The Big Issue Australia #610 - Lego by The Big Issue Australia

Ed.

610

1717OCT APR 012020 NOV 2019

p18.

GRANDMASâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; FAVOURITE RECIPES p28.

BOB GELDOF

and p34.

DEAN KOONTZ $4.50 of the cover price goes to your vendor

$4.50 of the cover price goes to vendors

HELPING PEOPLE THEMSELVES HELPING PEOPLE HELPHELP THEMSELVES

$9 $9

NATIONAL OFFICE

ENQUIRIES

Chief Executive Officer Steven Persson

Advertising Simone Busija (03) 9663 4533 sbusija@bigissue.org.au

Chief Operating Officer Sally Hines Chief Financial Officer Jon Whitehead Chief Communications Officer Emma O’Halloran National Operations Manager Jeremy Urquhart EDITORIAL

Editor Amy Hetherington Deputy Editor Melissa Fulton Contributing Editor Michael Epis

Subscriptions (03) 9663 4533 subscribe@bigissue.org.au Editorial (03) 9663 4522 editorial@bigissue.org.au GPO Box 4911 Melbourne Vic 3001

Contributing Editor Anastasia Safioleas Editorial Coordinator Lorraine Pink

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CONTRIBUTORS

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MAJOR PARTNERS

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C2, Carat & Aegis Media, Chocolate Studios, Macquarie Dictionary, Res Publica, Roy Morgan, Town Square

Small Screens Editor Aimee Knight Music Editor Sarah Smith

DISTRIBUTION AND COMMUNITY PARTNERS

The Big Issue is grateful for all assistance received from our distribution and community partners. A full list of these partners can be found at thebigissue.org.au.

Books Editor Thuy On Cartoonist Andrew Weldon

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The Big Issue is a proud member of the INSP, which incorporates 110 street publications like The Big Issue in 35 countries.

Can’t access a vendor? Become a subscriber! Our vendors aren’t selling right now due to COVID-19, but you can subscribe and have a new edition delivered to your door every fortnight. Every subscription supports our long-standing Women’s Subscription Enterprise, providing support and employment opportunities for women experiencing homelessness, marginalisation and disadvantage. To subscribe THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU or email SUBSCRIBE@BIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Contents

EDITION

610 18 THE BIG PICTURE

In Grandma’s Kitchen Italian photographer Gabriele Galimberti celebrates grandmothers – and their wonderful, heartwarming cooking – from all around the world.

28 MUSIC

Return of the Rat Pack

12.

It was a very different world when The Boomtown Rats released their last record – and singer Bob Geldof has lived many lives since. Now they’re back, with a vengeance.

Block Party by Aimee Knight

We explore the wonderful world of LEGO, the Danish company with a conscience that has been showing adults and kids how to play well for generations.

34 BOOKS

THE REGULARS

04 Ed’s Letter & Your Say 05 Meet Your Vendor 06 Streetsheet 08 Hearsay & 20 Questions 11 My Word 26 Ricky

27 Fiona 36 Film Reviews 37 Small Screen Reviews 38 Music Reviews 39 Book Reviews 40 Tastes Like Home

43 Public Service Announcement 44 Puzzles 45 Crossword 46 Click

BEHIND THE COVER

“Fads come and go [but] LEGO transcends all of that,” says LEGO Certified Professional Ryan “The Brickman” McNaught. illustration by Ross Murray The Jacky Winter Group @rossmurrayillustration

Hopelessly Devoted to… Boo! Dean Koontz is the master of suspense – with a sideline in predicting viruses – as his latest book confirms.

Ed’s Letter

by Amy Hetherington Editor @amyhetherington

E FO RT NI GH T LE TT ER OF TH

Keeping in Touch

few weeks into lockdown, I had a surprise call. My mum was downstairs. It had felt like so long since I’d seen her in person that I just wanted to give her a cuddle – but of course I couldn’t. Instead, we stood in the driveway, social distancing. She’d loaded her car with care packages and was dropping them off to me and my three Melbourne-based siblings. She brought over her famous soup, stewed plums, chutney, chocolate and a few rolls of toilet paper. It felt like a warm hug, yet I still wept as she drove away. We’re all missing loved ones right now. But we’re finding ways to stay in touch. I’ve rediscovered old-fashioned letters and long 90s-style phone calls. My extended family’s WhatsApp and Facebook have been running hot with shared photos, jokes, recipes, songs and silly videos. I’m catching up with mates on Zoom, Houseparty and other chat apps I hadn’t heard of a month ago. And we are all swapping recommendations for books, tunes, podcasts and TV shows.

In this edition, our arts editors bring you some great ideas for iso entertainment, including a visit to the LEGO Masters set ahead of the new series – where small screens editor Aimee Knight discovers the enduring appeal of LEGO. As host Ryan “The Brickman” McNaught tells her, everyone has their own “LEGO origin story”. For me, it was the joy of receiving a LEGO jewellery set for my fourth birthday. For Canberra vendor Peter, a Technic crane-set at his school sparked a lifetime passion for LEGO. More recently, a generous Big Issue reader sent him a Millennium Falcon kit, after reading his vendor profile. “It points to what we’re going through at the moment, where people are touching base with people that they might not necessarily know,” he tells us. “I think situations like this bring out the best in everybody.” Indeed. We’ve been overwhelmed by your letters of support and friendship to vendors and those in the Women’s Subscription Enterprise during lockdown. Please keep those messages coming via submissions@bigissue.org.au.

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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

Dear Vendors, I get my Big Issue by subscription, and I always love to read the vendor’s story and your other bits and pieces in each magazine. I’ve had a few harder periods in my life, but always with family to support me and now I have a wonderful partner with whom I’m sharing this isolation period. So I’m a very lucky person. I know many of you haven’t been so lucky and many of you have had or are still having it very tough. I do hope you can return to work soon. In the meanwhile, my love and thoughts are with you. Love and virtual hugs to you all and the wonderful Big Issue staff. YVONNE LOLLBACK SPRINGWOOD I NSW

Hello lovely Big Issue vendors, as I’m now working from home for a while, I’m really going to miss the smiles and cheer you bring to our town. I know you too will be staying home for a little while, to keep yourselves and all of our community safe; thank you. But know that I can’t wait to see you again. Melbourne just wouldn’t be the same without you. I wanted to let you know that you are missed. Stay safe. Stay social. See you soon. JO QUIRK MELBOURNE 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

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As winner of Letter of the Fortnight, Yvonne wins a copy of Dean Koontz’s new book Devoted. Check out our interview on p34. 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 Barry Street

PROUD UNIFORM PARTNER OF THE BIG ISSUE VENDORS.

17 APR 2020

SELLS THE BIG ISSUE OUTSIDE OFFICEWORKS ON ADELAIDE ST, AND AT VALLEY MALLS, BRISBANE

Jeromy

I was born and raised in Tamworth, New South Wales, the country music capital of Australia. At one stage I was living literally 200 metres down the road from The Golden Guitar. At school, I only went as far as Year 10. I think that the teachers gave me just-passable grades to kick my butt out of there quick-smart. I didn’t know it until I left high school, but I was ADHD my entire life, so I was very hard to manage. One teacher actually said, unless it’s something I want to learn or something that sparks my interest or is something a few grades above me – work that actually challenges my mind – it was hard to keep me interested. From age two onwards, you couldn’t prise me out of my dad’s pocket. Basically, once I was able to walk, I was always tagging along with my dad. He got me into building speedway cars, repairing my own motorbike – he gave me an old clanger of a bike – and things like that. I’ve always been into motorbikes, cars, BMXs, mountain bikes: basically anything that can go fast and you can do something stupid on. It was extremely hard when Dad died. I was 15. At the time I was still undiagnosed ADHD. I went on a bit of a stupid rampage, tried to join my father a few times. I eventually ended up getting myself a nasty habit with alcohol and painkillers due to a bad car accident. I thought that by trying to join him wherever he was, that I might be able to save him or bring him back. Thirty-odd years later it still hurts. I became a labourer – a carnie – travelling with the show. And with the show I did about six or eight years up and down the eastern seaboard with a group of guys. I ended up always doing the Ekka [Royal Queensland Show], because I loved it. I mostly worked on the kids’ jumping worm and the Phantom Loop – it’s a rollercoaster basically. It takes you around about six or eight times at 80km an hour in a giant loop, while you’re strapped in. I used to love going on it because one of the comics I’ve always read was The Phantom. Of course, the Phantom Loop was the first thing I picked out because it’s giant, it’s purple and it goes really fast. It was everything I wanted! I moved to Brisbane about 24 years ago. One day, we were walking past Queens Plaza and I ran into our now recently passed-away vendor, Brian. He was a great guy. He’d literally give you the shirt off his back. And you could just see how it made him feel good to go out and sell. It gave him a bit of pride, a bit of happiness, to be out there meeting people. So three years ago when I started selling The Big Issue, that was one of the reasons why. The main rule that I live by is that if you don’t give it a go, you’ll never know.

Streetsheet

Stories, poems and pictures by Big Issue vendors and friends

VENDOR SPOTLIGHT

PETER

The Multi-Mix Plague This is what I am calling COVID-19 or coronavirus. In these times we should be kind to each other and yet try and stay Apart as not to spread the virus This means we should use

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PETER AND HIS MILLENNIUM FALCON

Hey Ho, LEGO!

y first memory of LEGO is of one of the original Technic sets way back in the 80s in New Zealand, a motorised crane. I didn’t own it – I’d just play with it at school because we couldn’t afford to buy it. I managed to find that same set at a garage sale a couple of years ago, and I’ve still got it. I’m just passionate about LEGO. For me, it’s therapy because I’ve had some tough times and if there’s one thing that you can do that’s really relaxing, it’s build LEGO. It makes you slow down and rethink things. If you make a mistake, you can pull it apart and put it back together. You can’t really do anything wrong. It’s such a powerful hobby. It just works. My favourite set has got to be the Millennium Falcon. It took me four-and-a-half months to build last year. It was absolutely spectacular. I did my Vendor Profile for The Big Issue in Ed#589, and I spoke about my love of LEGO. And a customer in Adelaide saw that and shipped the kit up to Canberra. That was really super cool – it gave me a lot of joy. I still have it on my desk now. It reminds me how good that was to build – and when people come over it’s a conversation piece. My main super goal now is to become certified as a LEGO Serious Play Facilitator – it’s a qualification that’s endorsed by LEGO in Denmark where you can use LEGO to teach people life skills or corporate skills. You know, LEGO is universal. It transcends languages, it transcends borders, it transcends life’s experiences, it transcends everything. Overall, it’s just so much fun and you never get sick of it. PETER USUALLY SELLS THE BIG ISSUE IN QUEANBEYAN, AND IS A GUEST SPEAKER IN THE BIG ISSUE CLASSROOM IN CANBERRA.

our computers, iPads and phones and play computer games And it also means we should help the people at home looking after us, by cleaning our room, making our bed, doing the dishes, cooking something up or even doing your homework, hey kids! PS learn to love each other! DANIEL K WAYMOUTH ST & HUTT ST I ADELAIDE

STEVE W ELIZABETH QUAY I PERTH

Wish You Well A regular customer gave me a Woolworths voucher for $50. It made me feel good. I like my customers and they like me. Speaking with customers really helps as I work alone for 12 hours a day. My customers like to take photos with me. The coronavirus is affecting me as I am currently not working as it is too dangerous for me. I have not been working for three weeks now. I hope everything is okay with my customers and I hope they don’t get sick. BRADLEY COLLAROY & PALM BEACH I SYDNEY

Another Planet It seems as though Busselton has become a ghost town. There are only about a third of the usual number of people around on the streets. It is surreal. I feel as though I am living on another planet. Some store owners in Fig Tree Lane have closed their doors. A sad sight to see. I told someone the other day that they were taking home a bright light to help cheer them up when they bought a copy of the magazine. Unfortunately, we are unable to sell The Big Issue at this time. I hope that a vaccine against this awful disease will be found before too long. I am sure that knowing that there are so many in

KATHY A BUSSELTON I WA

read. They recommend it. They’re very generous and it makes all the long hours on pitch worth it. And it’s done with smiles and happiness.

Alert Not Alarmed

LIONEL YOUNG & JACKSON I MELBOURNE

I would like to get a point across if I may. So many are worried about coronavirus. Yes, it’s worrying, but there have been much bigger things that have happened, and we fought through them. Be careful but still have fun. Kids are wondering why we are scared. Let’s not give them a reason to be scared too.

Ronnie’s Funnies

GLENN F WOOLWORTHS I CENTRAL STATION I SYDNEY

The coronavirus is affecting everyone, but I hope it will come and go like the SARS virus. My community at Church of Christ in Wembley Downs has closed Sunday worship because of it, but kindly kept open the Wednesday food bank – with a few changes – free for people who need it. A lot of people are doing kind acts. Thanks to God.

Valuable Support Thank you to all of the customers. The support that they’re giving to those that are less fortunate is valuable. You can sense that they want to help the homeless. I’ve noticed that they are interested in the content of the magazine; I get great feedback. They always say it’s a good

Q: Did you hear about the new restaurant on the moon? A: Terrific food, but no atmosphere RONNIE CNR CREEK & EAGLE STS I BRISBANE

A Little Prayer

GILL B CNR HAY & WILLIAM STS I PERTH UNDERGROUND STATION

I have always been a carer of people. Because of hard times, I have decided to help as much as I can, by dropping food, vegies and meals to people on the streets. I have also been cooking lots – sausage rolls, chicken stews, pumpkin soup, cakes, biscuits, quiches etc. While practising physical distancing, I have been dropping this off to all the people that live around me and to my family and friends. RAYLENE BICTON CENTRAL SHOPPING CENTRE I PERTH

17 APR 2020

A few weeks ago, a lovely customer called Kat asked me if I was going okay and how could she help. She came up the next day with a bundle of food – bananas, packets of soup, bread rolls and orange juice. I thought it was very nice of her. It made me think about all the lovely things people do in our community, which is good to remember, especially when I’m stressed.

the same boat will be a source of comfort to many vendors during the coming weeks and months.

ALL VENDOR CONTRIBUTORS TO STREETSHEET ARE PAID FOR THEIR WORK.

All the Lovely Things

Hearsay

Richard Castles Writer Andrew Weldon Cartoonist

“

I always say, ‘Funny doesn’t sag.’ I always just wanted to be funny, you know? And you can’t be rendered obsolete if you just keep being funny. Guess what gets rendered obsolete? Your boobs go south, your face goes south, your ass goes south, but you can always be funny.

Actor Reese Witherspoon on the gravity-defying nature of comedy. VANITY FAIR I USA

noise. I felt very overwhelmed for about six months.” Misty Griffin, a nurse, author and former member of an Amish community in Washington state, on the challenges of living in the “outside” world after leaving the community at 22, following an alleged sexual assault. The Amish are Christians who eschew modern technology. VICE I US

“My greatest fear is that people will lose hope for the reef. Without hope there’s no action. People need to see these [bleaching] events not as depressing bits of news that add to other depressing bits of news. They are clear signals the Great Barrier Reef is calling for urgent help and for us to do everything we can.” Dr David Wachenfeld, chief scientist at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, on the third mass bleaching of the reef in five years. THE GUARDIAN I AUS

“When I first got here, it was a relief for me to be on my own, but that’s not necessarily what a healthy person does – isolate themself. I mean, I’m good at it and I do it because I like it, but what works for me, it works for me. It quite conceivably wouldn’t work for anybody else.” Some words of advice from someone who is good at self-isolating – Billy Barr, who is the lone resident of Gothic, Colorado, and has been isolated for nearly 50 years.

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NPR I US

“These technologies are life-giving and powerful, and we wouldn’t want to not have them. At the same time, if you’re spending your day on Twitter right now, it’s shredding your psychological health. It’s the physical equivalent of sitting here with drain cleaner, taking shots every hour.”

Cal Newport, a computer scientist and author of Digital Minimalism, on the importance and danger of social media during the coronavirus crisis. GQ I US

“It can be hard to get out of bed on a Sunday morning, so we thought we’d help our NT listeners stomp into the day with a Thornhill metalcore riff on repeat…for four hours.” Triple J’s content director Ollie Wards, jokingly, on a technical glitch that left Melbourne band Thornhill’s song ‘Lily and the Moon’ playing on repeat in the Northern Territory for hours on 5 April – not the 1st, as you might expect. THE MUSIC I AUS

“At least for as long as anybody’s had the patience to follow individual hydras – that has been about seven years at the most – there’s no indication that they age at all. It is possible that if we followed them long enough, we would discover that they aged, but no-one has had the patience to do it.” Steven Austad, chair of the biology department at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, on hydras, tiny freshwater organisms that appear not to age. Hydras have astounded biologists with their regenerative ability – if you chop them in pieces or even dissolve them into single cells, they eventually reassemble themselves. NPR I US

“Everything felt loud and scary. The electric lights hurt my eyes, and I was constantly turning them off. I was even scared of the hairdryer at first, because it made so much

“I’ve been working on whale sharks for 20 years. Over that time, we’ve learned about their movements and behaviours, but some very basic

20 Questions by Little Red

01 What song is playing on the clock

radio every morning Phil Connors (Bill Murray) wakes in the 1993 film Groundhog Day? 02 Which five countries border Laos? 03 Which leaves does a silkworm

prefer to eat? 04 Who won this year’s season of

Dancing With the Stars? 05 Which element is present in lead

pencils? 06 Which author died in 2007 before

he could complete his epic fantasy series, The Wheel of Time? 07 Which country hosted the 2019

Homeless World Cup? 08 Which three puppet characters

appeared alongside Mr Squiggle on his eponymous ABC TV show? 09 In which year was the Hills hoist

CNN I US

“I remember they wanted to do an opening for the Academy Awards that year that was sort of joking about it and Heath refused. I was sort of at the time, ‘Oh, okay… whatever.’ I’m always like, ‘It’s all in good fun.’ And Heath said, ‘It’s not

a joke to me – I don’t want to make any jokes about it.’ That’s the thing I loved about Heath. He would never joke. Someone wanted to make a joke about the story or whatever, he was like, ‘No. This is about love. Like, that’s it, man. Like, no.’” Actor Jake Gyllenhaal on his Brokeback Mountain co-star, the late Heath Ledger, refusing to present at the 2006 Academy Awards because of a scripted joke about the homosexual relationship in the movie. PEOPLE I US

“In underdeveloped countries like Rwanda, technology has to be adopted faster. People don’t know about drones, but the young can tell the older generation.” Benjamin, an engineering student in Rwanda, on the push for greater use of drones in rural areas to deliver blood, medicines and medical supplies, as well as timesensitive goods including cash and documents.

invented by Lance Hill: 1935, 1945 or 1955? 10 What is the highest-selling album

by AC/DC? 11 What is the largest African country,

by land mass? 12 Which Australian is the only

surfer to win six consecutive world championship titles? 13 What is the singular of data? 14 Which country’s Prime Minister

Leo Varadkar has re-registered as a medical practitioner and will work one shift a week as a doctor during the coronavirus crisis? 15 Which animal can produce the

loudest sound? 16 Who was appointed chair of the

ABC in 2019? 17 What does the acronym STEM

stand for? 18 Which recently deceased soul singer

wrote the 1972 song ‘Lean on Me’? 19 What was the two-million-year-old

fossil recently found by Australian researchers in South Africa? 20 Lisa Kudrow played twins Phoebe

and Ursula Buffay on which two 90s sitcoms?

BBC NEWS I 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 44

17 APR 2020

information is still a mystery “After this whole to researchers. pandemic business We still can’t has finished, there’s say for certain if a type of loganberry these sharks live jam I want to try.” to be 100 years A young boy overheard old, but it now in the street by Casey of seems much Lewisham, NSW. more likely.” Mark Meekan, a senior research scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, on the world’s biggest fish: the whale shark. Because of their elusiveness and rarity, the lifespan of whale sharks has proved difficult to determine. But researchers were able to calculate the age of two sharks at 35 and 50 years old, using a form of carbon dating.

EAR2GROUND

My Word

by Sian Prior

t’s summer and I’m at a surf beach on Victoria’s west coast. I had planned to have a quick swim and then walk the dog, me zipped up in my wetsuit, the two of us hermetically sealed in our solitude. But on the beach a family is sitting at a picnic table: a man, two women and two girls. As I walk past the girls spring up from the bench seat and lunge towards the dog. “Oh oh oh, can we pat her?” Jazzy is instantly ready for play, leaping around them and barking. “Oh, can we play with her?” Dark eyes, mid-teens, tight blue jeans, but still children when it comes to dogs and the chasing of them. I laugh and laugh at their dancing game, grit kicking up around them, Jazzy swerving so the girls lunge and fall in the soft dry sand. At the picnic table the two women in headscarves nod and smile at us, as the girls pick themselves up and come towards me. “What’s your dog’s name?” the older one says in a rush. “We had a dog, he was a Jack Russell cross, we loved him so much, but we couldn’t look after him, Mum said, so we gave him away to one of Mum’s clients, but we miss him.” And now they’re off again, chasing Jazzy to the water’s edge and back. “Are we holding you up?” the older girl asks. “No, I’m just about to have a swim, you go right ahead.” I inch my way through the biting waves, glancing back at the dancing trio. Oh, to be able to run like that still, to fall with impunity, to have teenage daughters to run with, fall with, laugh with. As soon as I come out of the water they’re by my side again, telling me more stories about the Jack Russell, about puppy school, about their aunt who’s come from Turkey to visit them. “Where do you live?” I ask.

“In Victoria. Oh, you mean what street – no, what suburb?” They look at each other, shrugging. They don’t know. I play a guessing game. “The west? The east? Did you come over the West Gate Bridge?” They don’t know where they live. They live at home, with Mum and Dad. That is enough. In between quizzing me they speak Turkish to each other and I love how it rushes from their lips, all sibilant like the waves behind them. And then they ask me that question. “Do you have children?” There is a pause – the first pause – in the conversation. “No,” I say eventually, but they are waiting for more. Not here. Not today. Finally, I say, “Jazzy is like my child.” Then on they go, telling me their names are Joozher and Azra, laughing about how, if you put their names together, you’d get something like Jazzy. They talk about the boys who break the rules at their high school, and more about their lost dog, and then somehow it is time for me to go, because I cannot keep them. I walk slowly up the hill to the borrowed beach house, full of their beauty and openness and unknowingness, and with the fact that they are not mine. Later in the evening I make myself walk down the hill to the pub, but it is a mistake. It is all and only families, clusters of kids being herded and fed, and nowhere for me to sit. I lean against the balcony railing and sip my wine and fiddle with my phone and watch the children, the easy chatting, the blurred lines between family units, and today it is too hard. So I take my glass and head back to the beach, where I sit in the sand, gulping the wine and staring at the grey ocean. When the wine is gone I walk home fast, waiting to feel Jazzy’s sandy paws jumping at my knees.

Sian Prior teaches creative writing at RMIT and is the author of Shy: A Memoir. Her second memoir will be published in 2021.

On a beach walk with her dog Jazzy, Sian Prior aches for what might have been.

17 APR 2020

Sand Dancing

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B L OC K A T P R Y @siraimeeknight

n 1932, a Danish carpenter starts making stepladders, ironing boards, stools and wooden toys. Twenty-six years, two managers and one factory fire later, his company – now working in plastic injection-moulding – patents a novel stud-and-tube binding system that makes their building blocks unique. The bricks come in five colours: white, red, yellow, blue and green. Each one is stamped with the word “LEGO”. In 2020, as society grows suspicious of billion-dollar businesses, the Reputation Institute reveals that LEGO is the most highly regarded brand in the world (for the fourth successive year, no less). From humble beginnings in the village of Billund, Denmark, to a benevolent empire built not just with bricks but with TV series, feature films, videogames, amusement parks, educational programs, technological advances and tactical marketing moves, LEGO has retained its original raison d’être: to stimulate every kid’s creative potential through the radical act of play. The word LEGO combines two Danish words, leg godt, meaning, “play well”.

Myriad studies have shown that physical, creative, emotional, social and, yes, even digital play are vital to childhood development. Constructive play hones motor skills and problem-solving techniques. When kids play together, they learn to cooperate and compromise, boosting their resilience in adulthood. Play even “activates the DNA that triggers the phases of human growth”, says LEGO’s own Play Well Report. If kids don’t get enough playtime, they can miss key developmental milestones, which has a profound effect on the type of grown-ups they become. Play isn’t just integral to a little tacker’s wellbeing. It’s a nourishing, joyful pastime for big kids too, relieving stress, improving productivity, and bolstering our overall wellbeing. Yet the carefree pursuit of play “gets beaten out of us as we get older,” says LEGO enthusiast Ryan McNaught. “You’ve got to hang on to it. You’ve got to do something you love.” He’s leading by example. Also known by his nickname “The Brickman”, McNaught is an LCP – a LEGO Certified Professional – who turned his passion for the bricks into a full-time gig. One of 15 LCPs worldwide, and the only one in the southern hemisphere, McNaught lives in Melbourne, where he left the corporate sphere to start his own LEGOcentric business. Now he makes those glorious models for shopping centres, museums, touring exhibitions and even LEGO offices around the globe.

by Aimee Knight Small Screens Editor

17 APR 2020

It’s the little building block that took over the world, brick by brick. Aimee Knight investigates the surprising world of LEGO.

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MIDDLE: FORMER LEGO BOSS GODTFRED KIRK CHRISTIANSEN WITH HIS TOYS, IN 1988 BOTTOM: THE BJARKE INGELSDESIGNED LEGO HOUSE IN BILLUND, DENMARK, FILLED WITH 25 MILLION LEGO BRICKS

The inaugural winners, Henry and Cade, bagged $100,000 in prizemoney – plus a giant LEGO trophy – for their model of Poseidon battling a sea serpent, in a series finale that attracted 2.3 million viewers. On set shooting the final challenge of LEGO Masters’ second season, the tension is palpable. The six remaining contestants – whose identities we’ll withhold; no spoilers here! – are in the midst of a gargantuan challenge, intensified by the January heat and some very tender fingers. One contender has even started to dream in LEGO. All things considered, though, everyone’s very amicable. There’s no backstabbing or undercutting that’s par for the course on other reality shows. “We’re doing a competition about creativity and fun,” says Blake. “That’s why it never gets nasty or toxic. It wouldn’t make sense for our show.” “Those contestants are all helping each other,” adds McNaught. “‘Oh, you need this piece? Here, I’ve got some of those.’ That happens all the time.” “What I love about LEGO Masters is the tone,” says Blake. “The more fun and imaginative, the better the show is.” He’s in awe of the contestants, who gladly tackle whatever the show throws at them, logistically and creatively, in this celebration of design, construction and storytelling. “If any part of your day-to-day life relies on ideas,” says Blake, “it’s a great reminder that there’s infinite ideas.” Indeed, if you have a sweet concept for a LEGO set that doesn’t exist yet, you can pitch it on the LEGO Ideas website. If your project gets traction, you might join the hallowed ranks of the LEGO Fan Designers. This initiative is just one way in which LEGO has modernised its offerings, as McNaught discovered when he emerged from his own LEGO dark ages in the mid-2000s. While he was pleased to see that the new bricks were basically the same as the old bricks – LEGO being one of very few brands that has, by and large, resisted planned obsolescence – what blew him away was the contemporary integration of new technologies. “When I was a kid, I would build a little fire station and it would have a little fire truck. Nowadays, you can make a LEGO fire truck that’s completely automated and has a remote control on your phone.” Launched in 1998, the ever-evolving LEGO Mindstorms range offers robotics kits with motors, sensors, LEGO Technic parts and a programmable brick that speaks to smart devices. Similarly, LEGO Boost is a simple, step-by-step platform through which kids as young as seven can learn basic coding. Merging digital and tangible worlds is “the real secret to

PHOTOS BY GETTY AND LEGO

TOP: 70S KIDS LOVE LEGO

While McNaught and his 13 full-time staff members aren’t employed by LEGO itself, they are among the lucky, talented and diligent adults who play with LEGO for a living. (Non-professionals might have to make do with Adult Night at Melbourne’s LEGOLAND Discovery Centre.) If you are reconsidering your career path, the LEGO Group’s online job board lists 200-plus available positions, at the time of writing. Not everyone can be a LEGO Master Builder, of course, but everyone has their LEGO origin story, says McNaught. “Even though it was my third birthday, I remember it quite clearly,” he says, casting his mind back to 1975. “My grandparents were [living] in Tottenham – West Footscray – and it was pouring rain, absolutely belting down outside.” He recalls sitting at the foot of his Grandad’s chair, on the standardissue suburban shagpile carpet, when his Nanna handed him a tiny box. It had set her back 28 cents. “I remember opening this thing up – I didn’t know what it was or how it worked – and I remember this feeling of love and contentment, like all was well. It was my birthday, I was with family, and it was wonderful.” McNaught was devoted to LEGO until he hit his teens. “Sport took over, you know? BMX, footy, cricket. We would have played with it occasionally, but it just… wasn’t a thing anymore,” he says. “It wasn’t until I had kids that I got back into LEGO. I have twin boys, so I had no choice,” he laughs. Comedian Hamish Blake – McNaught’s co-host on LEGO Masters – recounts the same trajectory, “a well-worn path” known in LEGO lingo as “the dark ages”. A self-described “child of the 80s”, Blake grew up playing with LEGO’s space and medieval sets. Like McNaught, his interest petered out as a teen, reawakening when he became a dad. “I was building a lot of stuff with my little boy, and making Duplo with my little girl,” he says. “Then out of nowhere comes LEGO Masters… at quite a perfect time in my own personal LEGO journey.” Last year, LEGO Masters was a solid gold hit for Channel 9. The reality series saw eight duos race the clock to build remarkable LEGO structures.

LEGO MASTERS SEASON 2 PREMIERES ON CHANNEL 9 ON 19 APRIL.

17 APR 2020

They don’t do military, war, politics, religion. I want that in the toy.

gender nor race – their product was found only on toy catalogues’ blue pages for many decades. “As a society, we need more female engineers and mathematicians, and LEGO is a great steppingstone for that,” says McNaught. Over the past five or so years, in line with the rising popularity of LEGO’s Friends and Disney lines, he’s been pleased to see some gendered misconceptions slowly dismantled. Similarly, dads like Blake are building new futures for and with their boys and their girls, handing down vintage LEGO sets with the reverence of a family heirloom. Not only will this shape the next generation of STEM professionals, but it saves tonnes of virtually indestructible plastic from ending up at the dump. By 2025, the LEGO Group wants to ensure that no waste from its workshops, offices and outlets reaches landfill. Factories across Denmark, Germany, England, the Czech Republic and Mexico are reducing their carbon footprint by using renewable energy sources. Before the decade is out, every LEGO brick will be made from recycled or plant-based materials. A botanical “Plants from Plants” set is already available, made from polyethylene derived from sugarcane. “There are drives to send LEGO to places like Africa and India,” McNaught adds. Initiatives like Play Well Africa, or LEGO Replay in the US, ensure your unwanted bricks enjoy a long, creative life. This, in turn, fosters (further) love for the brand across widespread communities, meaning LEGO future-proofs itself against an influx of cheap imitations. Last year, Chinese authorities raided a factory in Shenzhen, confiscating about $50 million worth of counterfeit bricks labelled “Lepin”. Based on LEGO’s own blueprints, these knockoffs usually sell for a fraction of the original’s price. Does McNaught feel a sense of brand loyalty to LEGO? After all, they broke the mould. “LEGO has a system of play,” he explains. “Bricks go together in a certain way. I have an affinity to that…and, you know, as a company they have very wholesome values. They don’t do military, war, politics, religion. I want that in the toy.” Instead, in April, the company’s Billund factory started manufacturing 13,000 visors per day for frontline healthcare workers battling COVID-19. “Fads come and go [but] LEGO transcends all of that,” says McNaught. “When you build something, you can talk about it: ‘Mum, look what I’ve made! This is where the dinosaur lives!’ “What LEGO still has above any other toy is the pride of creation,” he says. May we go forth and play well.

LEGO RINGMASTERS: HAMISH BLAKE AND RYAN MCNAUGHT

engaging children today in different ways,” says McNaught. But what of LEGO’s efforts to engage different types of kids? Believe it or not, that quest goes back almost to the company’s inception. In 1963, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen – then managing director of the LEGO Group, and third son of company founder Ole Kirk Christiansen – presented the company with LEGO’s 10 essential characteristics. The first was “unlimited play potential”. The second? “For girls and for boys.” Now, some might say that LEGO’s entry-level engineering systems primarily appeal to boys’ innately analytical minds. Others might see such gendered notions as akin to McNaught’s fire truck – merely a construct. The fact remains: despite LEGO’s neutrality – and the company’s assertion that their famous yellow “minifigure” has neither

by Elizabeth Flux @elizabethflux

Elizabeth Flux is an award-winning writer and editor based in Melbourne.

hen I was seven, my mum brought home a jumbo pack of LEGO. I’m not sure how many pieces were in it, but there is a photo of me grinning widely and standing next to it – and it beats me in height by an inch. Over the next few months my dad and I turned the pile of colourful bricks into a sprawling town – one that was both functional and fantastical. I would start by sorting the blocks by colour, then by size. On some nights, I would want to make something tangible, something reflective of the real world (mostly). A house. A hedge. A wall. On others I would just like to see how long a diagonal I could make before the flimsy structure would crumble, and my mood along with it. Dad’s approach was similar, though his focus was on the much more technical. One night he built a boxy car, shaped like a London taxi, exuberant but orderly colours in place of the real-world black. It had doors that opened and closed, a little driver, and I loved gently steering it between the growing streets. We ended up with rows of little houses, little green walls – or perhaps hedges – and in the centre of town was a large silver pyramid with a man standing on top. We called him The Vicar. Other than that it had all the normal town stuff. A post office. Some shops. A large red-and-white triangle with a wheel on top. You know, the usual. Some weekends friends would come over and build structures too. Their houses wouldn’t look like the others – maybe they’d be narrower, or longer, their walls made up of whatever fit, based on size and not colour. Despite the fact that they were doing LEGO – a pastime that clearly had rules known only to me and partially to Dad – wrong, I knew enough to not grab their work and smash it to pieces in front of them. So I’d smile (I hope) and after they went home I’d relegate their structures to the far side of town – or quietly dismantle them and put the bricks back into circulation.

When the town was complete and had sat in all its glory for weeks – or perhaps months – it was decided the time had come to break it all down and put it away. Turns out the thing that broke down first, however, was me. But we made it. Why did it need to go? Surely if we took it all apart, it said we didn’t enjoy doing it in the first place? Plucking apart the houses brick by brick felt sad; wrong. I couldn’t dismantle the pyramid – instead I placed it gently on top of the loose sea of former houses and hedges, then tucked it away in a cupboard, out of sight. The car, however, remained fully intact. I toted it from share house to share house. I still have it. LEGO is your brain spilling out into the world and being made again in pixelated form. And I don’t think it changes that much as you grow. My town, or I guess, my mind, has uniform houses and can’t tolerate a brick out of place. But having a giant pyramid in the centre of town? No problem! People all disproportionately sized to the buildings? Totally fine. In university I had a friend who kept binder upon binder of meticulous lecture notes. His main hobby was buying specialist sets and methodically putting them together. He told me about a friend of his who would do almost the same – except combining separate sets to make entirely new structures that aesthetically fit within the same world. And, most importantly, would have no pieces left over. I know nothing else about this person, but I assume they have the sort of mind that can break through the fabric separating different universes with a pickaxe forged from sunlight. Last Christmas my friend’s five-year-old invited me to play LEGO with him and it was the best part of being both seven again and an adult. In among the chaos of news and deadlines and the infinite scroll of social media, my mind calmed as I realised I could put it all aside and just make a town. A perfect, normal town of small orderly houses, a large dragon den and a big yellow tower. “For the pigeons,” my friend’s son said with a nod.

17 APR 2020

We can’t see the way another person thinks, but we can see what they choose to build out of LEGO.

Before I got my own blocks, my only experience of LEGO was at a neighbour’s house. There he and his brother had framed puzzles on the wall and a whole bookshelf dedicated to their creations – airships and spacecraft made from specialist sets. I wasn’t allowed to touch them – no-one was. We did, however, get to play with leftover bits, or lessfavoured sets, and I spent my afternoons in their home either getting completely crushed at Mortal Kombat or building highly symmetrical and non-aerodynamic alien ships while the brothers shot me what I presume were the same smiles I’d later give friends who built walls out of any old brick of any old colour.

Can’t LEGO

The Big Picture series by Gabriele Galimberti

In Grandma’s Kitchen On the eve of his around-theworld trip, Italian photographer Gabriele Galimberti sat down to dinner with his cherished nonna – she’d cooked his favourite: Swiss chard and ricotta ravioli with meat sauce. That meal inspired this special series, a homage to grandmothers and their cooking across 60 countries.

BUBUBU ZANZIBAR

Miraji Mussa Kheir 56

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iraji was born in Zanzibar and has never left the island. She lives with her husband and two of her three daughters in a two-room house – the kitchen is made in a hut outside. Every day after school her grandson spends time with her, helping to prepare dinner for the family. “Cooking together with him makes me one of the happier grandmothers of the island,” she says. “I always ask him to go to buy some fish or vegetables at the small market at the end of the road. All the sellers there know him now; he might be the youngest client they have.”

Fish, Rice and Vegetables in Green Mango Sauce

Method

Serves 4

Fill a medium saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Add the spinach and cook for 5 minutes. Drain and set aside. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large pan over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes. Add the eggplant, curry, garam masala and salt. Cook for 5 more minutes, then add the mangoes and cook for 5 minutes more. Add the cooked spinach and 1 cup of water to the pan and stir the mixture to combine. Increase the heat to medium-high and bring the mixture to a boil. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes more. Pat the skin of the fish with a paper towel or cloth until it is completely dry. Cut the fish into 10cm pieces. With a knife, make several cuts into the sides of the fish, and press salt and some ginger into the incisions. Scatter the remaining ginger on top. Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons oil in a large pan and fry the fish for about 10 minutes on each side, or until done. Remove the fish and drain on paper towels. Serve with sauce and rice.

1kg spinach, washed and cut into strips Âź cup grapeseed or sunflower oil 2 tomatoes, diced 1 medium eggplant, diced 1 teaspoon curry powder 1 teaspoon garam masala 1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste 2 green mangoes, diced

1.4kg whole barracuda (or other fish), scaled andÂ gutted 2cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped Serve with long-grain rice

Ingredients

17 APR 2020

Wali, Mchuzina Mbogamboga

CAIRO EGYPT

Fifi Makhamer 62

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ifi lives with her husband and two of her three children in a small house on the outskirts of Cairo. Her oldest son got married two years ago and made her a grandmother. Her children say she is the â&#x20AC;&#x153;best cook everâ&#x20AC;?. Fifi is more modest, saying she can only prepare simple dishes. Galimberti spent almost the whole day with Fifi and her family. They cooked together for more than an hour, and she taught me him how to prepare her favourite recipe, a pasta, rice and legume pie.

Method

Serves 4 to 6

Bring a large pot of water to the boil. Add the rice and pasta, and cook until very tender, about 20 minutes. Drain. At the same time, add lentils and 4 cups of water in a medium saucepan, and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer the lentils until they are tender, about 20 minutes. Drain. Heat olive oil in a frypan. Add the onion and fry until crispy. Using a slotted spoon, remove the onions and place them on a plate lined with paper towel. Set aside. Combine the rice, spaghetti, macaroni, lentils, chickpeas and spices in a large bowl. Season with salt. While the mixture is still warm, transfer it to a ring mould, or a shaped pudding mould, pressing it into the pan to make it compact. Cover the mould with a large dish and invert to transfer the koshary to the plate. Serve warm, with crushed tomatoes, additional chickpeas and fried onions on top.

½ cup medium- or shortgrain rice (known as “rice misri” in Egypt) 60g dried spaghetti, broken into 3cm pieces (about ½ cup) ½ cup ditali pasta or elbow macaroni ½ cup brown lentils, rinsed 2 tablespoons olive oil 1 large onion, roughly chopped

½ cup canned chickpeas, rinsed and drained, plus more for garnish 2 teaspoons ground cumin ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper ½ teaspoon ground ginger ¼ teaspoon ground coriander Salt crushed tomatoes or tomato sauce of your choice for garnish

Ingredients

17 APR 2020

Koshary

LA PAZ BOLIVIA

Julia Enaigua 71

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ulia grew up in a farming and fishing village on the shores of Lake Titicaca and moved to the city when she got married at 25. Now she’s a stall-owner at a market – taking the early bus into the countryside each day to buy bags of vegetables from the local farmers. It’s a long day. Unfortunately, nobody is waiting for her at home now, as her husband died a few years ago. However, it’s a pleasure of hers to host her children and grandkids every weekend when she cooks traditional Bolivian dishes, such as this Queso Humacha.

Serves 4

In separate pots, cook the ears of white corn and the potatoes in boiling water, until tender. Drain the corn and potatoes. Set aside. To prepare the broad beans, bring a small pot of salted water to a boil. Remove the broad beans from their pods and blanch the beans in the boiling water for 1 minute. Drain, and immediately plunge them in a bowl of ice and water. The beans are ready to be peeled: remove a tiny piece of the shell from the dimpled end of each bean, and gently squeeze the bean out. Set aside. Heat the oil in a medium frypan over low heat. Add the onion and the blanched beans. Sauté for 10 minutes. Add the huakataya (or mint) and chilli powder. Pour in 1 cup of hot water and cook until the beans are tender, 6 to 8 minutes. Add the cheese and let everything cook for 6 to 7 minutes to soften the cheese. Cut each ear of corn in half and cut the potatoes in half if you like. Place them on a plate and pour the bean and cheese sauce on top. If necessary, season with a sprinkle of salt.

2 ears of white corn 12 small red-skinned potatoes Salt 8 large broad bean pods 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 1 medium red onion, chopped ½ cup huakataya (or fresh mint) ½ teaspoon chilli powder 225g queso fresco cheese, diced (or paneer, or a mild Danish-style feta)

17 APR 2020

Method

Ingredients

IN HER KITCHEN IS AVAILABLE VIA GABRIELEGALIMBERTI.COM

Queso Humacha

Letter to My Younger Self

Ron Swanson’s Life Lessons Parks and Recreation star Nick Offerman talks clowning, kissing and that moustache. by Jane Graham The Big Issue UK @janeannie

MAIN PHOTO COURTESY FOXTEL/NBC UNIVERSAL; INSET PHOTOS FOXTEL/NBC UNIVERSAL AND GETTY

grew up with my three siblings in a farm family in Illinois. My mum and dad are storybook parents and, looking back on it, I had an idyllic childhood. It was a very frugal environment; we provided a lot of things for ourselves. We did a lot of fishing, we built things, we all sewed and cooked. In a farm community you learn the importance of stepping up, whether it’s to drive somewhere or chop firewood or make the dinner. And that is a big part of your sense of self-worth. I was aware there were kids in town who had this incredible, perfect white bread, so beautiful they called it Wonderbread. And I had this thick rich mottled homemade bread on the farm. But as I grew older I realised our homemade bread was vastly superior. Now I wouldn’t change my childhood for the world. I didn’t know much about career opportunities beyond my town so I had the freedom of just focusing on the most important matter at hand. Which was getting kissed as much as possible. Was I successful? Trying to maintain some semblance of humility... let’s throw it out the window – yes, I was pretty accomplished at getting kissed. But I was brought up in a very polite and decent household. Even then, though we didn’t really talk about the notion of consent, I was laughably polite in my

NICK OFFERMAN AND AMY POEHLER ARE REUNITED FOR REALITY SHOW MAKING IT, AND OFFERMAN IS ALSO STARRING IN NEW THRILLER DEVS – BOTH SCREENING ON FOXTEL ON DEMAND.

17 APR 2020

TOP: WITH WIFE MEGAN MULLALLY MIDDLE: OH MO! WITH PARKS AND RECS’ CHRIS PRATT BOTTOM: MAKING IT WITH AMY POEHLER

together. I looked up to her as a legend of comedy and I never dreamed I would end up having such a powerful working relationship with her. When the writing is great, as it was on Parks, you just get it. You immediately know, I’m going to destroy with this material. We did seven years, 125 episodes, so of course our characters developed over that span. But we knew from the start that Ron would have a substantial moustache. That was the first thing we agreed on. I felt he would be very rural, looking like he’d just come in from driving a pick-up truck. Thankfully the great brains driving that show knew that no, he would be overweight and wearing dumpy, affordable department store tweeds. I then knew if I ever tried anything on and it looked remotely stylish or cute, we had to get rid of it. My wife has the most refined sense of taste – she has shown such patience and tolerance over two decades of me looking appalling. When I look back at the pictures now I say, you let me get in our bed every night looking like this. You are a saint, woman. What would surprise the teenage me most would be learning that the person my parents taught me to be would be an asset in my showbiz career. In my early years I was subliminally ashamed of my rural roots, a hayseed farm kid among cool, flash, city kids. Then at some point in my twenties I realised I needed to stand apart from the others, be the only guy at the audition who looked like he could carry a bale of hay. And that farming work ethic that had me always show up for a job on time, treat people with manners… that gave me a reputation that got me a lot more bookings. If I really wanted to show off to the 16-year-old Nick, I’d show him my first handmade canoe. If I could go back to any point in my life and have it again, I’d be paddling my canoe with my wife on this idyllic river in California that I’m not going to name cos I don’t want anyone to come looking for me. Being with the love of my life, soaking in the beauty of nature, in a canoe that I’ve made – enjoying the adventure and then the calm, the silence, seeing a deer or a fox come to the river bank and sip from the water; that’s me at my happiest.

My wife has the most refined sense of taste – she has shown such patience and tolerance over two decades of me looking appalling.

dogged pursuit of learning the ways of the bedroom. There was a lot more please and thank you than the object of my affection would probably have preferred. I think if you met the teenage me now you’d think I was a pretty swell 16-year-old. I understood the system pretty quickly. I was charming, I was smart, I was hardworking, I was a leading student, I was a leading athlete. On the surface I was a model citizen. Then at night I’d slip out and try some light vandalism or smoke cigars with my friends. My parents taught us about the importance of sharing and being kind and telling the truth. So the only way I could rebel was to try out lying and stealing. I saw TV shows with kids living in the fast lane and I had this ignorant side of me that wanted to try driving a Corvette with ladies in bikinis, or being intoxicated and ending up in a music video. I tried that stuff out until I realised my parents had it right from the start. I grew up in a bit of a cultural vacuum. We didn’t even have cable TV. I had no access to any kind of counterculture. I was always in school plays and I loved goofing around, trying to make people laugh. But it never occurred to me that could be a career. Then one day I happened to be at the best college in Illinois – I’d just driven my girlfriend for an audition – and while milling about in the hallway I met two theatre students. They explained that you could get a degree in theatre, then go to Chicago and be paid to act in plays. I was like, are you kidding me?! I’d heard of Broadway and I knew in England they put on Shakespeare plays but that was about it. So I decided there and then that’s what I was going to try and do. The big break of my life was meeting my wife, [Will and Grace star] Megan Mullally. The love of my life. She turned me around and gave me a huge leap ahead in terms of growing up, and that made everything much happier. My most obvious big showbiz career break was Parks and Recreation. I got the part of Ron Swanson when I was 37. I already knew [co-star] Amy Poehler – we’d met at a house party years before, and we’d made friends. We immediately knew we were the same kind of clown and we could have some mischief

Ricky

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Would I get a refund on the portaloo hire if I had to cancel my party? Probably not.

by Ricky French @frenchricky

Strife Begins at 40 A

couple of issues back I wrote about the nagging sorrow of turning a significant age, one of those nice round numbers punctuated with a big, fat zero. I droned on about the usual selfish feelings of impending personal doom, as though I were the first (and most important) person in the world to ever have a birthday. When I wrote that column the term COVID-19 didn’t exist, at least not in the public lexicon, and no-one could foresee that the world was about to change in unimaginable ways. The change is happening so fast that the world we know today might not be the world we know tomorrow. But at the time I was so wrapped up in my own world that my most serious concern was organising my stupid birthday party. As the days ticked away it became clearer that this virus thing might cause some disruption to my self-centred plans. To make things interesting, I was in Switzerland. This was around the time that Italy’s COVID-19 cases were skyrocketing. Sitting in my hotel room in the mountain village of Andermatt, I opened Google Maps to get my bearings. Northern Italy – where most of the cases were – was just over the mountains behind me. I could drive to Como (if I was completely insane) in less than two hours. Then shit got serious. Australia announced it required anyone returning from Italy to self-isolate at home for 14 days, an order that sounds almost lax today, but put the fear of God up me at the time. Switzerland had quietly slipped into the top-10 countries for coronavirus cases. What if Australia expanded the requirement to anyone returning from there, too? Would I get a refund on the portaloo hire if I had to cancel my party? Probably not. On my last day in Switzerland life continued as normal and things got ridiculous. I found myself crammed into a gondola going up a mountain with 80 other people. We were in effect rubbing noses with

each other; you could smell the nostril sweat. This, of course, is hell at the best of times (the best of times being when you are being conveyed up a mountain in the Swiss Alps, about to ski to the bottom), but in a world of COVID-19 it was just madness. It might have been paranoia, but suddenly I didn’t feel so well. I flew out from Zurich and landed in Melbourne on 11 March, expecting to have a temperature ray-gun (or whatever they’re called) pointed at my head and a stern official shout “A-ha!” at the reading, before being handcuffed and dragged away to see out my birthday on Christmas Island. Sure enough at the arrivals terminals there were huge lines, but it turned out to be people lining up to buy duty-free booze. I walked on through and into Australia, free to spread whatever disease I may or may not have had with no questions asked. But never mind that, I had a party to host, just as the world started crumbling. My best friend from New Zealand had flown over. But at 2pm on the day of the party, NZ announced it was introducing a 14-day quarantine period for anyone entering the country, so he booked a new ticket and flew home before we even had time to tear open the slabs. Timing is everything. If the party had been a week later there’s no way it would have happened, and yet just a week earlier 12,000 people gathered for the Golden Plains music festival, just out of Melbourne. Things are changing so fast that what’s acceptable today looks irresponsible tomorrow. I’m writing this in late March and have no idea what the world looks like as you’re reading these words, maybe not in print but on a screen. We’re hanging in there, moving with the tide. More than ever, thank you for reading.

Ricky is a writer, musician and really intrepid traveller.

by Fiona Scott-Norman @fscottnorman

Poultry in Motion to build a fox-proof run. Do it. STAT. Q: Where are my free eggs? A: Ah, there’s a lot to unpack here. The eggs are never “free”. What with feed, shelter, vet bills…it doesn’t pay to do the maths. Cats and dogs, though, cost a freaking fortune and do not contribute to your breakfast/quichemaking capacity one iota. Chooks also render up poop that is “black gold” – aka top-notch fertiliser – unlike dog and cat poo which is toxic and has a half-life of 800 years. If the eggs aren’t pumping out like balls from Serena Williams’ automatic tennis-ball machine, there are reasons. We’re coming into colder weather, when chooks slow down egg production. It’s their “rest” period. They may also moult (feathers everywhere, totally normal). If you’ve bought young girls, even if they’re POL (point of lay), they may be a month or so off. Also, they’ve just experienced upheaval. Let ’em settle in. Q: If they’re not laying, what’s the point?

A: Ah, my friend. Eggs are simply the cherry on top of chicken ownership. For lockdown, you couldn’t ask for a better companion. They are an addictive hobby, but a healthy one. Get to know your girls, name them, and enjoy their pecking order hijinks. If you’re kind enough you will even get chicken cuddles. Q: Did I pay too much for my chickens? A: Probably. Scams abound, and I’ve seen dodgy hybrids advertised at a 500 per cent mark-up and labelled Australorps. And yet, no. What price can you put on your mental health and joy? The important thing is you have chooks now. They will show you what they need. Aim to prioritise their happiness, and you will be repaid a hundredfold. And not just with eggs, because, for reals, you will never be lonely again.

Fiona is a writer and comedian who’s never alone with a hen in the house.

17 APR 2020

PHOTOS BY JAMES BRAUND

solation, it is well documented, drives people a little bit nuts. Exhibit A: the Unabomber. Exhibit B: me when I lived alone for eight years in the 1990s. Fair call, yes, I could leave my flat and often did – usually to check out the latest bargains at the Cat Protection Society Op Shop – but by the end of that era, left to my own devices, I was living in my knickers, smoking rollies, rolling my boogers and watching waaay too much latenight TV. Because I could, and because when you live alone there is no shame. So, shout out to my peeps in iso! I see you. Also, go have a shower! Consider putting a bra on! And hot tip: once self-isolation has lifted, I recommend housemates – they keep you accountable. The impact of self-isolation is not, however, all doom, gloom and making sculptures of big cats out of belly button lint while bingewatching Tiger King. People are also panicbuying chickens. Of course they are. Once the seedling aisle at Bunnings was denuded, the logical next step in apocalypse planning was buying chooks. Is that you? Have you panic bought chickens? GOOD ON YOU. We should ALL have chickens. In terms of chook ownership, this is the kind of great leap forward which advocates such as myself have only dreamed of. That said, I bet now that the endorphin rush of securing your egg supply in perpetuity has worn off, you’re freaking out. After all, with diddly squat prep, you’re now sharing your shutdown with several fun-size dinosaurs who are producing poop for Australia and are nowhere near as set-and-forget as you anticipated. They may also not be producing eggs. What? Lucky for you, I’m an acclaimed chicken author and here to troubleshoot. Q: I live inner-city. I don’t have to worry about foxes, right? A: AAAAAAARGH. All Australian innercity areas are throbbing with foxes. Your number-one job is to keep your girls safe from those bastards. This is not a drill. Google how

Left to my own devices, I was living in my knickers, smoking rollies, rolling my boogers and watching waaay too much latenight TV. Because I could.

Fiona

After 36 years The Boomtown Rats are back, and according to Saint Bob, they couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be more relevant.

Music

Bob Geldof

Return of the Rat Pack

PHOTO BY BMG/MARK COWNE

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

YOU DIRTY BOOMTOWN RATS

interview by Peter Reynolds The Interview People

hirty-six years is a long time between drinks – that’s how long it is since The Boomtown Rats last released a record. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan still ruled their countries – and the world had not yet heard about famine in Ethiopia, Live Aid or Survivor. The Irish punk with a foul mouth had not yet been transformed from Bob Geldof into Saint Bob, patron saint of hopeless causes. Now, however, he’s back at the mic, singing instead of sermonising. And what a relief. “I don’t have to be considered or coherent or cogent,” Geldof says. “All the time I’m asked about political stuff…on stage the music just explains itself, it’s self-evident. I do say things, but they’re usually mad shit that just pops into my head and of the moment, and sometimes it gets me into trouble, because people associate that stuff with what I would say outside in normal Bob Geldof land.” While Geldof is enjoying the escape from responsibility by simply singing again, there is no escaping politics. Indeed, having his say was the impetus for being in a band, which was political from the get-go – in a word, punk. “I view rock’n’roll as a form of musical activism,” he says. Activism was inscribed in his band’s name, lifted from Bound for Glory, the autobiography of Woody Guthrie, the original music activist. “But if you camouflage it in melody and hooks and danceable tunes, then these little samizdat messages go flying up the charts, and you can sing ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ on Monday going to work or going to school and being bored, but six months later you’re suddenly hearing the words like: ‘Oh, maybe it’s about that.’ And that’s powerful.” That song certainly was powerful – one of the defining songs of 1979. It told the story of Brenda Ann Spencer, a 16-year-old, 157cm, red-headed schoolgirl living in squalor with her single dad in San Diego, who one day took the gun he had given her for Christmas, pointed it out the window of her home and shot up the elementary school across the road, injuring nine and killing the headmaster and another employee. A reporter rang her and asked her why she did it. “I don’t like Mondays,” she replied. “This livens up the day.” Tried as an adult, she remains in jail 41 years later. That shooting was a shocking event, more shocking for being among the first of its kind. It’s hard not to note that such things have become commonplace in the US. “I can sing ‘Mondays’, as you say, for last week’s massacre,” says Geldof, warming to his topic, listing other songs that remain relevant. “‘Rat Trap’, which I wrote working in an abattoir, was just looking at the people there and this was – yes, it was an abattoir for killing animals, but it was also a slaughterhouse of dreams… I can sing that today in the current economies, in the post-crash economies. I can sing ‘Banana Republic’ for the political primitivism, the infantilism of Donald Trump. And I can sing these songs, not thinking of the events of the past, but actually present in my animus is a current anger… So, those songs were about conditions, as you say, that could easily be sung about today. You could be talking about the Amazon slave factories or Deliveroo or Uber, where people are exploited constantly. “All I ever wanted to hear in rock’n’roll is the expression of the now… And in my head, that sound is this record.” Citizens of Boomtown is its title, and it jumps from the opening bars with the pent-up energy of 36 years.

17 APR 2020

All I ever wanted to hear in rock’n’roll is the expression of the now… And in my head, that sound is this record.

CITIZENS OF BOOMTOWN IS OUT NOW. ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY MICHAEL EPIS

17 APR 2020

“I think that’s why we can do The Boomtown Rats today, and we couldn’t have done it in the 90s. Because it sounds like there’s a reason for The Boomtown Rats to play again. And I mean the sound that they make, that seems very pertinent and relevant to me. Not to what people are listening to in contemporary music, but to the noise that this band makes, the drive of this band, the power of them. At least for me, and maybe only people of my generation, that seems relevant in the political moment that exists, just like the political moment that existed when we started to require the noise of the cultural revolution we were part of. Whether it’s The Ramones or The Pistols or The Clash, The Jam, The Stranglers, Elvis Costello, Blondie – it was a conscious cultural-directed desire for change.” Not that Geldof has any illusions that 2020 is 1976. Rock is “not the medium that can change things anymore. It’s not that powerful anymore. It’s not the central spine of this culture.” The 70s defined Geldof, then in the 80s he figured in another culturally defining moment, playing the character Pink in Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Huge as that was, it was nothing compared to what came next: the single ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ and the Live Aid gigs

PHOTOS BY GETTY

TOP: DON’T LOOK PUNK INSET: WITH PAULA YATES, FIFI TRIXIBELLE AND BABY PEACHES RIGHT: DO THEY KNOW IT’S LIVE AID AT ALL?

that followed in 1985, raising millions of dollars to end famine in Ethiopia. When mass media had a mass it has never had since, Geldof masterminded two concerts on the one day – one in Philadelphia, the other in London – attracting an amazing roster of artists. The concerts were broadcast live, attracting an estimated 1.9 billion viewers – about 40 per cent of the world’s then-population. The 90s were less kind to him – the tragedies of his private life had him in the headlines. Wife and mother of their three children, Paula Yates, a well-known English TV personality (via his TV production company), left him for INXS’ Michael Hutchence, who within two years was dead in a Sydney hotel room in 1997. Yates died of a heroin overdose three years later, and Geldof took on the care of the child she had with Hutchence. Disaster struck again in 2014 when his second daughter, Peaches, also died from heroin. Geldof arguably had his greatest effect on popular culture in the 2000s. By then he was onto his second TV production company, and it originated the concept for reality TV show Survivor, whose success spawned so many others. Licensing the format has made him a very wealthy man. That business acumen was there from the start. At the Boomtown Rats’ audition, he was invited not as a prospective singer, but to be their manager. “He knew quite a lot about music and appeared to have an astute business brain,” bandmate Garry Roberts once recalled. At the time Geldof was only 24, but had already worked as a music journalist in Canada, indulging his love of popular music. “I loved interviewing Tammy Wynette and George Jones in their camper, in between arguments. I loved interviewing Tina Turner. I loved Little Richard. He did the whole interview in rhyming verse. The whole interview, and I’ve got the tape.” From there it was a small leap to becoming a promoter, touring the likes of Lou Reed (“Lou Reed was, well, very Lou; very acerbic, uncooperative… He didn’t give a fuck”) and Elton John (“very good and tolerant”). So the wheel turns, and Geldof has returned to his band – and bandmates. “I knew them long before we were a band. I mean, Garry [Roberts, lead guitar player] lived 150 metres from me… Simon [Crowe, drummer] lived beside my aunty… When you’re older and you’ve lived a life away and you’ve had this pause, this long pause, you suddenly go: ‘Fuck! What a great band I’m in!’ I never thought that before. “Rock’n’roll has always been my guide, you know? That’s my only education. I passed no exams in school, none, zero. Christmas exams, summer exams, important exams, baccalaureate, leaving certificate – nothing. I never went to university, so everything I learned was from reading and rock’n’roll.” Yep, the Rats are back. And they sound like they mean it.

Home Movies

illustration by Gracia & Louise

Film THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Reel to Real Wrung out on Netflix? TikTocked out? Head over to the National Film and Sound Archive’s site and delight in their weird and wonderful Home Movies collection – you might even get some hairdo inspiration…

Stephen A Russell is a Melbourne-based Scottish import, freelance arts writer and critic with a distinctive snort.

PHOTOS COURTESY NFSA

n these long days cooped up indoors, many of us are finding comfort in home-made movies. That might mean chuckling over the sharp wit on display in social media platforms like video app TikTok, or having our souls nourished from the musicians beaming out performances from their living rooms on Instagram. Who could resist a fanswept Mariah Carey dancing to a DJ spinning her own tracks on a live Insta feed? Or, it could be discovering the many virtual exhibitions and online collections curated by the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA), including the nostalgic gold of their Home Movies collection. While we may think of the Canberra-based institution as something of a hallowed hall that preserves notable films of cultural significance, recording everyday life for posterity is just as important to the curatorial team. “Home movies have a different aesthetic that can speak quite directly to people,” says NFSA curator and video artist Tara Marynowsky. “They give you a different perspective on life. You get to live through someone else’s eyes.” From evocative slices of everyday life to personal milestones that people want to remember forever – weddings, births, parties – the NSFA collection holds some 6000 home videos, predominantly in grainy 8mm and 16mm film. The films cover everything from vintage circus acts with a rippling-muscled strongman in leopard print, to intimate, unscripted footage of politicians like Winston Churchill and Sir Robert Menzies, and even a backstage moment joking about with The Beatles. There are some eyeball-popping curios too: anyone who has seen the sci-fi film Coneheads (1993) might experience a flashback while checking out Futuristic Styles at Hairdressing Convention. A silent 16mm gem captured by the late Gordon Edwards, it offers a fascinating peek at a 1950s convention in Newcastle where immaculately dressed women have their hair piled high in a wild conical style, dyed blonde, red and green. A suited man sports the same look, building height with a coconut, natch. “That was the first collection I put up online,” Marynowsky laughs. “It jumped out because it’s just so hilarious and bizarre.” Her favourite inclusions are the home videos of Indigenous, Irish and West Indian circus star Con Colleano, and a series exploring the 8mm collection from Mad Dog Morgan (1976) filmmaker Philippe Mora. The earliest entry dates back to a family picnic on Hobart’s Mount Wellington in 1909 – the men in bowler hats and the women in flowing white skirts, Picnic at

CHECK OUT THE HOME MOVIE COLLECTION AT: NFSA.GOV.AU/COLLECTION/CURATED/HOME-MOVIES

17 APR 2020

@sarussellwords

Hanging Rock-style – captured by cinematographer Ernest Higgins. A big name at the time, he shot several popular dramatic features about bushrangers, not long after Charles Tait birthed cinema with The Story of the Kelly Gang. Higgins isn’t the only notable filmmaker whose sideline in home movies crops up in the archive. If you’re mourning the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics, there’s some cracking footage of the streets of Melbourne dressed up for the 1956 Games, shot by none other than veteran Bruce Beresford (Breaker Morant, 1980). Granted, he was only 16 at the time, but it’s a treat to see the inklings of a young man toying with his future passion. The vast majority of the NFSA’s collection comes from public donations by far-from-famous Australians. “A lot of people don’t realise what they’re sitting on, in terms of capturing social history,” Marynowsky says, with the curatorial team focusing on gap-filling. “If someone comes to us and says, ‘Oh, look, you have to have these because Elvis is in it,’ okay, of course, bring that in. But otherwise, it’s about showing how much the landscape has developed, how things have changed over time.” Time is, indeed, of the essence. Sadly, some donations are already too far gone. “People who don’t know what they’ve got might put home videos in a bad place, like a cupboard, under their bed, or in the sun, which can make the film deteriorate and lead to something called vinegar syndrome, which actually smells like fish’n’chips.” Digitising the vast collection has made it an incredible evergreen resource that can be enjoyed without leaving home – and it is always growing. “We’re discovering more and more. Sometimes a collection will come to us and we know nothing about it, and we need to do all that research in the background to build up the story around it. But sometimes things are perfectly packaged and you just know it’s going to be of interest.” A Gen Xer, Marynowsky has a keen interest in how the internet, too, can disseminate and democratise nostalgic ephemera. The strongest examples right now are those flooding out from TikTok and its viral, would-be stars. Often shot on the fly, the music-backed micro-videos have raised spirits and leavened the more depressing daily news of late with their irreverent humour. Cutting through with much-needed comedy, they’ve even updated the calming internet staple of cat vids – which have been a thing since the technology was invented (see the NFSA collection Vintage Cats). Who knows if their millennial counterparts will make it into the institution’s vaults? But the joy unleashed by the countless clips in circulation showing kitties of all shapes and sizes leaping over, or crashing through, everrising walls stacked of (currently precious) toilet rolls will never get old.

by Stephen A Russell

PHOTO BY DOUGLAS SONDERS

Dean Koontz

Books THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Dogs give everything and all they want in return is companionship and affection.

by Raphaelle Race

Raphaelle Race writes regularly for The Big Issue, plus Overland, Junkee and Kill Your Darlings, among others.

t’s social media gone wild,” bestselling author Dean Koontz says firmly when asked about the breathless internet “news” that he predicted COVID-19 in his 1981 novel, The Eyes of Darkness. The Twitter attention even sent e-sales of the book skyrocketing 3000 per cent in three weeks. “I mentioned a Wuhan Virus at the end of a book – it was what Hitchcock would have called the MacGuffin – to get the story in place. I didn’t predict a pandemic or the year. It’s simply the crisis that’s fanned the flames, but the scale of the response is a new experience and one I hope never to repeat. I really have nothing to say about it beyond that. I’m not feeding the hysteria.” In contrast to his reluctance to discuss his new Nostradamus status, bring up the topic of dogs – one features prominently in the latest of his 100-plus books – and the 74-year-old speaks in a rush of enthusiasm. His love of canines is well-known among fans. “I’m inspired heavily by the human-dog bond and the miraculousness of it and how intelligent dogs seem to be. Our first dog changed our lives completely.” Koontz’s first dog was a gift from Canine Companions for Independence, a charity that provides companion animals to people with a disability – an acknowledgment of his generous donations. “I’ve been working with the charity since I wrote Midnight [1989], so I’m well aware of the changes that dogs can bring into your life. They are singular among all animals, and they are certainly different from humans in that they give everything and all they want in return is companionship and affection and they give it unconditionally.”

DEVOTED IS OUT NOW.

17 APR 2020

He’s been scaring the daylights out of his army of readers for half a century – and Dean Koontz has no plans to stop any time soon, as he unleashes another page-turning thriller.

Hopelessly Devoted to… Boo!

Devoted, Koontz’s latest novel, features a number of four-footed friends. The book unfolds with two unlikely protagonists: Woody, a precocious 12-year-old boy with autism; and Kipp, a golden retriever with a unique ability. After the death of his father, Woody and his mother Megan move to a remote Californian town. But the life they have together is fragile. It is impossible for Woody to tell Megan that he knows his father was murdered. In secret, Woody learns to hack into the corporate databases of his suspects, and his investigations lead him to a murdererfor-hire website on the dark web. When Woody receives a terrifying online message, he begins to think he and his mother might be next. It feels like life couldn’t get any stranger, but suddenly Kipp and his owner, Ben, arrive in town with another message just for Woody. Devoted is full of the creeping horror and outright gore that can be expected of a Koontz novel. The book has a wealth of bad guys: hired killers, lawless billionaires and the lead villain, Shacket, Megan’s crazed and mutated ex-boyfriend intent on destroying the small family. “I need to increase the jeopardy,” Koontz says, when asked why his bad guys are so overwhelmingly evil, and his protagonists so vulnerable. Vulnerable characters are at more risk; it raises the tension when you never know how they’re going to escape from a bad situation. “I don’t want to glamourise evil,” he says, adding it’s one thing he’s always careful not to do. “My father was a violent sociopath. He was diagnosed later in life…but we all cannibalise our own experiences, even when we don’t realise it at the time. I think that’s why there are so many [sociopaths] in my stories. “I don’t want somebody to read it and think ‘ooh that character is cool’, so I usually try to layer in a kind of humour. I want the reader to feel scared. I mean, my sociopaths are scary, dangerous bad guys, but they’re also unaware that they’re funny. They’re foolish. “There’s a whole sequence in Devoted, where the mother, Megan, is alone with her son in the house and thinks that they’re safe, but a really seriously insane man is in the house with them for a protracted period of time and they don’t realise it. But he isn’t as all-powerful as he thinks he is; he makes mistakes. It was tense writing that, and fun to write it.” Where some authors hate to talk about their writing methods, Koontz’s thoughts always come back to his obsession with story form. It was this obsession, he says, that led him to begin merging styles and genres, becoming one of the first cross-genre bestsellers, so that his suspense often comes mixed with sci-fi, horror or fantasy. It’s clear that Koontz is driven by the need to thrill his readers. Every book is carefully crafted to bring you to the edge of your seat, devouring page after page as the villains and heroes hurtle toward the final clash. Devoted proves that, some 50 years and almost half-a-billion-copies-sold later, he hasn’t lost his edge.

Film Reviews

Annabel Brady-Brown Film Editor @annnabelbb

t’s been a month since my last cinema outing, and I’ve been surprised to realise how much I physically miss it. So this morning I woke up early, guzzled coffee, then my cat and I joined a live Twitch stream hosted by a New York theatre. They were streaming the film they would’ve projected that night if the cinema were still open. Users from Hong Kong to Brisbane sent their hellos and thankyous in the text chat, where the two directors also ran a scrappy, intimate Q&A afterwards. To be watching a movie in sync with hundreds of others, while sitting on the couch in my pyjamas, felt both odd and incredibly heartening. Of course, many of us are experiencing this higgledy-piggledy and intense mix of emotions. For example, I am finding it impossible to watch movies with scenes of bustling city streets, or friends hugging emotionally, without a pang. And on my favourite film podcast (Film Comment, made by NYC’s Film Comment Magazine), the presenters all agreed there must be some scientific explanation for why watching movies in isolation gives them a heightened poignancy – something akin to being on a long-haul flight, when the trashy movie leaves you bawling on the stranger seated next to you. This week an Eddie Murphy comedy revealed itself to me as a profound meditation on life; it’s a strange time indeed! In this interim period, great films will hit streaming platforms soon (watch this space!), but just quietly, I can’t wait for my first cinema choc-top when doors open again. ABB

EDDIE MURPHY: PROFOUND MEDITATION

THE WAY BACK  | DIGITAL RELEASE

Basketball is a strange sport. While it is a team affair, a star player can almost single-handedly write the narrative of a game and make everyone else on the court seem like extras at best, mannequins at worst. What you make of Gavin O’Connor’s redemption-story-meets-sports-drama The Way Back will depend on whether or not you think Ben Affleck is that sort of star. The script flirts with clichés but the supporting cast is solid, and the basketball players can mercifully play basketball – but what about big Ben? He plays Jack Cunningham, a brooding, reticent, one-time high-school hero seeking salvation, or perhaps perdition, by taking up the role as coach of his old team. Affleck does an admirable job of portraying Cunningham – an alcoholic dealing with a past trauma – particularly his torpid routines and occasional anguished outbursts. But that’s all he has to give. The game never elevates to the superstardom it was billed as. LACHY MCKENZIE

ONWARD

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

 | DIGITAL RELEASE NOW. DISNEY+ FROM 24 APRIL

In a fantasy world that abandoned magic centuries ago – it turns out modern conveniences were just too convenient – teenage elf Ian Lightfoot (Tom Holland) is a quiet introvert who really misses the dad he never knew, while big brother Barley (Chris Pratt, channelling Jack Black) is a brash extrovert obsessed with the enchanted past. On Ian’s 16th birthday, a spell gives the brothers the chance to have their dad back for one full day. But when it goes wrong, and only restores his lower half, the pair sneak off on a mission (okay, it’s a road trip in Barley’s crap van) to restore his other half. Intentionally a generic boys’ adventure, this sugary animation never finds a way to make the quest’s clichéd clues or traps seem particularly fresh. Unsurprisingly for a Pixar film, it’s the relationships that are the strong point here. Onward is slickly professional overall, but heart-warming moments aside, the magic just isn’t there. ANTHONY MORRIS

THE HUNT  | DIGITAL RELEASE

A group of people wake up in the middle of the countryside, only to discover they’re being hunted for sport. It’s a remake of the 1932 classic The Most Dangerous Game (or if you prefer, 1993’s Hard Target), but there’s a twist – this time the rich evil hunters are left-wing rich evil hunters! This is a film that prides itself on trying to keep viewers guessing, and together with a tight run time it sculpts an entertainingly fast, if not exactly deep, B-movie, satirising a polarised red- versus blue-state America. But it’s the overtly political slant (which proves more complex than merely a bunch of liberals hunting “deplorables”) that saw the film pulled from release last year, kissed off after a tweetstorm from President Trump. The script’s deliberately controversial politics now seem almost quaint, though director Craig Zobel’s jokey approach works well, and Betty Gilpin as one of the more durable of the clichéd right-wing targets is a stand-out. This works best when the political gets personal. ANTHONY MORRIS

Small Screen Reviews

Aimee Knight Small Screens Editor @siraimeeknight

FIRST TIME FEELINGS  | PODCAST

REPRISAL

 | FOX SHOWCASE

 | SBS VICELAND + SBS ON DEMAND

Boasting a cavalcade of character actors and bankable stars alike, this slick miniseries is the Avengers: Endgame of second-wave feminism, and I mean that as a compliment. In 1971, affluent Illinois housewife Phyllis Schlafly (Cate Blanchett, ice queen) begins her “family values” crusade against women’s liberation. A self-published author, Schlafly is a whip-smart, rigid conservative gasping for air(time) as young Americans get hip to the equal rights movement. As the series progresses, Mrs. America offers a seat at the table to such feminist luminaries as Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne), her rival Betty Friedan (Tracey Ullman), civil rights activist Flo Kennedy (Niecy Nash), and Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman elected to the US Congress (a cannonball performance from Uzo Aduba). Beneath the polyester and hairspray lurk some painful hypocrisies – and enduring home truths – about egotism and moralising among the left and the right. Mrs. America blots the old red, white and blue with some intriguing shades of grey. AIMEE

A bloody tale of vengeance. A bad-ass femme fatale. A gang of dangerous mobsters. A medley of neo-noir and Southern gothic genre elements. In theory, these parts should form an intriguing whole. Unfortunately, in the case of Reprisal, there’s something decidedly off with the mixture. Set in an ambiguous Nowheresville, during an imaginary time where 50s rockabilly outfits, VHS tapes and flip-phones are all somehow simultaneously in vogue, this convoluted saga stars Abigail Spencer (Suits) as Katherine Harlow, a woman on a mission. Determined to seek revenge after being left for dead by her brother and his brutish gang, she takes on a new identity and assembles a mob of hired guns to track down her assailants. Despite the slick production and a committed central performance from Spencer, the meagre narrative and cardboard characters barely sustain the often lengthy episodes. Full of self-conscious style cues but desperately devoid of substance, Reprisal is plagued by the sensation that it’s all been done before – and done better. JESSICA ELLICOTT

KNIGHT

or some folks, there’s never been a better time to binge-watch a series about the world’s most enviable houses. For others, it might feel like moderate but sustained torment. A globe-trotting docuseries from Apple TV+, Home steps inside some awe-inspiring abodes in Mexico, Sweden, Hong Kong, and across the US. The dwellings are notable for their innovative engineering, pleasing aesthetics and a heightened focus – quite literally, in the case of a bamboo treehouse in Bali – on environmental sustainability. Each episode explains the design and construction of the remarkable dwellings, which are imbued with their owners’ ideologies. This isn’t just an architectural showcase. Home is also a portrait of the people and personalities who give these buildings life. What’s not clear, exactly, is how everyone bankrolled their dream homes, which include a log cabin nestled within a lush greenhouse, and an exotic Californian ranch called “Xanabu” (as in, Xanadu in Malibu). Truth be told, some of the human subjects struck me as quite affected, pretentious and out of touch. No doubt self-isolation is getting to me. My tolerance for wealthy bon vivants with a surfeit of resources (and no broad social awareness beyond the importance of recycling) is obviously at a critical low. In another time, another place, I may have warmed to this show – one-part brain food to two-parts eye candy. But as it stands, I might have to watch the remaining episodes on mute. AK

17 APR 2020

MRS. AMERICA

DO COME IN!

Produced and hosted by Melbourne-based writers Ruth McIver and Krystal Maynard, this monthly conversational podcast is designed to name and reclaim emotions, “one feeling at a time”. The debut episode examines performance anxiety. McIver and Maynard each share a micro-narrative – a gymnastics performance gone wrong, and a nerve-racking history class performance. Afterwards, they unpack their feelings. The stories themselves, while humming with beautiful language and keen insight, occasionally feel longer than they should, and lack sound design to build up an emotional connection or to transport listeners back to the intensity of these formative experiences. The balance between scripted and unscripted moments also feels uneven: sometimes too calculated, sometimes too off-the-cuff. McIver and Maynard’s conversational chemistry makes for interesting listening, though: they compare lessons learned, and generously reflect on the contradictions of being performers who are inherently introverted. This is for fans of NPR’s Invisibilia and live storytelling events like Zoe Norton Lodge’s long-running Story Club. NATHANIA GILSON

Music Reviews

Sarah Smith Music Editor

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

KYLES: A FRIEND IN NEED

s I manically scroll through Twitter, the world turned upside down, amid the constant stream of pandemic updates and increasingly dark memes, there is one constant sentiment that keeps popping up: music is a salve for these times. It seems a kind of shitty cliché, but it’s never been so true. I see and hear it everywhere, friends and strangers posting about the music that is keeping them sane, bringing them joy, even helping them grieve. As has been pointed out by many who work in the creative industries, it seems ironic that the arts sector is so often underfunded and dismissed as nonessential by governments – yet, here we are as a nation, watching movies and TV, reading books and listening to music to keep us going. For me, there has been a lot of comfort listening – returning to albums that I know provide warmth or joy. Sometimes an immediate hit of endorphins can be provided only by listening to Kylie Minogue’s ‘Love at First Sight’. And sometimes crying to The Beach Boys’ ‘God Only Knows’ is the only way to cry. But, I’ve also been scrolling around, discovering music I perhaps otherwise wouldn’t have, as people share on socials. Some newer records that have been making things feel good again include the hopeful Audio Commentary from Snowy Band; the dreamy escape of Mystery Guest’s Octagon City; the fractious emotional ride that is Porridge Radio’s Every Bad; and the unabashed bravado of Jay Electronica’s A Written Testimony, featuring some of Jay-Z’s best for a decade. SS

@sarah_smithie

GOOD SOULS BETTER ANGELS LUCINDA WILLIAMS 

“Bad news on my TV screen, bad news in the magazines... On the radio, in the laundromat.” Even though Good Souls Better Angels was created before the world was flung into a global pandemic, Williams’ defiant new record rings disconcertingly true. Opening with ‘You Can’t Rule Me’, a raw, stompin’ blues number, Williams and her peerless long-time touring band Buick 6 immediately unleash maximum fury. Williams was inspired by Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and Nick Cave while crafting this collection, which careens wildly from ferocious rant to world-weary ballad. The devil pays regular visits throughout, stalking ‘Pray the Devil Back to Hell’ via insidious fiddle. Williams’ vitriolic take on Greg Garing’s ‘Down Past the Bottom’ raises the roof, and there are no prizes for guessing who inspired ‘Man Without a Soul’. Elsewhere, Williams navigates dark themes such as depression (‘Big Black Train’), domestic abuse (‘Wakin’ Up’) and social media pressures (‘Shadows and Doubts’). But hope ultimately prevails on ‘When the Way Gets Dark’, before Williams closes with a prayer: “Keep me with the good souls.” An essential soundtrack for these troubled times. BRYGET CHRISFIELD

FERAL RVG

A VOYEUR MAKES NO MARK NITE FIELDS

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Melbourne’s RVG inspire a feverish devotion among fans – their post-punk sermons demand complete immersion. Surpassing the expectations arising from their acclaimed debut A Quality of Mercy (2017) would have been a hard task. Good news is, Feral is as vital and compelling as its predecessor. Recorded with Victor Van Vugt, known for his work with the likes of PJ Harvey and Nick Cave, the band’s seething intent is amplified, even sharper with help from a new ear. Combining live instrumentation and singer Romy Vager’s towering vocal, the band’s signature sound is further defined while also sounding reinvigorated. Sequencing within songs is masterfully executed, from the glorious instrumental divergence in opener ‘Alexandra’ through to the slow build of closer ‘Photograph’, a song that feels like the culmination of the band’s power. A saving grace in a world thrown into chaos, RVG are a band to believe in. A band that exemplify the thriving Melbourne music scene that refuses to be silenced. HOLLY PEREIRA

Very much an extended mood piece, Nite Fields’ second album occupies a rich middle ground between brooding post-punk and bubbly synth-pop. Having relocated from Brisbane to Moscow and back again since Depersonalisation (2015), creative mainstay Danny Venzin enlists collaborators from three continents to realise these eight layered, pulsing tracks. Opener ‘Descent’ applies the first of many entrancing mantras against a stark rhythmic throb and gaseous doses of synthesiser, introducing shadowy industrial motifs. But for all the detached atmosphere, these songs are pop-driven, often centred on choruses that emerge like beacons from the fog. ‘Chase It’ is the most catchy, though lead single ‘Not Your Time’ is a close second, harking back to the overcast yet danceable early New Order. ‘Take My Side’ adopts a darker edge and ‘Fiction Eyes’ is a slow burn. Venzin’s slinky melodies and murmured vocals maintain an approachable presence – even as ‘Do It in Reverse’ closes out the album at a sultry, dubby crawl. DOUG WALLEN

Book Reviews

Thuy On Books Editor @thuy_on

CASE NOTES DAVID STAVANGER

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A patient coming-of-age story that stretches across several decades, Kirsten Krauth’s second novel follows a few well-drawn characters who spend their formative days in and around real-life Melbourne music venue The Crystal Ballroom, a haven for post-punk culture in the 1980s. There’s Mona, who models for a famous photographer as she weathers a tumultuous relationship with charismatic lost soul Jimmy, while budding singer/guitarist Benny starts a band with his older brother. Krauth documents their journeys in dreamlike fragments across short chapters named after 80s songs, comprising a virtual mixtape to which we can listen along. Real-life figures like Nick Cave appear as well, and the book takes its name from a lyric from Rowland S Howard’s classic ‘Shivers’, which Cave sang in their band The Boys Next Door. While fondly faithful to its period details, Almost a Mirror also follows where these outsiders end up today. Writing with a keen sense of the heightened states offered by both sexual encounters and live music, Krauth examines how those experiences don’t leave us as we age, but simply evolve. DOUG WALLEN

The title of David Stavanger’s second collection of poetry offers a clue about the writings within; the book occasionally reads like the case notes of a patient, in diary form. In part, it’s a deeply personal account of mental illness from someone with lived experience. It’s not pretty, but it’s not meant to be. The poems make for sobering reading. They are at once both clear and obfuscating, as Stavanger takes us into the troubled mind of the afflicted in many offerings (notably ‘Depression Is a Strange Thing’ and ‘Stock Market’, which begins “bipolar lows/insecurities exchange”). The black dog roams wildly, and is even skilled at sniffing out suicidal ideations – “They recognise the shapes of fragile.” Stavanger plays with form: several pieces read like prose poems and spoken word, found text is deployed and concrete poetry (using typographical effects) gets a run as well. In among the darkness there are shards of whimsy and even (black) humour.

THE ANIMALS IN THAT COUNTRY LAURA JEAN MCKAY 

Talking animals are nothing new in fiction, but rarely have their voices been so eerie as in Laura Jean McKay’s prescient second novel. Narrated by Jean, a rough-as-guts grandmother who feels closer to the dingos at the wildlife park where she works than to other people, the book traces the ensuing chaos caused by a maddening flu which makes it possible for humans to finally understand the language of animals. Jean believes the best way to get through such disaster is to “stay drunk and smoke durries”, though the story takes a haunting turn as the voices of once-silent creatures grow stronger. In one scene, a cow laments that: “It came and made babies from babies.” The allusion is to the horrors of the dairy industry, where cows are forcibly impregnated in order to produce milk. This is a work of not only remarkable linguistic skill but also one that brilliantly captures our relationship with the inhabitants of this wild world. MITCHELL JORDAN

THUY ON

ALMOST A MIRROR KIRSTEN KRAUTH

17 APR 2020

t’s oh so very easy to be cynical about leaders in this age, but a new series created in collaboration with the Nelson Mandela Foundation offers some hope that there are indeed worthy thinkers, activists and even a prime minister (looking at you New Zealand) who make this world a better place. The I Know This to Be True series is based on interviews with six men and six women from diverse backgrounds. A first batch of three books has just been released: Nelson Mandela on guiding principles; Greta Thunberg on truth, courage and saving our planet; and Waleed Aly on sincerity, compassion and integrity. Books focusing on US Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, NZ PM Jacinda Ardern and author Gloria Steinem are slated to follow in early May. The books themselves are small and elegantly produced with thick paper and handsome profile pictures. And they deliver us a potted biography of the subjects’ lives to remind us how their beliefs and actions have rendered them significant figures. The interviews themselves are simple and direct: If you could effect real and fast change, what would it be? How do you overcome challenges? and What does leadership mean to you? It’s fascinating to read the various leaders speak in their own words. Here, for instance is 17-year-old climate-change activist Greta Thunberg, far wiser than her years: “I think the lowest depth of misery is when you’re too depressed to see that you yourself actually matter.” TO

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Tastes Like Home edited by Anastasia Safioleas

40 Flip Shelton

PORTRAIT BY JAMES PENLIDIS, FOOD PHOTO BY GRANT CUTELLI/PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE AUSTRALIA

Tastes Like Home

Sweet Potato Chocolate Brownies Ingredients Ganache (optional) ¼ cup (25g) cacao powder ¼ cup (60g) coconut oil, melted 1 tablespoon maple syrup (optional)

Topping 1 tablespoon cacao nibs 2 tablespoons coconut flakes 1 tablespoon goji berries or ½ cup (75g) fresh blueberries or raspberries

Method Preheat the oven to 180ºC. Line a 16cm × 26cm roasting tin with baking paper. To make the brownie, put all the ingredients into a large mixing bowl and stir until well mixed. Spoon the mixture into the lined tin and spread evenly using the back of a spoon. Bake for 30 minutes. Cover the top of the brownie slab with foil and bake for a further 10 minutes, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Transfer the tin to a wire rack and leave to set for 10 minutes. To make the ganache, put the cacao powder, coconut oil and maple syrup (if using) into a small bowl and stir until well combined. Turn out the whole brownie slab on to a serving platter. Drizzle ganache over the brownie, then sprinkle with cacao nibs, coconut flakes and goji berries – or fresh blueberries and raspberries. Eat warm or put the brownie slab in the fridge for 20 minutes or until ganache has firmed. Cut into pieces and serve.

TIP

Brownies will keep for up to 2–3 days in an airtight container in the fridge.

Flip says…

ne of my strongest childhood memories is fighting with my brother and sister over who got to lick the bowl or beaters after Mum cooked something wonderfully sweet. Home always had the smell of cooking wafting through it and Mum, apron donned, was always at the kitchen bench, whipping up everything from scratch – from brownies to birthday cakes, dense breads to muesli (possibly an early influence on my own business!), all manner of sauces and soups and then, of course, all our meals. I have a very sweet tooth and I blame Mum for that. I have also always loved cooking and am comfortable and creative in the kitchen, so I’d better give Mum the credit for that bit, too! While I still have a sweet tooth, I have moved away from the traditional ingredients of butter and sugar, and – now especially as a mother myself – love reinventing classic sweet treats with more wholesome ingredients. I love cooking with my 10-year-old son Harvey. It’s a wonderful time to connect and to let any tension disappear as we focus on creating a healthy snack or a nourishing meal. For me, cooking is very much about the here and now and can be a very mindful activity. I have made so many different versions of chocolate brownies. This one is terrific because you just mix it all together and put it in the oven. There’s minimal washing up and because it is dairy-free, gluten-free*, grainfree, nut-free and wheat-free*, it caters for everybody’s dietary needs (*if you use banana flour or coconut flour). The ganache and topping are optional but are definitely worth the time and effort. Harvey loves decorating it because he can add his own creative touch – although I have to say some of the toppings are quite interesting! And feel free to adapt the recipe to suit what’s at hand – a friend told me that he subbed out the sweet potato for carrots for his two-year-old’s birthday cake, topped with strawberries. Creativity is encouraged! My hope is that my son will have memories of me, apron donned and making everything from scratch, and savouring the sweet mixture left on the beaters and bowl after one of our cooking sessions. SMART SNACKS BY FLIP SHELTON AND MICHAEL CARR-GREGG IS OUT NOW.

17 APR 2020

2 cups (250g) grated sweet potato (about 1–2 sweet potatoes) 4 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract pinch of sea salt 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon ½ cup (50g) cacao powder ½ cup (110g) coconut oil, melted ¼ cup (60ml) maple syrup or honey ¼ cup (35g) banana flour or coconut flour (or ⅓ cup regular plain flour) 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Makes 36

Public Service Announcement

by Lorin Clarke @lorinimus

You know how some shops stock scissors that are sold inside two pieces of hard plastic? And the plastic is welded together? And it’s only when you get home that you realise that you genuinely, actually, no jokes, need scissors to get your scissors out of the packet? There is something about the level of incompetence, nay negligence, nay outright malfeasance required for a human person to impose a domestic outrage such as this on the lives of ordinary hardworking Australians, that explosions of raw unadulterated feeling are par for the course. If you have feelings that require expression at the moment, may I encourage you to find some examples of domestic injustice into which those feelings may be channelled. For it is these small outrages – a jar that is wedged shut or a shin-high coffee table in the middle of the night – that enable us to heartily banish any attempt to be cheerful. They call on our reserves of emotional anguish and unleash them on the object to which they belong. So shout at the shin-high coffee table. Yell at the bin juice. Be a jerk to the person on the radio. Doesn’t matter that they’re probably a nice person. We’re not online. They’re not going to read the comments. Go for it! I once walked in on a friend of mine sneering and shaking his head and muttering at the radio – “Oh yeah and what would you know about it?” – which I then discovered was in relation to a discussion about the relative hygienic properties of

different sorts of kitchen sponges. Not a topic I was aware spurred such vitriol in the heart of this mate of mine, but here he was, sweeping the floor and being really very rude to a person trying to be helpful on the radio. “People shouldn’t talk about things if they don’t know what they’re talking about,” he said in his own defence. Indeed. And if you aren’t going to tell them that curtly in your own kitchen while sweeping the floor, who is? When you swipe something on a smartphone and it completely takes you out of where you were, even though that’s not what you meant, and suddenly the thing you were reading is gone forever: this is not a problem. We know that. It is also necessary to say “WHAT THE HELL, COME ON!” at your phone for being stupid. The watching of shameful television you wouldn’t normally be seen dead watching is not only acceptable sometimes, it is also recommended by experts. Me. I’m recommending it. I actually am an expert. Ask me anything about rom-coms. I even do Christmas specials. Trying to put on a jacket when you’ve realised too late that one sleeve is inside-out and you have to decide whether to remove the jacket altogether or attempt to further shove your arm up the inside-out sleeve: yes it’s small, but these are decisions that make us who we are. I am the shove-your-arm-in type. I do it while selfrecriminating and swearing at the jacket. On a bad day, I can crowbar a lot of my impotent fury into this moment of domestic bastardry. So yes. You may bay at the moon. Baying is also permitted at the sun, the clouds, the hills, the trees, and on some occasions good friends who are baying back at you. Sometimes though, baying seems exhausting, self-indulgent and a bit of a cliché. So why not channel all your pent-up rage, anxiety and grief into the small, dreadful domestic wrongs that so oppress us all? Public Service Announcement: You don’t always have to be cheerful. Yell at the radio. Roar at the jam jar. It might even cheer you up.

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.

here’s a lot of stuff around at the moment telling people to be cheerful. Things aren’t so bad, they say. In history, things have been worse, they say. Look at that person over there who is worse off than you, they say. And they’re right. There will always be someone worse off than you are. So, with that objective fact alive in our minds, let us run the following Public Service Announcement: It is okay not to be cheerful. It is okay to be bored or furious or sad or terrified or confused. Thing is, most of us are pretty good at living with those feelings bubbling away in the background until suddenly, out of nowhere, they’re right up in our business. It is important to maximise those moments when we can. What am I talking about? So glad you asked.

17 APR 2020

Reasons To Not Be Cheerful

Puzzles By Lingo! by Lauren Gawne lingthusiasm.com DISCRETE

CLUES 5 letters Breathing organs Culpability Sudden thrust Unappetising broth Uncontrolled rush

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

6 letters Brilliant brain Burning, vital Give up your job Prickle, thrill Wheat protein 7 letters Shimmer Sleeveless vest Tough meat

R G

E N

Sudoku

by websudoku.com

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

6 2

3 9 5 4

4 1 5 7 4 3

9 6 8 5 7 3

8 7 5 4 6 8

Puzzle by websudoku.com

Solutions CROSSWORD DOWN 1 Circus 2 Novice 3 Date 4 Seraph 5 Winnipeg 6 Compatriot 7 Diligent 8 Telltale 14 Melancholy 16 Postcode 17 On demand 18 Mistrust 22 Outcry 23 Enamel 24 Martyr 27 Itch

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

ACROSS 9 Isolate 10 Idolise 11 Chimera 12 Nuptial 13 Steamship 15 Theta 16 Problem 19 Gristle 20 Sedan 21 Short-term 25 Camphor 26 Thin air 28 Dongles 29 Rickety

Word Builder

Discrete and discreet are separate words in English, although that wasn’t always the case. They share a common root that is…separate: the Latin word discretus, which means “separated”. This word came to be used in Old French for someone who was “sensible” and “intelligent”, and in this sense was borrowed into English in the late 1300s, to mean “prudent” or “circumspect”. The spelling of this word was Anglicised in the 1600s to discreet. There were, however, enough people educated in Latin, which was the language of philosophy, medicine and music, who also used discrete with the more Latinate spelling and the original sense of “separate”.

8 letters

20 QUESTIONS PAGE 9

Sound of paper UK currency

1 ‘I Got You Babe’, Sonny and Cher 2 Cambodia, China, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam 3 Mulberry 4 Celia Pacquola 5 Carbon 6 Robert Jordan 7 Wales 8 Blackboard, Gus the Snail and Bill the Steam Shovel 9 1945 10 Back in Black 11 Algeria 12 Layne Beachley 13 Datum 14 Ireland 15 The sperm whale 16 Ita Buttrose 17 Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics 18 Bill Withers 19 A homo erectus skull 20 Friends and Mad About You

Crossword

by Chris Black

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

Quick Clues ACROSS

9 Cut off (7) 10 Look up to (7) 11 Mythical creature (7) 12 Marital (7) 13 Mode of transportation (9) 15 Eighth Greek letter (5) 16 Issue (7) 19 Connective tissue, in meat (7) 20 Type of car (5) 21 Temporary (5-4) 25 Itch reliever (7) 26 What you breathe at high altitude (4,3) 28 Computer peripherals (7) 29 Ramshackle (7)

DOWN

Cryptic Clues

Solutions

WORD BUILDER

17 APR 2020

9 6 5 7 1 4 2 3 8

water droplets (8)

5 Lungs Guilt Lunge Gruel Surge 6 Genius Urgent Resign Tingle Gluten 7 Glisten Singlet Gristle 8 Rustling Sterling 9 Resulting

22 Yankee followed Criminal Court in uproar (6) 23 Man worked with eel and canine coat? (6) 24 McFly right to be persecuted figure (6) 27 Irritation? Throw leader off (4)

8 7 3 5 2 9 4 1 6

lambasted evil leaders (8)

14 Playing a cello hymn for blue mood (10) 16 Delivery assistant is after third-rate poetry (8) 17 Like Netflix original Demon DNA ? (2,6) 18 Have doubts about oxidisation following

4 1 2 8 3 6 9 5 7

computer devices (7)

29 Shaky, confused? Crikey, about time! (7)

for countryman (10)

7 Hard-working chap supports East Timor port (8) 8 Revealing Swiss hero tricked and

1 2 8 9 5 3 6 7 4

rosemary essential oil ingredient (7)

26 Rain hit strange place to disappear? (4,3) 28 Recreated Golden Girls finale with

gardens in Canadian city (8)

6 Firm politician attending violent disturbance

SUDOKU Puzzle by websudoku.com

1 Travelling company removes IT circuits (6) 2 Virtuous student? (6) 3 See draftee making regular sacrifices (4) 4 Angel edited phrase (6) 5 Tail-less Honeyeater starts plaguing empty

7 4 9 1 6 2 3 8 5

9 Quarantine in decrepit tea silo (7) 10 Admire knitted doilies (7) 11 Legendary party animal? (7) 12 Matrimonial witticism: sent back broken tail (7) 13 Small groups’ joint craft (9) 15 Article thanks Greek character (5) 16 Pickle a can of worms? (7) 19 Girl set broken cartilage (7) 20 Harnessed antelope squad for vehicle (5) 21 Temporary abbreviation? (5-4) 25 The Block star starts producing his own

3 5 6 4 7 8 1 2 9

DOWN

5 9 1 3 4 7 8 6 2

ACROSS

2 3 4 6 8 5 7 9 1

6 8 7 2 9 1 5 4 3

1 Group of travelling performers (6) 2 Beginner (6) 3 Romantic engagement (4) 4 Angel (6) 5 Capital of Manitoba (8) 6 Countryman (10) 7 Industrious (8) 8 Revealing (8) 14 Sorrow (10) 16 Delivery area (8) 17 As needed (2,6) 18 Suspect (8) 22 Uproar (6) 23 Tooth covering (6) 24 Someone suffering for their beliefs (6) 27 Hankering (4)

Click 1973

Jack Nicholson

words by Michael Epis photo by Getty

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

hy would Jack Nicholson want to look like Burt Reynolds? Well, it was 1973, and there was no escaping the ’tache, not even in Hollywood. In 1972 Burt Reynolds was a star, featuring in one of the biggest films of the year, Deliverance, which played to every fear so-called Yankees had of the Deep South. As it happens, Nicholson had turned down a role in that film, as the producers could not meet his demand to bring in Marlon Brando. Burt, meanwhile, was no flash in the pan – in 1973 he was deemed Hollywood’s most bankable star, a title he won every year up to and including 1984. Jack had but two cult hits to his name – the counterculture classic Easy Rider (1969) and the buff’s favourite Five Easy Pieces (1970), with its classic diner scene as Jack tries to get what he wants, even though it’s not exactly on the menu. He had to wait until 1976 for his star to reach its apex, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences deemed him best actor for his lead role in the adaptation of Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. A few so-so years followed for Jack, while Burt was killing it

in Smokey and the Bandit (1977) and The Cannonball Run (1981). Not that Jack cared – he got his wish to act opposite Brando in The Missouri Breaks (1976). Nor is Jack your standard fashion model – striking a pose here for a shoot with Glamour magazine. But why wouldn’t you make an exception for that shirt? I mean, muted multi-coloured horizontal stripes, with vertical stripes on the cuffs, all of which appear to be the very finest polyester. What’s not to love? Or maybe Jack just wanted to hang out with Denise Hopkins – or her vibrant shirt, which leaves his in the dust. Denise featured prominently in 70s fashion magazines with her trademark winsome blonde look. She appeared more than once on the cover of Cosmopolitan, including the November 1972 edition, which featured some classic 70s articles. ‘A Cosmo Girl Reports on Two Weeks at a Famous Sex Clinic’ receives top billing, followed swiftly by ‘How Bad Is Your Marriage?’ and a frankly worded booster for ‘The Avocado Diet – Have That Secure Stuffed Feeling While You Peel Pounds’. For the record, Denise is sporting a T Courtney Scott, Danskin and Ralph Lauren ensemble.