The Big Issue Australia #608 - Bluey

Ed.

608

17 20OCT MAR 012020 NOV 2019

p16.

SOFIE LAGUNA p22.

JIMEOIN p30.

I AM C-3PO

AUSSIE G IN DOGÂ HAVY HER DA LE THE LITT

Y E U L B

plus p40.

CHEESECAKE

HELPING PEOPLE HELP THEMSELVES HELPING PEOPLE HELP THEMSELVES the cover price goes to your vendor $4.50$4.50 of theof cover price goes to your vendor

$9 $9

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NATIONAL OFFICE

ENQUIRIES

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Contents

EDITION

608

16 Tigger Sofie Laguna’s old dog saw her through relationships, upheaval, family and, finally, to heartbreak.

22 LETTER TO MY YOUNGER SELF

Jimeoin’s Flare for Fashion

12.

The Irish comic tells how he came to Australia to work on building sites – and how his life changed when an acquaintance put his name down to do some stand-up.

Hey, True Bluey!

by Aimee Knight

The adorable blue heeler family in Bluey has captured the imaginations of kids and adults alike across Australia and around the world – creator Joe Brumm tells all about his canine creations.

THE REGULARS

04 Ed’s Letter & Your Say 05 Meet Your Vendor 06 Streetsheet 08 Hearsay & 20 Questions 11 My Word 18 The Big Picture

26 Ricky 27 Fiona 34 Film Reviews 35 Small Screen Reviews 36 Music Reviews 37 Book Reviews

BEHIND THE COVER

Bluey, star of the most-watched show in ABC iview history. image courtesy ABC

39 Public Service Announcement 40 Tastes Like Home 43 Puzzles 45 Crossword 46 Click

30 SMALL SCREENS

I Am C-3PO Only one actor has appeared in all nine main Star Wars films, but you might not recognise Anthony Daniels. He reveals what it’s like to be C-3PO.

Ed’s Letter

by Amy Hetherington Editor @amyhetherington

We’re All in This Together

I

n these uncertain and challenging times, I’ve been seeking solace in stories of solidarity and community. The thoughtful neighbour who dropped off homemade vegie soup at the door of a sick relative. The buddy networks popping up on social media to deliver food, medicines and toilet paper to the elderly and isolated. The heart-warming footage of quarantined Italians joyously singing and dancing out on their balconies, separate yet united in the face of the coronavirus lockdown.

It’s a reminder that we’re all in this together. That as we self-isolate and stockpile, we must also remember the most vulnerable in our community.

It’s why, as always, The Big Issue is prioritising the wellbeing and safety of our vendors.

We are working with vendors all around the country to provide guidance on the best self-care and health practices, and we continue to collaborate with other community and government

agencies to help vendors access up-todate advice and support.

Our vendors are resilient. They have survived the toughest of times.

But the situation we all now face is unprecedented and rapidly changing. Our vendors need your support now, more than ever. So, if you’re able, check in with your vendor. Have a chat, buy the magazine – many sellers accept digital payments. The income is vital. So too the social connection. If you’re self-isolating, you can also drop your vendor a message via submissions@bigissue.org.au and we’ll pass it on. A little bit of kindness can be a much-needed light in these darkening days.

Another glimmer of light came from the World Health Organisation, who last week announced there’s no evidence you can contract COVID-19 from your dogs. For many, their pets will be welcome comfort during the difficult weeks ahead. It’s these stories of canine companionship that we look at in this edition. And a soul-affirming little dog called Bluey.

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The Big Issue Story The Big Issue is an independent, not-for-profit magazine sold on the streets around Australia. It was created as a social enterprise 23 years ago to provide both a voice and a work opportunity for people experiencing homelessness and disadvantage. Your purchase of this magazine has directly benefited the person who sold it to you. Big Issue vendors buy each copy for $4.50 and sell it to you for $9, keeping the profits. But The Big Issue is more than a fortnightly magazine.

Your Say E FO RT NI GH T LE TT ER OF TH

I love that my most recent subscription copy of The Big Issue was this fortnight “packed and wrapped” by the Women’s Subscription Enterprise’s Rowena – someone who shares my less-thancommon name! I always pay attention to the name written on the address sleeve and love this personal touch!

Shout out to Rowena in the WSE (it isn’t the first time I have had this pleasure), and all of the others who are doing such a great job.

ROWENA BRENNAN RINGWOOD NORTH I VIC

I just listened to Ben from Glasgow – the vendor at Victoria Bridge in Brisbane – being interviewed on ABC Radio’s Conversations last December.

What a great guy. A gentle giant. Very eloquent and intelligent – he should write his autobiography. I also love his song ‘Higher Ground’. I wish him all the very best for 2020.

RON THE NETHERLANDS

What joy Lorin Clarke’s Public Service Announcement brings to every issue! I’d buy the magazine if it were all blank pages except hers.

Thank you for all you do.

PHIL MCALEER SANDRINGHAM I VIC

• Our Women’s Subscription Enterprise provides employment and training for women through the sale of magazine subscriptions as well as social procurement work.

• The Community Street Soccer Program promotes social inclusion and good health at weekly soccer games at 19 locations around the country.

• The Big Issue Classroom educates school groups about homelessness.

• And The Big Idea challenges university students to develop a new social enterprise.

CHECK OUT ALL THE DETAILS AT

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

As winner of Letter of the Fortnight, Rowena wins a copy of Now for Something Sweet by Monday Morning Cooking Club. We share their cheesecake recipe on p40. We’d also love to hear your thoughts, feedback and suggestions: SUBMISSIONS@BIGISSUE.ORG.AU

YOUR SAY SUBMISSIONS MAY BE EDITED FOR CLARITY AND SPACE.

Meet Your Vendor

interview by Melissa Fulton photo by James Braund

PROUD UNIFORM PARTNER OF THE BIG ISSUE VENDORS.

20 MAR 2020

SELLS THE BIG ISSUE AT ST KILDA AND FLEMINGTON MARKETS, AND AT MOONEE PONDS, MELBOURNE

05

Craig

I went to school in Bendigo. I can’t remember much about it; it was too long ago now. But I didn’t like school – didn’t like any of it. I didn’t like the classes, got in trouble a bit. I got through it, though – just. Then I stayed around for a bit, working different kinds of jobs.

I worked in Kyneton at the meatworks. I worked at Mayfair, doing pigs. It was alright. I liked seeing all the meat; it didn’t turn me off it.

But it did turn me off eating pies. If you knew what meat went into mince pies, you wouldn’t be eating them. I still eat chunky ones, just nothing that’s gone through mincers, you understand?

Then I got my truck licence and said, “Right. I’m going to WA.” I just wanted a change. I was over in Perth for 25 years. Just doing freight up and down and all around WA. I moved houses and that too for a while.

WA roads are better than what they are in Victoria.

I’ve been back here nearly two years. I don’t really get on with my brothers and sisters, but I came back because my aunties and that are all getting old, and there’s been a few of them who’ve fallen off the perch, so I wanted to catch up with them.

I was homeless when I moved back. Staying at different people’s places for a while, just moving around. And then I met Vesna, my girlfriend. I knew her when she was over in Perth – she was living with her sister there – and then when I came back over here I bumped into her again.

Vesna sells The Big Issue too. We work together now.

We’ve been doing it for a while. We started at around the same time. We work on the pitch together: she does one end of the market and I do the other, because you get people coming in both ways. It’s been good. I like the freedom, the hours – you work whenever you want to work. The money’s been good; it’s getting me by.

Vesna and I have been together over 12 months, going on nearly two years. We’re gonna do something for our anniversary, but I dunno what yet. She likes flowers; I buy them for her all the time from the market – most weeks.

I live in a one-bedroom unit now. I went to emergency housing and got a place from them. I live there on my own. I don’t really have a rule to live by or nothing. I just want to have a good time, to get out and do things.

When we’re not selling The Big Issue we like to keep busy. We’re into sport: car racing, sprint cars. I was a Holden supporter, but I wouldn’t buy the cars now. They’re made overseas and the metals are that thin!

Streetsheet

Stories, poems and pictures by Big Issue vendors and friends

Stolen Trike

WSE’S MELISSA AT PARLIAMENT HOUSE

MELISSA

My Day in Parliament

06

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

T

he Women’s Subscription Enterprise has improved my self-esteem. It’s helped my depression. It’s improved my sleeping patterns. It’s improved my confidence. It’s had a snowball effect where my life is much bigger now. And it’s helped me out financially, which is very important because I was struggling. I don’t struggle as much financially for food or vet bills for my cat Tiger.

For the WSE’s 10th anniversary my WSE colleague Teri and I flew to Canberra to be part of a Big Shift in Parliament House, showing the politicians how to pack the magazines for subscribers. It was the funniest Big Shift I’ve done – the politicians were just so enthusiastic and happy, making mistakes and fumbling through.

I got to mingle with the politicians – I spoke to Tanya Plibersek, that was nice. And I shared my story on stage.

I was a bit scared; it’s a huge thing talking in front of politicians. But it was great travelling with Teri, and good to have another WSE person to have fun with. It made me feel more comfortable.

Being at Parliament and talking to the politicians has really helped my self-esteem too. It’s made me feel good about myself because I feel like I did a good job. It was a great experience.

Ten years is an amazing accomplishment for the WSE. I want every woman who is disadvantaged or homeless to have the same opportunity I’ve had – to be able to go to The Big Issue and start anew, feel alive and just blossom to become so much better.

MELISSA IS EMPLOYED BY THE WOMEN’S SUBSCRIPTION ENTERPRISE IN SYDNEY.

I originally came from Ukraine with Mum, Dad, my sister and younger brother. We came to Australia for a better life and better opportunities.

Back in Ukraine, when I was three years old, I was involved in a car crash that left me with disabilities, including loss of function in the right side of my body and blindness in my right eye. I attended special schools to deal with my learning abilities and to prepare me for future employment and becoming part of the community.

I have had a few jobs – a gardener, a basketball referee, a cleaner and factory jobs. I met and got talking to a Big Issue vendor then I became a vendor myself. As I live out in Dandenong, I am looking to sell The Big Issue out at Dandenong Market, and I have previously sold at the Queen Vic Market and Bourke St Mall. I use an electric tricycle as a way of getting about but sadly, my tricycle was recently stolen. This is the second tricycle I’ve had stolen in eight months. I am enjoying selling the magazine and meeting lots of new people. I love The Big Issue.

DENIS QUEEN VIC MARKET I MELBOURNE

The Chairman!

Hi, I’m Marc and I’ve been a Big Issue vendor for seven years.

Almost always wherever I go as a seller, I carry around my portable chair. Many people comment to me about it. When someone sees me in the street and wants to strike up a conversation, they will usually say: “Well, hello, you brought your own chair!” and I will respond, “Yes, this is my magic chair and it has served me very well!” I’ve used my chair successfully in quite a variety of situations. For example, when I’m in a queue at the bank, I will use my chair to sit down while keeping my place in the queue, while everyone

PHOTO BY BROOKE ZOTTI

WSE SPOTLIGHT

them high priority in their lives, more than other goals for example.

They would rather make people feel happy and prioritised. This kind of person may say “enjoy the game” (soccer tournament for example), regardless of the score. On the other

hand, there is the sort of person who is very results-oriented when playing a game, with little or no attention to what other people will go through from stress and hardship to get the higher scores.

HAIDAR NEWTOWN I SYDNEY

RYAN AND HIS FAMILY’S GOLDEN LABRADORS

MARC L BRISBANE CITY

Our New Pup

RICKY HUNGRY JACK’S I ADELAIDE

Relationship Goals Good morning peeps, my article today is about something very valuable to me and to my readers as well. It is about relationships, which are a fundamental component of human survival. I can never have enough of them. Relationships are very precious ties that I always work to establish and maintain, despite not being successful all the time. In reality, people have varied degrees of interests when it comes to relationships. Some people give

We Are Golden My name is Ryan. I am 37 years old and have multiple disabilities.

I have been working for The Big Issue for the past five years and I have enjoyed working selling the magazines in Perth CBD. I enjoy talking and meeting with lots of people in the city. I live in my own flat at the back of my parents’ house with my dog Cracker, who is a 10-year-old golden labrador. My parents also have a golden labrador named Cassie, who is eight years old. I enjoy spending time with both of them. I enjoy my tenpin bowling, which I do with some disability groups and with the Blind Tenpin Bowling. I have just competed in the Special Olympics Tenpin Bowling and won two gold medals. I enjoy going away with the team and competing in competitions. In December, I went to Brisbane for another competition. I also enjoy playing basketball with a disability group each week. It’s fun and also good exercise. I also like listening to live music and going to some karaoke nights with my support workers.

RYAN ROYAL PERTH HOSPITAL

20 MAR 2020

I would like to introduce our new pup, Susie, to our family and to The Big Issue family of past and present customers. Susie is a Maltese terrier-cross and we got her when she was just five weeks old – we love her very much. We got her so she can help me with my anxiety and depression, which I suffer with every day. Some days are hard to deal with. Since she has been my responsibility, it has made my days a lot better. I hope to have many more easy days, as Susie means so much to me and my partner.

ALL VENDOR CONTRIBUTORS TO STREETSHEET ARE PAID FOR THEIR WORK.

07

else is forced to stand up. While I’m sitting down, I will notice people, both in the queue and at the tellers, getting all flustered and red in the face. (That is a very common thing at the bank.) Or if I find a beautiful spot in the middle of nowhere, I will unpack my chair and sit there for a few minutes admiring the view. I don’t know what I would do without my chair. It has become an indispensable part of my life. Some vendors have a dog, some even might carry their baby. But you can’t sit on a dog or a baby, you can only sit on a chair and you don’t have to feed it. Being a responsible human, I have a chair.

Hearsay

Richard Castles Writer Andrew Weldon Cartoonist

“

I keep saying we’ve got to find another word for ‘beauty’. I think we should start calling it ‘character’ instead of beauty, because that’s really what it is.

Actor Dame Helen Mirren on her changing idea of beauty. Perhaps she means something like “beauty comes from within”?

08

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

CNN | US

years in Myanmar. The dinosaur would have been similar in size to the world’s smallest living bird, the bee hummingbird, which weighs about two grams.

NATURE | UK

“This turtle spent 20 years in captivity and still, you put her in the water and she suddenly remembers she probably has something to do on the other side of the ocean and just starts crossing it.”

Sabrina Fossette, from WA’s Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, on a loggerhead turtle named Yoshi who, after being released from an aquarium in Cape Town, swam 37,000km across the Indian Ocean – which included a few wrong turns, including one to Angola – to a turtle nesting site on WA’s coastline, possibly her birthplace.

ABC NEWS

“It’s of course a projection and, like any projection, it could be wrong. But if you have a reproductive number of an infectious disease of around two [which means that on average each infected person transmits the disease to two others], which seems to be the estimates that we’re getting right now, then at a minimum, half the adult population needs to become infected before the spread can stop permanently. This is not an ungrounded estimation, but simply the basic maths of epidemics.”

Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch predicting that up to 60 per cent of adults could become infected with the coronavirus. He supports drastic measures to limit the spread of the pandemic, even though there are still a lot of unknowns about the virus.

SPIEGEL INTERNATIONAL | GERMANY

“Of course, globalisation causes distress and inequalities, but these

can be addressed piece by piece. You can’t blame a country for subsidising farms, for example – but overall, free trade is a net good... And there is proof of this. The number of people living in abject poverty – [US]$1 a day – has been cut in half [since 1990], essentially by free trade.”

Writer and conservative commentator PJ O’Rourke (Holidays in Hell) on why free trade is a good thing.

NEW STATESMAN | US

“I always say, I benefit greatly from an incredibly low bar. Somebody who grew up as an actor or famous is really – people do not have a good image of child stars... But it is something where I feel like I get a really crazy amount of credit for just being fair, normal and decent. But, I guess I won’t complain about that.”

Daniel Radcliffe, who grew up as Harry Potter, on being a seemingly well-adjusted former child star, who sadly generally don’t have a great track record.

ESQUIRE | US

“Animals that become very small have to deal with specific problems, like how to fit all sensory organs into a very small head, or how to maintain body heat.”

Professor Jingmai O’Connor from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing on the discovery of what is believed to be the smallest known dinosaur, a tiny bird-like fossil dubbed Oculudentavis khaungraae, preserved in amber for 99 million

“She’s small and not very loud, so when you see her in action, there’s something about the contrast that strikes you…[as kids] she’d be skating better than you, falling harder than you. What are you gonna say?”

Pro skater Trevor Thompson on his friend Alexis Sablone, a seven-time X Games medallist skateboarder.

Sablone, who also has a master’s degree in architecture from MIT and

20 Questions

by Big Red

01 Who is the founder of Hobart’s

MONA museum?

02 Who are Peter Rabbit’s three sisters?

03 Which continent is home to the

world’s coldest desert?

04 What is a Stobie pole?

05 Who was nominated for two

acting Oscar awards at this year’s ceremony?

06 What popular household product

was invented by New York entrepreneur Joseph Gayetty in 1857?

07 Where on your shoes do you find an

aglet?

08 What breed of dog was created by a

German tax collector who was said to need a guard dog for protection?

09 How many members are there

ROLLING STONE | US

“This is a very sad day for the community of Ijara and Kenya as a whole. Her killing is a blow to the steps taken by the community to conserve rare and unique species, and a wake-up call for continued support to conservation efforts.”

Mohammed Ahmednoor, manager of Ishaqbini Hirola Community Conservancy in Kenya, on the killing of the world’s only female white giraffe by poachers and the subsequent death of its calf. Only one male white giraffe remains. “Sad” doesn’t cut it.

THE EASTAFRICAN | KENYA

“When we added it up, it came to around 3.5 million kilometres,

give or take a few kilometres. I still love it, but I guess you can’t work forever. The highlight has definitely been all the people I’ve met over those years; people keep coming up to me and still recognise me.”

Indian Pacific guest experience manager Jos Engelaar, who is set to retire from the transcontinental train service after 21 years, estimates the number of kilometres he’s covered across the country in his career.

ABC

“I love [nostalgia] as much or more than anyone you know. Like, I keep a box full of deodorant cans from when I was a teenager, each with a couple of sprays left in them, and I can sniff the nozzles and remember those days. Smells, in particular, are things that I find the most powerful in terms of memories, and I think it’s because your smell receptors are the closest to your memory in your brain. I think that’s the thing.”

Kevin Parker of Tame Impala on sniffing old deodorant cans.

in Australian band 5 Seconds of Summer?

10 Which country has held the annual

Wife Carrying Championships race since 1992?

11 What was Macquarie Dictionary’s

word of the year for 2019: whataboutism, cancel culture or robodebt?

12 Which breakfast cereal is associated

with mascot Tony the Tiger?

13 People with heterochromia have

which distinct feature?

14 The NBA suspended its season

after which Utah Jazz player tested positive for coronavirus?

15 What model (and make) was the last

locally made car by General Motors’ Holden in Australia in 2017?

16 Which Nobel prize-winning author

wrote Love in the Time of Cholera?

17 Which Australian state is home to

Wolfe Creek Crater National Park?

18 Which pasta is named for the “little

ears” they resemble?

19 Which Australian actor started

her own production company LuckyChap Entertainment?

20 What is the average lifespan of a

Greenland Shark: 150, 250 or 400 years?

NME | UK

FREQUENTLY OVERHEAR TANTALISING TIDBITS? DON’T WASTE THEM ON YOUR FRIENDS SHARE THEM WITH THE WORLD AT SUBMISSIONS@BIGISSUE.ORG.AU

ANSWERS ON PAGE 43

20 MAR 2020

has designed a “So, what is the current skateable public sculpture in exchange rate for a Sweden, is close sheet of toilet paper to to qualifying for the Australian dollar?”

Tokyo this year, A man overheard on the light rail

by Chris of Summer Hill, NSW. where the sport will make its Olympic debut, coronavirus willing.

09

EAR2GROUND

My Word

by Natasha Moldrich

N

ot too long ago I became obsessed with seeing an art exhibition more than 800km from where I live. The Tweed Regional Gallery in Murwillumbah, northern New South Wales, had been drawing me in like a magnet ever since I’d learned about its unique exposition of the renowned Australian artist, Margaret Olley.

When I finally came face-to-face with the gallery’s pièce de résistance, the recreation of Margaret’s studio – the dining room, kitchen and “yellow room” from her Duxford Street house in Sydney’s Paddington – I felt strange at first, almost voyeuristic. And amazed, to see so much clutter in the space she dined, entertained and painted in during the last 20-odd years of her life.

It made sense. Olley’s painting style alternated between still life and interiors, so her home became her subject matter. I imagined Margaret, her eyes fixed on a vase, painting furiously. Stopping to smoke a cigarette, wandering into the kitchen to make tea, picking up another paintbrush and starting on a bowl of plums ripening in the sun.

Colour and varying shades of natural light gave life and inspiration to everyday objects. The riotous hues of a crumpled silk shawl thrown carelessly over the back of a chair; a platter of decaying red apples; and scattered everywhere, her floral muses – dried orange poppies, stalks of yellow, white and apricot tulips, lilies, and bunches of eucalyptus, wattle and banksia.

Then out of the blue something about the potpourri of vases, flowers, books, ornaments, fruit and crockery reminded me of the home my parents once shared.

The same one my sister and I are gradually cleaning out after my father’s death and my mother’s move to aged care.

Instead of Margaret’s pallets and brushes placed in various spots, Mum had photos of her beloved family. Music books adorned her piano bench where she played with once-nimble fingers; unruly piles of cookbooks lingered on kitchen ledges; and cards, bills and papers were spread lazily over a lace-clad linen tablecloth. An accomplished teacher, Mum’s reference books were always at hand to help with the kids’ schooling. Like Margaret, she loved to cook on her crowded benchtop, her jam-packed pantry bursting

at the seams with every kind of spice and an endless supply of biscuits, cake and soft drinks.

In the same way Margaret’s clutter inspired her to mix those first daubs of colour and paint her domestic treasures, Mum’s clutter was purposely at hand to look after her friends and family. A deep-blue jug of fresh water draped with fine netting would be there to quench a weary child’s thirst; a stack of serviettes in a silver holder on standby to wipe a full mouth; and a fine china vase, often filled with flowers from Dad, would brighten the cosy mess on the dining room table. Margaret would have loved it, maybe even enough to paint it.

But I wonder, if Olley had had children, would they have preserved her home so the public could inspect it for all time? Perhaps they may have cleared it instead, room by room, keeping treasures and valuables, donating where they could, taking the decent stuff to Vinnies with the rest going to landfill? Sounds callous, but it’s the fate of all our belongings, one fine day when we’re no longer on this earth.

A part of me accepts this process but another side wishes my parents’ house and their loving clutter could be preserved for life like Olley’s place. The gradual dismantling of their home and all its contents feels like an invasion, a vanishing of their comfortable and loving existence.

During it all I swore I wouldn’t keep much. In the age of minimalism and Marie Kondo-inspired anti-clutter obsessives, I felt guilty even thinking about carting any of Mum and Dad’s stuff home. But there I was, picking up a tiny sherry glass and remembering the sweet heady nips of Baileys on Christmas Eve at their house. And I just had to keep the solid glass nibbles platter Mum liked to bring out at the hint of visitors. Deep down I knew it wasn’t the material items I wanted or needed, but the decades of love and care embedded in them.

Perhaps Margaret’s and Mum’s clutter is telling me not only to keep the things that “spark joy” for me, but to hold on to those objects that give warmth and joy to others too.

And to remember a time in my parents’ fading era when it was normal to surround yourself with all the beloved items you’d collected over the years – when homes weren’t a showpiece but a haven to invite friends and family, surrounding them with love and clutter.

Natasha Moldrich is a Sydney-based freelance writer and communications specialist.

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An art exhibition brings the past and present into living colour.

20 MAR 2020

Love and Clutter

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ONE HAPPY FAMILY: BANDIT AND CHILLI, BINGO AND BLUEY

Hey, True Bluey!

by Aimee Knight Small Screens Editor @siraimeeknight

T

he other day a friend said, ‘I’m I have no children. But when sad or hungover, I watch Bluey,’” laughs Melanie “Chilli” Zanetti, an actor and voiceover artist from Brisbane.

“I thought that was very funny. It’s obviously tapping into something.”

Too true.

If you haven’t yet encountered Bluey, chances are you don’t have much contact with the kindergarten set – though it seems that’s no longer an excuse. After all, the eponymous pup stars in the most-watched show in ABC iview history.

Since debuting in 2018, Bluey’s first season has accrued more than 200 million program plays on the platform. The number-one kids show on Australian broadcast TV resonates not just with children but with parents, grandparents and even kid-free adults who

20 MAR 2020

he 35.

I’m

13

IMAGES COURTESY ABC

It’s the must-watch show for kids, parents and anyone wanting a moment of heartwarming goodness. Aimee Knight talks to the people behind Bluey to discover why the little blue heeler is taking the world by storm.

As the show’s head writer, Brumm routinely runs scripts by his wife Suzy, a storyboard artist on the show. “[Suzy] felt pretty fresh off the bench to motherhood,” he says. “So she’s always keen to make sure that Chilli is learning on the job.

“To tell you a secret,” he says, “I write through Chilli a lot of the time. She’s like Bandit in that she loves those kids, but there’s also those little longings for how it was before.” Compared to Bandit’s extroversion, Chilli is quiet. One poignant episode, ‘The Beach’, sees Chilli take a solo walk to get some headspace. It’s an empathetic nod to the unspoken notion that life was different before the kids arrived.

These truths imbue Bluey with a relatability, balance and sincerity that’s rare in kids TV. The candid depiction of family life has earned the show an earnest following from folks who dig its authenticity. Exhibit A: the recap podcast Gotta Be Done, hosted by two Melbourne mums.

So it’s understandable that fans felt let down when, last November, an official character description suggested Chilli’s return to work had caused her to “fall short” of other mothers. Author Jamila Rizvi and many other viewers expressed disappointment at the implicit mum-shaming. “Chilli is my cartoon mother pin-up,” Rizvi tweeted. “I find myself asking ‘What would Chilli do?’ most days. What a horrible write-up of a mum doing a damn fine job.”

Typically when artists and brands are called out on Twitter, they either offer a pro forma apology or, worse, dig deeper. Testament to the thoughtful team behind Bluey, executive producer Daley Pearson swiftly replied with a revision that emphasised Chilli’s adaptability and her wry sense of humour – a trait that also appeals to her owner, so to speak.

“This is my first mum role and my first dog role,” says Zanetti, calling from her second home in LA. “She’s so warm and intelligent. She’s like, mum goals,” Zanetti laughs, before adding, “and she’s a great partner to Bandit.”

For cartoon canines, Chilli and Bandit have undeniable chemistry. They work together as an effective, affectionate parental unit. (Season two leans further into their romantic connection.) So it may surprise fans to learn that Zanetti and McCormack have never met. “We all record separately,” she says. “We’ve emailed and [McCormack]’s lovely, but...we’re in different countries right now.”

It begs the question: how do they get such natural performances? Particularly from the young women who play Bluey and Bingo (their names are intentionally withheld from the credits, though press materials note that all the pups are voiced by “local children, and children of the production crew”).

“I’ve seen where they record and there are lots of things that make noises and are playful,” says Zanetti, though she herself just steps into a plain ol’ booth.

“What makes it natural is that I act it all out, especially when I’m doing something that has force – lifting someone up or running around. The audio doesn’t hit

IMAGES COURTESY ABC

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

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have no ostensible reason to watch a preschool cartoon about an anthropomorphic dog family. But, as Zanetti notes, it’s just “so funny and charming and true to life”.

Bluey centres on the adventures of its titular blue heeler – a rambunctious and loveable little girl, age six. She has a sensitive younger sister called Bingo, age four, and two enviable parents in Bandit (voiced by Custard frontman Dave McCormack) and Chilli (Zanetti). Created by animator and short film director Joe Brumm, Bluey illustrates the power of creative play, and was inspired by the hijinks of his own two daughters.

“Most episodes are based on different games,” says Brumm, “and most of those games are stuff that I would play with the kids.”

Bluey’s amusements range from the stockstandard restaurant and doctor games, through to fanciful roleplays about ANTHROPOMORPHIC OR WHAT? fairies, robots, fruit bats and beyond. When some social quarrel percolates, the characters must resolve their differences, usually through unstructured play.

“The little dramas they have, and the parenting dramas, are all drawn from our lives,” says Brumm, over the phone from Brisbane’s Ludo Studio. His laidback intonation has that distinctly Queensland lilt.

Actually, it sounds a lot like Bandit’s.

An archaeologist who works from home (yes, it’s a thing), Bandit has been celebrated as a present, patient and engaged father. He joins in with the kids’ imaginative musings while seeing to his list of chores throughout their pastel-toned Queenslander home.

Bandit may be the antithesis to TV’s “dumb dad” stereotype – think: Fred Flintstone, Homer Simpson, Al Bundy – but his domestic contribution is framed as wholly unremarkable. Chilli and Bandit aren’t “super parents”, says Brumm. They’re doing their best, and they’re honest about the slog.

BLUEY AIRS TWICE DAILY ON ABC KIDS AND IS AVAILABLE THEREAFTER ON IVIEW.

20 MAR 2020

Bluey illustrates the power of creative play.

Ludo Studio, its production partner Screen Queensland, and the ABC receive so, so much Bluey fan mail. Viewers write to the young pup herself, sending cards and letters suggesting games she could play.

Parents send anecdotes that might inspire the animators.

Online, parents reveal that Chilli and Bandit have taught them to be more patient and present with their kids (not to mention how the “tactical wee” has changed their lives).

Zanetti was contacted by someone whose son is on the autism spectrum. Nothing holds his attention like Bluey does. It’s teaching him how to play with other kids. “That made me cry,” says Zanetti. “We’re part of something that’s actually having a positive effect on the world.”

“I read a comment once where this guy said his dad watches it,” recalls Brumm. “He’s older now and Chilli reminds him of his late wife. The daughters remind him of his kids when they were young. I thought, You’ve created a show that’s showing childhood in a very relatable way. Even when your kids are grown up, you’ll still remember that era.

“Bandit and Chilli, they’re always griping about the games, right?” he says. “It’s so easy to wish it away because you’re always tired and it’s such hard work.

“It’s not until those phases end that you start to really miss them.”

Brumm’s two daughters are no longer four and six.

They’ve grown out of the developmental phase shaped by creative play. “It does feel like I’m drifting away from that little snapshot Bluey takes place in, that timeless zone.” His memory is pretty good, though, and he wrote lots while the girls were young. Lucky, because their onscreen counterparts are here for the long haul.

In the UK and North America, Bluey has started screening on Disney Junior. In January this year, it landed on Disney+ in most other territories, besides China, where it streams on Youku, though dubbed in Mandarin. (That’s the only version that doesn’t feature the original Australian voice work, which the producers fought to retain on all the other releases.)

Some merchandise is already available in Australia, and Moose Toys is set to release its first line of Bluey play sets, figurines, plush toys and accessories in the USA later this year.

And back at home, Bluey’s long-awaited second season has just started on ABC Kids and iview. The heelers will soon make their live debut in a touring theatre show, which crosses the country from May 2020 to January 2021.

How has Bluey’s success changed Brumm’s relationships with his family and friends? “Look, I haven’t changed much in the last few years,” he says, “but I’m definitely a lot busier.

“My life is moving into a different phase than Bandit and Chilli’s, but we still play some of those games from time to time. It’s nice.”

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unless you’re doing it and being there.”

That sense of freedom and frivolity informs Brumm’s work, too.

Tuning out all the busy work of production, he meditates for an hour every morning, often generating ideas. He calls meditation his “secret weapon”. Once he’s keen on an initial concept, Brumm takes a pen and pad somewhere comfy and just…plays.

For instance: what if one of the puppies wore a cone of shame?

“You start with that, then go, ‘I wonder what it looks like if I invert it?’” says Brumm. “You draw a little sketch of her getting stuck in a doorway.”

Sometimes he sketches, sometimes he writes. “There’s not really any one way,” he explains. “There’s no structure – it’s free play. I wouldn’t say I’m in control of it.” Doesn’t that sound like Bluey and Bingo’s own raptures? “I’m learning that’s where the heart and joy of these scripts come from,” Brumm says. “This non-rigid, playful period.”

Whimsical as they may be, Bluey’s plots don’t feel forced or affected – certainly not in contrast to other preschool series. “I don’t watch a great deal of kids TV, honestly because I can’t stand most of it,” Brumm laughs, wearily. He says the stories are too contrived, and any adult who’s suffered through an episode of Peppa Pig will agree.

He recounts a standard kids’ show scenario: a child breaks something belonging to a parent.

Overcome with guilt, the kid spends the whole episode making an endearing but sub-par replacement.

“It doesn’t happen,” says Brumm, speaking from experience.

“They break your thing and they don’t care. That’s the Bluey episode.

“It’s funnier because it’s more relatable, it’s idiosyncratic. You don’t often see it, but it lands a lot harder.”

Zanetti agrees. “It feels like paradoxical intention, but the more specific and vulnerable you can get with the truth, the more relatable it becomes.

That’s Bluey in a nutshell.”

Brumm says, “One of the comments we get all the time is, They’ve opened a window into our living room. They’ve got a camera in our living room. And those to me are some of the best compliments, because you feel like everyone’s sharing this. It isn’t just me who feels this way; that’s not just my kid who does that. It’s really nice to have that relatability.”

Tigger Sofie Laguna remembers her loyal, loving best mate.

by Sofie Laguna

Sofie Laguna is the Miles Franklin-winning author of The Eye of the Sheep, One Foot Wrong and The Choke. Her new novel, Infinite Splendours, will be published in October.

illustrations by Nat Hues

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H

e was the last dog in the row of cages at Burwood RSPCA. A red heeler, fox-sized, sitting still, his excitement showing only in his front paws, which he lifted one then the other as I peered at him through the wire.

I called him Tigger and drove him home in my little Ford Escort panel van to my share house in Elwood, Melbourne. As soon as Tigger came inside, he leapt on the bed, took my childhood teddy bear in his teeth and carried it out to the backyard. You won’t be needing this anymore!

For weeks I didn’t do anything but care for Tigger.

Feeding him, brushing him, taking him for walks. I

was very nervous about letting him off the lead. Would he run away? Would he come back? The vet told me to wait two weeks – and so I did, counting the days as if there really were a science to this. On the 14th day I took Tigger to St Kilda beach, down along The Esplanade to the shore. As soon as I unclipped the lead, Tigger bolted.

I watched unnerved as he ran along the sand, barking at the waves, leaping at the gulls, further and further.

“Tigger!” I called, my heart pounding. “Tigger!”

He turned and ran back to me. It seemed like a miracle. Over and over, all the way along the beach, through the waves and back to me.

He was fast, he was bright, and he was loyal. The way dogs are. He lived with me in numerous share houses, was loved by countless flatmates, saw me through boyfriends and breakups, through failed auditions, unemployment and upheaval. One kind friend even brought Tigger to visit me by plane in Tasmania, where I was working for a children’s theatre company. Tigger

was a constant. He was self-possessed and determined.

I was proud of him. He caught rabbits. He was fierce. He was adaptable, even living for a while in a teepee in the hills of St Andrews.

As he grew older, I would say to him, Tigger please stay with me until I have a family. The years were going by. Please stay. And he did. He did stay. He lived and thrived and travelled everywhere with me. He was there when I met my husband, Marc, who called Tigger “The Littlest Hobo”. The Littlest Hobo never did anything Marc asked him to do.

But I didn’t know Tigger would grow old. He could no longer keep up with me on our walks. His eyes became milky. He grew thin, and frail.

We bought a second dog, Edie, a rambunctious puppy. It was my idea. Tigger was no longer active. He was cranky, slow. He smelled. Tigger tolerated Edie, and my flagrant love of her puppy charms. Where was my loyalty? He would stand and lick the carpet for

my bed. The sound of his claws on the floorboards. His eyes. I sat outside his empty kennel for hours. I searched for his fur, scraping it up into little faded yellow handfuls, holding it in my hands. Having a baby was impossible and lonely. I longed for Tigger. Edie was no comfort – she too was grieving, and her presence only made me feel Tigger’s loss more acutely.

I re-lived the night I had screamed at Tigger as he cowered in the hallway. Didn’t I know that he would soon be leaving? Didn’t I know that I loved him? Did I really think that losing him would be easy? The shame was unbearable.

I didn’t talk about him. Not ever. Nobody asked. I had to get on with being a mother. I missed him day and night. I missed the years with him, when it was just the two of us. I had asked him to stay until I had a family. And he had. I know how ridiculous and selfish and childish this sounds. He had stayed a long time. It was his life. He wasn’t an extension of my wishes. But

Tigger was a constant. He was self-possessed and determined. I was proud of him.

20 MAR 2020

it didn’t matter. Now that he was gone, it wasn’t okay. I should have nursed him longer. Should have given him more time. As if it were up to me, as if there were a way he could have lived forever.

Tigger was the most loyal, loving presence in my life. I don’t think I’d known loyalty like that before.

The only way to manage the loss of him was to imagine there would be a time to come when I would see him again, when he would run along the shore and through the waves, back to me.

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hours, stare into space, seemingly lost, hobble painfully to his basket. I turned away from him.

I had a baby. Tigger was 16 years old. He had stayed as he promised he would. I had a family. I could no longer take him for a walk. He was ill, with chronic diarrhoea, and I was struggling with new motherhood.

I felt angry with Tigger. I screamed at him one night in the hallway of our home. For being there and getting under my feet, and not knowing where he was. For growing old. Did I know that he was leaving me? I didn’t want him anymore. Didn’t want his shit on the floor, his licking the carpet, his lost stare.

My godmother came to stay. Kathy looked at Tigger licking the carpet, standing vacantly, being sick, and she said it didn’t seem to her like much of a life. I can barely write about the decision I made with my husband about Tigger. Not long after Kathy’s visit we took him to the vet. I really can’t write about what it was like to see Tigger’s life end. I stayed with him. I didn’t really know what was happening, only that it was happening.

I walked back to the car in shock. The next morning my husband left to work interstate.

There was nobody to tell. Nobody who could understand. I felt like I had killed Tigger. I had, hadn’t I? In the months that followed I didn’t think about the good years – all the balls I had thrown, every day’s walk, the adventures, my devotion, the priority he had in my life. I was alone and the love that I had pushed away flooded over me.

The shape of him curled in his basket, or on

The Big Picture

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Series by Alicia Rius

A Dog’s Life THE NEUROTIC BEAR, BRITISH BULLDOG, 4 LOOKALIKE: WINSTON CHURCHILL

T

he most interesting thing about photographing animals is that because they are animals they are not self-conscious like humans: they act naturally,” says Spanish photographer Alicia Rius.

The camera does not lie: the personalities of the dogs Rius snapped for her A Dog’s Life series are as plain (and spectacular) as the nose on Bear’s face.

Belying the stern countenance, muscular build and aggressive posture, this British bulldog is known for his placid, loyal nature – and a penchant for chewing.

Chewing shoes, chewing newspapers,

FOR MORE, GO TO ALICIARIUSPHOTOGRAPHY.COM

20 MAR 2020

by Michael Epis Contributing Editor

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Give a dog a bone, sure, but depending on their needs and lifestyle, they may also need a haircut, some anti-fungal cream or a tiara.

chewing footballs. Bear’s exuberance, however, made him a challenging subject.

“He was all over the place, about to burst with excitement, and he was crushing everything,” she says. He was much like Zig the Afghan hound, who would not look at the camera. Much easier was Lola Rose, a one-year-old Maltese-Shih tzu mix. “She just sat there and stayed like a professional model.

In five minutes I was done,” says Ruis, who is the proud parent to a “rescued chihuahua-pug mix”.

Five minutes makes the job sound easy – but from the original thought to a completed folio was a four-year process for Rius, who took the shots of the pet pooches and their favourite things in her adopted home of LA. “During the conceptual part, the original idea kept changing. Inspired

by Gabriele Galimberti [whose photography series of kids around the world with their toys was published in The Big Issue, Ed#598], I wanted to find different breeds and photograph their belongings,” says Ruis, who found the dogs – and their humans – online.

“I had to get to know the subjects, so I spoke to each owner about their dog,” she says. “I took a look at each dog’s belongings and understood how their ‘possessions’ matched what the owner had to say about the dog’s lifestyle and personality.”

And so we have Magda, an ageing cocker spaniel-dachshund mix, and all her medical paraphernalia – pills, syringes, ointments. “Her foster mum told me her story about how ill she was when she was surrendered at the shelter.

But…she is fuelled by love and hope”.

Rius had one goal: to show “that each dog is unique and that they have emotions, a story, challenges to overcome and they need to be understood and respected.” Mission accomplished – just look at the intelligence in the heterochromatic eyes of Knuckles, the Australian shepherd.

And will Rius give cats the same treatment? “NO!” is the emphatic answer. “The reason, and please, no offence to cat owners, is that cats are not as interesting as dogs.”

THE FETCHER KNUCKLES, AUSTRALIAN SHEPHERD, 7 LOOKALIKE: DAVID BOWIE

THE SENIOR MAGDA, COCKER SPANIEL-DACHSHUND MIX, 13 LOOKALIKE: FORMER PM BILLY MCMAHON

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THE BEST IN SHOW ZIG, AFGHAN HOUND, 3 LOOKALIKE: CHER

20 MAR 2020

THE PRINCESS LOLA ROSE, MALTESE SHIH TZU, 1 LOOKALIKE: BABY SPICE

Letter to My Younger Self

Jimeoin’s Flare for Fashion The comedian talks second-hand pants, unspoken love and finding his funny.

by Melissa Fulton Deputy Editor

I

f I bumped into my 16-yearold self it would be good to see him again. I’d probably tell him that when you get your photograph taken, try to relax. I’m 54 now and I still haven’t figured that one out.

I lived in a small, rural area on the coast. It was a beautiful little oasis in the middle of The Troubles – either side of us was Belfast and Derry. The name of the band The Undertones [a legendary rock’n’roll band formed in Derry in 1976] captured it really well because it was just an undertone to everyday life and still is to this day.

My mum would give me lunch money to buy school dinners but I would save that money to buy a record. I used to buy a single once a week or save up for a month and get an album. I still have all those records, believe it or not: Sex Pistols, The Stranglers, Elvis Costello, The Jam… Punk was a big thing that we were really into. Being where we came from, we were anti the state. The Sex Pistols were anti the state – it was just a musical version of the politics.

There were four of us kids. My mother was a schoolteacher and my father was a plasterer and a builder.

They had a fish’n’chip shop, too, that my mum started up. That didn’t work at all.

I remember her crying to me because she had worked that whole year and hadn’t made any money whatsoever. I felt really sorry for her.

(TOP) JIMEOIN’S FIRST DRIVER’S LICENCE AT 17 (BOTTOM) BACK IN THE 90S

JIMEON’S NEW SHOW RAMBLE ON! WILL BE TOURING. FOR DATES, VISIT JIMEOIN.COM.

20 MAR 2020

If anyone tries to talk to me about politics…I just walk away. I’ve got no interest.

was going out with a friend of mine and she was doing stand-up. We went along to watch her and she put my name down to try out. I remember just standing there like, what? I hadn’t thought of anything – I thought it was just telling jokes. I love jokes as a form – I think they’re fantastic. But people don’t tell them like we did as kids. You know, Tell us a joke! Tell us a joke! I got up and told a couple, and the crowd started laughing just because I was doing something different. But I assumed they’d all heard it, because they were all laughing, and so I was going, “Oh, do you know this one do you?

Do you know this?” And then they thought this was what my routine was. It was almost like a character thing, but I was just genuinely telling a joke! And they were jokes that people hadn’t heard and I knew that they were good.

The biggest surprise of my life is doing this and getting away with it. I would never ever have pictured myself living on the other side of the world and doing something I really enjoy doing. The fact that I got to do this, it’s been something I just don’t appreciate enough. I should be more thankful, but it’s hard to do sometimes.

If I could go back to a day in my life it would be the day that I’d just turned 17 and got my licence, and my mum let me drive down the street to buy a record. It was the only day I ever got to drive the car. But I just thought, I passed my driving test! I can drive! And I drove down the street and I got ‘Blue Monday’ by New Order, and that was the very day it came out. I’ve still got that record at home.

The biggest challenges are ongoing: trying not to drink too much, trying to be a good father. The biggest challenge is probably overcoming fear really, that feeling of going onstage and absolutely shitting yourself.

Even at social events. I’m one of these people who’s kind of a big thinker; I can sometimes put too much thought into something.

I’ve found that backing away from stuff doesn’t really help me. If I feel the fear sometimes I just have to do it, knowing that I’m going to go on my arse but at least I can go, Well, I did it. That’s never really gone away; I still have that feeling. But I always feel good and energised after doing a gig, and every comic should remember that moment. Maybe it’s got something to do with enjoying it. You wanna be good; you wanna push yourself into an area where you haven’t been before.

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PHOTOS BY JAMES PENLIDIS PHOTOGRAPHY

I got hand-me-down trousers from my cousins. When my cousins bought them, flares were in fashion – but when I got them, drainpipes were in fashion, so Mum took them in. But other mothers cut the excess material off and took the hem in; my mother just folded the flare over so I had a big fabric flap inside my pants. And then I had a blowout in one leg, so one leg was in fashion and the other leg was out of fashion.

Unspoken love is something that you really take for granted as a child. We weren’t big on discussing our feelings towards one another, but you always knew that they were there for you 100 per cent. My mum was a real hard task master and that was kind of good even though she drove a lot of bargains.

Looking back, I needed that.

Billy Connolly was unbelievably inspirational. But I never really watched stand-up comedy. I never really knew what it was. I knew what he was, but I didn’t really know that there was anybody else.

I wasn’t ever thinking Jesus! Hey, you’re funny. I think everyone’s kind of funny – everyone has that potential. I was joyful, and I think a lot of people are joyful at that age. To this day, if anyone tries to talk to me about politics or the world economy or whatever, I just walk away from those conversations. I’ve got no interest, never have. Maybe it’s because of the way I grew up. You never heard anybody on TV with my accent – unless they had planted a bomb or they had their face blacked out or something. So any time we wanted to have a laugh, we would avoid those things. I’m at my best when I’m at that playful sort of sense where I’m not trying to entertain anyone other than myself.

I’d like that kid to give my 54-yearold-self advice. He’d say “Lighten up, for fuck’s sake. You used to be so much fun! Stop reading the news all the time – that shit doesn’t involve you. Try and have a laugh!” I really enjoyed my 16-year-old self.

I did work in construction; I did a technical course. I lived in London and I did that there for three years and then I spent a full year working on a building site, which I thought if I’m going to do this, I want to be somewhere warm. I got here [to Australia] in March 1988.

I was living in Bondi, classic cliché.

There was a girl called Annette Law and she

Uneasy Rider Donata Carrazza’s flirtation with skateboarding at 50 made her realise life on a board is more than an extreme sport – it’s a way of life.

by Donata Carrazza

Donata Carrazza is a Melbourne-based artistic collaborator who is producing the 2020 Mildura Writers Festival.

I

was momentarily airborne, then pounding into the ground with my left shoulder, followed by the rest of my body. I was sure I’d somehow dislodged my brain. I blamed my friend Sam. She’s the one who bought me the skateboard for my 50th birthday.

While I was still clinging to my 49th year, she had asked me what I might do if I had 12 months to master a skill. Any sane person would have said “learn to play the piano” or “become fluent in Spanish”. I heard myself say “skateboard”. At the time, we thought it was a hoot; me being all padded up and hanging with the kids at the skatepark. Sick! These fantasies were a part of our regular catch-ups. My way of taking on middle age with some defiance. Even when I unwrapped the Mambo-

illustration by Kim Drane

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I kept practising at home and scared myself silly when I slammed into my bedroom floor. designed deck on wheels that she gifted me, it was still just a playful symbol of what could be.

For six months that board leaned against a wall near my desk, reminding me daily that I wasn’t on it. Alright, I thought, let me do this properly. I watched a series of YouTube videos for beginners. Very basic stuff. Stepping on the board. Stepping off the board. Repeat. Figuring out which foot to lead with, then walking towards the board, landing on it with my right foot, then pushing off with the left. Repeat. It was much harder than it appeared. Even in the comfort of my bedroom and the hallway. I was pleased with my efforts – though scared I’d hurt myself. I still hadn’t left the house. My next step: find some kids who could teach me the basics.

At the Edinburgh Gardens skatepark in Melbourne’s North Fitzroy, I spotted a person in the double bowl and assessed their suitability. Helmet. Check. Gloves and knee pads. Check. Long-sleeved denim shirt and jeans.

Check. White-soled Vans. Absolutely.

I neared the concrete bowl and noticed that the person was a woman in her mid-thirties. How wonderful, I thought.

“Hi, do you mind if I watch you? I’m really interested in atypical skaters.”

She adjusted her left fingerless glove and took a moment to answer. “It’s a bit weird. And I’m not atypical.”

I mustered as much charm as I could at 7.30am and persisted.

“I’m sorry, by that I meant I’m over 50 and super scared of skating. I’ve been trying to get on my board at home.”

Her name was Bianca. I watched her position her board with the back wheels hinged on the lip of the bowl. She weighed it down with her back foot so that it cantilevered at an angle. Then she set off into the concrete basin, leaning forward after lifting her other foot onto the deck. Each time she made it to the top of the other side, she balanced on the board and twisted it using her whole body, repeating the action again and again. Or she raced around the bowl, bending her legs and twisting her torso to build up speed.

My admiration flowed.

Bianca even suggested I bring my board next time so she could teach me. What was the attraction?, I wanted to know. She didn’t hesitate: “When I’m skating, that’s all I think about.” It’s that near-impossible union of body and mind that I aspired to.

The following Saturday I was stopped in my tracks outside Piedimonte’s supermarket nearby. I saw a tall young man carrying two full canvas shopping bags about to step onto what he told me was a longboard.

He’d had it for years, a purchase from Santa Monica.

I admired its beautiful elliptical shape and jelly-like amber-coloured wheels. When would I be able to buy my shopping like him? That’s why I got you the board, remember? I could hear Sam’s teasing laugh.

I kept practising at home and scared myself silly when I slammed into my bedroom floor, seeing stars like Wile E Coyote thanks to my self-inflicted stupidity. Nursing

20 MAR 2020

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my bruised shoulder and ego, I set off to Melbourne Museum’s paved thoroughfare that links Rathdowne and Nicholson Streets, known as the IMAX Gap. I didn’t have the nerve to bring my board.

It was late morning and there were no skaters in sight. I waited.

A twenty-something placed his skateboard on a concrete block not far from me and started stretching his legs. Black-and-white Vans, khaki baggy pants and a white T-shirt: functional, easy style. He pushed off, flipping his board intermittently along the grey-paved walkway. Another skater appeared. Ray-Bans, keys and mobile were placed on one of the black concrete blocks.

I approached to see if he would answer some questions, and saw that he was closer to 40.

Hugh’s a carpenter by trade and a veteran of what he thinks is more of an artform than a sport. He started skating as a 10-yearold, meeting up with his mates in the city at weekends. The urge to get on the board never left him: “It’s a good community.

You roll deep when you’re skateboarding. Now, I’m just happy to roll around. It’s quite therapeutic, meditative, even.”

I was intrigued by the notion, according to this unassuming philosopher, that if I skated long enough and started enjoying it, my whole perspective about the cityscape would change.

I’d be drawn to all potential skating surfaces; I’d develop a new visual language. As a novice, he said I needed to develop board control – but must be prepared to take a few falls.

Three men, in their mid-to-late twenties, Chad, Lachy and Jake, all with oversized jeans hanging low on their hips, also happily shared their passion for skating. They spoke about freedom, friends, endorphins, repetition, training and practice. How it’s challenging and fun, not competitive. “It’s not like you’re sitting in a suit in an office,” offered Chad.

Jake, covered in sweat from exertions on his board, slid his hand into his tote to grab a can of Furphy’s Pale Ale. The camaraderie among the skaters had the vibe of the Mediterranean piazza; a gathering of friends in a public place. Friends who wanted to keep things light and easy, who wanted to have a play (be it cards, backgammon, chess or, in their case, skateboarding) and a laugh. It was cruisy. They were warm and welcoming, if a bit bemused by my interest.

I’d thought myself so very cool, at my age, to explore this extreme sport, this youth-centric subculture, when all along there were plenty out there, of all ages, who had already figured out its appeal, who were practising it and who understood its deeper value. This folly of mine had nothing to do with wanting to feel young again, as I had thought; I was being reminded to live fully and fearlessly, to find the inherent joy in an activity, and to connect with others.

I’m not sure who said it, Chad, Lachy or Jake, but I felt myself nodding: “Next time you come, bring your board.” And I will – when it’s not uplifting me in other ways. It sits under a table in my office and supports my printer. I roll it out every time I need hardcopy. I do love its versatility.

Ricky

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Because I don’t know what I’m talking about, I try to stay out of the discussion.

I find that’s a pretty useful general principle.

by Ricky French @frenchricky

Fire Adaptation I

t seems I’m never around when Australia burns down. I wanted to wait until the bushfire season was over before I wrote about bushfires. So I waited and I waited, but of course if you wait for bushfire season to end you’ll soon catch up to the start of the next bushfire season.

And if you live in a bushfire-prone area, you live in a state of constant vigilance, always on edge, year-round. I think they call this the “new normal”.

I’ll put my hand up straight away and say I know nothing about bushfires. I’ve never seen one, maybe even never smelled one.

I don’t know what it feels like to be staring at something that can kill you without even touching you; heat so intense it’s like a supernatural force. I know some things. I know gum trees are designed to burn – it’s how they reproduce. I know that the bush is adept at recovering. And I know that talking about the why and how of bushfires provokes something a lot hotter than heated discussion within rural communities. Oh, I know one other thing. What we’ve just seen this summer wasn’t normal in anyone’s book, at least not in a non-fiction book.

Because I don’t know what I’m talking about, I try to stay out of the discussion. I find that’s a pretty useful general principle with most topics. Listen and learn rather than shoot your mouth off. Maybe it’s because I grew up in New Zealand, but I feel like I don’t even understand bushfire psyche, don’t speak the language. I hadn’t yet moved to Australia when the 2003 fires swept through Canberra and the Victorian high country. We were on holiday in New Zealand when Black Saturday killed 173 people on Melbourne’s periphery in 2009, and again this year when the worst fires struck NSW and Victoria.

Our absence wasn’t an accident. We generally don’t want to have anything to do with Australia in January, when even Tasmania can be ridiculously hot. But the

barrier of distance is isolating. Not being around to experience the smoke or hear your friends and family talk about how close they are to the flames, or to even feel the dryness and heat in the air, you feel removed – it’s like hearing that a huge earthquake just hit Iran.

I’m not surprised PM Scott Morrison copped it for being in Hawaii: you simply can’t comprehend the enormity of these things from afar, they become just words and images.

The world did try to comprehend though.

I was in Colorado the other week, where the snow buried cars and the temperature hovered around minus 22 degrees. Every single American I spoke to asked me about the bushfires. And they weren’t just making conversation: they had real concern. I felt almost guilty answering that my family’s house was fine, thanks for asking.

But I had real concern, too. I know a lot of people in the Snowy Mountains region.

It’s a place where I’ve spent a lot of time and where nearly everyone is connected to the land in some way, either by farming or in conservation or tourism.

Even though all we can think about now is coronavirus, wildlife was devastated by the fires in January. The sanctuaries and enclosures that helped nurse them back to health were also destroyed. Right now there are a lot of sick koalas and nowhere for them to go. As we speak people are sacrificing their own time and money to knock up temporary shelters in their backyards, are busy doing anything they can to help, because someone has to. I call these people from time to time and ask how they’re going. I don’t offer advice or speculate on things I don’t know about, but slowly I’m learning. I have no choice. If you write about Australia you need to know your subject, and that means getting on intimate terms with fire.

Ricky is a writer and musician, but no bushfire expert.

by Fiona Scott-Norman @fscottnorman

PHOTOS BY JAMES BRAUND

W

ell. Hasn’t 2020 turned out to be, shall we say, “interesting”? With a distinct fat skein of “shit, meet fan”.

At the very least it’s the year we transitioned to a toilet paper-based economy, which I for one did not see coming. Traditionally, when there’s a run (pun intended) on a particular service or product, it’s due to an intersection of scarcity and need. TP is so not scarce. Kleenex have posted photographs of their factory with the stuff stacked to the ceiling. Manufacturers will keep making and supplying toilet paper until we all collapse gibbering inside the teetering fort we’ve built from packets of three-ply. Look, it’s a hobby, better than biting your nails and essentially harmless, but it’s not, as my mother who went through The Blitz used to say, a useful contribution to the war effort.

I understand the urge, though. The need to do something was – is – overwhelming. We are all preppers now. I’ve only kept out of loo roll knife fights in Woolworths because I refuse to shop at Woolworths. I am also sub-par with a blade. But I subscribe to the Who Gives a Crap ethical online toilet paper delivery service, so I’m one smug bastard. WGAC send a reminder when they’re shipping, which I never remember to reply to, so crates of TP arrive too early and overwhelmingly – think Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

But is stockpiling toilet paper the best use of our resources and mental energy? At my local Aldi, yes, the loo paper was gone, but there were boxes of cut-price McVitie’s chocolate digestives still sitting there. Mate, Australia does not know how to prep. Trust me, two weeks into quarantine, let alone the Mad Max-dystopia we all seem to be channelling, it’ll be treats that are the real currency. Mind you, I bought three packets of chocky bickies, and there’s only one pack left, so I guess I’m prepping on the inside by storing fat around my waistline.

We are right to plan for COVID-19. And the rest. We’re still holding bushfire benefits, but now we’re having to switch focus from climate emergency to pandemic. No wonder

we’re grabbing random stuff off shelves. I’m finally understanding my parents properly.

Their early twenties were spent living in London during the war years, nursing and investigating crashed RAF planes (Norah and Arthur, respectively). Rationing was extreme.

Dad was a food hoarder to the end of his life. The kitchen cupboards, the bottom of the wardrobe, the shelves in the study, all bulged with non-perishables. Cans of crab meat and water chestnuts, escargots (shudder), paté and mandarins, new potatoes and asparagus, soups and spices. He over-shopped like a champion, adding incrementally to his stash.

He would never go hungry, or eat crap, again.

He refused, bless him, to go into a nursing home when he saw what Mum ate in hers.

Prepping is a marathon, not a sprint.

Extra tube of toothpaste here, get ahead on filling your scripts, a few more cans there, and then when you have to bunker down for a bit, you’re ready. Panic is useless and more contagious than the frigging virus. Our house has pasta and tinned tomatoes. Rice and beans. No sanitiser, but we have bleach and soap. It will be fine. Australia is a rich, abundant country. There is no scarcity beyond what we’re creating ourselves.

In perfect coincidence, it is 42 years since another sensible Englishman, Douglas Adams, created the comedic sci-fi masterpiece The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The Guide itself came with the message “Don’t Panic” written on the cover, in “large, friendly letters”. There’s a reason the British wartime slogan was Keep Calm and Carry On. Don’t panic, my friends. You have enough TP.

Fiona is a writer, comedian and casual treat-prepper.

20 MAR 2020

Keep Calm and Roll On

I’ve only kept out of loo roll knife fights in Woolworths because I refuse to shop at Woolworths. I am also sub-par with a blade.

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Fiona

Cable Ties

Music

Tying One On

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Post-punk heroes Cable Ties are back with a new album, a new label, and a whole lotta hope.

by Anthony Carew

Anthony Carew is a Melbourne-based critic.

He hosts the International Pop Underground on 3RRR.

O

n the opening and closing songs on Far Enough, the second album from Melbourne post-punk trio Cable Ties, the band’s guitarist/vocalist Jenny McKechnie evokes a situation that will be familiar to those who’ve migrated to Australia’s more progressive metropolitan centres. In her lyrics, she’s back in the country (she grew up on a farm outside Bendigo), seated at Christmas dinner with a conservative relative, where a conversational – and generational – clash ensues. “My uncle Pete, he’s/Complaining about the Greenies,” she sings on ‘Hope’. “He says that they have gone too far/I say ‘Pete they don’t go far enough.’”

“I don’t want to speak poorly of my relatives; a lot of them are really, really lovely, and not nearly as bigoted as that person in the song,” McKechnie says with a laugh.

“I am alluding to real conversations I’ve had in my life, but also to a figure: the uncle as representative of that conservative, dominant political group – and also as a generational symbol.

It’s a way of saying: ‘Hey, I don’t want to conform to the conservative ideals that you’re saying that I have to [conform

the state that we’re in,” she explains.

“We just seem so doomed. But if we are doomed, wallowing in that feeling doesn’t achieve anything. If you don’t do anything, then you’re bringing on that doom. Luckily, the band itself – the sound of Cable Ties, the way [our songs are] always chasing this rush, this uplifting feeling – can drag me out of that hole.”

The trio – McKechnie, bassist Nick Brown, drummer Shauna Boyle – were formed without grand ambitions. After arriving in Melbourne as a teenager, McKechnie played in punk bands Wet Lips and Shit Sex, and saw Cable Ties as just another social endeavour. “I didn’t have any grand expectations,” she admits. “I just wanted to have fun, to play with my friends at the Old Bar and the Tote.”

Even when the band played at the Meredith Music Festival in 2016, they thought of it more “as an amazing, one-off fluke” than a stepping stone to bigger things. But they found their 2017 self-titled debut reaching more listeners than expected, and reframed their expectations for Cable Ties. For the overseas release of Far Enough, they signed with legendary indie label Merge, an imprint that’s released iconic records by Neutral Milk Hotel, Arcade Fire, Destroyer and the Magnetic Fields.

“We’re just stoked. We can’t believe it. It couldn’t be better,” McKechnie marvels at their good fortune.

This will provide a bigger platform for the release of an album that’s grappling with big ideas. Far Enough is about feeling powerless in the face of global climate cataclysms, about countering that with communitybuilding, about the limits of individualism and the need for collective action. ‘Anger’s Not Enough’ is a reminder to acknowledge the complexity of issues, to move beyond knee-jerk online outrage in thoughtful, constructive ways. And even to engage with those – like a country uncle – whose views are different to your own. “[The album] is about looking outward and critiquing the cult of the individual. The myth of the self-made man, and the neo-liberal idea that you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps – the individualistic notion that you can focus all of your energy on your consumer choices, or the type of language that you use, or the social scene that you’re in, rather than participating in collective political action and meaningful protest,” McKechnie says.

“The more personal side of that is looking at my own anxieties and self-criticism, and being able to move beyond endlessly chastising myself for not being the ideal person I want to be. Rather than just retreating into the self, giving yourself a break, and actually going out and taking meaningful action with other people, and your friends.”

FAR ENOUGH IS OUT 27 MARCH. CABLE TIES’ NATIONAL TOUR RUNS 26 APRIL-24 MAY.

20 MAR 2020 MAR–02 APR 2020

to]. And, even if I did, I couldn’t do it anymore, because the world doesn’t look the way you think it does. Our labour rights have been so eroded, and the workforce is so casualised that I can’t go out and get a job the way that you used to be able to. I can’t buy a house in the way that you used to be able to. I don’t even have a future in the way that you did, because [of] climate change and we’re going into a large-scale recession. The idea that you have of the world doesn’t exist anymore, and I don’t want to be a part of the ideology that brought us to this place.’”

‘Hope’ doesn’t just contain the album’s title in its lyrics, but also evokes its central preoccupation: the simultaneous feeling of hopefulness and hopelessness that’s, essentially, the contemporary condition. “I don’t know what to do/’Cause the problem’s so much bigger than you and me,” McKechnie sings on ‘Pillow’. “I’m often feeling doomed/But don’t mistake that feeling for apathy.”

“A lot of the songs I started writing from a place of hopelessness, and feeling completely overwhelmed by

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PHOTO BY LISA BUSINOVSKI

CABLE TIES: NICK BROWN, JENNY MCKECHNIE AND SHAUNA BOYLE (FROM LEFT)

If we are doomed, wallowing in that feeling doesn’t achieve anything

THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK: ANTHONY DANIELS

Anthony Daniels

Small Screens

I Am C-3PO

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With the final instalment in Star Wars’ Skywalker saga now streaming, Anthony Daniels, who has played C-3PO from the very beginning, reflects on what he has in common with the much-loved droid.

by Steven MacKenzie The Big Issue UK @stevenmackenzie

D

id you hear that R-2? They’ve shut down the main reactor. We’re doomed. There will be no escape for the princess this time.”

These were the first words uttered in the Star Wars saga that has dominated the last 40 years of popular culture.

The line was spoken by C-3PO – or Threepio – the neurotic goldplated droid built for “human-cyborg relations”. Speaking with an English butler’s prim and proper tones and walking with an unsteady shuffle, he became a talisman for the intergalactic adventures and an endlessly merchandisable movie legend.

Anthony Daniels, now 74, has played C-3PO since the beginning, usually bolted into a cramped and uncomfortable costume. As JJ Abrams’ The Rise of Skywalker (2019) this month rolls from IMAX cinemas to streaming platforms, Blu-Ray and DVD, Daniels is still there – the only actor to have appeared in every one of the nine main Star Wars films.

But while Daniels is coy about the future for C-3PO, saying earlier this month that “Oh, he’s not over!”, he’s determined to set the record straight about his Star Wars past. His recent book I Am C-3PO: The Inside Story is a light-speed trip through the series, full of often frank reminiscences.

C-3PO had a tetchy relationship with sidekick R2-D2. Similarly, Daniels has little positive to say about Kenny Baker who played him: “He appeared at countless conventions and the fans loved him. Sadly, our off-screen history prevented me feeling the same.”

20 MAR 2020

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PHOTOS ©LUCASFILM

Daniels also mentions the tension as a backdrop to their own existence. on the set of the prequel trilogy, with So when a new film doesn’t match its “industrial, rather threatening expectations, it becomes a big deal. atmosphere” and how Mark Hamill and “They do sort of own it and you Carrie Fisher were “appalled at their change something at your peril,” Daniels roles” in The Force Awakens (2015). says. “But how wonderful they do own Afterwards, Daniels recalls, he was it because they care. They genuinely “traumatised”. have feelings about this and they want Hamill once told The Big Issue UK to express them and to be respected.” that Daniels “is a lot more like his And express they did, with fans character than you would imagine; flooding the internet in response to he is a little bit prickly”. the perceived missteps of the last few What attributes does Daniels think outings, feeling the franchise had lost he shares? “Threepio is a bit impatient, its way. partly because people never listen to “People got really upset. When him. He is kind and caring and these are reading some criticism of The Force two qualities I would like to be known Awakens and The Last Jedi I looked on as…as well as being impatient.”

YouTube…people come up with such C-3PO (ANTHONY DANIELS) BEING PATIENT Working on that first film back amazing theories that are sometimes in 1977, nobody, including Daniels, better. It’s because people care that suspected it would change his – and many of the audience’s – they can lose their sense of proportion. I do understand, but lives. A jobbing, self-described “serious” actor based in London, unfortunately the internet has made anger a pretty common Daniels wasn’t even aware the film had opened in the US until phenomenon.” its enormous success was being reported worldwide.

Were these mistakes, or is it more important for filmmakers “When I saw the cover of Time or Newsweek, I can’t to push their own creative vision? remember which, I knew,” he says. “Quickly after that I was “Somebody has to be in charge – and you better hope that flown to Los Angeles to put my footprints on Hollywood person knows what they’re doing. You trust them…you have Boulevard. I saw the lines of people waiting to go into the to regard their take as the truth because they are the captain theatre. The lines were so long that people were needing to pee of the ship.”

– and they were peeing in people’s front gardens. It was With Rise of Skywalker, we are supposedly putting the a genuine phenomenon.” saga to bed. The film divided devotees, as it offered up The masses even believed C-3PO was a real robot. “I do take some bamboozling answers to long-standing questions. that as something of a compliment. I was pretending to be a Nevertheless, it raked in the chips, taking over a billion dollars robot and they believed me.” at the box office. If Disney’s track record for re-hashing old At heart, a part of him still remains that serious actor. “I’m favourites is anything to go by, while Star Wars still makes not just somebody who puts on a costume, wobbles about and money it’ll never die. speaks funny,” he says. “You’d be surprised in the past how This could be the end for Daniels’ involvement though. people have trivialised what I do. I don’t argue about it. I know “In The Rise of Skywalker there’s quite a lot of interesting what I did.” stuff and therefore a wonderful film to sweetly end on for Speaking of speaking funny, Star Wars mastermind me,” he says. But just as other actors have taken over R2-D2 George Lucas didn’t imagine C-3PO as sounding the way he and Chewbacca, let alone digital cameos from the late Carrie eventually did. “He had thought of Threepio as having a sleazy Fisher – her latest role was fashioned from leftover footage New York second-hand car dealer type of voice. But he never from The Force Awakens – could C-3PO be starring in films mentioned that to me,” Daniels remembers. “He thought he for decades to come? could change the voice in post-production. Other people told “Far more easily than Carrie, yes.” him, ‘No, Anthony’s voice works.’ It was touch and go. I’ve been How would you feel watching C-3PO on screen having not very lucky because it means I’ve had work in cartoons, books, played him? commercials and all sorts of spin-offs.”

“I don’t think I’d feel good. C’est la vie, that’s art. Actors, I’m Star Wars’ longevity has in part been fuelled by its fans’ afraid, are expendable, especially in these days of digital. insatiable appetites – and Abrams’ film is stacked with nostalgic “I don’t think of him as me and I don’t think of me as him, call-backs to tug their hearts – though Daniels has searched for a but I know he’s only truly true if I’m doing him. I know how he different word to describe them. thinks, I know how he feels, I know how he times things. Who “I just worry the word ‘fan’ is slightly dismissive, and that is knows? Threepio is too good a character to cease to exist, so not the case,” he says. “I think the French is adhérent – people after I’m gone there will be somebody carrying the torch. who belong or adhere to what you’re doing, to what you’ve made. Without the people who went to the first screenings and STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER IS AVAILABLE ON ITUNES, came out shrieking, we wouldn’t have made a second.”

PLAYSTATION VIDEO, GOOGLE PLAY, MICROSOFT AND YOUTUBE Or a ninth. Many people have spent their lives with Star Wars FROM 18 MARCH. DVD AND BLU-RAY FROM 1 APRIL.

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Books Donna Ward

by Thuy On Books Editor @thuy_on

C

hances are, if you think of the word spinster at all, it’s the jilted bride Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations: a figure of tragic embitterment, forever in her tattered wedding dress presiding over the decaying remains of her bridal feast.

It’s a term largely eradicated from modern consciousness and lexicon. In Donna Ward’s debut book, She I Dare Not Name, a collection of memoir essays, we find out that the word spinster was adopted in 14th century England as the name for women who spun for a living. It was never supposed to represent marital status. But by 1719, spinster

PHOTO BY MANDA FORD

I was confronted with being single and not finding a book that was about my life… I became a spinster in the writing of it. was synonymous for “a barren, sexually repressed, wizened old witch. A woman defiantly unmarried beyond the acceptable age.” In today’s society, the sting has lessened but the stigma endures.

Subtitled ‘A Spinster’s Meditations on Life’, She I Dare Not Name is a deep, rich and poignant series of reflections about what it means to be inadvertently single and childless in a world that seems to teem with the paired up and familied. Ward is not so much interested in reclaiming spinster as in making it visible again. “When you say the word doesn’t exist, it doesn’t mean the experience itself doesn’t exist,” she says.

“Everyone I know and love is engaged in a continuing narrative of domesticity, responsibilities and obligations.

The foundational paragraphs of the life I too set out to get.”

SHE I DARE NOT NAME IS OUT NOW

20 MAR 2020

What does it mean to be a modern-day spinster? Donna Ward gives substance and soul to the eternally single woman.

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Spinning Her Tale

Ward – who has lived a rich and full life as a writer, social worker, psychotherapist and a publisher of several books – longed for a life full of familial preoccupations but found herself, through no wont of trying, alone, unfettered by a partner or children. Now aged 65, she’s never been married nor been a mother, and confesses that discovering that she is a spinster, rather than actively choosing spinsterhood, demanded a complete rethink of her life.

She I Dare Not Name depicts the reality of a longterm solo-nester, “the social, psychological and financial implications of it, and the ways legislators, friends, family and neighbours can support those living it”.

With candour and heart, her book details her struggles with the creation of meaning as a single woman. “I didn’t think about writing a book until Mum died when I was 40 and I was confronted with being single and not finding a book that was about my life… I became a spinster in the writing of it.”

She I Dare Not Name is wide-ranging in its explorations of spinsterism and identity, and is uniquely personal – each essay is addressed to a particular person in her life.

Ward also canvasses other writers about their experiences with aloneness, as well as puncturing misconceptions and prejudices about what it means to be a spinster. She says with some asperity: “She is not a harpy, a harridan, a hellcat or shrew. Nor is she a lipstick lesbian…” And she quotes Germaine Greer’s 1999 book The Whole Woman, in which she describes spinsterhood as a “tattoo of rejection…never a sign of a woman’s courage to reject unacceptable or impossible opportunities to couple”.

Ward talks about the misunderstandings spinsters face.

She points out that she can barely talk about having solitude without it triggering envy, even though she is burdened with too much time alone, as friendships are rationed and have even dissolved in the wake of coupling and family commitments. In between trying to figure out how to “live, work and sleep to one’s own beat” without succumbing to boredom and slothfulness, Ward mentions that she once read that living alone gives you the freedom to play the tuba at midnight. No, she remonstrates: “Living alone does not permit anyone to disturb the neighbours.”

She may be independent, with health, work and friends as well as “the failings of our pitiful government” occupying her mind, but Ward’s vulnerability is poignant, particularly when she reflects on her younger self, who was blindsided by grief, shame and envy: “… an accidental maiden aunt longing to join the exodus into family.”

She I Dare Not Name marks the author’s hard passage from the mire of loneliness into the grace of solitude. For those experiencing loneliness for whatever reason, her book is consoling, though it may make you cry with its eviscerating honesty. She recommends talking to a friend or a medical professional. “The challenge is not what happens to you,” she says. “It’s how you respond to it.

It’s how you live the life at hand.”

Film Reviews

Annabel Brady-Brown Film Editor @annnabelbb

M

elina Matsoukas is the director behind the video clips for some of the greatest pop bangers this side of the millennium – Rihanna’s ‘We Found Love’, Solange’s ‘Losing You’ and her sister’s ‘Formation’, which opens with Beyoncé crouched atop a half-sunk police car in flooded New Orleans. Matsoukas has now made a feature: Queen & Slim, a black love story, in which a Tinder date goes terribly wrong. The titular pair shoot a cop in self-defence in Cleveland (where the death penalty still applies) and decide to make a run for it. Starring Jodie Turner-Smith and Daniel Kaluuya, so electric in 2017’s Get Out, the film plays to a social-media-savvy generation obsessed with symbolism, surfaces and the stories that lie beneath them. At one point, the fugitives are referred to as “a black Bonnie and Clyde”– a point of reference the film tries to warp. The chilling fact is this time round the crims are innocent; it’s the system that is doing the killing.

Film history is filled with numerous models of infamy, coloured by the anxieties of their time. Until 3 May, the Art Gallery of New South Wales presents Flim-flam, whose 12 unforgettable titles take in petty thieves and fraudsters through to messianic charlatans. The globe-trotting program includes Charlie Chaplin’s Nazi satire The Great Dictator (1940), Elaine May’s heartbreaking Mikey and Nicky (1976), Djibril Diop Mambéty’s mesmerising Hyenas (1992), and the Safdie brothers’ ticking bomb Good Time (2017). ABB

IT’S GONNA GO REAL WRONG

HAPPY NEW YEAR, COLIN BURSTEAD 

New Year’s Eve is supposed to be a time for reflection and growth, but the stubborn Bursteads are having none of it.

When the volatile family (and a few close friends) travel to a Dorset manor house to see out the year, it’s not long before the fireworks start, care of competitive Colin (Neil Maskell) and his estranged brother David (Sam Riley, 2007’s Control). Written, directed and edited

by UK genre mainstay Ben Wheatley (Free Fire, 2016), this simmering ensemble drama is flecked with black comedy. It’s not as violent as his psychological horror films but it’s just as turbulent (being partially based on Shakespeare’s Coriolanus). As the sun sets on Cumberland Hall, factions form and fall away. The cast’s semi-improvised, working-class dialogue should hold the interest of Mike Leigh fans, but for others, the wall-to-wall talking may take its toll. Wheatley seems to be asking what a family owes to each other, besides money. His answer matches the wintry weather, in that it’s chilling. AIMEE KNIGHT MONOS

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

Former Hannah Montana star Moisés Arias plays Bigfoot, the leader of a group of teenage soldiers left alone in the Colombian mountains to deal with a captive known only as “Doctora” (Julianne Nicholson). Facing harsh conditions, youthful lust and terrible freedom, the young commandos quickly lose control. Co-writer/director Alejandro Landes uses Lord of the Flies as a foundation to ground his visual imagination in this atmospheric drama – Monos is frequently gorgeous, with special focus on the enormity of nature pitted against the primal physicality of these wild kids. At times, they resemble a corrupted form of the Lost Boys of Peter Pan, their naivety cursed by the traumas of war. They are also, despite strong performances, mostly anonymous, only garnering identification and sympathy by virtue of their essential, sad existence as child soldiers. Still, the striking visuals mostly compensate for the slight narrative, and the score from Mica Levi (continuing to astound since 2013’s Under the Skin) aids immensely. KAI PERRIGNON

ROMANTIC ROAD 

When real-life UK lawyer and former hippie Rupert Grey decides to cross India in a family heirloom – a 1936 Rolls-Royce – everyone around him (including wife Jean, along for the ride) takes it in their stride.

This documentary spotlights Rupert’s larger-thanlife character, which comes in handy on India’s freewheeling roads – the numerous near misses are more stressful than any Fast & Furious film. Their encounters across all strata of Indian society are greased smooth by his charm, and some lingering colonialism – which everyone here is conscious of.

Oliver McGarvey’s doco is far from an examination of India’s past, but the left-leaning Grey, who’s driving to a conference on human rights photography, is well aware of the symbolism. Fortunately, the car is such a clunker and the sixty-something Greys so obviously harmless – and delightfully devoted to each other – that they’re treated as the eccentrics they are. Episodic and not particularly suspenseful, this road trip is most striking on a visual level.

ANTHONY MORRIS

Small Screen Reviews

Aimee Knight Small Screens Editor @siraimeeknight

BIRDS EYE VIEW  | PODCAST

Involving more than 70 women from Sector Four of the Darwin Correctional Centre, this narrative documentary podcast is a multi-voiced, first-person account of life on the inside. The first episode is masterfully constructed: a guided tour led by the women inside proves that they are more than stereotypes. Lived experiences, including trauma, are unpacked sensitively, without sanitising the storyline. From the initial vulnerability of undressing in front of other women (“I had to put it in my mind that they were like doctors and they’ve seen bodies – boobs, bums, everything – before”) to the structural inequalities they face (“It sucks being a woman in a man’s prison –we’re not classed as equals”), there’s a balance between the frustrations of being stuck inside and the freedom of finally getting out. Birds Eye View is poetic, laugh-out-loud funny, and deeply moving, bearing witness to the rarely told stories of survival and resilience in prison.

NATHANIA GILSON

 | NETFLIX

From Oscar-winning films to the trashiest reality TV, the desire to hear intimate details of other people’s lives drives most entertainment. But nothing satisfies as plainly as You Can’t Ask That. In its fifth season, the award-winning series interrogates groups including firefighters, people living in public housing, and people who have killed someone. The format is unchanged: blunt questions are put to people who then proudly bare their lives – and, for nudists in episode two, their bodies – to camera. (Fun fact: I now know what a “bum towel” is!) The show’s strength comes from its strippedback production, diverse casting and deft treatment of light and dark. At one moment the firefighters joke about cats stuck up trees; the next, Commander Mark Carter tearfully recounts finding his mother’s body on Black Saturday. Misconceptions around climate change in the recent bushfire crisis are also expertly considered. As episodes stick to a tight formula, they can become repetitive in succession. But in isolation, they’re full of unexpected, and incredibly personal, gems.

Love is a controlled substance in Mae Martin’s tender dramedy. Set in the UK, where the Canadian stand-up comic has lived since 2011, it shows how reliance, fixation and repression colour all sorts of relationships.

Nervous and needy Mae (Martin, playing a version of herself, as the trend dictates) meets English rose George (Charlotte Ritchie, Call the Midwife) and the two women are soon in love. The honeymoon phase is shortlived, however, as Mae’s ongoing recovery from addiction, and George’s laundry list of previous (straight) relationships, hinder the couple’s sprint toward domestic bliss.

The story beats are fairly predictable, but Feel Good’s comments on class, culture, communication and shame reinforce some heartfelt performances. Sophie Thompson (EastEnders) is a particular highlight as Mae’s dubious AA sponsor, not to mention an ice-cold Lisa Kudrow, who steals scenes as Mae’s brutally honest mum (her redemptive moment is truly moving). Martin is the real soul here, though, as this beautiful, endearing doofus who craves validation. Then again, don’t we all? AIMEE KNIGHT

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FEEL GOOD

 | ABC TV + IVIEW

creen critics love the phrase “lived in”, as in, “The house/relationship/ series feels very lived in.” Essentially it means that the cast and crew have done their job and you believe that that flat is really the character’s flat; that that couple has undoubtedly been married for 30-odd years, and so on. It’s trotted out so often that it now feels, to me, like a cliché. But for better or worse, it perfectly captures the sense of compassion fatigue pumping through the heart of one of my favourite TV shows.

Better Things is a comedy with undiagnosed depression – or, at the very least, iron deficiency and an overdraft. It centres on the tempestuous home of Sam Fox (played by showrunner and director Pamela Adlon), who’s raising three forceful daughters on her own while pursuing a middling career in Hollywood. That aspirational setting may seem unrelatable – Sam’s gorgeous LA bungalow is a naturally lit dream – but this study of literal and figurative sisterhood is instinctive, loving and, yes, lived in.

The series was co-created by self-confessed sexual harasser Louis CK. When FX scrapped his network deal in 2017, there was every chance that his predatory conduct would tarnish the reputation of what is, by all rights, Adlon’s baby. Fortunately, she fired him and their mutual manager Dave Becky. She broadened the writers’ room, too, and seasons three (2019) and four (2020) have been all the better for it.

Better Things screens Mondays on FOX One. AK

20 MAR 2020

S

YOU CAN’T ASK THAT

MEG WATSON

SAM FOX WITH HER STUFF

Music Reviews

Sarah Smith Music Editor @sarah_smithie

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he Strokes recently surprised fans with new song ‘Bad Decisions’. The surprise, perhaps, wasn’t the music itself (there’s been rumblings about a followup to 2013’s Comedown Machine for some time), but more the way they chose to debut it: at a rally for US Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Electing to play a song for the first time at such an event seems a savvy move. The whole of the world’s media were there to cover Bernie – they couldn’t possibly ignore the support act.

However, The Strokes’ endorsement isn’t a hollow one. When their appearance was announced in January, singer Julian Casablancas told media: “As the only truly noncorporate candidate, Bernie Sanders represents our only chance to overthrow corporate power and help return America to democracy.”

They’re also not the first band to get political during the party primaries. The US has a way of linking celebrity endorsement and politics like few other countries. Sanders, in particular, is a popular pick. Bon Iver, Vampire Weekend, Jack White, Ariana Grande, Cardi B and Neil Young have all vocalised their support in various ways.

Meanwhile Melissa Etheridge and John Legend threw their weight behind Elizabeth Warren, and Cher is on Team Biden.

It’s the kind of thing we don’t see in Australia. How effective is a musician’s endorsement? Some claim that Oasis won Tony Blair the “Cool Britannia” election in 1997, but only time with tell if Casablancas can do the same for Bernie. SS

HORN IF YOU’RE HONKY GIRLATONES

SAINT CLOUD WAXAHATCHEE

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If Girlatones’ chiming jangle-pop seems pure almost to the point of childlike naivety, listen more closely to the Melbourne quartet’s lyrics. You’ll find an abundance of tongue-incheek lyrics about the act of making music itself, often delivered with a gently mocking edge. Taking its very name from a reversed bumper-sticker slogan, this light-hearted second album opens with a song about using no more chords than strictly necessary. From there, guitarist/songwriter Jesse Williams sings about a forlorn synthesiser that can play only minor chords, a melody so priceless that it keeps you awake at night, and the especially silly idea that Girlatones must endure smoking cigarettes during photo shoots to ascend to full pop-star status.

If such comic turns don’t appeal, Williams anticipates even that with ‘Bingo Level Humour’, a jaunty lament about clearing a room with his jokes. Evoking the bubblegum best of bands like The Monkees, these tracks are tuneful enough to steal your heart before embarking on a fruitful second life as selfaware commentary. DOUG WALLEN

Katie Crutchfield’s fifth album as Waxahatchee is a stunning turn, crystalline and unadorned. Saint Cloud has a deft simplicity: with a reignited passion for the country music of her Alabama youth, Crutchfield cites the influence of alt-country idols such as Lucinda Williams and Emmylou Harris. On 2018’s Great Thunder EP, Crutchfield arranged songs from her past for acoustic guitar and piano, signalling a sharp turn from her 2017 LP, the raucous Out in the Storm. While the sheer intensity of that record might be missed on Saint Cloud, what remains is the dynamic power of Crutchfield’s voice, and her ability to distil the mess at the centre of her most complex emotions into potent vignettes. There was always a wry levity in Waxahatchee’s brand of angst, and here we feel it in her love songs: ‘Can’t Do Much’ concedes, “Love you till the day I die/I guess it don’t matter why” while ‘Lilacs’ admits “I won't end up anywhere good without you/I need your love too.” GREER CLEMENS

ORDINARY MAN OZZY OSBOURNE

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THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU



STROKES OF GENIUS

One inevitably listens to any new recording from a musician whose status approaches “demigod” with trepidation – but Ozzy Osbourne, who is widely credited as having started heavy metal with his band Black Sabbath, has produced a winner in Ordinary Man. The vocalist – whose chords sound as strong as they did when he laid down ‘Crazy Train’ in 1980 (a pleasant revelation, given Ozzy’s various health issues) – reflects on life, death and aliens.

Erupting guitar solos, the likes of which belong firmly to the hard-rock sound of yore, are sure to elicit, at a minimum, a cheeky smile from metalheads of all stripes. Yet it is the collaborations – one with Elton John – that pepper Ordinary Man with genuine surprises.

Indeed, this entire record earns its keep from its final track, ‘Take What You Want’, which sees Ozzy at his yearning ‘Close My Eyes Forever’ best alongside the silken sounds of Post Malone and Travis Scott. The result is canon.

MIA TIMPANO

Book Reviews

Thuy On Books Editor @thuy_on

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THE OTHER BENNET SISTER JANICE HADLOW

THE COCONUT CHILDREN VIVIAN PHAM

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The Other Bennet Sister is a treat for fans of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and for readers who enjoy historical romances with a modern twist. Recently, sequels, spinoffs and reworkings of the classics have been much in vogue, but few have remained as true to the spirit of the original text as Hadlow’s novel. Universally unloved, Mary is portrayed by Austen as a caricature of the intellectual woman (owlish, pompous and proud), and almost entirely silenced.

In Hadlow’s hands, however, she’s reinvented. The misunderstood, anxious and insecure middle sister on a journey of self-discovery from Longbourn to London ultimately becomes a romantic heroine in her own right. Just like the original, The Other Bennet Sister is a marriage plot of wit and heart, but it’s also an exploration of the role of women in early 19th-century society. The text is littered with language and quotations from Austen’s book. Its only flaw might be its length, which may discourage some readers. ANGELA ELIZABETH

Based in the late 1990s in the gritty Western Sydney suburb of Cabramatta and surrounds, The Coconut Children is a two-handed story about teenage VietnameseAustralians Vincent Tran and Sonny Vuong. Vincent’s back home after a two-year stint in juvenile detention and (nearly) the whole neighbourhood is pleased to welcome back this peacocking hoodlum, particularly Sonny, his childhood best friend. As their romance slowly blossoms, Pham explores a raft of issues in this dirt-poor, drug-riddled area, including alcohol, sexual and physical abuse, and parental trauma. It’s violent and grim, but the relationships between the protagonists, their friends and their families are deftly drawn. There are also moments of grace, tenderness and beauty in this book; Pham’s balance of light and dark is even-handed and true. So assured is the prose and characterisation of this debut effort, it’s hard to believe that Pham’s only 19. THUY ON

WHEN ONE PERSON DIES THE WHOLE WORLD IS OVER MANDY ORD 

Mandy Ord’s graphic memoir is a celebration of the quotidian and the everyday. The book is crafted out of a year’s worth of Ord’s diary entries, with each day recounted in one four-panel page. It’s an effective structure that honours life’s rhythms, and there’s a comfort that arises from the repetitions throughout. We see many early morning dog walks, work shifts and nights spent watching TV on the couch. There’s a quietness to the book that doesn’t undermine its beauty – a beauty that’s exemplified when the black-and-white panels stunningly present the moments where a landscape subtly changes and shifts. There’s a similarity of subject matter here to Ord’s first graphic novel Rooftops, which presents everyday occurrences that accumulate meaning and weight by the book’s close. But this effort is a more expansive and accomplished book and a more generous and honest one too. JACK ROWLAND

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READ NO EVIL

20 MAR 2020

recently read American author Vivian Gornick’s essay collection Unfinished Business, in which she explores re-reading books from her youth. Now that she’s older, she reflects on how the changes in her own life, as well as cultural changes in general, can affect a second or third reading of much-admired works. I must admit I barely have time to return to old favourites, but it’s not surprising that the advancement of time can bring different perspectives. After all, a novel may appear to be a work of heartbreaking genius when you’re in your twenties and still grappling with the world, and merely pretentious and waffly decades later when wiser and more cynical. The opposite can be true as well. Books that seemed impenetrable when you’re young and restless for meaning can suddenly appear illuminating when older and more patient. I remember studying Shakespeare’s sonnets at uni when I was a callow twenty-something. I admired their formal structure, but the themes of love and desire meant nothing to me. It was only years later, having had my heart inspired and broken many times, that reading these sonnets again made me appreciate their depth of emotion.

The mark of a true classic, however, is a book that speaks anew to generations afterwards, without feeling dated or dusty, like Orwell’s 1984, which remains as potent as ever – the study of totalitarian states is never going out of fashion. TO

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Public Service Announcement

by Lorin Clarke @lorinimus

Stand in a staff meeting run by an overbearing ego and think of three things about yourself that nobody in the room knows. One of them has to be good.

Get off the phone from the insistently furious or the persistently negative and think of this: at least you don’t have to be them. People who make other people feel rotten generally don’t make themselves feel great, and they can’t escape themselves. You can. Do something they wouldn’t do. Go outside, escape into a book, giggle with a friend.

Plan something lovely. Sanding down a table in the shed. A party. A book you want to write. Don’t let reality limit you. Daydreams are good for you.

Also sometimes how we feel is just how we feel. Just because you had the baby you yearned for or got the

job you wanted doesn’t mean you have to be perfect and happy.

Just because your whole life got turned upside down or you lost someone wonderful and it’s big and everywhere, nobody needs to see you cry. You don’t need to perform that for anybody.

The guerrilla force that almost always defeats the stupid mood police? Good friends. The joy of calling someone who makes you lighter is a unique and wonderful thing. If you don’t have access to your lighter person – or if you had one but now they’re gone – think of them. They can still make you lighter. Even lightness tinged with sadness is a gift from one person to another that even time can’t stop.

Also, sing. It’s a cliche but it’s true. Singing in the shower is like garlic to the bad mood vampire. Nothing can penetrate a belter of a Dolly Parton song or a quiet little version of ‘Blue Moon’ in the car that gets quite a bit louder in the chorus because you suddenly remember the words.

You can always run away, too. Literally. Run. Or swim. Or walk. Or do something that spins you out of yourself and into the world, moving your body through it, maybe by yourself with just your thoughts. Maybe with headphones. Maybe with a friend. I walked past two women walking in the park the other day. “The thing is,” one of them said to the other, “it was actually a really nice bundt cake after all that.” Going for a walk.

Rarely a bad idea. And neither is bundt cake, although in this instance it was apparently a narrow escape.

Sometimes the mood police are so insidious they’re not even a person, or people, or society, they’re just everything, and maybe they’re you too, maybe you’re part of the problem. Some of those feelings are too big to shoulder. Don’t shoulder them. Call someone. A smart person or a person you don’t know or a person you do know. Seriously. Call someone.

Public Service Announcement: ignore the mood police. Find someone lighter. Have some controversial bundt cake why don’t you.

Lorin Clarke is a Melbourne-based writer. The second season of her radio series, The Fitzroy Diaries, is on ABC Radio National and the ABC Listen app now.

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read carefully and keep your wits about you: the mood police are in town. They are.

You might not be able to see them. They’re undercover, most of the time. Sometimes they’re not.

Sometimes they come in the form of cat posters on the wall of your workplace that say “HANG IN THERE!” Sometimes they’re a person on the phone from Centrelink saying “I’m going to have to ask you to calm down”. The ones I’m talking about – the undercover mood police – are more insidious than that.

The tone of the undercover mood police is often the tone of FM radio ads – hyped-up and hysterical – but also sometimes the tone of Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh – atonal and slumping. They work in offices, telling you to smile. They’re your friends, telling you it’s been long enough now and it’s probably best you move on.

They’re a stranger at a barbeque telling you to cheer up because it’ll happen when you least expect it. They’re online using CAPS LOCK, telling you to be furious about ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING for a range of conflicting reasons. They’re your family and your colleagues and your neighbours and the doctor who refuses to get your jokes and frowns at you before writing something secret down on the piece of doctor paper that you can’t look at because you’re not a doctor but which you know says something about your inappropriate mood.

Public Service Announcement: you are in control of how you respond to the universe. Wield that power in quiet defiance of the mood police.

20 MAR 2020

Beware the Mood Police

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Tastes Like Home edited by Anastasia Safioleas

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PHOTOS BY ALAN BENSON

Tastes Like Home Monday Morning Cooking Club

LISA GOLDBERG, CHIEF POT STIRRER, MONDAY MORNING COOKING CLUB

Monday Morning Cooking Club’s

South African Cheesecake 375g plain sweet biscuits, such as Marie or Digestives pinch of salt 250g unsalted butter, melted 8 eggs, separated 230g (1 cup) caster (superfine) sugar 750g cream cheese, at room temperature, chopped 150ml pure (35%) cream

Method Preheat the oven to 180°C. You will need a deep 3-litre baking dish.

To make the cheesecake base, put the biscuits and salt in a food processor and process until they resemble breadcrumbs. Add the butter, then pulse to combine. Tip the mixture into the baking dish and press it evenly into the base and up the sides.

Using an electric mixer, beat the egg yolks until light and fluffy, adding the sugar gradually. Add the cream cheese one-third at a time, and beat on high speed to ensure there are no lumps. On medium speed, slowly add the cream and beat until smooth.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks start to form. Using a spatula or metal spoon, gently fold the egg whites into the cream cheese mixture, one-third at a time, then pour the mixture into the prepared crust.

Bake for 45 minutes or until golden brown on top (probably with cracks), but still quite wobbly.

Turn the oven off and leave it to set in the oven for 10 minutes. Serve at room temperature. To serve, scoop with a large spoon straight from the baking dish to a plate. Refrigerate the leftovers – if there are any!

I

n 2006, a few friends got together with a seed of an idea to create a cookbook that would share the best recipes from the best cooks in our food-obsessed community. We started to meet on Monday mornings, and the Monday Morning Cooking Club was born. We’ve searched, tested, tasted, perfected and shared hundreds of recipes from the Australian and global Jewish community. We found both heirloom masterpieces and contemporary essentials with a common goal to preserve recipes for the future. We have just published our fourth book, Now for Something Sweet.

Growing up in the Jewish community in Australia has helped each of us understand the importance of the family table, and the idea of nurturing and being nurtured through food. We celebrate many festivals each year. And, to us, it is always about the food. One delicious festival is Shavuot, where we enjoy dairy dishes, and everyone shares, talks about and bakes cheesecake after cheesecake.

But we do have a favourite – the South African Cheesecake.

This is a cheesecake served with a large spoon, in a dish placed in the centre of the table. It is a family-style cake and it is absolutely irresistible. It is the sort of cake that friends can gather round for afternoon tea. It is the sort of cake you’ll eat straight from the dish standing in the kitchen after your visitors have left. It is a dish that speaks of home. It speaks of community and traditions, of family and friends, and the passing down of recipes.

This cheesecake from our friend Dorryce Rock has a history. In our first book, one of our co-authors Lauren shared a cheesecake recipe which she was known for making so well – it was given to her by Dorryce, her friend’s sister. It was a perfect cake, and there was no need to change it. But when we looked into its history for our fourth book, it turned out Dorryce first received quite a different recipe in South Africa, sometime around 1975, scrawled on a scrap of paper. She has perfected the recipe, we have tested and tasted it and we are now excited to share it.

NOW FOR SOMETHING SWEET BY THE MONDAY MORNING COOKING CLUB IS OUT NOW.

20 MAR 2020

Serves 12

Lisa says…

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Ingredients

Puzzles

ANSWERS PAGE 45

By Lingo!

by Lauren Gawne lingthusiasm.com CAT

CLUES 5 letters Informal speech No longer fresh Very strong winds Wary 6 letters Approximately Deftly Heavenly harpists Mildly, tenderly Person who fishes 7 letters Enormously Severely 8 letters Constrict

G A

T

N

L

R

S

Y

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Sudoku

by websudoku.com

Each column, row and 3 x 3 box must contain all numbers 1 to 9.

2

6

3 5

5

3

9 1 6 2 8 2 5 3 5 7 4 8 4 1 6 9 8 5 2 5 4 6

Puzzle by websudoku.com

Solutions CROSSWORD PAGE 45 ACROSS 1 Legible 5 Potomac 9 Visualise 10 Robin 11 Derange 12 Absolve 13 Peer 14 Stalemates 16 Outrageous 19 Asks 21 Fertile 22 Diamond 24 Eaten 25 Automatic 26 Disease 27 Synergy

DOWN 1 Livid 2 Gastroenteritis 3 Brains 4 Eminent 5 Prevail 6 Tiresome 7 Mobility scooter 8 Consensus 13 Proofread 15 Hacienda 17 Elevate 18 Updates 20 Batman 23 Decoy

20 QUESTIONS PAGE 9 1 David Walsh 2 Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail 3 Antarctica 4 A power line pole 5 Scarlett Johansson ( Marriage Story and JoJo Rabbit ) 6 Toilet paper 7 At the end of your shoelaces 8 Doberman pinscher 9 4 10 Finland 11 Cancel culture 12 Frosties 13 Different coloured eyes 14 Rudy Gobert 15 A Commodore (SS-V Redline) sedan 16 Gabriel García Márquez 17 Western Australia 18 Orecchiette 19 Margot Robbie 20 400 years

20 MAR 2020

Using all nine letters provided, can you answer these clues?

Every answer must include the central letter.

Plus, which word uses all nine letters?

by puzzler.com

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Word Builder

Cats were domesticated (if we can really say that) some time around 2000BC. Almost all European languages have a similar word for our fluffy companions; German Katze, Welsh kath, Italian gatto, Polish kot. Even in Latin the word catta replaced feles, which is still found as the scientific name for domestic cats Felis domesticus. Cats and their behaviour have inspired all kinds of new words, including catnap (1823), catsuit (1960) and catwalk – originally a narrow walkway on ships and also backstage at theatres, before becoming a feature of fashion shows in the 1940s. Kitten was a borrowing some time in the Middle Ages, from Old French chaton “little cat”.

Step into my office

Team building with impact

CHALLENGE

Contact hello@bigissue.org.au thebigissue.org.au

Crossword

by Steve Knight

THE ANSWERS FOR THE CRYPTIC AND QUICK CLUES ARE THE SAME. ANSWERS PAGE 43.

1

2

3

4

5

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7

8

Quick Clues ACROSS

9

1 Easy to read (7) 5 US river (7) 9 Conjure up (9) 10 Type of bird (5) 11 Make crazy (7) 12 Exonerate (7) 13 Person of similar standing (4) 14 Impasses (10) 16 Excessive (10) 19 Requests (4) 21 Lush (7) 22 Precious stone (7) 24 Consumed (5) 25 Instinctive (9) 26 Illness (7) 27 Mutually beneficial interaction (7)

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14 15

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DOWN

20 21

22

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1 Ropable (5) 2 Digestive illness (15) 3 Smarts (6) 4 Distinguished (7) 5 Triumph (7) 6 Tedious (8) 7 Transportation aid for the

physically impaired (8,7)

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27

Cryptic Clues

Solutions

ACROSS

DOWN

1 The French oblige topless dancing. It’s easy

1 Drip permeates cap when reaching

5 Bizarro too camp for DC feature? (7)

2 Runs from petrol bomb in street riot (15)

9 United Artists plug – “Elvis is in motion picture” (9)

3 Intelligence uncovers Brisbane attack (6)

10 Can I borrow deposit when backing 20dn’s

4 Famous white rapper trades his last

to make out (7)

partner? (5) 11 Garden salad the latest craze (7) 12 Release a B-side initially: ‘Tainted Love’ (7) 13 Look like (4) 14 Draws masculine shapes for Spooner (10) 16 Wildly inflated pound got us a euro (10) 19 Demands Alaskans release Alan (4) 21 Reportedly stole slab to get rich (7) 22 Rock and roll an odd mix without Kiss ? (7) 24 Scoffed at posh school’s invoice (5) 25 Routine to transport it to Macau (9) 26 2dn is one to pass over oceans (7) 27 Vocal wrongdoer and gutless guy in collaboration that works (7)

boiling point? (5)

million for books (7)

5 Have success before film is aired (7) 6 Stocktake at Bob Jane sounds boring (8) 7 Old guy moped, upset to be my solicitor (8,7) 8 When agreeing to fill in population survey,

circle “Poles” (9)

13 Apartment’s resident roofer finishes early.

Check his work (9)

15 It’s said Messi had a nice house in Barcelona (8) 17 Promote hash tea leaves as junk (7) 18 Briefs as a result of wedgies? (7) 20 Cash machine grabbed in bank hold-up

by superhero (6)

23 Draw like 1920s architectural style? (5)

SUDOKU PAGE 43

1 2 9 6 4 8 7 3 5

6 8 7 9 5 3 1 4 2

4 3 5 1 7 2 6 9 8

5 4 1 3 6 7 2 8 9

2 6 3 8 9 4 5 1 7

7 9 8 2 1 5 3 6 4

8 1 6 7 2 9 4 5 3

9 5 2 4 3 1 8 7 6

3 7 4 5 8 6 9 2 1

Puzzle by websudoku.com

WORD BUILDER PAGE 43 5 Slang Stale Gales Alert 6 Nearly Neatly Angels Gently Angler 7 Greatly Sternly 8 Strangle 9 Strangely

20 MAR 2020

26

8 Agreement (9) 13 Check text for errors (9) 15 Spanish estate (8) 17 Lift (7) 18 Briefs (7) 20 Gotham City hero (6) 23 Lure (5)

45

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Click 2010

Leon Russell, Elton John, Elvis Costello

words by Michael Epis photo by Getty

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THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

A

s Elton John’s long love-filled farewell to his Australian fans becomes a memory, it’s worth looking back at his early days, to the man who inspired him: Leon Russell (seated).

In the 1960s Russell was an anonymous session musician, playing with Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, the Beach Boys and so many others. He caught the public eye when he stole the show at George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh in 1971, his southern preacher’s drawl and hurricane piano playing setting the show alight. Having seemingly appeared from nowhere, he disappeared from public consciousness just as quickly.

On Elvis Costello’s chat show Spectacle in 2008, Elton recalled Leon Russell: “He had this incredible long silver hair. He played on all the Phil Spector records. Then he started to write the most incredible songs. I went to see him when he played in England and I fell in love with the way he played the piano and the way he sang…

Piano-playing wise, he’s my biggest hero.

“First time I went to The Troubadour [in Los Angeles] in 1970, it was my big break, and the second night there I’m playing ‘Burn Down the Mission’ – really in the

midst of rocking out – and I suddenly look around and to the right sitting in the audience is this man with this long silver hair. And I froze.

“I did two tours with Leon Russell. He was top of the bill; I was second on the bill. And I was terrified of him – he looked like Rasputin. It was the most magical of times, because he was my idol, accepting me. He could actually eat me for breakfast as a piano player.

For him to take me under his wing, it meant so much.

It validated what I did. If he thinks I’m alright, then I must be, because he’s my hero.”

In 2009, after weeping while listening to Russell’s music while on safari in Africa, Elton called him out of the blue, and suggested they make a record. Russell, long out of the spotlight and recovering from brain surgery, agreed. They made The Union (it’s great, btw) and two years later Russell was inducted into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame – by Elton. “Elton found me in the ditch by the side of the highway of life,” Russell said. “He took me up to the high stages…and treated me like a king. The only thing I can say is bless your heart.”

Leon Russell died in his sleep in 2016, aged 74.

Bless his heart.

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