CityNews 230112

Linda Clee – Physiotherapist

Linda is an experienced physiotherapist having worked clinically in private practice for over 20 years, in rehabilitation settings and in community based aged care. Having owned and operated her own clinic for over 10 years, Linda offered a range of different therapy options, and has refined her skills and service offerings to ensure a functional focus to therapy; that is holistic and promotes overall wellness. A dancer in a past life, Linda loves to add a bit of fun in her programs, often throwing in rhythm and co-ordination challenges that are good for the body and the mind.

Sophie Bullock – Exercise Physiologist

Sophie has post graduate qualifications in hydrotherapy, and as a non-sports centred Exercise Physiologist, helps clients who struggle with engaging in exercise due to a lack of sports participation. Sophie’s goal is to improve clients health via our hydrotherapy program, gym instruction and in-home visits. Sophie also is known for her passion for working with children.

Natasha Perry – Exercise Scientist

Tash takes a wholistic view of all her clients, considering their mental wellbeing as much as their physical needs. Tash delivers our Nordic Walking, Pilates and Tai Chi programs, all of which have a mental as well as physical component.

Tash also leads our strength and balance program, supporting those with lower levels of mobility or have concerns over falls to regain their confidence, whilst also meeting a great bunch of fellow exercise class participants.

Dorothy Johnston – Exercise Physiologist

Dorothy is our newest graduate Exercise Physiologist who we employed because she was such an outstanding student. Dorothy excells with us, having a soft spot for both older persons with pain, but also a long history of working in disability services with children. Dorothy loves working with people to improve their pain and function, and always has a bright smile for everyone in her care.

Blake Dean – Exercise Physiologist

Blake has expertise in improving clients mobility and decreasing their pain through appropriate exercise. Blake delivers our ‘My Exercise’ program, targeting the relief of lower back and sciatic pain, shoulder and upper body concerns as well as leg, hip and ankle interventions – for those who do not qualify for physiotherapy-led GLAD programs.

Blake provides individual & group exercise for younger people with a disability. Blake treats clients in-clinic or via our hydrotherapy program as well as attending your gym with you.

Jacqui Couldrick – Physiotherapist

Jacqui has a particular interest in hip and knee osteoarthritis. Jacqui delivers the GLAD program designed to reduce the need for joint replacements, or if a joint replacement is unavoidable, to prepare you thoroughly for surgery and recovery for day to day tasks. Jacqui is studying towards a PhD in the outcomes of the GLAD program.

Holly Hazelwood – Exercise Physiologist

Holly is a former sports journalist who believed so strongly in the power of exercise to heal and nurture that she undertook her 4 year degree in Exercise Physiology. Holly is be able to work with people directly to support them through their pain journey and regain independence and a joy for living again.

Holly provides one on one and group exercise classes both on land and at our hydrotherapy centres to support people to gain freedom from chronic pain.

• Occupational Therapy – Assistance with the planning and modification of your home, workplace or car. Applications for NDIS, the Disability and Housing Support Pension, and also driving assessments.

• Physiotherapy – including the GLAD program for knee and hip osteoarthritis, sports injury prevention and rehabilitation, and pain condition support.

• Exercise Physiology – Individual exercise prescriptions, small group classes to increase strength and improve rehabilitation, strength and balance classes, hydrotherapy support.

• Dietetics – meal planning, weight management support, food intolerance support.

www.arthritisact.org.au | e: info@arthritisact.org.au

Shoppers no longer buy the throwaway culture

AUSTRALIAN consumers are rejecting the throwaway culture, instead snapping up sustainable options, according to new research from Monash University.

A report released by Monash Busi ness School’s Australian Consumer and Retail Studies (ACRS) research unit has found that Australian consumers want sustainable products and are increasingly looking for more environmentally conscious shopping options.

More than half (52 per cent) of the 1000 Australian shoppers surveyed for the latest retail monitor report “Spotlight on Sustainability”, say they are giving more thought to the social and environmental impact of their purchases before they buy, and are even willing to pay more for products that are ethically produced.

Among the report’s key findings:

• 85 per cent of survey participants said that durability and repairabili ty (73 per cent) were priorities when making non-grocery purchases.

• 38 per cent have reduced the number of new products purchased.

• 45 per cent are willing to pay more for ethically produced products.

• 42 per cent would pay more for products packaged in recycled material.

INDEX

increasingly contemplating the social and environmental footprint of their purchases before they buy,” says the report’s lead author Dr Eloise Zoppos, principal research consultant and research fellow in the ACRS research unit, in Monash Business School’s Department of Marketing.

“Pleasingly, both industry and

government are taking note, actively seeking sustainable solutions to meet consumer demand and making sustainability a priority.”

Over the last three months, participants in the “Spotlight on Sustainability” survey purchased clothes, footwear and accessories (70 per cent), personal care (49 per cent), household goods (42 per cent), books and stationery (38 per cent), consumer electronics (26 per cent), toys and games (24 per cent) travel and tourism (21 per cent), media and entertainment (18 per cent), automotive (16 per cent) and sporting goods and equipment (16 per cent).

The report’s findings show that consumers are notably keen to support locally sourced and produced goods (44 per cent) and increasingly aware of the benefits of offsetting costly carbon emissions from shipping and transportation. They are also prepared to pay more for locally produced items.

And, they are walking the talk, with 96 per cent engaging in sustainable practices such as bringing their own shopping bags and recycling product waste regularly, over the three months of the survey.

“It is clear from our research that sustainable shopping practices are important to us, and from a lifestyle perspective, most Aussie shoppers are engaging with sustainable lifestyle

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practices and are committing to them,” says Dr Zoppos.

Australian shoppers are increasingly more conscious of the environmental impact of their purchases and everyday activities and believe they can make a difference – and many retailers are getting on board, the report says.

Premium outdoor clothing and gear label Patagonia is leading by example, successfully making the promise of durable and repairable products a core promise of its brand. Its “Ironclad Guarantee” offer, allowing customers to repair, replace or refund products that do not meet expectations has proven very popular.

Patagonia also provides DIY repair guides, repair services and even a dedicated Worn Wear Repair Hub at the Patagonia Sydney store. More recently, Patagonia donated all non-voting stock to the Holdfast Collective, a non-profit dedicated to the climate crisis. All profits, after reinvesting into the business, are used as a dividend to support the non-profit organisation.

Other businesses are focusing on sourcing local manufacturing and suppliers, over overseas alternatives, in a bid to reduce their carbon footprint.

Gold Coast-based skin care brand Alpha-H, actively engages local suppliers to provide ingredients for its award-winning formulations, and

suppliers who are RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) certified. In addition, all its liquid waste is diverted to local land revegetation projects.

Other retailers are embedding sustainability into company policy and growth agendas, while the Australian consumer watchdog listed consumer and fair trading issues in relation to environmental claims and sustainability as one of their compliance and enforcement priorities for 2022-2023 (and just this past year began their online review of at least 200 brands for misleading sustainability claims).

Yet it’s the everyday shopper driving this change, with consumers taking more responsibility to drive sustainable change through their everyday purchases and lifestyles and wanting businesses to enable change.

A report published by EY Australia found that half (54 per cent) of Australian consumers believe it’s their responsibility to drive businesses to better social and environmental outcomes.

Only a third (34 per cent) of Australians believed what they do does not make a big enough impact on the environment.

“This consumer-led sustainable product revolution is underway,” says Dr Zoppos, “and it’s a movement that is gaining momentum. Thankfully, business and government are responding to the call.”

A year in, William’s already a national futsal star

By Lily PASS

WILLIAM Potter, 13, has only been playing futsal for a year, and he has already been selected to represent Australia in an international competition.

While the Bonython schoolboy has played soccer since kindergarten, William says he enjoys the faster pace of futsal and how his abilities have grown since he started playing.

“I feel like it helps me grow my fast reaction and footwork skills,” he says.

Futsal is a five-a-side, soccer-based game played between two teams on a hard court surface. It uses a smaller, harder, lower-bounce ball than football.

William’s mum Rachelle says his journey to beginning futsal started at school.

“His PE teacher – a very passionate futsal player – put them in for an interschool match and William got headhunted there. Then he went to play for the ACT,” she says.

In the October school holidays, William represented the ACT at the National School Championships in Brisbane.

While playing there he came to the attention of national selectors.

have the skills, it’s just not my main focus. I want to develop a lot while I am over there. I want to develop every-

With international travel causing a large expense, a Go Fund Me page has been set up so friends, family and the community can support William.

Rachelle and William say is greatly appreciated.

“My family are my biggest supporters. My friends are big supporters, too, but family are more,” says William.

William has big dreams for his future in futsal, hoping this could be the start of a career in the sport.

“I want to play professionally after I have finished at school. But for backup, maybe I could be a sports teacher. I would say I’m good at sport at school,”

With his strength showing in goalkeeping, he says a lot of his role models are past goalkeepers, “especially Lev Yashin, the only goalkeeper to ever win the Ballon d’Or” – a football award presented annually by France

“It is important to train, and it is important to have a team where you actually know people, and you can talk to them and progress with them,”

“There was one person from Brisbane when I represented the ACT, he also made the same team. I know him

Between training sessions and gameplay, futsal takes up a lot of his time.

“I have outdoor training on Mondays, goalkeeper training and a futsal game on Tuesday, and either futsal or outdoor training on Thursday,” he

“We have an oval just down the road. I sometimes go down there for training by myself, or we have a wall and grass out the front that I usually do stuff on and I practice at school during lunch breaks.”

Donations to gofundme.com/f/sendwill-to-the-uk-to-represent-australia

Winnunga Nimmityjah AHCS is an Aboriginal community controlled primary health care service operated by the Aboriginal community of the ACT.

In Wiradjuri language, Winnunga Nimmityjah means Strong Health. The service logo is the Corroboree Frog which is significant to Aboriginal people in the ACT.

Our aim is to provide a culturally safe, holistic health care service for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of the ACT and surrounding regions. The holistic health care provided by Winnunga AHCS includes not only medical care, but a range of programs to promote good health and healthy lifestyles.

Our services include:

Labor members silent on Greenslabor’s scandals

WHEN federal elections roll around, locals often hear from those who wish to be the elected federal members of the House of Representatives (three from the ACT) and the Senate (two).

They cannot be held back from taking the stage or from stepping out as you go shopping. After the elec tions are done and dusted, they have serious stuff to be getting on with and so local issues are rarely mentioned again – till the next elections.

People know that members of the federal parliament become involved with complex issues affecting not only their local voters but the whole country.

Some interstate local members are good at maintaining a local voice and participate whenever possible in appropriate local debates. They usually avoid commenting on the grass mowing, potholes and whether a local venue may be disturbing the neighbourhood – unless it is theirs.

There is an expectation that federal members should be involved with cru cial matters such as local affordable housing, social housing, transport, urban development, suburban design, suburban climate issues and whether the local government is transparently allocating monies and resources to stuff that makes sense.

It can be a tough gig to be involved

ACT government was doing – no matter how scandalous and outrageous.

Their collective silence and wilful disregard for the welfare of residents has been the collateral damage from having this cabal of electorally safe Labor federal politicians.

When David Pocock ran his cam-

“Town Hall” meetings. For the moment he is going through the motions at least.

We did not hear from Senator Pocock, or any of the local Labor feds, when ACT Greenslabor started kicking housing tenants from their forever homes. We heard nothing

when the auditor-general reported on questionable justifications for the tram to Commonwealth Bridge and about the tossing of large amounts of cash to fill in the lake at West Basin for massive development of the foreshores. We heard nothing when Jon Stanhope and Khalid Ahmed revealed the total re-allocation of funds from the sales of public housing estates to pay for the tram.

Following on from that scandal and misuse of public money, nothing was said about how far behind the city remains on the provision of social housing. We also heard nothing from the local feds on the funds ripped from the health budgets and how this has put behind by a decade the expan-

sion of the Woden Hospital and has seen a reduction in health services (despite the outstanding efforts by staff to deliver quality services).

The mismanagement of the territory’s finances and other outrageous policies, such as the latest pseudo-planning reforms, are not stuff that committed locally elected federal politicians could ignore if they took their electoral responsibilities seriously. Yet this is the new norm for this well-paid group.

Is this what people think they sign up for when they cast their ballots? It must be time for some “kitchen-table meetings” to identify new candidates for the federal elections in 2025 to have independent candidates (not aligned to the three major parties) who are committed to demanding integrity, transparency and good governance from the ACT government. Definitely overdue.

Paul Costigan is a commentator on cultural and urban matters. There are more of his columns at citynews.com.au

There must have been an agreement that the Labor federal members would remain silent or at least not be critical of whatever the ACT government was doing – no matter how scandalous and outrageous.

Katy Gallagher… back to national duties.

David Pocock… still maintaining connections.

Estate planning is up close and personal for Ashilpa

WILLS and estate lawyer Ashilpa Khanna, from Capon and Hubert Lawyers and Mediators, says it’s the human element of working with a range of clients that she finds so rewarding in her role that she’s held for more than six years.

“I see a range of clients at different stages in their lives. Some are elderly or unwell, some are seeking advice due to receiving an inheritance but many of my clients are hard-working mums and dads who come to me to help prepare a plan to safeguard their money for their children’s futures,” she says.

Growing up in Fiji, Ashilpa had her sights on a legal career when she finished high school. She studied law at the University of the South Pacific in Suva before deciding, in her final year, to move to Australia and complete her degree at the University of Canberra. She completed her Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice at the ANU.

“Coming from a little island, Canberra seemed more like home than the big-city vibe of Sydney. During university I worked

encing the difference between studying and practising the law,” she says.

Once she was admitted as a lawyer in 2015, Ashilpa worked on a few contracts for the government, but discovered she much preferred private-sector legal work, where she could be at the forefront and work directly with clients.

At that time she met Ken Hubert, principal and respected lawyer at

join the firm.

“Ken inspired me to establish my career at Capon and Hubert and focus my work on wills and estate planning,” she says.

“Wills and estate law is a vast area that can involve anything from drafting documents to running contentious claims in the court so you get a feel of all sides of the practice,” she says.

“There’s also superannuation, an area

of law which is evolving rapidly.”

In order to better cushion any sudden tragedies that might occur in people’s families, Ashilpa firmly believes everyone should have an estate plan and it all starts with a will.

“Many of my clients come to me to prepare a will and feel relief. They tell me they have been putting off doing it for many years, but it’s so important to ensure the earnings you are working hard for go to the people you want to inherit,” she says.

“I have worked on lengthy, contested matters in the Supreme Courts of NSW and the ACT and, in contrast, I work with everyday mums and dads who are looking for simplified, straightforward answers and solutions to their estate planning.

“My clients want to make sure their loved ones are looked after.”

At Capon & Hubert Lawyers & Mediators, Ashilpa says great care is taken in providing expert and honest advice, ensuring each client is aware of the legal process and disclosing any upfront fees.

“Our staff are experienced in their fields and we take pride in knowing our clients,” she says.

“We will always use common sense, respect, courtesy and good judgement

when dealing with clients.”

Ashilpa says she’s proud to represent a law firm with a work culture that’s professional and supportive.

“Capon and Hubert is one of the very few firms in Canberra that works like a tight-knit family,” says Ashilpa.

“Most of our staff have been working here for over four years, including myself, and some for as long as eight to 14 years.”

“I think that speaks volumes in terms of the management and directors we have – a very supportive work culture that can be rare in this competitive industry.”

Ashilpa says her professional ethos is to never take things for granted and focus on being disciplined and consistent in her work.

“It has its challenges, but sometimes people just need us to listen to them and be empathetic. For them, it can be the first time they are dealing with an estate and they could be in the depths of grief. I find it very rewarding to use my knowledge and experience to help guide people through difficult times.”

Capon & Hubert Lawyers & Mediators, first floor, 32-38 Townshend Street, Phillip. Email enquiries@chsol.com.au, call 6152 9203 or visit chsol.com.au

‘It’s so important to ensure the earnings you’re working hard for go to the people you want to inherit’

Wills and estate lawyer Ashilpa Khanna with the team at Capon & Hubert Lawyers & Mediators.

More Australians died in 2022 than expected

death from heart disease, cancer and other causes.

LAST month, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released a report of mortality statistics. It showed that from January to July 2022, there were 17 per cent more deaths (16,375) than the average expected for these months.

This historical average is based on an average of the deaths for 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021. They did not include 2020 in the baseline for 2022 data because it included periods where numbers of deaths were significantly lower than expected. The difference between the expected number of deaths based on historical data, and the actual number, is called “excess deaths”.

However, as the ABS points out in its report, using previous years as the predictor for the expected number of deaths does not take into account changes in population age structure over time, or potential improvements in mortality rates.

As we will see, the excess deaths this year were likely lower than the ABS estimate – but still overwhelmingly related to covid and its effects on health.

A different approach

In mid-December, the Australian

Actuaries Institute released its report looking at excess deaths. Actuaries are statisticians who specialise in assessing risk, and most often work for insurance companies, superan nuation funds, banks or government departments.

Unlike the ABS, the actuaries’ report adjusts the expected deaths for differences in age distributions over time using a method called “direct age-standardisation”.

The report also uses a counterfactual approach that basically asks, what would the number of deaths have been in the absence of the pandemic? Their comparison between recorded and expected deaths is likely to be more accurate than the ABS comparison.

What the actuaries saw

Both the Actuaries Institute report and the ABS separate covid deaths into two categories:

• deaths from covid, where covid is listed as the primary or underlying cause of death

• deaths with covid, where the underlying cause of death has been determined as something other than covid, but the virus was a

contributing factor.

The Actuaries Institute report shows 13 per cent excess mortality for the first eight months of 2022 (about 15,400 deaths), substantially lower than the ABS estimate for the first seven months.

Just over half of the excess mortality – 8200 deaths, are deaths from covid. Another 2100 deaths are deaths with covid. The remaining excess of 5100 deaths makes no mention of covid on the death certificate.

The actuaries’ report gives the following possible explanations for excess deaths not listed as from or with covid:

Long covid and interactions with serious health conditions

A previous covid infection can cause later illness or death. We know covid is associated with higher risk of

But a doctor tasked with completing a death certificate may not identify a link between the death and a covid infection months earlier. Therefore, it seems likely some deaths were due to late covid effects.

Delayed deaths from other causes

Deaths from respiratory disease in 2020 and 2021 were lower than expected. This is presumably due to public health measures such as mask wearing. While those measures were in place, people caught fewer respiratory diseases. Some people may have died earlier had their systems been stressed by respiratory disease during this time. So, some of the reported non-covid excess deaths may be due to the catch-up effect of those people succumbing to underlying illnesses.

Delays in emergency care

Around Australia, our health systems are under pressure, with staff absences due to covid, ambulance ramping, and bed blocks in our acute hospitals.

Unfortunately, there have been cases of people dying while waiting for an ambulance. It could be that people with conditions such as heart disease, cancer or diabetes may not be getting lifesaving emergency care due to these factors.

Delays in routine care

Over the pandemic period we have seen delays in people seeking routine health care or attending screening tests for breast and cervical cancer.

There have also been delays in elective surgery. And people may have been avoiding health-care settings due to fear of catching covid. These delays in routine care may have led to deaths that would have been prevented in previous years.

Undiagnosed covid

It is almost certain some of the excess deaths are from unidentified covid. Unfortunately in Australia, we have no firm data on the percentage of undiagnosed covid cases, and even less on how that percentage might have changed over time.

So, the good news is the ABS excess death estimate of 17 per cent more deaths in the first eight months of this year is likely an over-estimate, with the true rate closer to 13 per cent. Of this 13 per cent, some 7 per cent are deaths from covid, 2 per cent are deaths with covid, and much of the remaining 4 per cent is likely to still be covid-related in some way.

Adrian Esterman, professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of SA. This article is republished from The Conversation.

The excess number of deaths this year were likely lower than the ABS estimate – but still overwhelmingly related to COVID-19, writes ADRIAN ESTERMAN.

Humans to compost, the eco-friendly way to go

By Belinda STRAHORN

A COMMITTED, Canberra-based environmentalist is championing human composting as an eco-friendly way of dealing with human remains.

Tui Davidson, 52, is advocating a sustainable alternative to burials and cremations.

Her preferred method is human com posting, a process in which remains are turned into soil.

“Human composting means you have an environmentally sustainable option that can be regenerative,” Davidson said.

She said human composting is considerably cheaper than burials, and offers a cleaner alternative to cremation.

“With burials land is finite, and it’s obscenely expensive, which is why people choose cremation,” Davidson said.

“Cremations are a third of the cost, but they give off emissions, they are a pollutant.”

The process of human composting involves placing a body in a vessel with wood chips and straw. The vessel is turned gently, with about a tonne of soil returned in six to 12 weeks.

“The existing process in America

Above: Tui Davidson… “I really believe in returning to the earth cycle, and also using earth’s creatures to help you decompose.”

is to have a honeycomb series of pods, which are vessels, that you put the body in and have a laying in ceremony,” Davidson said.

“Then you are constantly monitoring it and turning the vessel so the microbes, and the temperature, and the aeration are sufficient.

“You have beautiful compost at the end. It takes about six-12 weeks for the body to decompose, but it depends on the size of the body.”

While human composting breaks down most of the remains like cremation, the bones still have to be crushed, Davidson said.

“Exactly the same as in cremation, the bones need to go into a cremulator which crushes them down after the

fire process,” she said.

“Human composting would also need to do that because you can’t break bones down in six to 12 weeks, so you’d need to take them out and crush them down as well.”

Families are then offered the compost material to use as they see fit, she said.

“Like a family can take ashes and spread them, with human composting a family could take their person, even if it may be a cubic tonne of beautiful compost,” said Davidson.

It’s a burial method that is gaining popularity in certain states in America.

The process was first legalised in the US in Washington in 2019, and is legal in other states including Oregan

and Colorado.

Davidson said the enabling legislation is in place in the ACT and Tasmania, but it’s not a burial practice that is currently in use here.

“It’s not yet done in Australia, but the legislation that would allow for it is already in existence in Canberra and Tassie,” she said.

Davidson points to the ever increasing costs of burials. She also touches on the shortage of available land for burials, and the financial burden of maintaining cemeteries which often falls on local councils or government.

“Part of the costs of burial is that somebody needs to maintain the premises, and local councils and government cemetery owners are then

struggling with those maintenance costs because land is finite,” she said.

Thinking longer term, Davidson has identified opportunities for human compost to be used in a variety of ways if space doesn’t allow it to be used in a family’s private garden.

“My idea is a partnership with the Arboretum, botanical gardens, or a community group that’s re-generating land and the compost could be gifted to them to use,” she said.

While traditional burial methods give grieving relatives a place to visit their loved ones, just as many don’t visit their dearly departed, and some not at all, she said.

“There are many people who don’t feel the need to go and visit somebody,” said Davidson.

“My sister, mother and grandfather were very influential people in my life. They are dead now and I don’t need to go to a place to honour them. They live in my heart,” she said.

Davidson is a strong believer of returning people to the earth, forming part of the circle of life, and participating in regeneration through the soil.

“I really believe in returning to the earth cycle, and also using earth’s creatures to help you decompose,” she said.

“There are many people who would happily see a circular economy, where you return to the earth, and you become a part of the land cycle.”

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Above right: The Recompose funeral centre in Washington.

Photo: Recompose.life

Woollen swimsuits, is it time to bring them back?

also in short supply, prioritised for uniforms and blankets for World War

IN the 19th century, when natural fibres were the only option, beachgoers donned costumes made of wool or cotton.

Swimsuits worn at the water’s edge or in the crashing waves transformed across the 20th century from natural fibres to sleek, high-performance synthetics.

But with concern mounting over microplastics and the search for sustainable options, the woollen swimsuits of the past could be the swimwear of the future.

Shifting (and shrinking) swimsuits

Plenty who enjoyed a day on the sand in the first decades of the 20th century did so fully clothed. It was not uncommon for men to dress for the beach in three-piece suits or for women to wear gowns that fell to their ankles.

But women who ventured into the water donned belted, knee-length bathing gowns that featured bloomers to conceal the legs. Men’s two-piece bathing costumes revealed a little more, with a top extending to the thighs paired with shorts to the knees.

In the space of a couple of decades, however, swimsuits radically changed. Styles altered as attitudes

to the exposure of bodies relaxed, shifting ideas around public morality.

The 1930s witnessed a rise in topless bathing for men as they adopted trunks. Some had half skirts at the front, and many sported belts with buckles to keep them firmly on the waist.

Women’s swimwear now revealed the arms, legs and back – then even more when bikinis appeared on Australian beaches in 1950. Shock rippled across the sand.

Swimwear had reached bodybaring new dimensions.

Wool on the beach

Knitted wool – rather than woven wool or cotton – fitted swimwear snugly to the body, helping it shrink in size.

For wearers of Foy & Gibson’s evocatively named wool suits in the late 1920s and early 1930s – “Sunnybeach”, “Sunbath”, “Seafit” and “Siren” among them – this knit offered comfort and freedom.

Speedo’s knitted wool trunks in the late 1930s were made to streamline men’s figures, sparking the enticing

slogan: “Next to your figure Speedo looks best!”

Those with knitting skills could make their own swimsuits that decade, using instructions like those given in the “Australian Women’s Weekly”.

With the introduction of “Lastex” –a rubber yarn – to woollen swimsuits in the 1930s, they transitioned to even more body-hugging fits. These exuded a new kind of glamorous appeal that elevated swimwear to a “sea-ductive” (as one newspaper columnist quipped) new height.

The synthetic swimsuit revolution

When synthetics burst on to the market, Australians embraced the new “modern” fibres. Wool was

Swimwear started to be made in the so-called “miracle” fibres: nylon in the 1940s, then polyester (known as “Terylene” in Australia) in the 1950s.

From the 1960s, “Lycra” (also called elastane and spandex) was blended into swimsuits. These made sleeker, slimmer, more satin-like suits.

Neoprene, a foam fabric, first appeared in wetsuits on Australia’s beaches in the late 1950s – increasing the possibilities for winter surfing. Wetsuits improved significantly in decades to follow, keeping their wearer warm by trapping a thin layer of water heated by the body.

In the pool, our Olympic swimmers tested more advanced fabrics. Those at the Sydney Games in 2000 wore the Speedo “fastskin”, with its compression fabric and replication of shark skin scales that streamlined the body in the water.

More recently, swimsuits made from recycled plastic – bottles, bags and other plastic waste – have emerged as an eco-friendly option. Some question, however, just how green these recycled swimmers truly are when reducing all plastic consumption is needed to make a difference.

Why wool, again?

We might dismiss woollen swimsuits

from the 20th century’s first decades as unpleasant or uncomfortable to wear. Or we might see them as unflattering for the way they sagged when wet.

But new processes for working with wool suggest it is ideal to wear in the water. New Merino boardshorts have been designed to dry in less than seven minutes. Wool is also thermoregulating, helping the body maintain an even temperature.

It’s not just that wool options are increasingly available. As we buy and throw away clothing at alarming rates, some have embraced the natural fibre as a sustainable, renewable alternative to synthetics.

Wool is biodegradable, naturally returning to and nourishing the earth, unlike synthetics that can take centuries to break down. Clothes in artificial fibres linger in landfill, with devastating consequences.

Our growing awareness of microplastics – tiny fibres released with washing that pollute marine (and other) environments – is also driving this shift.

So is it time to rethink wearing wool as you head to the beach this summer?

Lorinda Cramer is a research fellow at the Australian Catholic University. This article is republished from “The Conversation”.

Woollen swimwear, popular a century ago, might soon make a splash on Australian beaches again, writes LORINDA CRAMER .

Knitted wool – rather than woven wool or cotton – fitted swimwear snugly to the body, helping it shrink in size. Photo: State Library of Queensland

Adrift with The Lion, the fridge and The Ward-rob

1985 was just a funny old year: Saints won everything except the grand final, Wham made us wear “Choose Life” tops while desperately trying to look like inanimate Ken dolls, and every girl in Sydney was in a uniform of red jumper over white shirt and blue jeans.

Honestly, it was the best year ever. I’d arrived in the Big City, met a dozen awesome new friends, and learned an exciting new lifestyle involving really smart mates behaving with relentless stupidity.

As those first months passed, I grew in confidence enough to be an infuriating bugger, especially to my long-suffering girlfriend, who eventually left the country to live with someone rational, but also to the more senior students.

The seniors exacted their revenge halfway through each year in a charming tradition where first-year students would be auctioned off to the highest bidder and then, in pairs or threes, the winners would take their frightened freshers and deposit them hundreds of kilometres away in some bushland. With a packet of chips and a 20 cent coin – that sort of thing.

The trick, as if one was needed, was that you’d generally be paired

with someone you did not know, or preferably disliked, for the purposes of “bonding”. More like cruelty but that was the gist.

Well, my turn came and I fetched a good price on account of being a loathsome little oik, and found myself in a trio. Good news. Fifty per cent higher probability of having one of us hide a credit card behind our eyeballs or something clever.

We were taken to prepare, involving our new clothes (puerile – funny to Benny Hill) and footwear (nil) and very many hours later via car back seat blindfolded torture from a single endlessly repeated Violent Femmes tape, arrived at The End Of Civilisation.

My companions were the Lion (longhaired Lankan leg spinner) and the

Ward-rob (north-shore fashion icon, so

train station without thinking of our PTSD patients.

The bigger thing is, when we stripped the bark from trees to make shoes for the bush trek, we shod each other first. In my case it was an early experience of the selflessness that defines good friends.

the same jokes developing a sweet patina of age around them.

I knew I was soft – a spoiled single child from a sheltered home – but every time something like that happened to me I could only feel joy and thanks – as I do every day still – at the opportunity life gives you to learn what really matters.

Birdy Bob, Butch Andy and Kingo could do a jug in 11 seconds, Ticka and Adam could pass left or right in a heartbeat, Micky D and Club could do anything, Baz’s smile made the world turn, Jim and Gus could talk to girls, Kev could bat! The list went on.

Fox’s mum). Also we were encumbered with Ward-rob’s beloved fridge.

This small white good encumbrance would, we thought, be a challenge for hitchhiking. Like three drunken idiots in paisley dresses in 1985 needed an encumbrance to attracting a homophobic truckie.

The thing is, it was cold, then hot, then scary, then exhausting, then dark and cold again, and so on. We got threatened with assault 500 times. We hid, and ran and were startled like rabbits. We got home safely two days later, and ate our own body weight in Newtown Maccas cheeseburgers, and two of us never ever drive past Dapto

Years later I took our mate Clubbie on the Dumb tradition. Being me, I left my lights on, my battery went flat, and my victims had to jump start the car. And then Clubbie drove back and gave me back my car instead of leaving me there, knowing that I could not tolerate the embarrassment if he’d shafted me. You learn a lot from beautiful humans. I still do every day.

The Lion and I are still good mates, and still buddies with the dozen idiots and our daily WhatsApp abuse with

But the Lion went barefoot for hours so I could walk. That was something else. At that stage of life I was still wondering if no one but family would ever really give a damn. Well adversity – even stupid uni adversity – is a great way to give and learn kindness. I use it every day.

Antonio Di Dio is a local GP, medical leader, and nerd.

There is more of his “Kindness” on citynews.com.au

Sydney, 1985... “the best year ever”. Photo: Sydney City Council archives

When we stripped the bark from trees to make shoes for the bush trek, we shod each other first. In my case it was an early experience of the selflessness that defines good friends.

Remember that dreadful time you were awful?

for some people more than others, and with stronger emotions attached.

WE’VE all done it – you’re walking around going about your business and suddenly you’re thinking about that time in high school you said something really stupid you would never say now.

Or that time a few years ago when you made a social gaffe.

You cringe and just want to die of shame.

Why do these negative memories seem to just pop into our heads? And why do we feel so embarrassed still, when the occasion is long past?

The current thinking is there are two ways in which we recall experiences from our past. One way is purposeful and voluntary. For example, if you try to remember what you did at work yesterday, or what you had for lunch last Saturday. This involves a deliberate and effortful process during which we search for the memory in our minds.

The second way is unintended and spontaneous. These are memories that just seem to “pop” into our minds and can even be unwanted or intrusive. So, where does this second type of memory come from?

Part of the answer lies in how memories are connected to each

other. The current understanding is our past experiences are represented in connected networks of cells that reside in our brain, called neurons.

These neurons grow physical connections with each other through the overlapping information in these representations. For example, memories might share a type of context (different beaches you’ve been to, restaurants you’ve eaten at), occur at similar periods of life (childhood, high school years), or have emotional and thematic overlap (times we have loved or argued with others).

An initial activation of a memory could be triggered by external stimuli from the environment (sights, sounds, tastes, smells) or internal stimuli (thoughts, feelings, physical sensations). Once neurons containing these memories are activated, associated memories are then more likely to be recalled into conscious awareness.

Why do memories make us feel?

When memories come to mind, we often experience emotional responses to them. In fact, involuntary memories tend to be more negative than voluntary memories. Negative memories also tend to have a stronger emotional

tone than positive memories.

Humans are more motivated to avoid bad outcomes, bad situations, and bad definitions of ourselves than to seek out good ones. This is likely due to the pressing need for survival in the world: physically, mentally, and socially.

So involuntary memories can make us feel acutely sad, anxious, and even ashamed of ourselves. These emotions are important for us to feel, and we learn from our memories and these emotional responses to manage future situations differently.

Some people more than others?

This is all well and good, and mostly we’re able to remember our past and experience the emotions without too much distress. But it may happen

In some mental health disorders, such as major depression, people more often recall memories that evoke negative feelings, the negative feelings are relatively stronger, and these feelings of shame or sadness are perceived as facts about themselves. That is, feelings become facts.

Another thing that is more likely in some mental health disorders is rumination. When we ruminate, we repetitively think about negative past experiences and how we feel or felt about them.

On the surface, the function of rumination is to try and “work out” what happened and learn something or problem-solve so these experiences do not happen again. While this is good idea in theory, when we ruminate we become stuck in the past and re-experience negative emotions without much benefit.

Not only that, but it means those memories in our neural networks become more strongly connected with other information, and are even more likely to then be recalled involuntarily.

Can we stop the negative feelings?

The good news is memories are very adaptable. When we recall a memory we can elaborate on it and change our thoughts, feelings and appraisals of past experiences.

In a process referred to as “reconsolidation”, changes can be made so the next time that memory is recalled it is different to what it once was and has a changed emotional tone.

For example, we might remember a time when we felt anxious about a test or a job interview that didn’t go so well and feel sad or ashamed.

Reflecting, elaborating and reframing that memory might involve remembering some aspects of it that did go well, integrating it with the idea that you stepped up to a challenge even though it was hard, and reminding yourself it’s okay to feel anxious or disappointed about difficult things and it does not make us a failure or a bad person.

Through this process of rewriting experiences in a way that is reasonable and self-compassionate, their prominence in our life and self-concept can be reduced, and our well-being can improve.

John Hallford, Senior Lecturer and Clinical Psychologist, Deakin University. This article is republished from The Conversation.

Villaggio Sant’ Antonio Independent Living and Aged Care Hostel

David

Why do people remember embarrassing things they’ve said or done in the past and feel ashamed all over again, asks DAVID JOHN HALLFORD?

Why do negative memories seem to just pop into our heads?

Photo: Ian Dooley

The hard truth is psychiatrists can’t help

AS a 17-year-old, my mother took me to a big ward full of mental patients at the massive Brisbane public hospital complex. It was a halfway house to the official Goodna Asylum on the road to Ipswich. It felt like something from the previous century.

Mum often visited distant relatives and friends who had fallen on hard times and on this occasion, it was the latter: “Cec” by name, he’d had what was then called a nervous breakdown. He’d lost his bearings, shouted a lot and become uncontrollable.

He was a little bloke who’d spent his life in the bush as a station hand. After the boss sacked him, his wife, “Bonny” in the argot of the day, “couldn’t do a thing with him”. So, they called the cops, and he finished up, drugged to the eyeballs with lithium, in the big dormitory where a doctor would decide his fate.

Mum brought me along because I was jackarooing at the time, and she thought I might bring him “out of his shell” with stories of my time at the property where we ran 6000 sheep and 500 cattle.

I didn’t exactly jump at the chance but I had a few stories, mostly of me getting bucked off horses or being chased by a bull.

But I also had a good one of Dave, a fellow jackaroo, who boasted he could pick up a brown snake by the tail and snap its head off the way you crack a stockwhip. But when Neil, our other jackaroo, challenged him to do it with a big black snake that was actually dead, the first twirl around his head went wrong and the snake’s head hit Dave on the neck and stayed there, fangs first.

Well, Dave’s antics and squeals were the funniest thing I’d ever seen, and I still laugh about it when I write it; but it actually brought Cec out of his semi-coma for his first chuckle

in a month. And he was still smiling when we left.

Anyway, he didn’t go to Goodna, but we lost touch with him and Bonny and I don’t know how he finished up. But I’m reminded of this by the kerfuffle now exercising the commentariat and the parliamentarians about the government’s decision to halve the mental health visits to psychiatrists or psychologists from 20 to 10, at a time when there aren’t even enough practitioners to meet the new deal.

Because here’s the thing: other distant friends and family have also had mental health problems, seen a

psychiatrist… and not one of them has ever been cured. The community’s suicide rate hasn’t fallen. In fact, it was higher before covid than it was all those years ago when Cec had his breakdown and psychiatrists were rare as hen’s teeth.

It wouldn’t matter if the government doubled their number. Until we learn more about the brain and the nervous system, it’s an exercise in self-delusion and money down the drain.

No doubt their hearts are in the right place, but the hard truth is that psychiatrists have neither the knowledge nor the toolkit to cure the afflicted.

The brain is still a largely unknown quantity. It’s the Dark Continent before Livingstone. We’re only

beginning to explore its geography, let alone the actions wrought by the multi-billion connections between its constituent parts.

They still use lithium to turn people into zombies, and electric shocks to fuse their brains, and they sit listening to patients chattering while bravely resisting the memory of that lovely five-iron they hit on the twelfth hole in the Saturday comp. It is treatment, the illusion of “cure”, and they charge a fortune for what any competent GP could do just as well.

Yet backbenchers are outraged, do-gooders tearful, and after every second ABC program the host says: “If anything has caused you distress (or whatever) call Lifeline on 131114 or Beyond Blue 1300 224636”. I doubt their “counsellors” are all psychiatrists; but hopefully they’ll at least have a good snake story.

robert@robert macklin.com

“The brain is still a largely unknown quantity. It’s the Dark Continent before Livingstone,” says Robert Macklin.

It wouldn’t matter if the government doubled the number of pyschiatrists. Until we learn more about the brain and the nervous system, it’s an exercise in self-delusion and money down the drain.

Disabled fear where euthanasia will take us

WHILE many Canberrans celebrated the recent decision to remove the 25-year-old prohibition on the ACT’s right to make laws in relation to voluntary assisted dying, people with disabilities have mixed feelings about the outcome.

On the one hand, most Canberrans acknowledge that the ACT is now a mature jurisdiction with its own functioning parliament and legislators. If anything, the deliberations and inquiry processes on London Circuit seem positively adult compared to the antics on the Hill.

There are also people with disabilities who support euthanasia or who might want to access it.

However, there are widely held concerns among many people with disability and advocates about euthanasia becoming a default option for people whose lives are made unbearable by poverty, unsuitable housing, healthcare, pain management and isolation.

Some fear a repeat of the experience in Canada where Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) legislation was once reserved for individuals whose deaths were imminent.

Since then, eligibility for MAID has been extended to people with

incurable illness and disability alone.

Canadians with disability report that governments will fund access to assisted dying, but not the incomes they need to survive.

There are well publicised and sad examples of people seeking MAID because of social circumstances and a lack of healthcare including long waiting lists for elective surgery and lives made miserable by declining income support.

We’re in Canberra, not Canada, but this is not too far away from where we sit in 2023.

Many Canberrans with disabilities live in poverty because basic payments such as JobSeeker and Disability Support Pension (DSP) have been allowed to decline. Our DSP is not as bad as Ontario’s notorious disability payments scheme, but it’s not far off.

Recent analysis from AFI shows that people with disability in Canberra face a shortfall of around $824 a fortnight after paying for bare necessities – rental housing, groceries, transport, utilities and other expenses.

Governments are in the process of restricting access to pain medications and opioids that many people use to manage chronic pain – including Panadeine and Panadol.

Day after day during covid, governments have shown the bargainbasement price they put on the lives

Many people with disability are concerned about euthanasia becoming a default option for people whose lives are made unbearable by poverty, unsuitable housing, healthcare, pain management and isolation.

of people with “underlying health conditions” and older people, writing off their deaths as the necessary price we pay for keeping cafes open.

Time and again we are told social supports such as the NDIS are unsustainable – perhaps keeping those on it alive is unsustainable, too?

Most imagine that euthanasia is about people with end-stage cancer rather than disability, but this misunderstands the smoothed path from disability into preventable chronic disease.

In the real world many people with disability lack access to primary and preventative health care, testing and screening that would help them manage and prevent conditions such as cancer.

The ACT Council of Social Service’s (ACTCOSS) powerful “Imagining Better” report

on health access for people with disability painted a powerful, evidence-based picture of people with disability facing hurried, bulk-billed consultations, staff who don’t know how to communicate with them, misdiagnosis due to their disabilities and inaccessible infrastructure.

It’s an example of telling difficult truths to power – something I hope ACTCOSS and other organisations such as Advocacy for Inclusion (AFI) will always continue to do.

On the ground, I hear and see people who can’t even be examined by their GP because they don’t have a height-adjustable examination table. Blind people told us they couldn’t use the government-issued bowel cancer testing kits. Hard-of-hearing people tell us doctors don’t know how to talk to them and miscommunicate in hurried bulk-billed consultations.

On top of that, the pandemic has meant that many people have put off accessing preventative care as they play Russian roulette between getting a mole checked at a skin clinic and copping a dose of covid on the way through as governments remove protections in public places.

The recent decision in the Senate

marks a symbolic step in the ACT’s journey from adolescence to adulthood. This might also be an opportunity for the ACT’s Assembly to display other adult developmental markers – namely realising that just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean you have to rush into it.

For a Human Rights jurisdiction with a government that stamps itself as socially progressive and concerned about human rights, this might mean shouldering up to level the playing field for decent health care, incomes and social supports so people have lives worth living.

A comprehensive, fully funded ACT Disability Health Strategy might be a good start along with the federal parliament acting on calls for a $50-aweek disability and illness supplement to lift people out of poverty.

Craig Wallace is the acting CEO at Advocacy for Inclusion. He can be followed at @ CraigWtweets

Ex-cop

By Belinda STRAHORN

AFP detective sergeant Jason Taylor is motivated by David Pocock’s recent Senate success at unseating a majorparty candidate, and is hoping to tap into that voter sentiment when he contests a seat for the ACT Legislative Assembly.

Taylor, 40, served in the AFP for al most 14 years and experienced trauma as a result of an assault, which led to his subsequent resignation from the force.

While attempting to intervene in a drunken brawl between a father and son in Gungahlin in 2020, Taylor suf fered a near-death experience.

“I was reaching for my handcuffs and the father put me in a chokehold and slammed me to the ground,” said Taylor.

“He was choking me and I couldn’t get him off.

“If it hadn’t been for my colleagues –who tasered him – I’d be dead.”

Taylor suffered badly in the aftermath of the attack and fell on hard times.

“I spent some time in mental-health

to

up the political status quo

in Yerrabi, so when big decisions are made about what impacts the community, we don’t have a seat at the table,” Taylor said.

Given the drubbing of the Liberals at the last election and returning the Labor government after 20 years, Taylor feels there is a real lack of accountability in the ACT.

“We have a Greens/Labor government that will walk anything through,” he said.

“If anything is put up that is contrary to their beliefs, it doesn’t get any traction.”

Taylor believes the Belco Party offers a real alternative to the current situation.

“The party’s adoption of the Australian Democrats’ mantra ‘Keep the bastards honest’ really resonates with me, because that’s what we are lacking in the Assembly,” he said.

“We need to have strong and effective people on the crossbench.”

“My opinion is that we have a parliament that is more interested in boosting its progressive image, as opposed to investing in the infrastructure and programs that will actually make the intended purpose of this legislation successful.”

One of his priorities will be calling for a full review of the judicial system in the ACT, in response to what he believes are inadequate sentencing guidelines.

“The entire justice system from the directorate down needs to be looked at,” Taylor said.

“And it should be a former High Court justice, or a chief justice from another jurisdiction that conducts the review, not someone in the ACT.”

Originally from Melbourne, Taylor settled in the ACT when he joined the police force.

to five times a day, and if you don’t deal with it, it catches up with you.”

With the incident behind him, Taylor is now focused on securing a seat in the Assembly as a Belco Party candidate for Yerrabi.

The recent success of the rugby international Pocock in unseating the Liberal senator Zed Seselja has provided Taylor with the motivation to shake up the status quo.

minor third-party candidates have an opportunity to get elected.”

Taylor is targeting the electorate of Yerrabi as his best chance to snare an Assembly seat at the 2024 election.

The seat is currently represented by Labor’s Michael Pettersson and Suzanne Orr, Greens MLA Andrew Braddock, and Liberals James Milligan and Leanne Castley.

“We don’t have a minister out here

As a former police officer, Taylor has strong views about the recent adoption of the drug-decriminalisation Act.

“These are terribly destructive drugs and the characterisation of them as recreational is dangerous, and the problem is there’s no crossbench scrutiny so this legislation just got walked through,” he said.

He is equally concerned about the proposal to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14.

As a former supporter of the Australian Democrats, he has always been interested in politics but never intended to become a candidate until now.

“What started to spark a fire in me was that the ACT deserved better than what it had right now,” said Taylor.

“We have a government that has stopped listening to the community.”

He is not short on confidence, believing he stands a good chance of succeeding in his bid to win a seat in Yerrabi.

“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t think I could get in,” he said.

In Singapore, housing is all about ownership

THERE are challenges for a highimmigration country to ensure all its citizens have reasonable access to adequate housing, but Singapore has overcome those challenges.

Singapore has two strategies that could help many Australians if adopted in whole or in part by govern ments in Australia.

Since 1960 the Singapore Housing Development Board (HDB) has built numerous apartments linked to the city’s mass transport system, in towns providing supermarkets, local shops, health clinics, community centres, local libraries and playgrounds.

Over time, the HDB has improved apartment quality. Many now are green buildings with vertical gardens. The median size of apartments is 100 square metres.

Singapore has built up, not out, because it is a small island and apartments provide an efficient means of housing many people.

Apartments, townhouses and flats at present only provide 28 per cent of Australia’s housing stock, but the percentage is increasing and the case for high-quality apartment buildings is compelling in our larger cities.

Singapore’s second housing strategy was established by its founding

there is an ongoing annual subsidy of about $46,000 for each unit in the community sector, and $56,000 in the government sector, to cover repairs, maintenance, rates, depreciation and management, less rent collected.

Governments in Australia may not wish to construct housing themselves, but they could partner more with private developers and ensure high-quality control on those developments.

If there are few options for people on a low income to purchase all or part of their dwelling immediately, it is desirable that the buildings are of a high quality and energy efficiency, because at some future time a state or Australian government, may wish to sell those apartments to the residents and the residents may wish to buy them.

prime minister Lee

He saw home ownership as a key pillar of a strong society.

Home or apartment ownership grew from 29 per cent in 1970 to 93 per cent in 2001 and has since remained about 90 per cent, the highest in the world for a high-immigration country. More than 90 per cent of HDB housing is sold to home occupiers. There are large discounts for citizens, calibrated to an income test, and low-interest loans. You have to be a

couple or a family aged 21 or over, or a single person aged over 34.

If you do not live as a resident in your home for the first five years, the substantial discount has to be repaid to the HDB.

In Australia, the home-ownership rate increased from 50 per cent to 71 per cent between 1946 and 1966 when Commonwealth and state governments provided low-interest loans and constructed housing for first-time home owners.

In the UK, home ownership increased from 55 per cent to 67 per cent between 1980 and 1990, by selling off council housing, some of it in poor condition, at a 20 per cent discount, to the tenants living in that housing. This was not simple philanthropy, because the cost of repairs and maintenance, and management of rental housing is high.

A study undertaken by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) in August, 2021, found that building a two or threebedroom apartment in Canberra costs between $330,000 and $560,000, and if owned by social housing

Dr Paul Kauffman formerly administered a national concessional home ownership and housing grants scheme for 12 years.

Promotes Italian Language and Culture Assists teaching of Italian in schools

years

ANDREW FREER Principal JO TWIBLE Principal DES MOORE Principal

Kuan Yew.

Housing Development Board buildings in Singapore… Home or apartment ownership grew from 29 per cent in 1970 to about 90 per cent, the highest in the world for a high-immigration country.

Apartments, townhouses and flats at present only provide 28 per cent of Australia’s housing stock, but the percentage is increasing and the case for high-quality apartment buildings is compelling in our larger cities.

The art of dressing down… like a shoplifter!

SARAH MILNE says she has always been mistaken for a shoplifter. It’s got to do with her gaunt frame not filling out her clothes properly, leaving ample space for the concealment of goods.

I LIKE to think that I have glided through the marbled halls of Canberra, glittering occasion upon glittering occasion, as gussied up as the next woman.

But holidays are a different matter. I tend to dress down, or more correctly, “down and out”. My outfit of choice is a shapeless tracksuit top and baggy jeans, worn so low, they would put a young rapper to shame. It was while hanging around the men’s toilets in Ulladulla, early one morning last April (waiting on my husband, I should add) that it was all brought home to me yet again.

A gentleman, gaunt in frame, asked me if I was alright and if I “needed anything?” I assured him that I was okay for now, but thanks for asking.

Shortly afterwards, I made my way to the Aldi supermarket, walked around the aisles, and not finding what I wanted, made to leave.

I was stopped by a friendly security guard who used that greeting, unique to Australia, that I so love: “Can I look in your bag, darl?” She had kind eyes and I was eager to oblige. I replied with a “sure thing” and opened my shabby rucksack for her to peruse.

Soggy tissues, half used napkins,

sachets of tomato ketchup, several pairs of glasses, paper flyers, empty plastic bags and half-eaten bags of chips that I keep to feed seagulls all tumbled out. I think she regretted her decision immediately as she snapped on her latex gloves and gave the bag the most cursory of rummages.

She then fixed me with a sympa thetic smile and said I was “all done”. I think she would have liked to press a few coins into my hand and a card for St. Mungo’s hostel.

I have always been mistaken for a shoplifter, both in my home country and across several continents. It’s something to do with my own gaunt frame not filling out my clothes properly, leaving ample space for the concealment of goods. The constant foostering [an Irish word for fiddling around or fussing with something] in my bags for glasses, shopping lists, pieces of paper with measurements, money, cards and I’m immediately aware of the security guard moving into position alongside me.

It only serves to make me act more suspiciously. I start examining the goods on the shelf with a forensic eye, while at the same time, grinning maniacally at the security guard to

Annual Community & Family Festival

6pm – Late, Saturday, 21 January, 2023

Celebrate the Lunar Year of the Water Cat

Sakyamuni Buddhist Centre 32 Archibald St, Lyneham ACT

Program: 6pm: Gourmet vegetarian food stalls opening till late.

somehow reassure them that I am harmless.

And to add to the pathos, I often think that my eagerness to have my bag searched comes across as the actions of a lonely woman in need of a little social interaction with, well, anybody.

Because of two episodes of “mis -

6.30-7.30pm: Annual courtesy vegetarian dinner, all invited.1000’s of free Buddhism books. New Year gifts to all guests, lucky fruits & personalized New Year messages.

8.30pm: Crackers & Lion Dance by Prosperous Mountain Team.

8.45pm: Blessing speeches by Abbot Thich Quang Ba and VIP guests.

9.00pm: Cultural performances.

9.30pm: The New Year music festival continues.

11.45pm: Crackers & Lion Dance.

00.10am: Celebration of the Happy Buddha Day. Prayers for world peace & family well-being.

hair uncombed, no lipstick, looking hedge backwards. And, as true as I’m standing here, who should I see in the distance but the poshest of matrons

fully dressed and coiffed, a vision in nautical navy and white. I couldn’t

societal ruin. I frantically tried ducking down a side alley but couldn’t find one. I tried shielding myself behind my husband, but he kept moving off. Then the door of Miller’s beckoned, offering me sanctuary. Phew! What a

And as for that goddess in navy and white? Prince’s Highway, Ulladulla, 2.30pm, Saturday, April 3. You know who you are madam, and you looked

Sarah Milne came to Canberra from daughter, and lived here for three years.

taken identity” in one day, I vowed that something had to change. I would make a better effort with my attire… just not today.

“My outfit of choice is a shapeless tracksuit top and baggy jeans, worn so low, they would put a young rapper to shame.”

Fun shows for audiences of the future – children

By Helen Musa

AS part of an intended move away from subscription season to a membership-based model, Canberra Theatre Centre has dispensed with its annual sitdown season launch in favour of staggered announcements.

First cab off the rank is a line-up of shows for audiences of the future – children.

Newish head of programming Dan Clarke says his program seeks to astonish the young with gravity-defying circus acts, puppetry,

spectacle and music.

“Air Play”, coming in late February with sibling circus performers Seth Bloom and Christina Gelsone and kinetic sculptor Daniel Wurtzel, will feature umbrellas flying high, fabrics soaring over the audience, balloons swallowing people and snow filling the stage – and a bit of comedy. Billed as an “adventure through a surreal land of air” for ages 5-105, the show focuses on real people doing real things.

“The fabrics become our aerialists, helium balloons become juggling props, and the powerful fans gracefully defeat the same gravity circus performers work so hard to overcome,” the two performers say.

The first week of March sees the one-man

“micro-epic” puppet show take the stage in “The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer”, for ages 10+. Created by Tim Watts, the solo show employs a blend of puppetry, live and recorded to tell a story about love, loss and heroism in a post-eco apocalyptic world.

“The scientists have tried everything… A last-ditch effort to save the human race requires journeying down through the mysterious depths of the deep blue sea to find a new place for us to live,” Watts says of a journey he hopes will be “emotional, uplifting, touching and funny”.

The week following “Alvin Sputnik”, the same company brings “New Owner”, a new show involving puppetry, aimed at ages 7+.

dog’s eyes, as Bart, a boisterous puppy in the animal shelter, is chosen by Mabel, a lonely widow, and a friendship ensues.

Circus returns in early April as “360 Allstars” take the stage in a show for ages 7+. An urban circus drawn from street culture, it’s performed by artists and athletes to a live soundtrack of hits and is backed with spectacular video projections.

Alison Lester’s famous picture book, “Are We There Yet?”, comes to life in late July with a play of the same name for ages 3-10. As in the book, 8-year-old Grace and her family head off on a hilarious expedition across the country, visiting landmarks along the way, such as the Great

Australian Bight, Uluru, Surfers Paradise and, of course, the Sydney Opera House. The show is full of songs, laughs and quokkas.

Talking of quokkas, the week after that will be the musical extravaganza “Hiccup!” suitable for ages 4-8, in which a camper, a quokka and an emu with very strange eating habits awake to discover that a koala has come down with a stubborn case of the hiccups. They must work together to find a cure before the sun comes up to stop the hiccups.

When you’re on a good thing, stick to it, so audiences are bound to welcome back Monkey Baa Theatre Company as it reprises the hit production “Possum Magic” to celebrate its 40th birthday in mid-September.

“360

“The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer”... oneman “micro-epic” puppet show.

“Air Play”... umbrellas flying high, fabrics soaring over the audience.

A ridiculous yet heartfelt, genre-bending flick

HAD you told me the story of a Chinese laundromat owner being audited by the tax office would turn out to be one of the most cosmic and profound movies of the past year, I wouldn’t have believed you.

But “Everything Everywhere All at Once” managed just that.

Bursting at the seams with imagination, there’s no real way to pin down the genre of this ridiculous yet heartfelt flick that’s now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Stick drama, comedy, science-fiction, romance, martial arts, animation and maybe even a bit of absurdist arthouse together and it’ll start to resemble a description of what this film is.

Now let me attempt to narrow it down in just a few sentences.

Malaysian star Michelle Yeoh plays Evelyn Quan Wang. The IRS is hunting down her laundromat, her daughter barely speaks to her and her husband is trying to serve her divorce papers.

Rough day? That’s before she finds out she has to cross into parallel dimensions in order to stop a powerful being from destroying the multiverse.

Don’t be misled into thinking this is another superhero escapade (although there are certainly elements it both embraces and parodies). The movie is a deliberately ostentatious experiment in genre bending that, no matter how out there things get, manages to

packed that it’ll leave the senses exhausted and the heartstrings pulled.

A treat for the adventurous viewer.

WHILE we’re on the weird and whimsical, Stan is now streaming an underrated gem of a movie that’s sure to visually dazzle.

“Loving Vincent” sells itself as the world’s first fully-painted film – adopting the artistic style of van Gogh himself to tell the story of

for the eyes.

The result is a piece of art that’s been painstakingly crafted, one requiring 125 animators and more than 60,000 oil-painted frames to bring it all together.

It’s a far more visual than narrative experience, but one that succeeds in instilling a new-found appreciation for one of the most famous painters of all time.

For those who are looking for a more literal

“YELLOWSTONE” is confidently back in the saddle yet again.

A testament to just how prolific this barbarous cowboy saga has become is the

fact that both a fifth season is now streaming on Stan and a second, yes, second spin-off series concurrently on Paramount Plus.

While season five of the main show sees uncompromising rancher John Dutton throw his wrangler hat into politics, the new spin-off winds the clock back almost a century to tell the another sweeping tale of his close ancestors.

Titled “1923”, it tracks the Dutton family as they attempt to survive the Western Expansion, Prohibition, and the Great Depression.

One would be forgiven for confusing this with “1883”, the first “Yellowstone” spin-off which released this time last year and focused on the Duttons’ journey across the west in the aftermath of the American Civil War.

It seems showrunner Taylor Sheridan wants to tick off every fraught era of America’s recent history in this ever-expanding horse opera.

For “1923”, they’ve managed to recruit their most stacked cast yet. Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren have signed on as Jacob and Cara Dutton – the heads of Yellowstone ranch in its early days who deliver performances that are arguably the franchise’s best yet.

At the rate they’re pumping out shows and spin-offs these days we’ll run out of years to name them after soon.

Malaysian star Michelle Yeoh plays Evelyn Quan Wang in the movie “Everything Everywhere All at Once”.

Standout exhibition celebrates a prolific artist

IN summer, for most of us here in Canberra and surrounds, the National Gallery is an ideal place to visit with family and friends and the current exhibition of Cressida Campbell is a perfect choice.

The exhibition forms part of the gallery’s ongoing project “Know My Name” through which the names of significant Australian women artists are celebrated.

As one of Australia’s prolific contemporary Australian artists, it is fair to say that many will know Campbell’s name and have seen most of her work. But what makes this exhibition a standout is not only the breadth of Campbell’s artwork on display, but the way it allows the opportunity for the public to view artworks not seen before as a third of the artworks in the show are on loan from private collections.

As you walk around the gallery space, you are struck by the meticulously painted wood blocks and wood block prints. The linear and bold works provide a window into Campbell’s life, and you find yourself wondering why she has chosen to capture that particular aspect of the interior; what is it about that composition?

What the gallery visi -

ARTS IN THE CITY

tor soon learns is that Campbell is capturing the beauty in the everyday, and that she sees art in the everyday and she invites the viewer to also pause and consider it, too.

For me, this is particularly evident in Campbell’s works “Mandarin with Chinese Plate” (2004) and “Still life with Dragonfly” (2016-2017). Both artworks capture the fragility of life, a dragonfly putrefied and suspended in a

An angry dance of bushfires

By Helen MUSA

FORMER Canberra dancer and QL2 member, Penny Chivas, now based in Glasgow, is bringing “Burnt Out,” her angry work about the Australian bushfires and climate change, to QL2 Theatre, Gorman Arts Centre, on January 20 and 21. I reviewed the show at the Edinburgh Fringe and was fascinated by composer Paul Michael Henry’s score, in which he recreates the anguished sounds of magpies and a drone reminiscent of helicopter or fire-truck sounds.

RICHARD Johnson’s SoundOut International Festival of pre-improvisation free jazz and experimental music is coming up again, with guest artists from as far afield as Iraq at the ANU Drill Hall Gallery, January 27-29.

“WHO Are You: Australian Portraiture” is the first exhibition to bring together the collections of the National Gallery of Victoria and the National Portrait Gallery, featuring 130 works by Australian artists including Patricia Piccinini, Atong Atem, Howard Arkley, Vincent Namatjira, Brook Andrew and Tracey Moffatt. NPG until January 29.

ARTISTS have until February 28 to apply for Arts Activities funding (it used to be called project funding) of $5000 to $50,000 for arts-focused projects, mentorships, residencies, professional or skills development, now expanded to include screen projects. Details at arts.act.gov.au

“ANDY’S Amazing Adventures” sees actor-traveller Andy Day introduce some of the creatures that fascinate him – big and small, existing or extinct – in a family show full of laughter, music, interactive games and lots of surprises that’s been scripted by Phil Gallagher of “Mister Maker” fame. Canberra Theatre, January 17.

INTRICATE

$1.1

YOUTH Theatre has an enticing trio of holiday programs: “Conscience and Temptation” for school years 1 to 6, where participants play dramatic characters that grapple with moral dilemmas; “Shipwrecked!”, January 16-19, also for years 1 to 6, where participants explore being washed up on a deserted island; and “Scene Stealers”, January 16-18, for school years 7 to 10, an exploration of the actor’s process.

NANCY Sever Gallery is exhibiting “Terrain”, painting, drawing, photography, installation and video by artist Janenne Eaton. who looks at some of the key signifiers of our consumer-led, info-centric society. Level 1, 131 City Walk, Civic, until January 29.

spiderweb and now a meal and a half-peeled mandarin, flesh exposed to the elements, a meal of a different kind. Capturing these moments in time are great examples, illustrating Campbell’s artistic eye that is attentive to the delicacy of everyday life.

It is these works, and those similar, on display that resonate with me, more so than the works featuring

curated interior spaces.

This survey exhibition cements Campbell as one of Australia’s greatest living artists and is a must-see, you won’t be disappointed.

“Cressida Campbell,” at the National Gallery until February 19.

Cressida Campbell captures beauty in the everyday and she sees art in the everyday, writes reviewer BARRINA SOUTH.

Left, Cressida Campbell’s “Mandarin with Chinese plate” (2004) from the collection of Paul, Sue and Kate Taylor, of Brisbane. Right, Cressida Campbell’s “Still life with electric fan” (1997).

“A Curated Interior” (1992) of Margaret Olley’s home.

carvings depicting Australia’s early history feature on a unique Australian colonial billiard table acquired by the National Museum for

million as part of its mission to tell stories from Australian history.

Dancer Penny Chivas… QL2 Theatre, January 20-21.

Why young eyes need a closer look

"Children

Optician DAMIEN LONERGAN looks at the benefits of regular eye examinations for children.

WELCOME to 2023. We hope you had and are having a fantastic holiday period.

As we move through January, it's also time to get ready for children heading back to school.

Along with all the other preparations this involves, it might also be time to think about your children’s vision. Good vision is vital for your child’s educational, physical and social development, and to help them reach their learning potential. None of us actually know what someone else sees, this is especially true for children. Children often assume that how they see is normal, that everyone else sees exactly the same as they do.

As a parent, you can learn to recognise the signs of a vision problem and work with your optometrist to help your children look after their eyes.

It’s critical to be aware of any issues early in your child’s development and that can be as simple as starting with an eye examination at Evolve Optometry even before problems become evident.

Eye disorders are one of the most common, long-term, vision health problems experienced by children, with one in three affected.

The most common vision problems are those affecting the ability to see clearly and sharply. These include shortsightedness (blurred distance vision), longsightedness (difficulty focusing up close) and astigmatism (distortion of vision). The good news is that these are generally able to be managed, allowing your child to see clearly.

Some eye conditions can be passed down through families. Children with family members who wore spectacles at an early age, or that had a turned or lazy eye, should be closely monitored for signs of similar issues.

The most important thing for these and many other conditions is that early detection is the key to success. We recommend all children have a full eye examination before starting school, and regularly as they progress through primary and high school. This generally takes around 30 minutes and attracts a Medicare rebate. No referral is needed and children can be tested at any age. I can develop a personal plan for your child, which could include more detailed assessment or testing, advice on correct working distance and rest breaks (visual hygiene), which is even more important with increased screen time for children, the prescription of spectacles or vision training, or referral to other health professionals.

Collins and Lonergan Evolve Optometry is an independently owned Optometrist in the centre of Gungahlin (opposite Coles inside Gungahlin Village). Call us on 6189 5891 or visit our website at evolveoptometry.com.au to book an appointment.

Across

1 What are lucky chances known as? (6)

8 What, in Latin America, is a country house? (8)

9 Which wide street is lined with trees? (6)

10 Who are the commanders-in-chief of navies? (8)

11 What is a devout petition to God? (6)

13 Charles Lamb was famous as a what? (8)

16 What are apothecaries more commonly known as? (8)

19 What was the former name of Iran? (6)

22 Which term describes a recognition of merit? (8)

24 Which metallic element has the symbol Cu? (6)

25 What, in the military, is a unit of ground forces commanded by a lieutenant colonel? (8)

26 To be calm, quiet or composed, is to be what? (6)

Down

2 Name an Australian tennis player of international standard, Rod ... (5)

3 Name an Australian nurse, noted for her unorthodox treatment of poliomyelitis, Elizabeth ... (5)

4 Which hard workers clip sheep for a living? (8)

5 What, colloquially is a confidence trick? (4)

6 To expose to an enemy by treachery, is to do what? (6)

7 What are grown-ups known as? (6)

12 On which shaft do wheels rotate? (4)

14 What describes persons under suspicion? (8)

15 Name a wading bird, allied to the heron. (4)

17 In which game do opposing sides use sticks, curved at one end? (6)

18 What is the condition of nearsightedness? (6)

20 Which eye movement is known as REM? (5)

21 To be still, and apparently incapable of movement, is to be what? (5)

23 Who was the second son of Adam and Eve? (4)

often assume that how they see is normal, that everyone else sees exactly the same as they do."

Ross Collins Practice Manager

Damien Lonergan Optometrist

Hydrangeas can survive neglect

THE first hydrangea I ever grew was the one I won in a raffle from a Horticultural Society show last year and it has flowered for months.

Hydrangeas can survive on neglect and little attention when established. They like a shady place to grow and morning sun and afternoon shade will keep them happy.

To achieve those striking blue flowers feed them throughout their growing period with aluminium sulphate that can be applied as a liquid fertiliser or plant other acid-loving plants such as camellias and rhododendrons nearby.

A new variety to look out for, flowering now, is “Vanilla Strawberry” (Hydrangea paniculata) with cone-shaped flowers. The flowers are large and can be used as a feature in a summer garden or in a vase indoors.

It is more drought tolerant than its counterparts, copes better with sun and has a more upright growth to around 1.5 metres.

DESPITE the good winter and spring rain, the vegetable garden still needs watering every few days to keep things growing.

Stone fruit, such as peaches and nectarines, will be ready soon and are best picked when the fruit is well coloured, firm and a few days from being fully ripe.

Pick early in the morning and place in the crisper of the fridge straight away to maximise the shelf life and effectively put them into cold storage. Take a few out of the fridge a few days before you want to eat them, and they’ll ripen on the bench.

If there is a glut of peaches and nectarines, there are many ways to use them such as cold fruit soup, grill them or make chutney and relishes. Peaches and nectarines are low in pectin and a little trickier to make jams, but worth a try.

THERE’S still time to get a few quick crops of summer vegetables such as corn and tomatoes as seedlings. Keep them well watered and growing fast to get them cropping by the end of March, before the cold weather sets in.

Using diatomaceous earth around seedings can help keep slaters, ants and other crawling insects at bay. Diatomaceous earth is an organic insecticide dust and can be bought locally from rural stockfeed suppliers in small quantities for the home gardener. This product is also sold as

absorbacide, which is the finest form and easy to use. It does need to be re-applied after rains, but not needed once the seedlings have put on some height.

GLADIOLI are an Australian favourite and an easy flower to grow in Canberra. Gladioli, popular in the floral industry and in the flower garden, expresses strength of character, remembrance, faithfulness and moral integrity.

They have been hybridised to create an array of colours to add to any summer garden. They flower for several weeks and make wonderful cut flowers for a vase.

A perennial corm, they grow just below the surface in a sunny position and are cousins of irises and like the same conditions.

There are many different varieties to choose from, but if space is a premium, the miniature varieties do well in pots or larger counterparts can grow up to 1.8 tall in the garden.

Larger varieties may need to be planted in a spot in full sun, but sheltered from winds or staking might be required.

The optimum time for planting gladioli is in early spring. If a gladioli suffers from rust on the leaves, cut stems to the ground when they have finished flowering and dispose of the leaves in the green bin.

jackwar@home.netspeed.com.au

Photos: Jackie Warburton

Gladioli… expresses strength of character, remembrance, faithfulness and moral integrity.