I rememered today the 1970s anti-littering campaign, “Do The Right Thing”.
Many years later, I still remember all of the words to the song.
Which brings to me 2025.
As much as I love the idea of hire bikes, it seems to me the places people leave them, or the hire companies park them, is the equivalent to the casual way in which we treated littering back in the 1970s.
The placement of these bikes on Devonshire Street, Surry Hills is problematic for people with limited mobility, such as those in wheelchairs or on scooters (like me). I got around these, but other people might find this difficult.
Devonshire Street, Surry HillsAnother problemtatic example in a narrow laneway near home.And this hire motor-bike was parked in the “disability spot” closest to home which I generally rely on for Uber or Taxi deliveries. I reported this to the company involved, and they didn’t respond.
A few times I’ve reported such placement to the hire bike companies involved. They’ve always responded with “thanks for the feedback, we’ll pass it on”. Effectively this is saying “nothing we can do about it, but if I respond in this way, I can tick the box on the issue having been solved”. It’s a common issue with call centre responses these days – get it out of your inbox, and the problem is solved. But it’s not. Obviously we need lots of things, including council regulations, activity by the hire companies, but fundamentally, also, some degree of individual responsibility.
So my message is simple – if you’re going to hire a bike…. DO THE RIGHT THING.
Turned down one drinks invite, missed the other. Grrrr.
It’s not often I turn down a drinks invitation. And it’s not often I miss a drinks invitation, but I did both tonight.
Normally on a Wednesday night, I’d head off to the pub with John, Graeme and miscellaneous others (depending on who is around that week) for a bite to eat, a chat, and a beer or two.
The pub we go to is a fairly sleepy suburban pub where there’s usually only a handful of customers on a Wednesday night, and usually only one barman working.
But tonight, I didn’t feel like going to the pub. I NEEDED another night at home listening to nothing, as I did last night.
At the moment at work I find I’m talking and listening a lot. I’m doing a fair bit of training as part of my job. And you know what it’s like… after a while you get sick of the sound of your own voice… and you feel like you just need to shut up?
Well, that’s how I felt tonight. I just wanted/needed a quiet night at home without the television, without the radio. I’ve been listening to a fair bit of music, though, and watching/downloading some clips from Youtube, especially those from Kristina The Musical.
It’s such a great musical about a group of Swedish immigrants who move to America in the 19th century at about the time of the gold rushes. And as I watched Peter Jöback sing “Guldet blev till sand” (the gold turned into sand), where he has to tell the lead character about the death of her brother, a little tear rolled down my cheek…
Don’t worry… this clip comes with Swedish subtitles.
So even though I didn’t get to see my mates tonight, I’m happy with the evening as a moment of peace and quiet which I kinda feel I need at the moment.
In rather disturbing news, however, I missed a further drinks invitation from a bloke via Twitter who I met earlier today, and who will be at the same conference I’m at in Copenhagen in a few weeks time.
But perhaps it’s best that I missed a drinks invitation that says “come and play”…. ? :) :) It would have been fun, though…
Sue and I went out for a meal tonight at a nearby Chinese restaurant where the food was a little spicier than what we’ve been experiencing over the last couple of days. I like spicy food, I like challenging food, I like to try new things. In contrast, the food in the last few days has been a little mainstream, a little same-same for my liking. That said, the menu’s obviously been designed with the tour group in mind: people who aren’t, perhaps, as adventurous as I am. At lunchtime, today, for example, there was a level of surprise and unsurity in the group about the flavours and the individual preparation of Peking Duck.
Going on a tour group is, by its very nature, about individual compromise. You need to go on a tour accepting there will be some things you will enjoy, some things you won’t, some people you will like, and some people you won’t. Life is about compromise. Sue and I were discussing this on the bus this afternoon, noting we would have found it difficult to have done so many of the things we have done over the last few days if we had travelled by ourselves. “We could have hired a driver for the day”, I said to Sue, but balanced that by noting it would have been more expensive to have done so, and then on top of that, there would have been all of the additional costs (including entry prices, accommodation and flights) which are all covered as part of this tour.
Today’s activities included a couple of things which I really loved (The Great Wall and The Summer Palace) and some things I wasn’t terribly excited about (a visit to a jade factory, and a visit to a factory where they make enamel-covered copper pots and ornaments). “I might have been born with the gay gene”, I joked to Sue, “but I was born with a damn big straight one as well”. I swear every man in the group (including myself) felt as though these visits looking at jewellery and ornaments were on par with Chinese water torture. I did enjoy the look behind the scenes at the manufacturing at both factories, even if I did find the final products a little uninspiring. But there again, you make compromises. For example, the part of the wall we visited was good but not as great as the spot I visited when I came here in 2010. I really loved The Summer Palace: a really beautiful spot on a lake.
The dynamics (and the pros and cons) of being on a tour group are fascinating to participate in and observe. There’s one couple in the group, for example, who seem to want to dominate proceedings, in some ways want to run the tour themselves. Hopefully, by the end of the tour, this particular couple might have learned a few lessons about the compromises inherent in travelling in a group, and maybe accepting the guides have done the tour before and maybe know a little more than you.
In the weeks (and now months) since Nancy’s death (the reason I came back to Lismore), we’ve uncovered various bits and pieces of history. There are lots of photographs, a sprinkling of newspaper clippings, and some interesting memorabilia.
We’ve named the latest discovery, “The Disaster Files”, as it’s an album of newspaper clippings about the floods we’ve had in Lismore over the years, along with a handful of photographs.
Famously, Nancy was determined not to leave her house during the 2017 flood because she “had lived through plenty of floods before this, and saw no reason to leave this time”. It’s worth noting the last “big flood” she had endured was in 1989, when she was about thirty years younger, not as a woman aged in her 70s with limited mobility!
These three photographs below tell a story of South Lismore for which there seems to be limited photographic evidence. Most of the photographs I’ve seen of the floods in Lismore have tended to be of the town’s central business district. Yes, there’s quite a lot of photographs of South Lismore from more recent floods, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot from earlier floods. For the most part, I think that’s because South Lismore has, generally speaking, been a poorer suburb, and so people often didn’t have cameras, or couldn’t afford to get film developed.
1974 flood in Lismore : we think Nancy’s car is in the floodwaters outside the South Lismore Railway Station. As a number of people have commented on Facebook, people used to park their cars at the railway station, thinking it would be safe.1989 Lismore Flood. We think this photograph shows the back gardens (flooded) of houses at the bottom of Union Street, South Lismore.1989 Lismore Flood : this photograph was taken from the front door of Nancy’s house at 15 Union Street, South Lismore, looking towards the railway viaduct. Looking back the other way.
The other great discovery was an article about the time when a car crashed into Nancy’s house.
The article fails to mention Nancy, concentrating instead on her former husband, Alf. We don’t talk so much about him anymore, for reasons best not gone into.
South Lismore Car Crash, Northern Star (date unknown)
Interestingly, the article was written by Emma Tom, a local woman who went on to fame and success as a journalist with both the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian. These days, she’s known as Emma A. Jane and her biography/website describes her as an “Australian professor, author, and journalist.“. I must check her website to see if this story is mentioned in her CV :):)
Our day in Hangzhou, one of China’s renowned tea capitals, began after breakfast with a special visit to a Tea House at Meijiawu Tea Village. This village, nestled in the hinterland of West Lake Park, is a prime location for Longjing Tea production. I was particularly looking forward to this, as it was a place my friend, Sue, and I had visited on our 2014 tour, and I had wonderful memories of wandering freely through the fields.
However, the weather had other plans. The rain continued, making the terraced fields too slippery and treacherous for me to navigate this time. The risk of falling over was just too great. I had a moment of real sadness, to be honest—a sharp pang of disappointment at this new limitation, a stark contrast to the freedom I’d had before my lower-limb amputation.
But while the fields were off-limits, the experience was not. We gathered in the Tea House, where we were immersed in the local tea culture. We learned how the famous Longjing Tea is picked and prepared, and were served some beautiful green tea. I learned more about the nuances of tea in that single session than I had in my entire life.
This led to a truly remarkable discovery. I had woken with unusually high blood sugar levels (13.3), a common but worrying occurrence for those of us with diabetes. I was taking things slowly, but I was concerned.
After drinking several cups of the green tea during the demonstration, I tested my levels again out of curiosity. They had gone down quite significantly. It wasn’t just me; another woman on the trip who also monitors her blood sugar reported the same effect. I resolved then and there to make green tea a bigger part of my life back home in Australia, perhaps in preference to coffee.
After that, we went for a short boat ride on West Lake. This is no ordinary lake; it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site, so famous for its beauty that it’s featured on the one-yuan banknote. For centuries, its serene landscape has inspired countless poets and artists, becoming a symbol of the idealised fusion of nature and human creation.
Some of our tour group from Australia & New Zealand, on West Lake.
While these kinds of cruises can sometimes be a bit predictable, this experience was a delightful exception. I made a point of being the first person to board, which allowed me to find a perfect little spot for myself outside. A number of others from the tour group joined me there, and it was a beautiful spot to watch the scenery unfold.
From our vantage point on the water, you could truly appreciate the landscape that has been so celebrated in Chinese art. We glided serenely across the water, past the famous Su and Bai Causeways, which are lined with an elegant arrangement of willow and peach trees. We saw charming, pagoda-topped islands, the most iconic being the three small stone pagodas of ‘Three Pools Mirroring the Moon’ that rise from the water. In the distance, the silhouette of the Leifeng Pagoda on the shore completed the picturesque scene.
Having that great spot made all the difference, turning a simple boat ride into a genuinely beautiful and memorable part of the day.
From there, we headed towards Shanghai, with an optional activity: the chance to watch “ERA: The Intersection of Time,” a Chinese acrobatic show. It was, however, about a 60-minute drive from the centre of Shanghai, which we discovered was a fairly recurrent situation on this tour. Staying in accommodation a fair distance from the main tourist hubs, I guess, is a key part of what makes such a trip so affordable. In preparation for the next day, I chose to stay at the hotel and rest up.
Continuing my “Eurovision Countdown” and highlighting another wonderful song and performance. And highlighting something which I wish there was more of in modern Eurovision: songs in languages other than English. This song is awesome, and was easily my favourite from 2007. Marija Šerifović from Serbia. There’s an English language version, too, but in my opinion, it lacks the passion of this.
A few months ago, you might recall, I made a post here about my twenty-five years of continuous service with the ABC.
The official employment offer letter states it was twenty five years today that I was offered a job at the ABC. I’d previously been employed at the community radio station at Bourke in Western NSW. I’d applied for a few ABC jobs during the previous six months. When the call came through from Don Bensted offering me the position, I actually had to ask him “for which job”. In reality, it didn’t matter much to me, as I’d long wanted to work for ABC Radio. I have a vague memory of finishing work in Bourke on a Wednesday or a Thursday, driving overnight via Broken Hill, and of arriving in Renmark on a Thursday or Friday afternoon. I’m pretty sure I went to air the following Monday, though it’s possible I had a few days to settle in. Twenty five years later and I’m still working for the ABC. Along the way, I’ve been the Morning Presenter in Wagga Wagga, the Statewide Afternoon and Drive presenter in NSW, and have acted in other jobs in Darwin, Perth, Canberra and Lismore. Ten years ago I made the switch from on-air presenter to Manager which wasn’t as traumatic as I thought it might be ego-wise. In a lovely piece of symmetry, I’m currently back in Regional Radio, working as the National Manager of our regional stations. I’ve had many great opportunities over the last twenty five years, and I continue to love working for a really terrific organisation. Win.
Today I received a medal which commemorates this moment in time.
At today’s “ceremony” I told the story of how I’d once dated a guy at work. A few years later, having broken up with him, I caught up with him and he asked if I still worked for the ABC. When I told him I did, he said, in a very negative tone “I always knew you’d be a lifer”. I told those attending I didn’t see it as a negative, even though in this modern world, it’s generally regarded as odd that you should work for the same organisation for such a long time. I told everyone I’d had so many wonderful opportunities to do so many different things, to live in many different parts of the country, and genuinely love my current job and the people I work with. Receiving the medal was a very proud moment for me, and something I’ll really treasure for many years to come. “It’s my Matthew Mitcham moment”, I joked.
Manager Metropolitan Local Radio, Jeremy Millar and I.
Interesting fact: the medal was designed by Andor Meszaros who also designed the Olympic Commemoration Medallion for the Melbourne Olympics in 1956.
I received some lovely comments on social media and via email.
Sweet! Congrats to a great fella!
It’s when I are that gold I know I should have stayed on for a few years. (It is good, right?) well done Jimmi
Wow. 25 years. Congratulations James. You going for 50?
Late to this but nonetheless congrats. on your award. Segue to a sporting achievement, to wit the marathon, Minister O’Brien.
Fantastic! Do you get 25 weeks bonus leave as well?
Congrats James. The medal looks good!
I know you’re in another meeting otherwise I’d call but congratulations on your 25 years. I can’t imagine making that kind of milestone. It’s a tribute to your commitment not just to the ABC but also to the medium. The passion shows. Congratulations and enjoy the celebration. Tea and cake I presume.
Welcome to the club x
Congratulations on the medal of service to the Abc. Simon showed me the photo! Thanks for staying with the abc and enriching the lives of your audiences in NSW and beyond. I remember listening to you on NSW regs whilst visiting Byron Bay one year! Thanks for your hard work and support through the years – it really is appreciated! I hope the accompanying champas was delish!!
