her.
When they began transforming their on-air line-up (including regular guests) with a younger, more culturally diverse people this initially led a fall in ratings. But within twelve months, they went from sixth place in the ratings to number one, and they’ve been number one for fifty surveys in a row, she explained proudly.
She’s a great speaker, and I found it personally very inspiring to hear her speak, as it’s something I also feel very passionately about.
Susan Marjetti . CBC Radio Canada speaks at Radio Days Europe
When it came to the discussion about digital radio, including DAB+, I admit, I had mixed feelings. At times I was inspired, other times I felt a little sad. Sometimes I felt it was almost as if the industry I’ve loved all of my life was “begging” for its future survival. I sometimes felt as though we were “pleading” with the public, government and manufacturers to convert to digital radio to ensure our industry can survive, as more and more people use smart phones, computers, televisions and so on, to access our content. I sometimes feel like we need to stop saying “it’s better quality sound” and emphasising all of the technical reasons why we should switch to digital and spend more and more time saying, “hey we’ve got the best damn radio you’ll ever hear”, emphasising how great the content is, and can be.
On the positive, there was good news about the future of digital radio in cars (two more manufacturers announced digital radio as standard in new vehicles), and about high digital radio penetration rates in a number of countries. On the negative, I noticed how high digital radio penetration rates were in many parts of Europe (ninety percent of the population of Germany can listen to digital radio) compared with Australia where it remains limited to five capital cities (with trials only in Canberra and Darwin).
In Norway and Denmark they have firm plans for switching off their analogue radio network, and in the UK, one of the speakers mentioned a likely announcement towards the end of the year. I was particularly interested in the discussion about the analogue switch-off in Norway, as, like Australia, the geography of the country (mountains) and the low population density (isolation), significantly increases the challenges involved.
It was, overall, a really interesting day which I enjoyed very much.
Here are some of my tweets and retweets from throughout the day which covered the key things which I found interesting…
18 Mar James O’Brien @JamesOBrienAU Opening night of #rde13 Radio Days Europe in Berlin tonight. Lots of fun.
Lord Mayor of Berlin reception at Radio Days Europe
19h James O’Brien @JamesOBrienAU Caroline graze spoke of radio station dating app too bring listeners together and to get demographics of audience. #rde13
18h James O’Brien @JamesOBrienAU Fans not listeners key to Hamish and Andy success says sam cavanagh at #rde13
18h James O’Brien @JamesOBrienAU BBC 1 & 4 skew twitter over Facebook in socmed interactions acc to research at #rde13 and wonder if same applies to other similar stns
18h James O’Brien @JamesOBrienAU Danish research shows radio audience atten span drifts 4mins into segment then declines rapidly for both music and talk. Being human. #rde13
17h James Cridland @JamesCridland Great time at #rde13 – @samcav does an excellent talk, described by a senior programmer as “best radio talk I’ve seen in five years”
17h James O’Brien @JamesOBrienAU RT @Radio_Bingen RT @RADIOSZENE: ABC Australien hat einen intetessanten Kanal “Back to Vinyl” http://ow.ly/1TGomF #RDE13
17h James O’Brien @JamesOBrienAU RT @ronez ABC Extra, programmes originaux multiplateforme par la radio australienne (sports, musicaux, événementiels). #RDE13
17h James O’Brien @JamesOBrienAU RT @mxlabswiss O’Brien ABC about POP UP radios in Ausralia and Vinyl shows at #rde13 pic.twitter.com/45G79jKZ5c
17h James O’Brien @JamesOBrienAU RT @cbollert #RDE13 James O’Brien #ABC / @triplej talks about digital in Australia. Especially about ABC extra and #popupradio.
16h James O’Brien @JamesOBrienAU Town hall meetings important part of CBC Toronto diversity strategy. #rde13
16h James O’Brien @JamesOBrienAU Largest underserved communities strategy more than ethnicity for CBC radio. #rde13
16h James O’Brien @JamesOBrienAU Host changes can take a while but prog changes quick in CBC diversity strategy. #rde13
15h James O’Brien @JamesOBrienAU What radio looks like on a mobile phone became our obsession says BBC r 1 controller. #rde13
15h James O’Brien @JamesOBrienAU TV has replaced radio as b/g noise says BBC r1 controller but pops for radio in IPTV. #rde13 Expand
14h James O’Brien @JamesOBrienAU Visuals and interactions key to 18-24 radio future as smartphones and tablets preferred account to euro research at #rde13
13h James O’Brien @JamesOBrienAU Norway with low pop density replacing FM with dab+ by 2017. #rde13 pic.twitter.com/rhQgMtKSj5
13h James O’Brien @JamesOBrienAU Norway digital radio criteria for analogue switchoff inc. Web podcasts etc. Currently 30% with 50% goal. #rde13
James Dickie, Research Manager, Other Lines of Enquiry, speaks at Radio Days Europe
13h James O’Brien @JamesOBrienAU Today Audi announced digital radio as standard in UK cars following BMW. #rde13
13h James O’Brien @JamesOBrienAU Digital radio UK listening 50% and 5hrs per week longer than analogue. #rde13
12h UK Radioplayer @ukradioplayer We’re very proud to announce that Norway are adopting our UK Radioplayer system. The world’s waking up to the power of partnership #rde13
Ben Cooper, BBC Radio 1 controller speaks at Radio Days Europe
7h James O’Brien @JamesOBrienAU Bit surprised smoking still allowed in bars in Berlin. Arrived home tonight STINKING of cigarettes.
Oh, and as you might have noted from these tweets, I presented a paper too.
Imagine yourself trying to use a pram, a wheelchair, or a mobility scooter to get through a busy weekend crowd at the tourist mecca of Circular Quay in Sydney. In particular, there’s the unpredictable movements of people who stop abruptly to take photos of themselves in front of the Opera House or Harbour Bridge, veer suddenly to greet a friend, or change direction without warning. That’s the situation I found myself in today.
With my new scooter fully charged, I set out today with two goals: to enjoy the glorious spring weather, and to see how I could use my new mobility scooter in my daily lifestyle.
First, the daily commute. My usual routine involves a walk, a tram ride, and another walk, and I wanted to see if the scooter could replace that. The distance from my place to work is about 1.5km.
I set off down a hilly street, heading toward Central Station. The scooter was fantastic with the hills, getting me there in 10 to 12 minutes—much faster than my usual commute. At the station, I used the lift at the Devonshire Street entrance to access the tunnel.
One thing I quickly noticed was how easy it is for people to be unaware of their surroundings. People with headphones on would sometimes walk right into me without looking up.
From Central, I continued to my workplace to check out access via the security gates. While I had considered applying for wheelchair access to the gates, I discovered the scooter was small enough to pass through the regular gates without any issue. The security guard was very helpful, explaining the process for special access if I ever needed it.
After work, I headed to the nearby Market City shopping centre (the one above Paddy’s Market), taking the lift up to roll around before getting back on the tram.
It was great to see how accommodating everyone on the tram was. A few people instantly stood up to make space for the scooter. Their kindness was clear, though I could see a bit of uncertainty on their faces, which made me realize how rare it is for people to see mobility scooters on public transport.
After a coffee at Circular Quay, I headed towards Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair, an historic sandstone bench with fantastic views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House. It’s a spot I hadn’t been to since before my lower limb amputation, as the walk had become too challenging.
As I made my way across the Opera House forecourt, I found that the cobblestones were a bit bumpy, but by sticking to the paved lines, the ride was much smoother. I noticed a similar thing when I entered the Botanic Gardens, where I found a smoother line of bitumen to the side of the path. The ride through the gardens was wonderful. It was a joy to take in the familiar surroundings from a different, lower perspective.
Sydney Opera House – keep an eye out for the smoother parts of the forecourt which are less bumpy.
Conscious there are all types of people sharing these spaces – from those fit and running, to those waking more slowly, to those pushing prams, I tried to do my part by maintaining a consistent speed and staying close to buildings to be as out of the way as possible. Ultimately, it’s about mutual awareness and respect. Whether you’re on two feet or four wheels, we all need to be mindful of each other.
A few weeks ago, you may recall, I wrote about the Tree Removal Order posted on a number of older trees in my leafy inner city street. Although the reasons for the removal were clear, I was nonetheless sad to read the order. At the time, I wrote…
I’m lucky enough to live in a street with some beautiful big, and admittedly, old trees. They’re a pain in the arse during autumn and winter when they lose their leaves. But in summer, they come to life, and make the street in which I live a truly beautiful place to be. They also provide shade for the nearby children’s playground. And I guess that’s where the concern comes from – that one day they’ll fall over and cause injury.
On a “personal level”, I’ve “lived” with those trees for almost the entire time I’ve been in Sydney, which is now 17 years. I swear, as a boy from the bush, it’s the trees that have kept me “sane” through all these years. Whenever I’ve felt a little stressed, all I’ve needed to do was walk down the stairs, cross the road, and sit in the park. The trees have kept me “grounded”, you might say.
Anyway, this morning I woke to the sound of chain-saws. The removal had begun.
no images were found
Half-jokingly, I declared on Facebook this morning I was…
Feeling tempted to chain myself to one of the three beautiful old trees in my street being removed today.
In response, a friend posted
It would be in keeping with your northern NSW roots if you did James – Terania Creek being the birthplace of modern environmental activism. I’ll keep an eye out for you on ACA tonight!
By the time I arrived home tonight – it was dark, and so I couldn’t see all that well – one of the trees had begun to resemble an Easter Island statue.
When considering the world’s most iconic Christmas trees, some instantly come to mind: the dazzling spectacle at Rockefeller Center, the festive charm of Covent Garden’s centerpiece, the elegant display at Galeries Lafayette, the grandeur of Red Square’s towering fir, and the symbolic beauty of the Vatican’s tree in St. Peter’s Square. However, allow me to make a case for the Christmas trees of Lismore.
The Crooked Christmas Tree
The Christmas tree in Lismore is crooked because it’s a Cook Pine, a species that naturally leans towards the equator.A previous Mayor, Jenny Dowell apparently once described the tree as “A bit bent, much like Lismore”. I love the way Santa is appearing to be holding the tree up,
The Recycled Christmas Tree
Every year for about ten years, Lismore has had a Christmas tree made with recycled goods. From old tires and road signs to agricultural drums, each year’s tree reflects the community’s creativity and commitment to environmental responsibility This year it has been made with plastic bottles. The tinny in the front is a reference to the “tinny army” who saved thousands of people’s lives in the 2022 flood which likely would have gone over the top of the tree.
The Shopping Trolley Christmas Tree
This is Lismore’s (in) famous shopping trolley Christmas tree. Located only one block from Lismore Square shopping centre (with a natural supply of available trolleys), this is genuinely a public art project which people contribute to. Totally unofficial, and controversial for some, but I think it’s fabulous.
In a world obsessed with picture-perfect Christmas trees, Lismore delightfully embraces the quirky and unconventional, much like the town itself, showcasing individuality and humor through its unique Christmas trees.
I went “over the bridge” today. Well, strictly speaking, I took the tunnel, but you know what I mean. A group of friends and I left the Eastern Suburbs/Inner West enclave in which we all live on a journey to the other side, to see a movie at the Hayden Orpheum at Cremorne. It’s the second of third time I’ve been there, and I always enjoy the experience, as the cinema has been beautifully resorted in the 1940s/1950s style. The main cinema has an old-fashioned live musical soundtrack as you enter, and the cinema regularly features live jazz performances in the Benny Goodman/Glen Miller style.
Scene from Så som i himmelen
But aside from the treat the cinema has to offer, we were there to see the movie, “Sa som i himmelen” (As It Is In Heaven), featuring the Swedish singer and actor, Helen Sjoholm, who has worked consistently for the last decade with Benny Andersson, formerly of ABBA. She was the lead in the musical, Kristina, and she has been the vocalist (muse?) for Benny Andersson’s Orchestra. In this movie, she plays Gabriella, a woman living in a violent relationship
Hers is one of the main, though secondary stories in the movie, which fundamentally concerns the returns to his home town in the cold and bitter north of Sweden story of a famous musician. After suffering a heart-attack, and reflecting on the child-hood bullying he received, the character of Daniel buys his old primary school, in an effort to recover. Although at first, he is a little off-hand with the rest of the community, he eventually becomes a significant part of it. And although the film is often quite bleak, it also has a “feel good” quality to it, as the characters of the small town (as well as the lead), undergo a transformation.
The film is beautifully shot, well acted and honestly scripted. I think most of all though, the honesty of many of the exchanges in the film that make it such a good film, with great moments of insight expressed by the characters. And even now, a few hours later, thinking about the film gives me goose-bumps. Tremendous stuff.
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Some of that looks more appetising than others…🤔😏😎🤣
I like prunes – nice with a good custard – sadly no one in my family likes me having prunes 🤭🫢🤪😵😵💫
The food does look good. While my mother was in the public hospital, the food was rather ordinary in my opinion, and hers. A desert spoon of psyllium husks sprinkled on your morning cereal also keep you regular and help to control your cholesterol levels.
Some of that looks more appetising than others…🤔😏😎🤣
I like prunes – nice with a good custard – sadly no one in my family likes me having prunes 🤭🫢🤪😵😵💫
They don’t know what they’re missing
The food does look good. While my mother was in the public hospital, the food was rather ordinary in my opinion, and hers. A desert spoon of psyllium husks sprinkled on your morning cereal also keep you regular and help to control your cholesterol levels.