The Big Issue Australia #613 – Ricky Gervais by The Big Issue Australia

Ed.

613

17 29OCT MAY 012020 NOV 2019

p16.

KANGAROO ISLAND

XXXXX

p28.

WARWICK THORNTON p30.

CUSTARDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S DAVE McCORMACK $4.50 of the cover price goes to your vendor

$4.50 of the cover price goes to vendors

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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

613 16

“We Will Get Through This” The people of Kangaroo Island are a resilient bunch. They copped a double-whammy when the coronvirus lockdown hit just months after the island was devasted by bushfires. We meet the people behind the island’s recovery effort.

28 SMALL SCREENS

The Sands of Time

12.

After Life, There’s Hope by Steven MacKenzie

A cringe-inducing comic with a caustic bent, Ricky Gervais surprises with his optimistic, generous outlook on life, death – and the coronavirus pandemic.

Warwick Thornton swaps the pressures of a film set for isolation on a remote WA beach in his new documentary – where he fishes, cooks and stares down his demons.

THE REGULARS

MUSIC

04 Ed’s Letter & Your Say 05 Meet Your Vendor 06 Streetsheet 08 Hearsay & 20 Questions 11 My Word 22 The Big Picture

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

“When everything’s back to normal – and we will survive this and look back at it like we have other disasters and pandemics – I hope that we can have a slightly more caring society,” says Ricky Gervais. photo by © Jerome Bonnet modds/Headpress

Guys Like That Custard, the Aussie darlings of 90s indie‑rock led by Dave McCormack, are killing it again with their third album since their 2009 reformation.

Ed’s Letter

by Amy Hetherington Editor @amyhetherington

E FO RT NI GH T LE TT ER OF TH

Goodness Knows

ope is everything… I’ve always thought that.” With his barbed wit and cringe-inducing comedy, Ricky Gervais may seem like the unlikeliest of optimists. But our cover star is a self-confessed Pollyanna, always looking for the good in people. He’s not alone. Over the past few months, the conversations around me have overwhelmingly turned to kindness and community. Stories of compassion and everyday heroism buoying the spirits. For Brisbane vendor Eddie, the real silver lining of lockdown has been the rehousing of people experiencing homelessness. For David L in Perth, it’s the selflessness of essential health workers that he’s celebrating. While Cindy from Adelaide values the shift to a more neighbourly focus, shopping locally and supporting local business. As we slowly and safely venture back into the world, there’s hope that this new sense of connection continues. Melbourne Big Issue vendor Cheryl sums it up: “What I want once all this is over

is for people to have more compassion towards others. Not just think about themselves, but others around them.” We’re all chatting on the vendors’ closed Facebook group, which has proven a boon for keeping The Big Issue community connected during lockdown – and creating friendships between vendors all across the country. As Melbourne vendor David says, “I have really enjoyed getting to know other vendors from other states and finding out what they get up to when they are not selling.” And while we’ve all spent lockdown sharing stories, photos and TikTok videos – and uncovered a troupe of talented dancers, gardeners, comedians, writers and photographers in our midst – we’re all missing those face-to-face connections that are the heart of The Big Issue. It’s why your messages of support to vendors and those in the Women’s Subscription Enterprise remain important during our hiatus in magazine street sales. Please keep them coming via social media and email: 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

I want to send a big hello to Shane who sells The Big Issue in Geelong on the corner of Moorabool and Malop Streets. Missing my fortnightly read, I have subscribed to The Big Issue for six months. Just long enough to keep me going until Shane and I are out and about again, and I can return to buying from him. Thank you writers and vendors for your great work – I am glad we can still keep in touch! FELIC THYER POINT LONSDALE I VIC

I now have a Big Issue subscription, and I enjoy reading about the vendors, and often can picture in my mind where they are standing, especially in Brisbane where I grew up. Now in lockdown, I am missing the names of the lovely women who pack and post the mag. But until they can return, I am sending them my blessings, and also to all of the vendors. At a couple of months off 78, living in a retirement village, with a daughter and family close by, I am not in a poor position. In fact, I think I could become a hermit! Too much reading, and not enough housework being done, but when my mag arrives, I just have to sit down and read it at once, and do the puzzles. CARMEL HUGHES NURIOOTPA I SA

• 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, Felic wins a copy of Imbi Neeme’s awardwinning novel The Spill. Check out her 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 Sean Davey

PROUD UNIFORM PARTNER OF THE BIG ISSUE VENDORS.

29 MAY 2020

SELLS THE BIG ISSUE IN QUEANBEYAN, NSW

Genice

I didn’t find out about The Big Issue until I met Peter, who also sells the magazine. He told me about it when we got together. He helped train me, then I did it by myself when I got the confidence. I was born with an intellectual disability as well as my sight and a few other things. I can’t see out the side of my eyes. And I wear coloured glasses. I used to be able to drive and all that, but now I can’t and I use a cane, but I still get around. Nothing’s gonna stop me! Peter and I have sold together at the same pitch – when we do it together one of us can have a break. It’s good to have that support, and it’s nice to have the company. As soon as I met Peter I thought Yep, that’s my prince. He’s not going away from me! It was supposed to happen, I think. He wears the same glasses as I do. We fell in love. We got married at Queanbeyan Park three or four years ago. The Big Issue gets you out of the house, and you get to see your regular customers. My regulars know that I’m a Special Olympics ice skater and swimmer. I represented Australia in both of my sports. I started skating when I was eight. My father took me to the rink once and I got hooked. I went to New Zealand in 2007 and won three gold medals. I have tickets on myself! I gave up skating when I was 40. I got my dream, to go to the Olympics. Then I thought, I’ve done my dreams – what’s next? I already did swimming as a relaxing thing, then I just thought, I like the competing part – I’ll find out if there’s a Special Olympics for swimming too. And I did. I like the freedom. If you’ve had a bad day, you can just get in the water. In 2013 I represented Australia again, and won medals. Peter’s supportive. He knows how much I get out of it and he’s always pleased with how well I do, especially since I can’t see the ropes or the black lines. And that’s how I am with ice skating, too. If you can’t see the markings on the ice or in the water, you have to put a picture in your head. And that’s basically how I live my life: I put a picture in my head of where things are, and I go for it. Sometimes I think it would be nice if people could see me on the ice or in the water, and see what I can do. A Big Issue customer helped us move. We’re in a lovely palace, I call it. In a two‑bedroom house – it’s got a backyard, frontyard. It’s a lot bigger than where we were before, and a lot quieter. There’s a lot of room for our LEGO, and for my trophies as well. I’m proud of finding my prince and getting married. If I didn’t find my prince, I wouldn’t have had the opportunities that I’ve had – I would still be homeless, and with that, a lot of things were bad – those things hurt me. But if you don’t go through those things, you don’t know what the other side’s like.

Streetsheet

Stories, poems and pictures by Big Issue vendors and friends

VENDOR SPOTLIGHT

TUKUF

After the Storm My children are the lighthouses in the storm The stars in my eyes My best friend is the ship upon which I stay afloat during the storm

TUKUF: A LEGEND OF RAID: SHADOW LEGENDS

The storm is churned by God’s o’mighty hand The sting of the waves by people friends and foe My friends and family carry my tears through the storm My happy thoughts are many Which keeps my hope up during the worst days

Home and Housed

My ex-husband carries my heart in the vessel Jesus carries my soul through the storm

TUKUF OUTSIDE MYER , BOURKE ST I VARIOUS PITCHES AROUND MELBOURNE CBD

My guardian angel is the wind in the sails My creativity is the compass which steers the ship And I emerge from the ship once the storm has passed Will love find me again? I hope someone comes and puts me together again

PHOTO BY JAMES BRAUND

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

efore lockdown, I was living in Flagstaff Gardens. Since isolation began, Launch Housing have provided me with accommodation – at first for a fortnight. I’ve now been there nearly two-and-a-half months, and I’m very grateful. During isolation, I’ve found plenty to keep me busy. Since living in my accommodation, I’ve been playing computer games. I’ve downloaded many games, including Raid: Shadow Legends. I enjoy playing them for the escapism and also for competition. I play State of Survival online, and it’s great competing against other gamers – it’s really good fun, and if I’m honest, a lot of my money lately has gone towards these games! One thing I’m starting to miss when the weekend rolls around is the footy; watching replays of old matches just isn’t the same. And what’s worse is that the movies and comedy shows they’re playing on telly, I’ve already seen before! I’m also starting to miss the seagulls, possums and my friends in Flagstaff Gardens. I’m looking forward to being reunited with them all. And I’m looking forward to going back to selling the magazine and seeing all of my regular customers and, one day, hearing the St Kilda theme song after they win the premiership!

And I am grateful for all of these LYNN R NEWCASTLE I NSW

Good Friends

A Better Me

The people who work in The Body Shop have always been really good to me. We always have a chat when I buy magazines and they often walk me out to my bike and stuff. They even took me out for dinner for my birthday. The manager, Chynna, has rung me a couple of times since I stopped working, just to say hello and have a chat. I’ve rung her for a chat too. She’s a really good person and feels like one of my good Big Issue friends.

Hello one and all, Daryl here. For those of you that do not know, I have been a vendor for this publication on and off since 2004. Over the past couple of months in these trying times, I have kept myself busy by doing what I have been doing since 2018. I am currently studying a double major degree in psychology and counselling at a private university called ACAP. My reasons for doing so are after my last relationship ended, I was devastated and

BEVAN BUNBURY I WA

sought therapy to gain a better understanding of myself and how to deal with that. And to also gain a better understanding of others and how to deal with them. This is the main reason for enrolling in a double major degree in psychology and counselling; the other was to expand my knowledge base and skill set for employment opportunities. This course has helped me understand why I am the way I am and, therefore, is assisting me to be a better version of me. DARYL MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY I 700 BOURKE ST I MELBOURNE

Not All Are Equal

CLAIRE C LYNEHAM SHOPS I ACT

SURF AND SELFIE: JEFFREY AT ALTONA BEACH

Sea You Soon!

JEFFREY CHAPEL ST, PRAHRAN I MELBOURNE

29 MAY 2020

I go to the beach every day. I like to walk up and down, listen to music, and exercise. I get fish’n’chips every time I go – they’re really nice. After, I like to make TikTok videos – I dance, act, and try to make people laugh, smile and be happy during lockdown. I like going to the beach for exercise and fresh air. Altona Beach is a beautiful beach. That’s why I go there, to think about life. It’s very quiet and peaceful – it makes your mind relax. If you get upset, you can go there and there’s no-one else around. You can think about your life properly. I’m missing work and I miss people, especially my customers. I hope that I can come back to work soon.

ALL VENDOR CONTRIBUTORS TO STREETSHEET ARE PAID FOR THEIR WORK.

Isn’t it funny how the world changes and yet so much stays the same? When the virus dropped and everyone was told to self-isolate, I thought, hang on a minute, I’ll be in the good books, I’m isolated all the time. Yep, I’m more of a tech and animal person then a people person, “born too soon” my father always said. I don’t mind too much; rarely do I get emotional and feel abandoned or angry about a society that wholesale ignores me. Selling The Big issue has done a lot for me like that; I used to be a lot angrier but nowadays the negativity is fleeting. Unless I feel the sting of injustice, and sadly, lately, injustice has struck a low blow. While JobSeeker payments have doubled and all those employed before COVID are being given $1500 a fortnight to survive, all the Disability Support Pensioner recipients (read: the disabled and elderly) are getting is a grand total of $1500 extra help over two payments, months apart. Thankfully I’m isolated, so I can do my part to not spread the virus, and just keep playing Animal Crossing until I can put on my badge and get back out selling. I miss my community and can’t wait until the restrictions lift. Till then, food for thought.

Hearsay

Richard Castles Writer Andrew Weldon Cartoonist

“

I think if you’re working out all the time, you’re part of the problem. You set a precedent. No-one was doing this in the 70s. Even James Dean – he wasn’t exactly ripped.

Black Dog was the name former British PM Winston Churchill gave to his dark moods. NME I UK

“Towards the end, afterwards, and particularly nowadays, I sometimes wonder if I ever knew him at all, because he went through writing all those lyrics and I honestly thought they were about somebody else, and afterwards, sitting down and listening to Closer, you think, Fucking hell, how did I miss this?” Drummer for 70s rock band Joy Division, Stephen Morris, on the lyrics of lead singer and songwriter, Ian Curtis, who took his own life 40 years ago this May. Still tearing us apart. THE INDEPENDENT I UK

Actor Robert Pattinson, who is the next Batman, on not working out as much as he’s meant to be. To the Bat-gym, R-Patz! GQ I US

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“Millions of livelihoods have been destroyed and healthcare systems are under strain worldwide. Our estimate is that up to 60 million people will be pushed into extreme poverty – that erases all the progress made in poverty alleviation in the past three years.” The president of the World Bank, David Malpass, on the tough times ahead for those most affected by the economic impacts of coronavirus. More than 100 countries, home to 70 per cent of the world’s population, have already been granted emergency financial assistance from the bank. BBC NEWS I UK

“I’m starting to feel that having COVID-19 might be preferable to isolation. Next week I think I’m going to break it and see my family. I’m now prepared to take that risk. Everything you’re doing is on your own, and you start to

realise how important it is to have human contact. To just have a hug, or give a hug, that sort of thing is important to human beings and if you’re deprived of that, it does affect your wellbeing.” London octogenarian Mary Fletcher on being one of many elderly people living alone who are struggling with the isolation of lockdown. THE GUARDIAN I UK

“Well, it would not be an allwhite cast, for sure. I’m not sure what else, but, to me, it should be looked at as a time capsule, not for what they did wrong. Also, this show thought it was very progressive. There was a guy whose wife discovered she was gay and pregnant, and they raised the child together. We had surrogacy too. It was, at the time, progressive.” Actor Lisa Kudrow on how she imagines TV sitcom Friends could be “completely different” if it were made today. The stars of the 90s-defining comedy have announced a reunion special later this year. THE SUNDAY TIMES I UK

“In terms of the topic and the message of the song, I’ve been glad to hear that it’s been helping people out who have been finding quarantine difficult. People who are stuck inside and feeling quite low. I’ve had lots of messages from people saying that it’s helped them, which has been so wonderful.” British songwriter Arlo Parks on her new single ‘Black Dog’ comforting some listeners who have been struggling during lockdown. The

“This important guitar has earned its rightful place in rock’n’roll history as the instrument played by one of rock’s most influential musicians and icons in one of the greatest and most memorable live performances of all time.” Darren Julien, president of Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills, on the guitar used by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain during the band’s famous MTV Unplugged concert in

20 Questions by Little Red

01 How many Grammy Awards has

Barack Obama won? 02 The first tin can was patented in

Britain in 1810. How much longer did it take for the first can opener to be patented: 22, 48 or 61 years? 03 Where is the parietal bone? 04 Who was the first person to see the

moons of Jupiter? 05 What is the name of the first

book in the acclaimed four-part Neapolitan novels series, written by Italian author Elena Ferrante? 06 How many amendments to the

US constitution are there? 07 In which country has Australian-

British academic Kylie MooreGilbert been imprisoned since September 2018? 08 Where was the most popular

THE GUARDIAN I AUS

it was rehearsing a sketch, and it wasn’t. So that was part of the energy in the household.” Actor and filmmaker Ben Stiller (Zoolander) on growing up with two comedian parents who would often improvise at home. Stiller’s father Jerry – best known for playing Frank Costanza in Seinfeld, who also spent a lot of time arguing with his wife – died on 11 May, aged 92. Serenity now. THE NEW YORKER I US

“Legends come in all shapes and sizes but if he keeps calling me Cinderella we gonna have problems.” American army veteran Carter Hess on the young boy who found Hess’ prosthetic leg while scuba diving weeks after he’d lost it while surfing in Florida. SKY NEWS I UK

“They had a sketch where they hated each other. And they would just talk about how much they hated each other. And my sister overheard, and really thought that they hated each other. And then, another time, hearing them arguing and thinking

“It’s nice to do stuff that’s pure comedy because then when you write it, you laugh a lot. And when you laugh, it releases endorphins – or is it serotonin? Pleasure chemicals, I get them confused. But anyway, it makes you feel good.” Actor and comedian Steve Coogan on his plans to write more material for his most famous character, self-centred chat-show host Alan Partridge. Meanwhile, the fourth instalment of his The Trip series alongside frequent partner Rob Brydon is out now. Aha! THE NEW YORK TIMES I US

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

international tourist destination for Australians in 2019? 09 What are the names of the two

cantankerous old Muppets who are famous for heckling from a balcony box in The Muppet Theatre? 10 What does the “G” in 5G stand for? 11 Which Australian Prime Minister

was sworn in two days before the Wall Street Crash of 1929, which was a cause of the Great Depression? 12 How many zeros are in a googol? 13 The world’s first openly gay prince

came out on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2007. Which country is he from? 14 Which common kitchen spice is

a hallucinogen if eaten in large quantities? 15 Who is the Greek god of war? 16 Which Oscar-winner directed the

2013 film Snowpiercer? 17 What are you afraid of if you have

coulrophobia? 18 What is the name of the village in

which Arthur Miller’s 1953 play The Crucible is set? 19 Which animal has the highest

average blood pressure, about twice that of a human? 20 What is the name of the Australian

netball team?

ANSWERS ON PAGE 44

29 MAY 2020

1993, five months “The Chinese have put a before Cobain’s tax on Bali, so now we’re death. The guitar, going to go to Phuket a 1959 Martin instead for New Year’s.” D-18E, is going A train passenger on the under the hammer Chinese tariff on barley, with an estimated overheard by Elizabeth of Milton, Qld. starting price of US$1 million. Memoria, memoria.

EAR2GROUND

My Word

by Bunny Banyai @slobsofcoronavirus

hen my youngest daughter was still at kinder, one of her carers was a woman who, many years earlier, had nannied for a famous pop star. Apparently, when the star wanted to see one of his four young sons, he would place a call to the first-floor nursery and ask for the child to be brought upstairs to his lounge room on the fourth floor. When his appetite for parenting had been sated, he would place a call to the nursery again, asking for the child to be ferried back downstairs. It may be a rather cold and detached approach to parenting, but it’s one I thought about often and with envy during stage 3 coronavirus restrictions. What I wouldn’t have given for a nanny, a separate wing for the children and a bulging bank account! Maybe then I would’ve been better equipped to use the pandemic as an opportunity for personal growth and quiet reflection. From trawling Instagram, I gather many people did just that, in addition to taking up punch-needling (which is not nearly as fun or violent as it sounds), adopting a greyhound and learning how to say “My half-brother and my half-sister are married” in German. What did I learn during lockdown? Nothing. I already knew more than I could ever wish to know about myself. I already knew that while my family is my first priority, time spent away from my family is my second priority. I already knew the value of long walks in fresh air, and that 100 square metres is not enough space for five people to peacefully exist side-by-side. And I already knew how to say “My half-brother and my half-sister are married” in German (“Mein Halbbruder und meine Halbschwester sind verheiratet”). I might not have learned anything new about myself during lockdown, but I did endure two long months of attempting to conceal my true self from my partner, Tom. Relationships are supposed to be based on honesty, a notion I’ve always struggled with, as my true self is, frankly, not a good look. Most of the habits and rituals I maintain are both essential to my equilibrium, and impossible to do in the presence of others. I will fart in front of my partner. I will discuss the most crude and disgusting functions of my digestive system with him. I will even let him watch me have a human cut out of my

midsection. But I won’t let him see me pretending to be a hot starving Broadway dancer while high-kicking my way through the finale of A Chorus Line. That kind of behaviour is not cute unless you’re 24, look like Bambi and have 12 years of childhood ballet classes behind you. Then there were all the little lies that revealed themselves as time wore on and the walls began to shrink. How many treats I buy and store in secret spots around the house so no-one else can eat them. How much time I spend preparing elaborate lunches for myself, even when a laundry list of more pressing matters should preclude such indulgences. And how much I complain to Tom about how hard I work, versus how hard I actually work. I’m a freelance writer, so no-one ever really has much of an idea what I’m up to, and that’s just how I like it. Prior to lockdown, Tom would usually ask “What did you do today?” on returning home from work at night. I rarely answered “Napped like a cat, prowled the fridge shelves and thought of a funny thing to say about pomegranates during one of my two 20-minute showers”. Instead, I would answer “I worked all day!” with an indignant, what-did-you-expect-me-to-say huff, before reeling off a list of overstated achievements. Sometimes I would jokingly say “Tap-danced and brunched with the girls!” – a lie that swerved perilously close to the truth. But I’m okay with having learned no great lessons during lockdown, save for precisely how prolific a liar I am. One of the more troubling aspects of the shiny‑happy lifestyle of social-media influencers is the way they tend to insist on turning every single aspect of the human experience into a teachable moment. Do you think that during the Battle of Britain families huddling under their kitchen tables tried to find a silver lining to having the roofs blown off their homes? When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, did survivors survey the wreckage of their former homes and say “Well, this is an awesome opportunity to rethink the floor plan”? No. They were focused simply on survival, which is all one should be expected to do in the midst of a crisis. There is no obligation to emerge from the pandemic lockdown with newfound wisdom. And there is never any obligation to learn how to say “My half-brother and my half-sister are married” in German. Duolingo, who the hell is writing your language courses?!

Author and journalist Bunny Banyai has spent 99 per cent of lockdown looking at photos of people in their most abject leisurewear for her Instagram page @slobsofcoronavirus.

So what have you learned about yourself during lockdown? Bunny Banyai learned nothing – but her family discovered some home truths.

29 MAY 2020

Little Big Lies

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Aﬁte lIﬁe ¸ tHE�e’S Hope

TR ICKY RIC KY

PHOTO BY LOUISE HAYWOOD-SCHIEFER

@stevenmackenzie

ope is everything… I’ve always thought that. And I believe it. If you’ve got hope you can work towards something. It’s a medicine and a shield. I’m an optimist, I always see the good in people.” Although this does not sound like Ricky Gervais, the 58-year-old actor, writer, director, controversial comedian and awards show roaster is an unlikely source of encouragement in these troubled times. There has always been a streak of sentimentality running through his cringe-inducing humour. While painful-to-watch impressions, motivational speeches and even more excruciating dance moves were claws of The Office, the blushing romance between Dawn and Tim was the heart of Gervais’ early-00s breakthrough series. In Extras and Derek too, the relationships between characters linger in memory longer than the individual episodes. This year Gervais is still riding a wave of notoriety after his Golden Globes monologue verbally annihilated Hollywood elites – the video of which has been watched 300 million times since January. But Gervais’ ruthlessness is balanced by his sentiment and heart, again on display in the second season of his darkestyet-most-hopeful series After Life, in which he writes, directs and stars. The first series was one of Netflix’s most-watched shows in the world last year, striking a chord with a global audience. At the outset of After Life, Tony, destroyed by having lost the love of his life to cancer, contemplates suicide but decides that since he has nothing to live for he can use it as a pseudo-superpower, using his new-found nihilism as a licence to do and say whatever he wishes. The current season focuses on Tony deciding to use his abilities for good, helping those who have helped him as he navigates the darkness and light of life.

29 MAY 2020

by Steven MacKenzie The Big Issue UK

An unlikely optimist, Ricky Gervais talks grief, gratitude and sometimes doing good.

It brings us back to the impossibly idyllic English village of Tambury, where Tony bounces between a network of unlikely acquaintances played by a handpicked crop of British comedy stars, among them a feral postman (Joe Wilkinson), churchyard widow (Penelope Wilton), dementia-stricken father (David Bradley) and his unrequited romantic interest (Ashley Jensen). “He’s just starting to learn how important friends are,” Gervais explains. “In series one he was going through the seven stages of grief – shock, anger, denial, and now he’s in the negotiating phase – okay, what can I do to make me happy?” Gervais gets slushy, there’s matchmaking, a Busby Berkeley-style “hey gang, let’s put on a show!” subplot and the loveable scene-stealing dog Brandy. Before it becomes unbearably corny though, an old lady will use terribly offensive language, there will be a catalogue of inappropriateness and jokes will cut so close to the bone that the flesh is never going to heal over. “It asks a big question,” he agrees. “If you lose everything is life still worth living? When Tony nearly killed himself, he thought everything’s a bonus. I can say and do what I want. Now he thinks I’ll keep doing that but only with people who deserve it. He’s sort of like this verbal vigilante. He gets being angry at the world out of his system, but he’s choosing his targets better. Gradually, he’s realising that what can help him is being kind to others and giving something back.” Tony’s life still revolves around his late wife Lisa, played in poignant home-video flashbacks by Kerry Godliman. By a second series, most TV shows will have their lead moving on to explore more relationships. Tony – and the entire show – is still anchored by truly tangible grief that eclipses everything else in his world. “We’ve all gone through grief. And the older you get, the more grief you go through,” Gervais says. “I lost both parents about 20 years ago, I lost my older brother last year. It’s usually the natural order of things, you lose your grandparents, then your parents, then your older siblings, and all that. But Tony feels cheated because he lost his life partner too early, and that adds to the grief and that gives him anger. “The whole idea [for the series] started with what if you lost everything? Well, what is losing everything? For me, it would be my partner [Gervais has been in a 35-plus-year relationship with author Jane Fallon]. I don’t think it gets worse than losing your soulmate. So that’s where it came from.” The response from audiences who can relate has been overwhelming, and a third season of the show has just been announced. “I’ve never had a reaction like it,” he says. “It’s incredible. People coming up and saying I lost my brother or my husband. It taught me that everyone’s grieving in some way or another, Relatively recently or very recently, everyone is grieving something.” The new season’s arrival in the midst of mass uncertainty and sadness, is timely. Gervais himself seems to be coping fine with lockdown.

PHOTOS BY NETFLIX, BBC AND GETTY (FROM TOP)

A HARD DAY AT THE OFFICE

WITH REAL-LIFE PARTNER, AUTHOR JANE FALLON

AFTER LIFE IS AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX

29 MAY 2020

A CULINARY DELIGHT, AFTER LIFE STYLE

When everything’s back to normal – and we will survive this and look back at it like we have other disasters and pandemics – I hope that we can have a slightly more caring society.

“I’ve said many times you won’t hear me complain,” he confirms from his home in London. “I don’t go out socially. Usually we sit and watch telly – we’re doing that. I’d do the hour’s exercise anyway. And there’s always enough booze in the house for a nuclear winter. “When I see nurses doing 14-hour shifts and risking the health of themselves and their families, there are people in a lot worse situations than me.” The two series of After Life explore alternative ways to process and move on from tragedy: one) screw the world, and two) live for others. With society experiencing a collective trauma, does Gervais believe we can emerge from our cocoon-like isolations as butterflies, or will we return to our normal, old, unfeeling selves? “People want things to be back to normal,” he says. “Even if they didn’t like what normal was, we are creatures of habit and, you know, better the devil you know. We want our life back – for better or worse. “But I think people are starting to realise what’s important. I never want to hear people complain about the NHS again. I want them to remember that they were clapping the NHS every week. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the National Health Service and free education. I was the fourth child of an immigrant labourer. We had no money. My mum was a homemaker and she could do anything, except give me money. I quickly learned the best things in life were free – nature, friends, education and health. They trump everything. And it’s times like this where you do reflect and you do remember. “When everything’s back to normal – and we will survive this and look back at it like we have other disasters and pandemics – I hope that we can have a slightly more caring society. “But the truth is, we don’t know. There could be massive repercussions, or it could all become a strange distant memory.” Ever the unlikely optimist however, Gervais continues: “It’s still better than life was 50 years ago in many ways. We’re still in total communication. I hadn’t heard of Zoom a month ago, and now I’m speaking to friends and family. You can have your food delivered online; these massive leaps in technology make it better. “On a graph over time, with all the little peaks and troughs, society goes up and up and up. It’s better today than 50 years ago and 50 years ago was better than 100 years ago and 100 years ago was better than 1000 years ago. For everything – attitudes, life expectancy, all these things. “We’ve got to realise that it is a pretty good time to exist. Good people working in science will save us and show us the way and we’ll get through this like we always have.”

‘We Will Get Through This’ Devastated by summer’s bushfires, the community of South Australia’s Kangaroo Island is rebuilding. In part two of our series, Anastasia Safioleas and photographer Christina Simons meet the people behind the recovery effort. by Anastasia Safioleas Contributing Editor @anast

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angaroo Island is tinder dry. You can hear it in the crunch of the leaves beneath your feet. Long hot summers with record-high temperatures and little rain have become the norm. Locals speak of unusually hot galeforce southerlies. Others about a lack of backburning in recent years. Over summer this spelled disaster for the tight-knit 5000-strong community, as bushfires tore across the island just after Christmas Day, killing two people, destroying almost 100 homes and obliterating wildlife and livestock. “The fire started coming across the paddock,” recalls Simon Kelly, a sheep farmer on the South Australian island, nine weeks after the blaze. “It was like an animal racing in different directions.” Kelly is a big man, his hands weathered by a lifetime of working the land on an island his family has called home for generations. On that day, Kelly and his two grown-up sons had gone to Stokes Bay on the island’s north coast to save their sheep holding. But with reports the fire was rapidly burning eastward, they’d made the life-or-death decision to return to the family farmhouse to try to save it. “We were driving in black smoke and you just didn’t know where the fire was,” he remembers. “I kept thinking, Are we doing the right thing here? We were

passing cars going in the other direction, people waving their hands and flashing their lights at us.” Once back at the property, they pulled on CFS firefighting gear, turned on the sprinklers, and watched the red glow on the horizon. Then it began to rain embers. “When it was upon us. I said, ‘Righto, time to go inside.’” The Kelly men sat in the farmhouse watching the fire surround them, razing almost every building on the property, including the prized shearing shed. Miraculously the farmhouse and its three occupants survived. Sometime around 3am, a lost fire truck appeared through the thick smoke, unable to find its way through the fug. Kelly volunteered to take firefighters back to base. But first, he wanted to check on the houses of his neighbours. They would save two homes. It was too late for another three. The following morning Kelly and Madelyn, his wife of 30 years, found more than 5000 sheep – half their flock – dead. With the help of neighbours – and in some cases strangers who had simply heard they needed a hand – they began the gruesome task of putting down badly injured animals. Even the crew from the lost fire truck returned to help. The general consensus was no farmer should have to do such a job on their own. Kelly returned the favour to fellow farmers. Later that night, he rang three of his closest neighbours. “I had been thinking about them and feeling guilty that I couldn’t help them,” he says. “But I was so involved

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in my own little world… I said I’m sorry and that normally I would be the first person to come around and help.” Community kindness is on an endless loop here. Friends are now letting Kelly use their property until his own farm is ready again, bringing over what’s left of his flock to graze. And since he no longer has a shearing shed of his own, they’ve also given over their sheep shed and all-important wool table and wool press. It’s backbreaking work, and here in the shed, the shears click at a furious rate. Some of the wool bears black singe marks. Meanwhile Simon is helping with the mammoth clean-up of fire‑damaged properties. “Our neighbours, my cousin Lisa and David, their house burned down. We went to their property with 40 guys, front-end loaders and trucks to help clean up – you don’t want to see burned things all the time because it’s just a reminder – the looks on their faces… It was fairly emotional,” he says. The next six months will be spent repairing fire‑damaged fences, rebuilding the flock and growing crops. But what Simon is looking forward to the most is coaching the local footy team once the season is able to return, whenever that might be. “Coaching is great fun. You can have a couple of beers and catch up with everyone. They’re going to need their footy this season. They sure are,” he nods, his loyal sheep dog Boof, as always, by his side.

@christinasimons

photos by Christina Simons

TOP: SIMON KELLY BOTTOM: MADELYN KELLY

They say in a crisis, you should look for the helpers. On Kangaroo Island, you’ll find these helpers cleaning up burned properties, rebuilding farm fencing and nursing injured wildlife. A deceptively tiny dot on the map just off the South Australian coast, Kangaroo Island is almost 150km long. It teems with wildlife, a lot of it unique to the island, and is home to a thriving farming community whose output includes wool, meat, honey and grain. It’s also a world‑renowned tourist haven, with beautiful beaches and luxury eco-lodges. It’s a special place. Since the bushfires, swathes of scorched land have left many parts of Kangaroo Island unrecognisable. Locals too bear the scars from the fire’s devastating impact. You’ll find helpers at the bushfire recovery centre in Parndana. Manager Anna Osman and her team from the newly established Parndana Recovery Centre, work closely with locals affected by the fires, which includes looking after their housing needs. According to Osman, some 98 homes were lost. There is limited public housing on the island, so many have been couch-surfing, staying with family and friends. Others were able to access private rentals with the help of their insurance. Some chose to stay on their land to look after surviving stock, so a call-out was made for donations of caravans and campervans. Mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation sent over shipping containers converted into homes. “But that was late summer…and that was quite suitable then,” says Osman over the phone, when we catch up in late May. “We still have some people living in old caravans or campervans – some have pushed them into sheds or have had sheds built for them – so we’ve given them a toilet and a shower.” Meanwhile, council and the state government are working with the community on permanent housing solutions. Helpers abound at Kangaroo Island Community Education too, the main school on the island. With students from kindergarten to Year 12 spread across three campuses, most of them experienced the bushfires first‑hand and began the school year as fires still raged. Principal Maxine McSherry says most students arrived for their first day still worried about family and their homes. Others turned up exhausted, having helped put out fires on their property. “Coming back to school was fabulous because it helped build routine,” says McSherry. “And the children appreciated getting the chance to step out of the fire‑response situation and focus on something different, like their learning and meeting up with their friends.” Prior to the coronavirus lockdown, the school was tasked with holding regular health and wellbeing meetings led by McSherry with health workers, a chaplain, parent representatives and students. The catch-ups provide insight into what a community faces following a collective trauma. During the meeting we attended back in March, a nurse from

GRAEME CONNELL

‘These places are good therapy’

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

TOP: PAUL STANTON SURVEYS HIS HOME BOTTOM: STANTON’S AVIARY SURVIVED

the local health clinic spoke about the recent increase in those seeking help for mental-health issues. Some were struggling with the insurmountable task of rebuilding. This prompted a discussion about additional mental-health first-aid training, as well as suicide prevention training. Another argued for an increase in childcare hours offered in Parndana. Another for marriage counselling, unions buckling from stress. Art therapy workshops were approved, as well as a fun-run for students. Principal McSherry mentioned the sheer number of people and organisations, from here and overseas, who have offered help. But then came the coronavirus lockdown. “We were a community in recovery before we were hit with a second crisis. They were absolutely vulnerable and are still vulnerable,” says McSherry, whose students have recently returned to face-to-face classes. Osman talks about the importance of providing support to trauma survivors in the months following a crisis, and the difficulties the Kangaroo Island community has experienced amid the pandemic restrictions. “Normally our staff go to people’s properties and connect with them but we haven’t been able to do that in recent months. We spend an enormous amount of time on the phone reaching out to people, but another challenge for us here is we don’t have excellent phone reception across the island, particularly in the west. “We find women tend to talk about their feelings a lot

ools whirr noisily, sending up plumes of sawdust that hang in the air before slowly floating down again. A handful of men mill about chatting. This is Kingscote’s Men’s Shed, the local chapter of the national organisation that provides men with somewhere to potter and chat in the name of improving mental health. Since the bushfires the shed has been a hive of activity. “We have a thousand of these bee stalks to make,” says Graeme Connell, a retiree who helps run the group, as he holds up a post made of soft wood. The island’s green carpenter bee lost most of its habitat during the fires. Traditionally reliant on making a home in the dry flowering stalks of yacca plants and in the trunks and branches of dead banksia, extensive land clearing means entomologists have long resorted to building artificial nesting stalks for these beautiful jewel-like bees. Now that most of their habitat has gone, new stalks are desperately needed. “They’re a native species and there’s hardly any left,” adds retired police officer Bob Pain. But perhaps the Men’s Shed’s biggest job in the fire’s aftermath has been making kennels for the island’s farm dogs, many of whom suffered burned paws. Building kennels with a floor means they can keep their paws out of the dirt while they recover. “Dogs are very important to the farmers; they’re part of the family,” explains Connell. “We’re working with a farmer who lost everything – his home, as well as two of his dogs. He was so emotional about his dogs. His other dog burned its paws, so he got a kennel. The dog has come good now.” Not only is the Men’s Shed helping to rebuild the island, the shed is also somewhere locals can come to keep their hands busy while they have a chat. As Connell puts it: “These places are good therapy.”

We meet Paul Stanton at his property overlooking picturesque Stokes Bay, where he owns a clutch of holiday cabins overlooking the water. Normally he’d be busy tending to his wildlife sanctuary, Paul’s Place, and managing cabin bookings, but since the fires “normal life” has been put on hold. Today the cabins are filled with several local families whose homes were destroyed. It’s also where he’s relocated his own family, wife Katja and daughters Poppy, 16, and 10-year-old Sunny, after their own farmhouse further up the road was destroyed. For Stanton, whose parents settled on Kangaroo Island following WWII, offering his neighbours a place to call home seemed the logical thing to do. “It’s really hard times for everyone,” he concedes. It’s blowing a gale across the bay’s secluded beach. There are only a few hours of daylight left so it’s time to feed the kangaroos – Stanton’s been taking in

orphaned wildlife since he was a boy. In his distinctive high-pitched yell, he calls out into the wind, cutting open donated bags of fruit, vegetables and kangaroo pellets. Almost immediately, kangaroos and wallabies emerge from every direction and before long a mob has gathered. There must be at least 100 kangaroos. It’s a blessing to see them in such numbers, given the devastation of their population. Leaving the kangaroos to feed, we make our way to Stanton’s home and the sanctuary. It’s only a short drive there but first we make a brief stop in a fire-ravaged area of bush once teeming with sugar gums and she-oaks, home to the endangered glossy-black cockatoo. All that is left now are blackened stumps. Before the fires, there were estimated to be around 370 glossies on the island. Today, with up to 75 per cent of their habitat destroyed, a question mark hangs over them. The sun is beginning its descent when we arrive at Stanton’s property and begin the slow walk down its long driveway. A magnificent hand-built stone fence snakes alongside us. When the driveway finally ends, we turn into what was once the home’s frontyard. Broken tiles, snapped sheets of corrugated iron, twisted metal and a lone basketball litter the dirt. Among the debris sits a children’s trampoline, untouched by fire. Close by is the flat outline of an outdoor table, the heat having left a plastic puddle in its place. Beyond these sit the remains of what was once the Stanton family home. Look closely and you can trace the fire’s path, so clear is its passage through the house. Obvious too is the fire’s unpredictable nature.

more freely, so it’s the middle-aged [male] farmers that we worry about the most,” says Osman. “We see these normally very stoic, capable high-achieving farmers just feeling it right now. They’ve worked so hard in the past few months cleaning up, dealing with the loss of their livestock and homes, and now it’s their moment to take pause and really try and get their head around the enormity of what’s happened. “It’s an evolving challenge for us but we’re determined to see this through. We’re not going to let our community down.”

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A MOB OF ROOS GATHER FOR A FEED AT STOKES BAY

“I started building it 46 years ago; it was nearly finished. I had even kept some of the walls from the original cottage I grew up in. This house had so much love in it,” he says. Gone are the countless hand-me-downs and family mementos. Gone too are the animals. “That’s the hardest thing,” he says quietly. “That’s why Katja has trouble coming back – she can picture exactly where all the animals were in the house. Sunny came out with Katja for the first time about 10 days after the fire. Coming down the main road she saw her friend Jack’s house burned, her Uncle John’s house burned, and then she saw her house burned... It’s just too much for the kids.” We enter the house, the crunch of shattered glass and broken tiles beneath our feet. Above our heads, corrugated iron flaps loudly in the wind. The mood is sombre. Stanton shows us what’s left of the rooms, including the kitchen where family dinners were made.

BLAZEAID VOLUNTEER DECLAN LANGHAM

‘Farmers can’t function without fences’

ut at the Parndana Football Oval, trailers are being loaded with fence-building equipment and teams of people in their workwear wait to be despatched to nearby farms. They’re from BlazeAid, the volunteer organisation that works with rural communities after disasters, rebuilding fences and structures that have been damaged or destroyed. Retired Adelaide couple Greg and Ann Stevens coordinate BlazeAid’s temporary camp from the oval. “Farmers can’t function without fences – it’s the biggest stumbling block to getting farms back to normal,” explains Greg. “We put teams of people in the field, take down burned fences and put up new ones. “And we can do other things if the community wants them, like build shelter sheds for sheep. We’ve even started

I point out the broken plates beneath our feet and he nods that yes, they were once their dinner plates. Leaving behind the ruins of the house, we visit the large aviary. It somehow avoided the fires. As we sit admiring the birds a handful of kangaroos turn up, like old friends coming to visit. Paul Stanton hugs each in turn. The coronavirus restrictions are being lifted. Cafes, restaurants, shops, campgrounds and caravan parks have re-opened. Even Kangaroo Island Wildlife Park has opened its doors again. Wounds are healing, the community re-knitting. What the island needs is for people, tourists, to return. “It’s so important for our community as they recover,” says Anna Osman, “to know that they are not forgotten and that everyone is cheering for them. We will get through this.” IF YOU OR ANYONE YOU KNOW NEEDS HELP, CALL LIFELINE 13 11 14

negotiating with the local school about starting a community garden. We’re happy to do anything that helps the community get through this crisis.” BlazeAid was formed by Victorian farmers Kevin and Rhonda Butler following 2009’s Black Saturday fires. Urgently needing to rebuild their fire-damaged fence line, they put a call-out for help to family, friends and neighbours. They helped their neighbours next – and before long BlazeAid was born. But aside from building fences and sheds, BlazeAid have another, arguably more important, role to play. Often they provide a sympathetic ear to farmers struggling to cope. “If the farmer wants to talk, we talk,” says Greg. The enormous task of rebuilding the island has been supported by hundreds of volunteers from all over the world. “France, Italy, Israel, South Africa, United States, Canada, Columbia, New Zealand – right from the start we had enormous interest,” says Greg. And while COVID-19 has forced some people to leave the island, a dedicated group of volunteers is continuing this essential service. On a farm just outside of Parndana, a pair of volunteers are hard at work erecting a brand-new wire fence. In between unrolling wire and stretching it taut from post to post, Lachlan McCarthy and Declan Langham talk about the farmers they’ve met along the way. Like the one who lost almost 7000 sheep, another who watched his marriage dissolve, and the farmer who lost his home in a previous bushfire only to watch everything he had rebuilt be destroyed all over again. McCarthy is from Kurrajong in the Blue Mountains and became a BlazeAid volunteer after spending the summer watching his own home narrowly avoid bushfires. Langham from Perth was prompted to volunteer after speaking to a couple who were affected by the bushfires in East Gippsland. “Just listening to the stories and the mental toll it took on them; it was heartbreaking,” he says. “I figured this was an opportunity [to help]. It’s without a doubt the most rewarding thing I’ve done.”

The Big Picture series by Series by Klaus Pichler

A Night at the Museum Photographer Klaus Pichler went behind the scenes of Viennaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Natural History Museum â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and caught the specimens by surprise. by Melissa Fulton Deputy Editor

KLAUS PICHLER’S PHOTO SERIES IS NOW AVAILABLE AS THE BOOK, SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET. FOR MORE, GO TO KLAUSPICHLER.NET.

The taxidermy section of the Department of Zoology: bears, lions, gorillas, donkeys, antelopes and buffalo, all stacked in Tetris formation

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hotographer Klaus Pichler was on his way to a bar one night a few years back when he clapped eyes on a peculiar scene through the basement window of Vienna’s Natural History Museum: office furniture, a writing desk, some cupboards and shelves…and a stuffed antelope in the corner. “I thought it looked so strange and so funny,” he remembers. The scene marked the beginning of a three-year project for Pichler, who was granted permission by the museum to trawl the depots, cellars, corridors and storage rooms – areas typically closed to the public – of the enormous 45,000 square-metre museum. His mission? To discover what goes on behind the scenes, and how the specimens are stored when they’re not on display. Specifically, he was looking for more antelopes in office corners – what he describes as “coincidental still-lifes”. What he discovered was that the museum struggled to find adequate storage space for its many collections, especially when it came to the larger specimens, like the mammals. Instead of being ordered and categorised in the systematic zoological way you might expect, they were stacked and shoved in a manner that maximised every skerrick of available space. “It’s like animal Tetris or something,” explains Pichler. “First you have the mouse, then standing over the mouse there is the fox, then standing over the fox there’s the bear, and standing over the bear is the elephant.” Compounding the hilarity is the fact that many animal exhibits at the Natural History Museum are preserved in what Pichler describes as “calm positions” – they’re not frozen in postures of fight or flight, but rather in repose, giving the viewer the sense that they’re just chilling out, doing their thing, nothing to see here. He describes the atmosphere behind the scenes as… varied. “It’s like a mortuary more or less. But I didn’t see it as morbid – it’s more like a really crazy petting zoo,” he says. “The mood is really calm, and at the same time there are all these plastic eyes staring at you. You can also smell the animals…it’s as if you’re entering a goat farm or something – you can smell their presence.” Pichler could never really tell what exactly was in store for him at the museum, and that was his favourite part of all. “None of these photos is staged,” he reiterates. “If I were to stage them then I would be finished with this project in a week and it would be too easy.” Instead, he’d head to the museum and brace himself for what might be hiding in a dark nook or cranny – or reaching its toothy head around a corridor. “You know that moment when the curtain opens and you see the scenery and you immediately see a photo? It’s like being a little kid in front of the Christmas tree,” he says. “It was just this sweet anticipation in the morning when I was on my way to the museum, wondering what I would encounter that day when the lights were switched on.”

A shark lurks in the corridors. PichlerÂ swears this photo was not staged

RIGHT COLUMN from top to bottom — Stacks and stacks of tropical butterflies — Foxes on the shelves, just hanging, chilling, biding their time — Bones, badger busts, luce, someone’s car keys...

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LEFT COLUMN from top to bottom — Tarantula paraphernalia — There’s no drawer large enough for this mastodon skull — This monkey and badger are getting all dolled up

Ricky

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Once, I returned from three weeks away and he stopped calling me Dad. From that day forth I was Ricky.

by Ricky French @frenchricky

Here Comes the Son

’ve been writing about my son in this magazine every year, once a year, since he was five years old. In my first story he had just learned the word “milestone”. I was walking him to school and he said the incredible sentence, “Every road we cross is a milestone.” He was soon crossing those milestones alone, as he became more independent. Yesterday, just shy of his 13th birthday, he grabbed his bike from the shed, put his backpack on and rode off alone, five kilometres through the suburban badlands to visit his cousins. Essential exercise, essential growing up. We’ve been spending a lot of time together lately. Compulsory isolation and closed schools have meant we don’t have any choice, but truth be told if I had the choice I would take him everywhere, always have him around, because time on the childhood clock is quickly running out. I know this because I can now wear his shoes. Not comfortably, not without him yelling at me to get his bloody shoes off and get out of his room while I’m at it, but my feet definitely fit in them. He tells me off more than I tell him off. This is partly because he’s mostly a good kid and partly because I’m mostly a naughty boy. Sometimes I think we act more like brothers than father and son. I wind him up and he chases me around the house, a dark look plastered across his angelic face. Sometimes our fights are officially sanctioned, like our Nerf gun wars in the backyard, and very occasionally we work towards a common goal, like seeing how many times we can kick the footy to each other in row. It’s fair to say I’m more sports mad than he is. His footy concessions are mostly to placate me, to shut me up when I wander through the house whining, “Will someone play football with me?” A teenager beckons. What terror will be

unleashed when the hormones erupt and Dad becomes Household Enemy Number One? It’s a question his mum and I have gone over a lot, but all indications are that his innate compassion, kindness, sense of reason and desire not to upset Mum will quell the firestorm. He’s always fought for justice, fairness; he looks after those younger, weaker. He wants to help, to mend, to fix problems. He wants the world to get along but is very interested in war. He reads books with as much relish as I did at his age. Yes, the screen is very present, but I’m far more addicted than he is. I don’t often feel shame but I did the other night when he was trying to tell me something and I was too engrossed by my phone to listen properly. He cleared his throat. I put the phone down but it was too late: his eyes had filled with tears and he left the room and went to bed. I love how close he is to his mother. He will never hear or say a bad word against her. She is the oracle, the all-knowing and all‑sensible dispenser of indisputable wisdom. I’m not jealous that she gets hugs and I don’t. Mum is always there, always loving, and never tries to be an antagonising older sibling. The last few years have seen me go away a lot for work, and I’ve noticed the impact my absence has on us. Once, I returned from three weeks away and he stopped calling me Dad. From that day forth I was Ricky. If that sounds tragic, I wouldn’t read too much into it – informalities have always defined our family, and we all think it’s kind of funny. His parents are Mum and Ricky; suddenly I’m Mum’s new boyfriend. I wish I could get inside his head, know what wonderous schemes he has planned for his 14th year. But instead all I can do is walk in his shoes.

Ricky French is a writer, a musician and a dad.

by Fiona Scott-Norman @fscottnorman

PHOTOS BY JAMES BRAUND

here was a lot of snickering in the early days of the corona shutdown, when hairdressers were an unlikely inclusion in the “essential services” list. Even I, in a long-term co-dependent relationship with my hairdresser, wouldn’t argue that a cut, colour and blow-wave is equivalent to, say, putting out fires, manufacturing toilet paper or running the country during a pandemic. But then, mixed messages, the government didn’t flag itself as essential either, adjourning from 23 March until further notice. You can meet on Zoom, you know, it’s totally a thing. Frankly, if I’ve been forced to teach online, which is surely one of Dante’s circles of hell, then parliament could catch up via a cloud‑based video conferencing platform over crappy NBN connections like the rest of us. Also, totally worth it because they’d look like the opening sequence of The Muppets. A couple of months of lockdown, though, and my hair and I are reassessing our laissezfaire stance. Many of Australia’s salons closed anyway, because it is a) impossible to coif someone’s ’do from 1.5m away unless you’re Edward Scissorhands, and b) catching a potentially fatal virus in the line of work is not written into any salon’s charter. They draw the line, I presume, at nits. My stylist dropped her portcullis seconds after the Ruby Princess docked, texting me the recipe for my hair colour and wishing me luck. She knows, of course, that this is a low-risk manoeuvre. We are, as mentioned above, in a committed relationship, and it would feel like cheating to go elsewhere. I’m the Dog on the Tuckerbox, waiting unto death for my next appointment. I’m fairly slack when it comes to getting my roots done, but there are limits and it’s now been four months – on an existential level this is up there with discovering that Santa isn’t real. I hadn’t seen my actual hair since 1846, or at least since the 90s, and now my face is framed by what aptly looks like an actual

meteorological corona – a glowing diffraction of light – palely occupying the 4cm expanse of space between my forehead and dyeline. Like thousands of others, I am going non‑consensually grey during lockdown. It could be worse. There is nowhere to go or be. My students could care less what I look like and possibly put my salt-andpepper down to bad Zoom lighting. There’s no call to DJ a wedding with 10 guests, and the majority of my “out of the house” time is currently spent at Bunnings assessing tins of wood varnish. It’s more alarming that my current idea of “dressy” is slipping on the red trackie daks, and I have eaten so much cheese that my veins run thick with camembert. And that now I’ve typed “cheese”, I’m triggered to eat more cheese. I’d file the hair thing under “non-issue” except that I give myself a start when I look in the mirror, and now I’ve gone “this” long without colour, it feels like I have to consider actually going grey, and I absolutely cannot be arsed. The pressure is on to do it, but. COVID-19 has provided the perfect circuit-breaker for long-term dyers, and social media is awash with supportive groups called Silver Circle, Your Grey Journey, Going Grey Gracefully and the Going Gray Beauty Guide. I know this because my best friend, who is transitioning to grey, added me to Silver Revolution, and tags me in posts from transitioning redheads saying “You would rock this look”. Which is lovely, and she looks super, but I’ve just bought a house, half renovated, moved in, everything is everywhere, I’m teaching online and I’ve had transformation up to pussy’s bow, thanks. Going grey can wait. I’ll be over here. Eating cheese. On the Tuckerbox.

Fiona is a writer and comedian who’s a cutand-dye above.

29 MAY 2020

Dye Another Day

It’s more alarming that my current idea of ‘dressy’ is slipping on the red trackie daks.

Fiona

Small Screens The Beach

K ARWIC TOR WIS CHOOK, H DIRECT H , AC N E O B THORN– AND THAT R GUITA

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

The Sands of Time Warwick Thornton’s isolation – fishing and filming on a remote WA beach – was voluntary, and has resulted in a mesmering documentary by the director. by Annabel Brady-Brown Film Editor @annabelbb

scapism! Romantic, fairytale escapism!” says Warwick Thornton. The lauded Australian filmmaker is chuckling about his newest documentary, The Beach. A journey of self-empowerment and facing demons, surprisingly it’s also three of the most soothing, peaceful hours you’ll likely see on TV this year. “It was supposed to be dark and evil but it’s turned out to be romantic because everyone’s stuck in a much worse place than I was,” he says. “At least I had a beach full of barramundi and a creek full of mud crabs. People can’t do that when they’re locked in a terrace house in Glebe.” It seems life in the fast lane had left Thornton a little lost. So he decided to get away, slow down, restore. He took along three chickens, a guitar and some basic cooking supplies. To feed himself, he had to fish and hunt. The beach in question is a strip of land on the Dampier Peninsula, on the stunning northwest coast of Western Australia. Sweeping drone shots highlight

“But the beach – that country, Lombadina – is just the most incredibly beautiful country in the world.” As Thornton connects with the land, he reveals himself to be a talented chef who finds great pleasure in the slow, gentle rituals of preparing a meal. “I’ve picked up enough tricks from elders from all over the coast of Australia to be able to fish with a spear and a throw net, to be able to gather pippies and mud crab and all that stuff. That was part of it, I needed to go somewhere where I was excited. And I had ideas! Dishes and things I wanted to make. In the desert I could have done a skink stir fry, a witchetty grub stir fry, but that wouldn’t cut it for me. Now a nice mud crab or barramundi or mullet…” In this hypnotic observational series, time seems to melt away. Days are marked only by the rising and setting of the sun, and by the meals that Thornton prepares – with refreshingly little commentary – as he quietly plates up one knockout dish after another. “There’s a couple of disasters too,” he says modestly. “I spent three hours trying to make tofu and I thought, ‘I’ve got a tablespoon!’ “I tell you what though, that one tablespoon of tofu was the best I ever tasted in my life. It was so nutty and fresh and you could taste the nutrients in it. Whereas old tofu, you know, you can see why people go, ‘Oh I don’t like tofu.’ But if you buy brand new, freshly made, onehour tofu, it’s a world.” Thornton’s passion for cooking is evident, and infectious. But it also comes from a deep personal need. “My life on film shoots is pretty fast and furious, and I have to cook every day after I finish, to wind down and stop worrying about this crazy thing we do, filmmaking,

THE BEACH PREMIERES ON NITV, SBS AND SBS ON DEMAND AT 7.30PM ON FRIDAY 29 MAY.

29 MAY 2020

PHOTO BY

It was supposed to be dark… but it’s turned out to be romantic because everyone’s stuck in a much worse place.

and to see how slightly unimportant it is… Food does that for me. It slows me down and gets me back into a realistic reality of time.” In The Beach, away from the hurly-burly of a film set, cooking serves an extra ennobling role. “Cooking alone is about trying to create a respect for yourself, and in that respect there’s the idea that you, you’re actually worth this food, rather than just having a piece of toast. It’s like ‘Nah, Wark – that’s my nickname, ironically – you’re a good bloody human being and you actually need to be nurtured, and I’m going to cook you something really nice.” Across the six episodes, which initially will be aired back to back, Thornton gestures toward troubles he’s working through – empty pint glasses scattered across a pub table; a black dog hovering at a doorway – placing himself before a camera with great bravery and dignity. “From day one, being in front of the camera was like, ‘What did I just get myself into? You’re an idiot, Warwick.’ That’s the fear and the lack of self-esteem coming flooding through. It’s like, ‘Well, I need to empower myself first to be able to survive this.’” He speaks directly to camera – and to the chickens – sharing stories about his childhood, his family and his dreams. Through his delightful stream-of-consciousness prattle, he sorts through his thoughts, while leaving ample space for viewers to reach their own conclusions. “We’re always taught the first sign of madness is talking to yourself. Bullshit – it’s highly intelligent, because then you can know what you’re talking about... That was important to me, to show people there’s no fear in having a conversation with yourself.” Operating the camera is Dylan River, Thornton’s son and a talented filmmaker in his own right. River was second-unit director on Thornton’s heartbreaking take on the western, Sweet Country (2017), getting behind the camera when required, but here he takes on full cinematographic duties. Though he remains off-screen, River’s presence is felt as Thornton opens up, quite vulnerably at times. His son, he says, was a source of comfort. “If there’s anybody who I’m going to feel safe around, it’s him.” So at the end of his journey, where is Thornton? Does he feel rejuvenated, or does he still want more time away from filmmaking? “The irony is that I went straight on to Mystery Road 2,” he says, referring to the hit ABC drama about detective Jay Swan that is now in its second series, half of which Thornton directed. “Back on stage with the whip and that kind of madness. “But I handled it incredibly well, you know? After that I did post-production, and I’ve been writing some new movies, very delicate movies, and my brain’s been in a good place for that. But when they unlock the gates at the states...maybe I’ll go for another drive.”

the sparkling waters and long rugged stretches of sand, with one lone cabin facing the ocean. From his Cannes award-winning debut feature Samson and Delilah (2009) to his previous documentary, the sizzling We Don’t Need a Map (2017), Thornton’s films have powerfully captured Alice Springs, the city where he grew up, and the surrounding Central Australian desert, which includes the traditional lands of his people, the Kaytetye. So why’d he choose to hunker down in WA? “If I tried to make the show where I come from, a place near Barrow Creek… I probably would have been dead in five days. For lack of water, you know what I mean?” he laughs. “I haven’t been taught properly so I probably would’ve eaten something poisonous pretty quickly… It would be nice and quick, a funny six-minute show; me blue and bloated under a gumtree with my name carved into it.

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Music

Custard

CU STAR D BACK IN TH (F RO M LE E M IX : FT M AT TH ) PAUL M ED EW, DAVE M CCEW ST RO N G , O RM G LE N N TH AC K AN D O M PS O N

by Doug Wallen @wallendoug

Doug Wallen is a Victoria-based writer and former music editor of The Big Issue.

PHOTO BY LYNDAL IRONS

espite boasting sterling indie rock credentials, it’s all about Bandit when Dave McCormack opens his mouth today. Voicing the affable anchor of the ABC’s feel-good phenomenon Bluey, McCormack has made a cartoon blue heeler the coolest dad on TV – all while sounding just as nonchalant as he does when fronting his longtime band Custard, who have reconvened in the past decade after presiding over the 90s. “Little kids go, ‘Why do you sound like the TV dog but look like you?’” admits McCormack in his distinctly scratchy voice, followed by a generous chuckle. “Custard fans are probably weirded out that my voice is on a TV show, but 99.9 per cent of the population see it the other way: ‘Why does that old guy in a band sound like a dog?’” Founded in Brisbane in 1989, Custard were ideally positioned for stardom in the decade to follow, prioritising a wry slacker air and self-aware lyrics equally with hooky, guitar-driven songwriting. Tongue-in-cheek entries like ‘Apartment’ and ‘Girls Like That (Don’t Go for Guys Like Us)’ memorably troubled Triple J’s Hottest 100 polls, but Custard finished up when the 90s did. Based in Sydney since 1998, McCormack pursued a couple of other bands and eventually found himself soundtracking TV, movies and commercials as part of a collective called Sonar Music, which he still does today. Custard weren’t done with him, though, and the quartet minted a new chapter in 2009, releasing three albums of cracking power-pop since then. The latest, Respect All Lifeforms, is particularly appealing, balancing songwriting contributions from McCormack with others from bassist Paul Medew and drummer Glenn Thompson, while guitarist Matthew Strong rallies alongside McCormack’s own guitar playing. The results are lean, immediate and happily varied, from the daydreaming falsetto of ‘A Cat Called No’ to the fuzzy 60s flashback of ‘Wishing’ and the rollicking country twang of ‘Like People’. There’s even a cover of Camper Van Beethoven’s 1985 gem ‘Take the Skinheads Bowling’, complete with

RESPECT ALL LIFEFORMS IS OUT NOW.

29 MAY 2020

Dave McCormack’s voice is known for another reason these days, but fans of 90s rockers Custard can hear the band at it again on a new album.

Guys Like That

McCormack’s two daughters (aged six and eight) singing harmonies from the front room at home, where he records all his vocals these days. “It’s only three chords, and it has such a great feel, and I have no idea what the lyrics are about,” he says of the song’s appeal. “So that’s a triple whammy for me.” Custard started including the tune in their encore sets last year, before nailing down the music in Thompson’s Sydney studio in just a few takes. The rest of the album proceeded in much the same fashion, beginning in Fremantle while the band were in WA to play a festival. About two-thirds of the 11 songs were recorded quickly with the band playing together in the same room – including lead single ‘Funky Again’, which will be Custard’s first vinyl single since their debut release, 1990’s Rockfish Anna EP, when it surfaces for Record Store Day later this year. If the band’s initial output remains in a mixed state of physical availability – except for We Have the Technology (1997), which earned a deluxe vinyl reissue for its 20th anniversary – it’s at least available for streaming and remains a smirking highlight of Australian alternative music. There’s also the winsome best-of Goodbye Cruel World, titled to coincide with their dissolution in 2000. “It was a privilege to be there at that time in the Australian music scene, because it really was a high-water mark for gigs, festivals and TV and radio exposure,” says McCormack of Custard’s five-album run in the 90s. “I feel like we were really at the brightest possible moment for Australian music. If I could do it again, I probably just would have tried to enjoy it even more than I did. Instead of worrying about the new T-shirt design and how many people were going to be at the gig, I’d just enjoy it.” Despite his breakout involvement in Bluey and having once penned a vampire-themed song for ABC Kids’ show Giggle and Hoot, McCormack hasn’t been motivated to properly turn his hand to children’s music. And he’s more than satisfied with his day job composing music for TV series like Five Bedrooms. “It’s about not being noticed and still achieving some sort of goal, which is the exact opposite of [rock],” he quips. “[That’s] all about being noticed and not achieving much in the way of goals.” Speaking of goals, McCormack recently revisited footage of Custard’s 1997 US tour supporting The Presidents of the United States of America and Redd Kross. Did they go over well abroad? “Not at all,” he laughs. “The business there is pretty slick, and we revelled in being ramshackle and quote-unquote ‘slackers’. If there was a big crowd, we’d intentionally not play our most popular song. Just really contrary and annoying. Looking back at the footage, I can see why we didn’t get any traction there.” Now, thankfully, the band don’t need to worry about pleasing anyone but themselves. “These days we’re all about spontaneity: just get into a space and bash out the songs without too much forethought,” says McCormack. “Those results are much more enjoyable.”

Beyond Belief

Podcasts

PODCAST ST AND BELIEVERHO , JERICO MANDYBUR

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Believe It Or Not Self-described DIY witch Jerico Mandybur is back with a chatty new podcast that explores all things woo woo – and she welcomes the skeptics to tune in too. by Aimee Knight Small Screens Editor @siraimeeknight

rowing up, there was a house on my street that seemed haunted to me,” says Jerico Mandybur. She recalls the dark brown bricks of suburban Australia: a small-town scene that almost looked like something from a black-and-white movie. It was spooky stuff. A girl-boss even then, Mandybur tried to form a “haunted house club” with her school friends. “We could go to the house, take photos and inspect them for ghosts,” she suggested. They weren’t super into it, so the would-be ghostbusters of Sydney Basin never got off the ground. Two decades later, and on the other side of the world, Mandybur’s work is still compelled by that same curiosity, and her fervour to bring other folk into the fold. Beyond Belief is a conversational podcast about faith’s fluxing role in the modern world. Hosted by Mandybur – a writer, broadcaster and more – the series features such intriguing guests as a psychic medium, a conjure scholar, a satanic feminist and a dolphin communicator. In their candid, captivating chats, they unpack what it means, and how it feels, to be a believer.

Mandybur’s mum from baptising her tween daughters Catholic to get them into “the good” high school in the 1990s.) In recent years, Mandybur’s surfer dad spent time living in China’s Shaolin Temple, training as a kung fu Sifu. “It was very diverse,” says the DIY witch of her theistic rearing. “I wasn’t particularly attached to any of it, but I think I got something out of all of it.” Beyond Belief is the spiritual successor to Mandybur’s previous podcast, Self Service. A sonic celebration of selfcare, it was produced by the Los Angelean website Girlboss (that of the eponymous 2017 Netflix series) where Mandybur was founding editorial director. Since Self Service wrapped in 2018, the conversation around self-care has evolved considerably. Many, including Mandybur, feel that the term has become a marketing buzzword, worn out from overuse. “Self Service was so comforting,” she reflects. “I was kinda sick of comforting.” On the topic of social media, Mandybur notes that the algorithms fuelling our newsfeeds tend to serve us content that only reinforces our existing views. “There’s a certain amount of coddling you can do with yourself,” she says, “but [challenging] what you think or what you do is probably a stronger form of self-care, ultimately.” Perhaps owing to her journalistic spirit, Mandybur prefers stories that are curious and questioning. “I think that gives people a greater gift.” She doesn’t want Beyond Belief to simply preach to the converted. In fact, she admits that – while all her

BEYOND BELIEF IS AVAILABLE WHEREVER YOU GET YOUR PODCASTS.

29 MAY 2020

PHOTO BY ISABELLA BEHRAVEN

There are things I definitely believe in: I practise magic, I love astrology, I’m a tarot reader.

interviewees are endlessly fascinating – some of them adhere to ideologies she doesn’t necessarily agree with. And to skeptical listeners who may cringe at the idea of dolphin telepathy or DMT entities (seemingly autonomous beings seen under the influence of ayahuasca), Mandybur says, “even if you think that me and the guests are totally zany, you might still learn something”. She definitely has. During her research, Mandybur has fallen down many a Wikipedia rabbit hole – which has thrown up some notable and interesting factoids. “When seances first popped up, young women were really drawn to [mediumship] as a profession because they actually experienced a bit of financial freedom and power,” she says. While recording episode five, Mandybur was surprised to learn that most stigmatists – those who bear mysterious wounds resembling Jesus’ during crucifixion – were, and still are, women. “There’s an aspect where they have agency and they’re respected in a religion that otherwise has no space for them,” she explains. “If we want power, just get the wounds of Christ and bleed for a while,” she jokes. “We can have it all!” From astrological charts to animal communication, the conversational fodder typical for Beyond Belief has traditionally been that of women, people of colour and queer communities. Historically, this has made such far-out topics all the easier to belittle, demonise and dismiss. “I don’t know why certain things, just because you might associate them with single, older women – dolphins for example – are less important,” Mandybur muses. Despite decades of scientific study into dolphin cognition and communication, the subject – explored in depth in episode four – remains “one that people scoff at because it’s romantic,” she says. “All of the episodes show things that are dismissed in one way or another. That’s the whole point of the show.” Based in LA, Mandybur notices seismic differences in the way Americans versus Australians discuss matters cosmological. In the US, religious and spiritual history is “intertwined with the political and the sense of nationhood,” says the Sydney expat. “That might be why people here are much more open to talking about spirituality. They’re very individualistic and proud of it. They could be evangelical Christians or super New Age, but they’re willing to talk about it a lot. “In Australia, I think it’s seen as a bit more private,” she says. “There’s a greater sense of not rocking the boat. “If you say something controversial, or even if you just have a more ‘marginal’ faith or religious identity, you’re targeted. “People are made examples of all the time, and that’s [seen as] further evidence that maybe they shouldn’t talk about some things, which is such a shame.” Mandybur shares a quote that inspired Beyond Belief’s overarching ethos of curiosity, compassion and respect. “Seriousness isn’t defined by subject matter,” she says. “It’s defined by the quality of the conversation.”

In the show’s introductory episode, Mandybur likens herself to The X Files’ Agent Mulder, whose iconic “I Want to Believe” poster signifies an open heart and open mind, with a whiff of healthy hesitation. Does Mandybur believe, or does she just want to? “It’s so hard to unravel those two things,” she says. “There are things I definitely believe in: I practise magic, I love astrology, I’m a tarot reader.” Last year, the author released her second book, Neo Tarot, complete with a deck beautifully illustrated by Argentina’s Daiana Ruiz. “At the same time, I’m not very attached to what I personally believe. I know that there’s so much I don’t understand,” she says. “I definitely believe in believing. That’s what makes me so curious about other people’s beliefs.” Mandybur’s childhood was a kaleidoscope of religious codes and spiritual pursuits. Her mum is Egyptian, and her Coptic Orthodox grandparents were “very superstitious”, practising dream interpretation and coffee cup reading. Before she was born, Mandybur’s parents converted to Seventh Day Adventism, but their liberal attitudes grew too “laissez-faire” for the church’s elders. (This didn’t stop

Imbi Neeme

Books 34

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

I was interested in exploring these moments, big and small, upon which our entire lives can turn.

by Thuy On Books Editor @thuy_on

PHOTO BY MILES STANDISH

he book originally had a working title of Each Other because it encapsulated the togetherness and separateness of the sister relationship. But it quickly grew into something quite different and it was obvious to me that it needed something else. It didn’t take me too long to settle on The Spill,” says Melbourne-based Imbi Neeme of her debut offering. She admits that she loves to make a title work hard and, indeed, The Spill refers not only to a car accident involving a pair of sisters and their mother that bookends the novel but “also to a fall, or the revealing of secrets, or something being knocked over”. Having won the 2019 Penguin Literary Prize for her novel, a delighted Neeme says she regards The Spill as “one of the zombies in World War Z that, through sheer persistence and luck, has managed to climb over all the other zombies to reach the top of the Jerusalem Wall. There are so many wonderful writers and books out there trying to find a publisher, and somehow mine managed to find the right path through all the clutter and noise.” It’s not surprising that her book beat a path past the other contenders; it’s a warm, deftly observed multi‑narrative about the inherent messiness of life and relationships. It begins in 1982 as siblings, nine‑year-old Samantha and Nicole, 11, are waiting outside a pub for their mum, Tina. The three have just been in a car accident on a remote WA road and Tina, who’s a bit shocked by the turn of affairs, is inside drinking to celebrate the fact that they’ve incurred only minor injuries. The action then jumps ahead decades and the sisters unite once again – to bury their mother. Tina’s alcoholism has brought on acute liver failure, a fact that continues to enrage Samantha, who tries in vain to restrict the supply of booze at the wake. She

THE SPILL IS OUT 2 JUNE

29 MAY 2020

Novelist Imbi Neeme has hit the jackpot with her first novel, which began with a childhood car crash.

Spill Life

feels a lot of unresolved emotions at the funeral: “Regret, sadness, despair. Fury.” Partly inspired by Neeme’s own childhood experience of a car crash, the book uses the auto wreckage to explore more subtle emotional damage wrought by the collision. “I have this memory of looking at our car on its side and thinking that it looked fine, but then seeing it later and realising it was completely wrecked. While I had a couple of scratches that needed stitches, the accident ended up having a huge impact on who I was as a person,” Neeme says. “I was interested in exploring these moments, big and small, upon which our entire lives can turn, and I began to imagine a fictitious mother and her two daughters in a similar car accident. Where were they going? Where had they come from? What happened to them next?” Set in Perth, The Spill is about familial and long‑term romantic relationships. It deals with fractured step-families and how the sins of parents can be passed on to offspring. The narrative’s scaffolding is life’s major events: birthdays, deaths, weddings and parties. And many readers will recognise the push and pull of sibling rivalries, and the cultural references that pin the novel to its time and place (Fraggle Rock, The Bold and the Beautiful and video stores). At Nicole’s 21st birthday party, Samantha’s speech includes the words “As sisters… I like to think we will always be each other’s seat belt.” It’s a lovely sentiment, conferring notions of protection and care. The book itself is dedicated to Neeme’s own two sisters, “as a love letter to the sister relationship with all its closeness and complexities”. But the author admits that her two fictional creations are actually a meld of her own personality. “Like Samantha, I tend to be a bit of a control freak, but also, like Nicole, I often have trouble voicing my desires or opinions,” she says. Aside from the occasionally strained bonds of sisterhood, the ravages of alcoholism are also explored in the novel in a way that Neeme hopes isn’t “didactic or judgey”. Tina, a cheery dipsomaniac, is an agent of chaos in The Spill, but her character is three‑dimensional. “I didn’t want to write her as tragic, cruel or abusive – ironically, she’s at her meanest when she’s at her most sober. But at the same time, I didn’t want to completely condone her ‘party girl’ behaviour,” says Neeme. As past and present collide, for the brittle Samantha there are memories that sting like “glass into flesh”. Neeme structures the book like a giant jigsaw, where the reader is slowly given pieces, and, over time, is able to make sense of the larger picture. By the book’s end, each character’s perspective spills into the next one’s, coalescing into a nuanced picture of family, of varying shades of light and dark.

Film Reviews

Annabel Brady-Brown Film Editor @annnabelbb

he film world continues to scramble and adapt to these bizarro times. Earlier this month, cinemas in South Korea reopened – with some multiplexes attempting to lure back moviegoers by replacing their human staff with AI robots that can sell tickets and candy, thus avoiding any of that messy human contact. Australian cinemas are praying they’ll be able to reopen by July. Christopher Nolan’s latest time-melting sci‑fi blockbuster Tenet is ready-in-waiting for the emotional homecoming. In simpler times, the Cannes Film Festival would’ve just wrapped, with Spike Lee’s jury honouring the winners. Instead, we can console ourselves by marking calendars for three digital festivals. From 29 May to 7 June, We Are One: A Global Film Festival sees Cannes and 20 of the world’s major festivals link up to co-present a free program of films, shorts, docos and talks via YouTube.com/WeAreOne, and raise funds for the World Health Organisation. The Sydney Film Festival is on board – plus, from 10-21 June they’re sharing elements of their 2020 line-up, with a virtual program focused on premier Australian documentaries. A curated collection of 40 films from the festival’s 67-year history will also be made available on SBS. Meanwhile, the Melbourne International Film Festival has announced MIFF 68½, an online showcase of 40-odd new-release films from around the world via a ticketed platform (6-23 August). ABB

TENET’S JOHN DAVID WASHINGTON IS JUST WAITING FOR THAT VIRUS TO GO AWAY

THE TRIP TO GREECE  | DIGITAL RELEASE

Greece is the word in the fourth and final instalment of Michael Winterbottom’s comedic travelogue series. This time around, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon – as before, playing lightly fictionalised versions of themselves – set out to retrace the steps of Odysseus (albeit while cruising in a Range Rover singing Barry Gibb numbers: conditions far removed from those of Homer’s hero). “A 10-year odyssey in six days,” says Brydon, as they tuck into the first meal of their whistle-stop scenic tour. “It’s ambitious, Steve.” Ambitious, the film is not: Winterbottom doesn’t mess with the tried-and-true formula established a decade ago for Coogan and Brydon’s inaugural restaurant tour – though the rivalry between the pair appears to have mellowed with age. If the fourth helping was never going to taste quite as fresh as the first Trip, or indeed the second (2014’s The Trip to Italy), there’s still plenty to savour: the banter, barbs and impersonations fly as freely as ever, over mussels on smoked pine needles with espresso powder, and other such delicacies. KEVA YORK BEANPOLE

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

 | MUBI

Inspired by the Nobel Prize-winner Svetlana Alexievich’s The Unwomanly Face of War, an oral history recounting the experiences of Soviet women in wartime, Kantemir Balagov’s scintillating second feature focuses on the intense friendship between Iya and Masha – two former soldiers, reunited in Leningrad just after the end of WWII. The pair (played superbly by newcomers Viktoria Miroshnichenko and Vasilisa Perelygina) don’t talk much about the war, but their young, ravaged bodies betray their suffering. The towering, delicate Iya’s PTSD frequently renders her catatonic, while tough-as-nails Masha is no longer able to bear children. Peacetime, though, offers little solace. They work at a military hospital whose corridors are filled with numb, haunted men. Despite the horrors, this Cannes award-winner is immenselly beautiful, drenched in a sickly, saturated palette. Through the gloom these women cling to each other, and we to them. Balagov is a young talent to watch. ANNABEL BRADY-BROWN

THE VAST OF NIGHT  | AMAZON

Director Andrew Patterson’s feature debut is by and large a lo-fi love letter to the classic Rod Serling anthology series The Twilight Zone (1959-1964). With a slow zoom into an old TV set, the film transports us through the static into one momentous, mid-century night in the fictional town of Cayuga, New Mexico. A mysterious radio interference couples up switchboard operator Fay (Sierra McCormick) and radio DJ Everett (Jake Horowitz), and the two resourceful, gadget-obsessed teens set out to survey their small town for the signal’s source. Patterson’s direction is bold and suspenseful, and he isn’t afraid to indulge a long take. As such, the duo’s speedy banter, bewildering monologues and cross-town travels play out with great charm. What these makeshift sleuths ultimately discover isn’t nearly as compelling as the tense preceding events – I want to believe there’s a better ending! – but their journey is an enjoyable, minimalist throwback to postwar American paranoia and technological mystique. SAMUEL HARRIS

Small Screen Reviews

Aimee Knight Small Screens Editor @siraimeeknight

FILTHY RICH AND HOMELESS  | SBS + SBS ON DEMAND

OPERATION BUFFALO

 | STAN

 | ABC TV + ABC IVIEW

Who do we have to become – and meet first – before we can find a forever kind of love? Writer Sam Boyd (In a Relationship) and executive producer Paul Feig (Bridesmaids) turn a dangerously syrupy premise into a charming and addictive series. Darby (Anna Kendrick, Pitch Perfect) is a hapless but goodnatured twentysomething recently moved to New York. This anthology series has all the ingredients of a modern rom-com, from sassy roommates and insufferable nemeses, to a revolving cast of unconventionally handsome suitors, and an all-knowing narrator. The first three episodes introduce the usual archetypes: the older ex-boss; the sensitive, clingy one-night stand; and the one who moved away for his career. This isn’t a series of formulaic meet-cutes and break-ups like Amazon Studio’s Modern Love. Rather, it shares more in common with offbeat love stories like Stranger Than Fiction or Frances Ha. A delightful comfort watch, Love Life offers a front-row seat to the epiphanies and self-sabotage that shape who we’re supposed to be. NATHANIA GILSON

“This is a work of historical fiction,” advises the intertitle preceding each episode of this homegrown, high-end, satirical drama series. “But a lot of the really bad history actually happened.” The strangely sloppy wording doesn’t invalidate the truth of the statement. Named for the first British nuclear tests at Maralinga, starting in 1956, Operation Buffalo recreates a sordid chapter of Australian history, which saw both Indigenous and Anglo communities made casualties of the Cold War. Writer-director Peter Duncan (Rake) transports viewers to the top-secret outpost in the South Australian desert, where scientific milestones are celebrated with cake topped by a mushroom cloud of meringue, and concerns regarding the potential fall-out from the tests – radioactive and ethical – are brushed off by batty General Crankford (James Cromwell) with claims that everything is “tickety-boo”. With a cast led by Ewen Leslie and Jessica De Gouw, Operation Buffalo is no Dr Strangelove, but it’s not without charm or intrigue, nor lashings of wit. Premieres 31 May. KEVA YORK

s COVID-19 restrictions soften, some of us will be venturing back out into public, and I daresay we will all be thinking about the consequences. It’s a fitting time for storytellers to mull on the meanings of “public” as a concept, then submit their ideas for a podcast on the theme to the Wheeler Centre’s Signal Boost initiative. Signal Boost is a spin-off from the live podcast pitching competition, So You Think You Can Pod. It was created in response to the myriad types of support that emerging podcasters have requested – primarily, creative backing and industry recognition. The program is a sonic leg-up that matches five new podcasters with experienced mentors who’ll foster their creative vision and introduce them to industry peers. The Wheeler Centre will provide recording equipment and editing software for experimentation, and the budding audio storytellers will hone their skills at intensive workshops led by radio and podcasting luminaries. For producers who’d like feedback from the award-winning team behind The Messenger, this sounds like a dream opportunity. Now in its second year, Signal Boost’s inaugural participants include Annaliese Redlich, whose inquisitive new series All Ears explores how music manifests in everyday life. Produced by Melbourne’s communitydriven podcast network Broadwave, it’s set to launch on 8 June wherever you get podcasts. Signal Boost applications close 17 June – head to wheelercentre.com for details. I’m crossing my digits for you! AK

29 MAY 2020

LOVE LIFE

SIGNAL BOOST: PODCAST AWAY

The kindness of strangers only gets folk so far in this urgent televisual event. The third season sees five public figures dropped on New South Wales’ loneliest streets, where they spend 10 nights experiencing the frigid realities of homelessness in Australia. While the “high profile” participants aren’t particularly recognisable, their journeys toward empathy, respect and action do deserve attention. Emergency physician Dr Andrew Rochford and Melbourne’s Deputy Lord Mayor Arron Wood show admirable vulnerability as their ignorance is exposed and their privilege stripped away, albeit temporarily. The show also platforms people grappling with long-term housing instability. Their stories of trauma and injustice stress the cracks in the system through which many Australians can, and do, fall. Narration from Colin Friels gives additional facts, stats and context, educating without moralising. The confronting themes are tough going, of course, but this is an honourable document bearing witness to a homegrown crisis. We shouldn’t look away. Airs nightly 9-11 June. AIMEE KNIGHT

Music Reviews

Sarah Smith Music Editor

LITTLE RICHARD: FLAIR’N’HAIR

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

he year we lost Bowie and Prince, just months apart, seemed like some shocking cosmic joke. Both were still making music, their influence was felt right up until their deaths, and beyond. I remember thinking there couldn’t be a more significant pairing of musicians to pass so close together. Yet 2020 has presented some extraordinary losses in extraordinary times. Within weeks we said farewell to Afrobeat pioneer Tony Allen; godfather of electronic music, Kraftwerk’s Florian Schneider; and the man who invented rock’n’roll, Little Richard. The influence of these three musicians cannot be understated, and the tributes that have followed their deaths have said more than I possibly could in truncated form here. Each were architects of sounds that would go on to shape modern music; their legacies are right there in the DNA of their songs. But with Little Richard, it was more than just the music. His legacy is in his very essence – the spirit of rock music. As a gay black man, who wore make-up and extravagant pompadours, he invented a genre, which would for many years be dominated by straight white men. And because of this, there were decades when his true influence would be overshadowed by those who walked in his wake. Little Richard not only wrote the sound, he also juiced the very essence of what it meant to be a rock star: the style, the bombast, the flair. Look to any frontperson that has followed him and you’ll see the tiniest bit of Little Richard sparkle. SS

@sarah_smithie

HOW MUCH WORKS SWEET WHIRL 

“Do you remember?” begins Esther Edquist, on ‘Make That Up for Me’, midway into her third Sweet Whirl album, How Much Works. The Melburnian songwriter then evokes a specific memory (“We pulled up at the top of a strange, vertiginous view”), and the way she uses “you” – on this song, and across the whole LP – sounds like an entreaty to a single listener, likely a lover. The audience is ushered, as interlopers, into this intimate space by the music’s hushed quality and the lyrics’ evocative imagery. The mood is moody, with Edquist’s compositions largely kept to piano and keyboards, often with minimal rhythmic backing. Sometimes, there’s a vintage-pop chime to her chords, the figure of the classic singer-songwriter summoned in both sound and word (“Yours are the only love songs I’ve ever written in a major key,” she sings in ‘Patterns of Nature’). Even then, there’s never a sense that this is music about music, though; or an album concerned with style. Edquist has other things, and memories, on her mind. ANTHONY CAREW

SXTP4 THE-DREAM

TO LOVE IS TO LIVE JEHNNY BETH

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With SXTP4, The-Dream is not reinventing the R&B wheel. What the artist does here though, is provide a 13-track slow jam masterclass. As the fourth instalment of his Sextape series, The-Dream doesn’t waste time in setting the mood. This is music for adults y’all, and he knows how to work lyricism and production in a way that doesn’t make the final result sleazy or ultra voyeuristic. Rhythms pound, electronic beats trigger and weave around rich harmonies. ‘Wee Hours’ – the only track with a guest feature, courtesy of Jhené Aiko – stretches melody and plays with the balance of sweet and dirty. Sex – its explicit and multi-layered nature – is at the core of each song, but never cheaply played for shock effect. The-Dream reminds us why he is a master of his craft and stands out as a clear influence on a wide range of contemporaries, from The Weeknd to Chris Brown and more recently, Jacquees. SXTP4 thrives in its explicit nature, but still makes for a satisfying listen.

Savages frontwoman Jehnny Beth channels existential questioning into her first solo album, swapping her punk roots for industrial rock and doing away with melodic convention. It’s an intriguing treatise on modern life. “I don’t even care about sex anymore; I want to do things with innocence,” Beth snarls on ‘Innocence’. The best songs on the album are those where Beth shows her full range – from a barely contained, almost shaky whisper to a soul-bearing shout. You can hear the emotion as it builds in ‘Flower’, while ‘The Rooms’ and the stunning ‘French Countryside’ strip it all back to a gentle piano accompanied by Beth’s powerful and controlled voice. The album highlight is ‘I’m the Man’, a screeching middle finger to the patriarchy that sonically takes a leaf out of the Nine Inch Nails songbook. While not every song is memorable, To Love Is to Live gives Beth space to shine away from the four walls of Savages, providing a stronger sense of who she is and how she experiences the world.

SOSEFINA FUAMOLI

GISELLE AU-NHIEN NGUYEN

Book Reviews

Thuy On Books Editor @thuy_on

THROAT ELLEN VAN NEERVEN

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Four murders, across four countries, all to hide one terrible secret. Like any good journalist, Olivia Wolfe has made her share of enemies. But Olivia has made her name exposing chilling crimes from across the globe, and that makes her enemies more deadly than most. What connects a British politician, a Vietnamese billionaire and a poor South African teacher to a series of gruesome murders? Discovering the answer will put Wolfe in grave danger, and leave readers wondering if she will stay alive long enough to expose an international conspiracy of shocking depth and depravity. Taking its readers into the dark world of global trade in exotic species, this is a brutal and confronting novel, forcing us to reassess the morality of the hunter against the survival of the hunted. How many types of assassins are there, and who are their ultimate targets? A gripping tale, filled with action and intrigue in equal measure, Prey is certain to cement Larkin’s growing reputation as one of Australia’s leading thriller writers. CRAIG BUCHANAN

Ellen van Neerven’s second poetry collection does indeed grab you by the throat. Like their previous works, van Neerven covers the politics of sex, identity and race, traversing history and contemporary discourse in words that are both passionate and urgent. A particularly strong poem speaks of a “ship-shaped hole in the forest” that’s still “recovering from the fright of colonisation”. At one point, the author asks we readers to enter into a treaty with them. It’s a good reminder of the various land transactions that have played out in this country and their lasting effects on van Neerven, their Indigenous forebears and First Nations people in general. Elsewhere, van Neerven looks at family support – “the stitching of care between generations pulls us all in” – and celebrates 40 years of Mardi Gras and 60,000-plus years of gender diversity in ‘The Only Blak Queen in the World’. At once celebratory and condemnatory, Throat is always compelling. THUY ON

THE GROT PAT GRANT 

The Grot, Pat Grant’s new graphic novel for young adults, follows teenage brothers Penn and Lippy as they attempt to set up shop in Falter City – a cutthroat place full of hustlers and confidence tricksters, “where anyone willing to get filthy can also get rich”. Falter’s ramshackle streets are brought vividly to life by the wonderful pairing of Grant’s linework and Fionn McCabe’s hand-painted colours. Some ecological disaster seems to have befallen the city (and perhaps the world): there’s no electricity, a plague is slowly working its way through the streets and the grot – a fetid swamp through which unfortunate algae prospectors wade – surrounds Falter on all sides. While the book never lacks momentum, its central storyline is often less compelling than the background details that fill Grant’s panels and hint at the possibility of a more developed vision of this world than the one we’re given. It doesn’t help either that the sense of humour never strikes a balance with the seriousness of social commentary that underpins everything. JACK ROWLAND

PREY L.A. LARKIN

29 MAY 2020

dults, of course, aren’t the only ones who’ve been in isolation lockdown thanks to the pandemic; a lot of households have been dealing with the demands of remote learning. Many parents and carers have had to concede to their little ones spending more time on screens for educational purposes. But don’t forget books! Here are just a couple of new releases for kids. For young adults there’s Eliza Henry Jones’ How to Grow a Family Tree, which explores the perennial YA themes of family and identity. Though it deals in part with trauma and addiction, there are also rays of hope as it champions the messiness and imperfections of family life. Another YA offering is a thriller by Sarah Epstein. Deep Water is a twisty mystery set in a small town, with multiple teenage narrators and a timeline that shifts back and forth. It’s pacey and engaging. For middle-graders, Jessica Miller’s The Republic of Birds is a mythical creation inspired by Russian folklore. There’s magic and adventure here, and a strong female protagonist. Speaking of which, there’s the beautifully detailed picture-book Who’s Your Real Mum? – by Bernadette Green and by Anna Zobel – which is about little Elvi’s two female parents. There’s also Bluey: The Beach, starring everybody’s favourite TV blue heeler, which has just taken out The Australian Book Industry Awards’ Book of the Year – the first-ever children’s book to win the prize. TO

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Tastes Like Home edited by Anastasia Safioleas

PHOTOS BY FAST ED HALMAGYI

Tastes Like Home Fast Ed Halmagyi

Raspberry Coconut Cheesecake Slice Ingredients

Fast Ed says…

Serves 12

’m something of an accidental chef. Unlike so many of my colleagues and heroes, I wasn’t one of those kids who grew up fascinated by cookery or surrounded by culinary excellence. No, my journey began because I was what might charitably be described as an “unsettled kid”. While I did well at school, I was easily distracted, constantly inattentive and spent more time in detention than I did in maths class. Once I had moved schools for the second time (and no, not by choice), my dad had quite reasonably had enough and sent me out to get a part-time job, hoping that the rigour and structure of a workplace might be the tonic to soothe my waywardness. By pure chance, I got a job as a kitchenhand in a quite good restaurant. Within months I had started cooking and, to be honest, I never looked back. While I did go to uni to start a law degree, feeling considerable pressure to make use of good HSC marks, I walked away after a few years and threw myself into the one thing I had ever loved, and the one place I had ever really felt at home – the kitchen. This was my tribe. I was in love with pastry cookery and baking, regardless of the anti-social hours or constant burns. You see, there is genuine love in desserts that resists all attempts to tamp it down. These are not the foods you need to eat; they are the foods you want to eat. They are not sustenance, but a gift of affection. There is so much heartfelt hospitality in pastry cookery, an authentic desire to take care of others. That love, that kindness, is the thing that has maintained my passion over the last 30 years. These days I try to share that passion through TV, radio and online, as well as running my own photography business that has an obvious bent towards food. I guess I have come to learn that what binds these together – the food, the TV, the writing, the imagery – is storytelling. That’s what I am – a storyteller. It only took me half my life to work it out, but hey, it’s a pretty cool thing to finally know who I really am.

Preheat oven to 180°C. Place the biscuits in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until crumbly. Mix with the melted butter and 2 egg whites, then press into the bottom of a lined 17cm x 27cm slice pan. Bake for 15 minutes, then set aside to cool. Meanwhile, place the cream cheese, caster sugar, cornflour, vanilla, lemon zest, remaining eggs and yolks in the bowl of a food processor and puree until smooth. Fold in the coconut cream, then pour over the biscuit base. Scatter the raspberries on top. Reduce heat to 160°C, then bake for 30 minutes, until just set. Refrigerate until firm, then slice and serve with toasted coconut flakes, fresh raspberries and whipped cream. TI P

* Be sure to use full-cream block cream cheese, not light or spreadable. Only the original cream cheese will set properly.

YOU CAN WATCH FAST ED COOK UP A STORM ON CHANNEL 7’S BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS.

29 MAY 2020

Method

250g Granita biscuits 75g unsalted butter, melted 7 eggs 500g cream cheese* 125g caster sugar 1½ tablespoons cornflour 1 teaspoon vanilla paste 1 lemon, zest finely grated 1 cup coconut cream 1½ cups frozen raspberries Toasted coconut flakes, fresh raspberries and whipped cream, to serve

Public Service Announcement

by Lorin Clarke @lorinimus

The power of old books should not be underestimated. They smell superb; they contain engaging characters, great conversations and beautiful vistas – and if you’ve read them before, you even know the ending isn’t going to enrage you. Sometimes, at someone’s house, or a library, or a bookshop, the act of recognising a familiar book on a bookshelf can make a person smile to nobody. Old music is the same. The right song is like a time-travel device. I went on a run recently – belted through the streets like a hero to the pounding music of my youth, a local hero winning against the odds. When I came home, I switched to some more relaxed

tunes and – oh no! – there I was, still puffing slightly from my run, frozen in the middle of the lounge room. How the algorithm knew what song would move me at that precise moment, I don’t want to know, but I stood, quietly, forehead against the glass, and listened to every note, watching the birds out the window, and music, my very good friend, was there for me when I needed it. You know what’s nice to revisit from the past? Latent skills. I have recently rediscovered my old friend colouring-in. Not those deliberately meditative grownup colouring books, but big kids’ ones that require acres of colouring, meadows of it, drifting in a breeze of my own making, the smell of pencils reminding me of what? Childhood? School? A parent? While colouring in those meadows of green (it was a frog of some sort, I think), I looked down at one point at my pencil and there, on the side of it, was my name, written in neat capital letters. The paint carefully nicked off the side of the pencil with a Stanley knife in the days before I started school for the year. What year? My first year of school? My last? A little historical relic right there in my hand, several decades later, the careful capitals of my dad at about the age I am now, delivering him to me, right in my kitchen. Latent colouring skills and little domestic relics. Friends forever. Other lifelong friends include favourite meals, silly movies you’ve watched a thousand times and will watch another thousand even though you definitely don’t need to, certain exercises (throwing a frisbee will always be my friend) and, of course, the lovely friend that is clean sheets on a cold night when you’re thoroughly exhausted. Public Service Announcement: you have more friends than you think you do. Call them. They’d love to see more of you. I’m planning to visit my old friend clean sheets on a cold night tonight. Now that’s a reunion that’s almost romantic.

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.

had occasion, recently, to look through a bunch of old photos. Being as I am (according to my young children) a citizen of ancient vintage, I am of course talking about those old-fashioned paper photos you’ve probably seen on display in museums. There was one photo – gosh I look like I was having such a wonderful time, grinning and looking affectionately around at the group of lovely faces surrounding me. Such a good time is being had. The family member looking over my shoulder paused on the way past and commented on how nice it was that I had found a photo of some old friends. Which it would have been…had I recognised a single other person in the photograph. As a kid, I think I imagined I’d have the same friends my whole life, but actually, a more accurate depiction of the life I was living at that particular time when that particular photo was taken would have been just me and a pile of books. That’s not meant to be sad. I know if it were a movie it would be the lonely opening scene and over the next 90 minutes I would let myself go and finally connect with the people round me, but to me at the time, in my real actual life, it was exactly what I needed and entirely wonderful in every way. In fact, looking back now, now that I don’t have much time for the books that sustained me so well back then, I realise how much I miss them. Public Service Announcement: sometimes the comfort of old friends is a wonderful thing, and sometimes those friends aren’t people.

29 MAY 2020

Friends Forever

Puzzles By Lingo! by Lauren Gawne lingthusiasm.com GALAH

CLUES 5 letters Bee’s defence Discolour Feeling of dread Holy personage Lustrous silk

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

6 letters Aston _, sports car manufacturer Classification Domesticating Overexert Page border 7 letters Decorate (food) Lose lustre 8 letters Painful, acute

G R S T

N A

H M

Sudoku

by websudoku.com

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

3 7 6 7 8 2 6 5 1

7 2

6 1 7 2 9 8

Puzzle by websudoku.com

Solutions CROSSWORD DOWN 1 Asia 2 Wasp 3 Adjourns 4 Speedo 5 Holstein 6 Weirdo 7 Disaster 8 Integral 11 Pence 15 Gravitas 16 Navigate 17 Shake-ups 19 Mourning 20 Again 22 Liners 24 Topics 27 Earn 28 Tick

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 Stand-up comedian 10 Approve 12 Surname 13 On purpose 14 Outer 15 Genesis 18 Numeral 21 Anvil 23 Arthurian 25 Ingenue 26 Pungent 29 Anthropocentric

Word Builder

The galah, with its distinctive pink and grey colours, is a native of Australia. The word is from the Yuwaalaraay language, spoken in northern New South Wales. The Yuwaalaraay word is more like gilaa, and is similar to the name of the bird in other languages of New South Wales. The earliest use of galah for a fool was in a 1944 novel We Were the Rats, about Australian soldiers in the WWII battle of Tobruk. The galah is a species of cockatoo, which is not an Australian word, but Malay (kakatua). The word was borrowed into Dutch as kaketoe, where cockatiel was coined (kaketielje “little cockatoo”). The English spelling was probably influenced by the existing bird word cock.

20 QUESTIONS PAGE 9 1 Two – for Best Spoken Word Album, 2006 and 2008 2 48 years (the first can opener was patented in the US in 1858) 3 The skull 4 Galileo Galilei 5 My Brilliant Friend 6 27 7 Iran 8 New Zealand 9 Statler and Waldorf 10 Generation 11 Jim Scullin 12 100 (10 100) 13 India, Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil 14 Nutmeg (don’t try this at home) 15 Ares 16 Bong Joon-ho 17 Clowns 18 Salem 19 Giraffe 20 The Diamonds

Crossword

by Chris Black

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

Quick Clues ACROSS

9 Comic (5-2,8) 10 Rubber-stamp (7) 12 Family tree entry (7) 13 Deliberately (2,7) 14 Exterior (5) 15 English rock band (7) 18 Digit (7) 21 Blacksmith’s block (5) 23 Of a legendary king (9) 25 Innocent young woman (7) 26 Biting (7) 29 Focused on humans (15)

DOWN

Cryptic Clues

Solutions

29 MAY 2020

7 2 8 9 5 6 1 4 3

WORD BUILDER

9 4 3 7 1 2 6 8 5

5 Sting Stain Angst Saint Satin 6 Martin Rating Taming Strain Margin 7 Garnish Tarnish 8 Smarting 9 Hamstring

perspective? (15)

rearrangements? (5-3)

19 Grief heard before noon (8) 20 Once more, leaders arrange grand assembly at home (5) 22 Covers ships (6) 24 Henry IV left hot climate to subjects (6) 27 Clear ‘Bear Necessities’ sample (4) 28 Minute parasite (4)

5 1 6 4 3 8 2 9 7

designation (7)

13 Deliberately open: pours liquid (2,7) 14 External networking devices uncovered (5) 15 Wilder little sibling’s invention (7) 18 Setter surrounded by strange lunar figure (7) 21 Kumble takes five-for, striking frequently? (5) 23 Two blokes referring to mythical king (9) 25 Adapted genuine stock character (7) 26 Sharp 9-across? (7) 29 A chronic portent shifted pro-human

3 5 9 6 4 1 7 2 8

donuts? (5-2,8)

SUDOKU Puzzle by websudoku.com

DOWN

1 Faisalabad held up entire continent (4) 2 Bug WhatsApp periodically (4) 3 Overwhelmed by commercials, contracted journo retires (8) 4 Unexpectedly depose PM once attached to these? (6) 5 The lions savaged cattle (8) 6 Eccentric Australian director/comedian/painter/author (6) 7 Princess and Queen enlisted SAS: time for catastrophe (8) 8 Fundamental triangle collapsed (8) 11 Small change for US politician (5) 15 Redeploy a vast rig with dignity (8) 16 Terrible ruler climbed gate to direct (8) 17 Kesha upset with distribution company’s

2 8 1 3 9 7 5 6 4

ACROSS

9 Funny fellow fixed a pandemic with 10 Endorse program with McManus (7) 12 I depart African nation for family

1 Large land mass (4) 2 Insect (4) 3 Suspends (8) 4 Swimwear (6) 5 Type of cow (8) 6 Creep (6) 7 Fiasco (8) 8 Essential (8) 11 British currency (5) 15 Solemnity (8) 16 Guide (8) 17 Reshuffles (5-3) 19 Lament (8) 20 Anew (5) 22 Record holders (6) 24 Talking points (6) 27 Make, as money (4) 28 Clock sound (4)

4 6 7 8 2 5 3 1 9

8 7 5 1 6 9 4 3 2

1 3 2 5 8 4 9 7 6

6 9 4 2 7 3 8 5 1

Click 22 APRIL 1978

Bob Marley

words by Michael Epis photo by Getty

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

ho is that white dude on stage with Jamaican reggae superstar Bob Marley? Edward Seaga, Jamaica’s Opposition Leader – possibly the man who ordered Marley killed. To backtrack: in 1962 Jamaica won independence, after 468 years of colonial rule. In 1972 a socialist government was elected – and foreign power returned in the form of the CIA, which set about destabilising the country (as former CIA agent Philip Agee has detailed). The violence was reaching fever pitch as Marley prepared to give a big concert on Sunday 5 December 1976. After the concert was announced, Prime Minister Michael Manley called a general election for 15 December. To many, it looked like Marley was performing for the government. He received multiple death threats. On the Friday night before the gig he was at his home, 56 Hope Road, when the gunmen – as many as seven – arrived. A hail of bullets raked the house while an assassin stalked its corridors shooting from two pistols. Marley was shot, a bullet lodging in his left arm. His wife Rita was shot, her head grazed and bloodied. His manager Don Taylor was shot, badly. Rumours abounded. The government bodyguards had disappeared just before the gunmen arrived.

Debts were owed. The opposition had been against the concert. A US crew had come to film it – headed by Carl Colby, whose father, in a mind-boggling coincidence, had finished up as head of the CIA earlier that year. Despite his wounds, Marley performed. And left Jamaica the next day. He returned, 16 months later, because two men – two rival gang lords – had met in jail, compared stories, and concluded they were being used by the politicians under whose protection they operated. One of them travelled to London to persuade Marley to return. And give a big concert to unite the country, which had dissolved into lawlessness. Marley agreed. And so on 22 April 1978 tens of thousands convened in Jamaica’s National Stadium for the One Love Peace Concert. Marley surprised everyone by inviting on stage PM Manley – and his rival, Edward Seaga, in the picture above. Years later, in the documentary Who Shot the Sheriff?, Seaga was asked if the CIA was working with his party. He looks down and away, and says: “I have never spoken with the CIA, man. I really don’t know.” Which is an evasion, a non-denial and a non-answer. Ever the diplomat, Marley wrote off the assassination attempt as “one of dem tings”.