The Big Issue Australia #666 - Neighbours

Ed.

AFTER 37 YEARS, IT’S GOODBYE TO RAMSAY STREET

666 22 JUL 2022

xx.

NEIGHBOURHOODS COSPLAY and CHICKEN & RISONI SOUP

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Contents

EDITION

666 18 Real-Life Neighbours Lisa Walker remembers the four young men who became her neighbours’ neighbours when she rented out her house, while Vin Maskell can’t forget a very special neighbour he once had.

20 THE BIG PICTURE

Just Cos “Who hasn’t had the desire just to be someone else for a while?” asks photographer Klaus Pichler, as he delves deep into the world of cosplay.

12.

There Goes the Neighbourhood Neighbours has been a constant in Australian life across five decades, and as it comes to its end Anthony Morris casts an eye over the dramas (bombs and fires), the weddings (human and canine) and special guests (Shane Warne and Paula Abdul) of the suburban show that somehow turned out to be a star factory. cover photo by Zuma/australscope contents photos by Fremantle Australia

THE REGULARS

04 05 06 08 11 27

Ed’s Letter & Your Say Meet Your Vendor Streetsheet Hearsay & 20 Questions My Word Ricky

34 35 36 37 39 43

Film Reviews 45 Crossword Small Screen Reviews 46 Click Music Reviews Book Reviews Public Service Announcement Puzzles

40 TASTES LIKE HOME

Lemony Chicken and Risoni Soup Jessica Beaton was gifted this nourishing soup after having her fourth child – she has loved and shared the recipe ever since.

Ed’s Letter

by Amy Hetherington Editor @amyhetherington

With a Little Understanding

T

here was a handmade card waiting at the front door. A lovely welcome home present from my thoughtful neighbour – he’s five. On the front he’d drawn a portrait of me in a pink dress with a purple face and sparkly black hair.

My partner Aaron’s long bushy beard, a remnant from successive COVID lockdowns, was drawn in the same fancy sparkly black pen. We’d been out of town for a month, caring for a relative – and it was nice to know we’d been missed.

As writer Lisa Walker observes in this edition, “It’s a unique relationship the one with our neighbours… We might not be married, but we’re bonded for life.”

We live in an apartment block of 18 in St Kilda that maybe feels more Melrose Place than Neighbours. It’s made up of two art deco buildings, with a driveway running up the middle, fringed with a few palm trees. During the pandemic, we’ve got to know one another a little

bit better. A WhatsApp group was established, and it’s become a message board for neighbours sharing grapefruit and herbs from the garden; someone made a big batch of marmalade; others request help to feed their cats and dogs over the weekend. When the weather’s nice, people sit out on their stoops or pull up a chair for an end-of-the day wine and a natter. The closest we’ve come to the soapie-style drama of Neighbours was the time someone’s sheets were stolen off the communal washing line. Or perhaps the earthquake of 2021 – a tame version of the tornado that ripped through Ramsay Street in 2014.

In this edition we pay tribute to Neighbours as it comes to an end after 37 years, after launching many a household name. At its heart, Neighbours captured the everyday lives and dramas of suburban Australia – and then some!

And reminded us that neighbours can be more than just the people who live next door, they can be good friends.

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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 25 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 magazine.

Your Say LETTER OF THE FORTNIGHT

I was going to write to say that I was missing the regular column from Fiona Scott-Norman, but was pleased to see a note in Ed#664 saying that she will be returning.

The column in its place by Stephen was fantastic and I hope that there is enough space to have them both contribute in the future. Lastly, I just wanted to say that I received a call from the subscriptions team thanking me for renewing and that was such a thoughtful thing to do. Keep up the good work and I’ll keep reading!

TESS MAHONEY FOOTSCRAY I VIC

Thanks for the great issue highlighting the importance of libraries [Ed#663]. I thought I’d share another type of library that is becoming more common, and has positive local impacts – tool libraries, like the Inner West Tool Library in Sydney. Tool libraries allow the community to access hundreds of tools, equipment and other useful things for a fraction of the usual cost.

Keep up the great work.

AMY CROUCHER ROSEBERY I NSW

• 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 24 locations around the country.

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Tess wins a copy of The Family Meal Solution. You can check out the recipe for Lemony Chicken and Risoni Soup on page 40. 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 I was born in Cessnock in NSW and lived in institutions from a very young age. I have a lot of pain from this time – it should have never happened to me or to anyone.

I am finally living in my own apartment, and this is the thing in my life that I am most proud of. Moving into my own home has been my lifelong dream. I love living where I do as everything is close by. Most importantly, I live right next to the tram line. This has been a massive boost to my independence as I can now travel around Newcastle on my own.

This newfound independence has made me keen to meet new people and make new friends. But this has turned out to be much harder than I thought because I have no speech. I’ve found that a lot of people don’t know how to relate to me or ignore me.

I use my nose to drive my wheelchair, with my red Big Issue bag and an information sheet that has details about me and the magazine, as well as how to pay and get your change. I use this information sheet and an app on my phone to communicate basic messages with my customers, including regulars.

I love selling The Big Issue. It’s a bridge for me to meet new people in my community. My favourite part of the job is when customers stop and chat – selling The Big Issue allows me to start conversations when previously people found it difficult or didn’t know how to talk to me. One of my favourite people is Darren, who runs the local Foodworks near my home. Darren is my very good friend. He is always supporting me with selling The Big Issue around his store and sometimes he buys from me.

Since starting as a vendor, I haven’t looked back. This is my first steady form of income – I make selling magazines a priority each day. I am selling more and more issues each fortnight, and the money I make is a bonus! I’m saving up for a holiday. I want to be able to get out and experience more of the world. I love meeting new people and seeing new things, so I think a cruise would be perfect for me.

When I am not selling magazines, I love catching up with my family and friends and socialising. I often visit my mum Lola, who lives in a nursing home. Sometimes my friends stay over and we go out to the city, often to see live music or go to karaoke.

I have an amazing circle of support – Jennifer, Stuart, Jen, Linda, Alisha and Cayt. This group of family and friends meet with me regularly to support me to take action on my dreams and my goals. I have big plans for the future. I want to become a successful businessman and filmmaker, and I want to travel around the country and the world.

The Big Issue has allowed me to explore new places, meet new people and be part of my community. I can put the past behind me and focus on my future.

SELLS THE BIG ISSUE IN NEWCASTLE, NSW

PROUD UNIFORM PARTNER OF THE BIG ISSUE VENDORS.

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22 JUL 2022

interview by Teya Duncan photo by Simone de Peak

Rob

Streetsheet

Stories, poems and pictures by Big Issue vendors and friends

VENDOR SPOTLIGHT

DAVID L

Orange

DAVID: PLANE SAILING

The Need for Speed

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I

was so excited when the new Top Gun: Maverick came to cinemas. I remembered the first one clear as day, and I have watched it about half a dozen times.

I used to be in the Air Cadets in the UK; I was 14 at the time. I have flown in small planes and gliders. I have experienced only a fraction of the aerobatic manoeuvres in the film. Flying upside down is so nerve‑racking – you think the canopy on the aircraft will come open. Gliders don’t have an engine, so you are winched up.

I studied different aircraft and helicopters. My favourite aircraft that I was able to witness, but have never been on, was the Concorde. The Concorde was one of the fastest passenger aircraft in the

world. But my most favourite is actually the Red Arrows, the RAF aerobatics display team. They are really good to watch at an air show – the formations they fly, the aerobatics they do are spectacular. The vapour smoke, which is very colourful, is a combo of 25 per cent of dye and 75 per cent of diesel to make wonderful displays.

I don’t want to share my thoughts about both Top Gun films. I don’t want to ruin them for people who haven’t watched them yet. But I do love the soundtrack from the first one. Anyway, I must say you need to watch the first film before watching the second one. You must sit back and watch Top Gun – it’s epic.

DAVID L MYERS BRIDGE & HAY ST MALL I PERTH

Double pluggers Tiptoe through the tulips I will keep dancing To the rhythm of the clock The blood moon is rising Shoes off around the campfire Sweet orange scents Goldfish to admire Swimming in their bowl Orange at sunrise Orange at sunset Sun’s in my eyes Burning my skin I’m stronger than you know Raindrops in a sun shower Marigolds dance in wind Googling orange as I go A sister poem to blue I did do!

LYNN R (AKA NOVA L CHRISTEEN) I NEWCASTLE

Gone Fishing One of the best things I did during summer was head out fishing near Fremantle with the people from Ability WA. Mum and I fish from jetties sometimes, but being on a boat out in the ocean was awesome.

I really loved being out in the open water, and the volunteers were all so helpful. I caught 13 fish, including a few snapper, so Mum and I are planning to be eating a bit of fish! I’m already looking forward to going again next summer.

MATT MURRAY STREET MALL I PERTH

Warm Thanks I would like to thank the unsung heroes and heroines who have volunteered their time to help us stay warm and survive the winter

by providing lots of knitwear to the office – scarves, gloves, beanies etc. I think it’s fabulous. It makes a great difference to me out on pitch.

I can do a better job and work more comfortably when I stay warm out there. It helps my selling and makes for a much more pleasant experience out in the elements. It’s greatly appreciated.

Space for Jesus

I was so happy to see Molly Meldrum on the cover of Ed#662.

I met him about 15 years ago at Subiaco Oval. We were watching a footy game and we got to have a chat. He’s a nice person to talk to.

It was great to meet him!

I was out trying to sell The Big Issue in Brisbane City and someone pointed to the front cover of Ed#645 showing Costa Georgiadis.

“That’s Jesus,” he said. “It could be,” I retorted, not really knowing what I was on about. But he made me think: it could have been Jesus.

And while I am not a Christian man, I think if Jesus were alive today he would be an average run-of-themill kind of bloke with a good heart and a sense of humour. Now I don’t believe in Jesus anymore, but there was a time in my life that I think if I were with Jesus, all my fears would have faded away and we would be mates. That’s the message I have for all you people who believe or don’t believe: give me the man, and I will give you the true spirit of the man.

STEVE W ELIZABETH QUAY I PERTH

MARC L I BRISBANE

LOUIS ARTS CENTRE, SOUTH MELBOURNE MARKET & SOUTHERN CROSS STATION I MELBOURNE

Good Golly Molly

ALL VENDOR CONTRIBUTORS TO STREETSHEET ARE PAID FOR THEIR WORK.

Vale Maria We were very sad to hear of the tragic death of Maria G. She had been selling The Big Issue since 2010. Maria’s gentle nature will be missed by all of us.

Our thoughts are with her family and partner.

KATE DAWSON VENDOR SUPPORT I ACT

SPONSORED BY LORD MAYOR’S CHARITABLE FOUNDATION. COMMUNITY PHILANTHROPY MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN GREATER MELBOURNE AND BEYOND.

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22 JUL 2022

MARIA WITH FELLOW VENDOR TAU, CHRISTMAS 2017

Hearsay

Andrew Weldon Cartoonist

Tricia had all the good qualities of humans without the bad. She was one of my best friends.

Perth Zoo will not be the same for many people throughout Western Australia without Tricia.

Steve Edmunds, a senior keeper at Perth Zoo, pays tribute to Tricia the elephant, a big name at the zoo for more than six decades, who died peacefully at 65, surrounded by her carers.

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WA TODAY I AU

“It’s a pretty simple recipe – it’s a snag, a bit of bread and some sauce and onion to taste… We understand very much the really important role the humble snag plays in the community’s psyche.”

Mike Schneider, Bunnings managing director, on the $1 price rise of the humble Bunnings sausage sizzle – the fundraising snag will now set you back $3.50.

“I’ve just lived and done what I wanted to do, I’ve eaten what I want to eat, and I’ve drunk what I want to drink…probably too much but that’s about all.”

POW survivor and Hervey Bay local Dennis Jackson, who still brews his own brandy, on his secret on living to 100.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH I AU

“We did go through a trial-anderror process when he first came into care and unfortunately this animal here only likes the most expensive lettuce we have.”

Dayna Plater, from Sydney Sea Life Aquarium, on Pig the dugong’s caviar tastes. He munches through 35kg of cos lettuce a day, attracting an eye-watering grocery bill of $18,000 a month!

“You have to brush your teeth, then floss your teeth, then rinse your mouth; it’s a manual, multi‑step process. The big innovation here is that the robotics system can do all three in a single, hands-free, automated way.”

Hyun (Michel) Koo, from University of Pennsylvania’s School of Dental Medicine, on the development of shapeshifting robotic micro-swarms that may one day replace your toothbrush – and then humanity.

SKY NEWS I AU

SCIENCE DAILY I US

ABC I AU

“What happened to you to be so content on being so loudly upset by the size of my boobs and body?”

Actor Florence Pugh hits back at the “vulgar” social media commentary over her body, after she wore a sheer Valentino dress to a fashion show.

THE GUARDIAN I UK

“When I heard him, I felt like throwing the phone on the floor and being transported to him from all the joy I felt. The excitement and joy of getting a response from him made me forget everything that happened.”

Sir Mo Farah’s mother Aisha on reuniting with the UK’s champion Olympic athlete after decades apart.

Farah revealed he was trafficked from Somalia to the UK as a child, and forced to work as a domestic servant.

BBC I UK

“The water around us was boiling, because the animals were coming up all the time and causing splashes. It was thrilling, just standing there and watching it.”

Helena Herr, from University of Hamburg, of the huge “fin whale party” of some 150 southern fin whales JAPAN TODAY I JN

“Our national vegetable has been defiled.”

Conor, an Irish journalist and potato chip taster, on the controversial new flavour of Tayto crisps: fizzy cola.

Never fiddle with dee potatoes.

THE IRISH TIMES I IR

“[The rock] did look like a seal face. The darker parts were about the same distance as the eyes… so you can understand why the software found a face.”

Krista Ingram, a biologist at Colgate University, on SealNet, new facialrecognition software that helps track harbour seals in New York – 85 per cent of the time. Our lips are sealed.

SMITHSONIAN MAG I US

20 Questions

by Rachael Wallace

01 Which country is the world’s

largest consumer of coffee per capita: a) Norway, b) Switzerland, c) Finland or d) Italy?

02 How many Mission: Impossible

films starring Tom Cruise have been released so far?

03 What is a flacon?

04 Who is the Queen’s eldest grandchild?

05 Which team boasts the highest score

in AFL/VFL history, kicking 239 points in 1992?

06 Which singer left $2500 in her will

for her friends to have a party after her death at 27?

07 Who is the Australian journalist

who in 2014 was sentenced to seven years in prison in Egypt?

08 True or false? The Eiffel Tower

shrinks by some 15cm in winter.

“There’s nothing to eat. There’s no petrol. We can’t go anywhere.

There’s nothing at all.”

Deyarathna Liyanage, an 80-yearold farmer, on the economic crisis engulfing his native Sri Lanka, which has left people living on the edge, unable to buy even the basics.

THE NEW YORK TIMES I US

“I’ve seen...little girls playing with Barbie dolls, and certainly at the beginning they were all very

CNN I US

“It’s true, I myself had to skip my period around Wimbledon for the reason that I didn’t want to worry about bleeding through, as we already have enough other stress.”

Tennis player Daria Saville on the impracticalities of Wimbledon’s strict all-white dress code.

Treehouse series of kids books?

10 Which mammal is native to WA’s

Rottnest Island?

11 Who sang the 2000 duet ‘Kids’?

12 Writing under the pseudonym

Helen Demidenko, Helen Dale caused controversy when she won the Miles Franklin Award in 1995. What was the name of her winning novel?

13 Which of Elizabeth Taylor’s seven

husbands did she marry twice?

14 In June, Australia’s first commercial

space launch took off from a site in which state or territory?

15 Wimbledon winner Elena Rybakina

is the first grand slam champion from which nation?

THE DAILY AUS I AU

16 What country is directly to the north

“The people that are on the posters on my bedroom wall, that I grew up looking at every morning, I now have their contact info and we’re talking about shared experiences.

It’s incredible.”

Ms. Marvel star Iman Vellani on her newfound superpower: fame.

17 In which city would you find the

NME I UK

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

of Lithuania?

Q1 skyscraper, Australia’s tallest building?

18 What does the CTRL+Z keyboard

shortcut do?

19 Actor Nicola Peltz recently married

who: a) Brooklyn Beckham, b) Timothée Chalamet, c) Cole Sprouse or d) Asa Butterfield?

20 What was the maiden name

of Eleanor Roosevelt?

ANSWERS ON PAGE 43

22 JUL 2022

THE MERCURY I AU

girly-girly, and I thought little girls need...some choice.”

Primatologist Jane Goodall on the new Barbie doll in her likeness, made from recycled plastic and with a chimpanzee by her side.

09

“The original languages hadn’t Maddy: “Dad, do been spoken you know what for nearly 200 MOM means? years – kind of Made of Money!” frozen, as it were, Overheard by Tuan or sleeping, as in Melbourne. we say.”

Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre program coordinator Annie Reynolds on the palawa kani program that is restoring First Nations languages once spoken across the island.

EAR2GROUND

09 Which duo created the bestselling

My Word

by Jess Ho @thatjessho

The Fruit of Love

Jess Ho is best known for their take-no-prisoners opinions on the hospitality industry. They have been writing about food and drink for the last decade. Raised by Wolves (Affirm Press) is Jess’ first book.

22 JUL 2022

I

am not a dessert person. It’s probably a hangover from my Cantonese upbringing when every meal, including ones at restaurants, ended with fruit.

Every time I went to visit my aunty, my dad always made sure he had a tray of seasonal fruit to present to her as soon as we walked through the door. She’d receive it with glee and chill a selection of pieces in preparation for dessert.

My uncle and aunty both worked in restaurants and inherited an old lazy Susan banquet table. My uncle would always prepare food for days – marinating, hanging and deep-frying – to put together a ridiculous spread even though it would be a casual Tuesday night dinner, where my older cousins would be late to the table because they’d be hanging with friends at uni.

My favourite cousin is five years older than me, which is an unfathomably large gap when you’re a kid. I was just finishing up primary school when he was agonising over Year 12, taking driving lessons and enjoying the thrill of underage drinking. He is the best. He never talked to me like a child, and we’d always sit around the dinner table battling it out for our favourite dishes with chopsticks and elbows, taking control of the table with a deceptively placed spin. My uncle told us to sit next to each other to contain our pokes and prods, and also because we had the same palate, which we share with our grandfather.

My uncle would cook homely, old-people food for us, and sweet and sour pork for my sister. She made the mistake of saying she liked it once, so he’d fry up a massive plate for her every fortnight and expect her to do the heavy lifting. Even 20 years later, the mention of her name has him battering pork and rigging up the gas in the backyard.

While she choked down sweet and sour, my cousin and I would stuff ourselves with cabbage, braised tofu, taro and fish. When dinner was over, we’d sit around bagging out each other’s favourite TV shows. We’d be mid-argument when my aunt would clear the table and put down a huge platter of cut, seasonal fruit that had been chilled to the perfect eating temperature, and insist we finish it all.

Mangoes would be sliced off their cheeks, crosshatched and turned out. Lychees would sit in bunches next to washed grapes, glistening cherries and chunks of watermelon. In the winter, oranges would be mostly teased from the rind so we could pop the segments into

our mouths. Rockmelon would come with bite-sized chunks carved out for ease of eating. Pomelos would be peeled from their helmet-like skin and popped from their thick membranes, revealing perfectly undressed segments. There would always be bowls on the side for pits, skins and shells.

It was the perfect pacifier.

As I got older and cooked dinner for my friends, I learned that putting together a fruit platter is a pain.

Having already picked and purchased the perfect fruit to ripen at home, so it isn’t covered with bruises and dents, you have to wash everything thoroughly, ahead of time, so you’re not serving wet fruit. You can’t pre-cut the fruit and stash it away or it will dry out. Cutting, popping, peeling and flipping also inevitably leaves you covered in oils and juices, so you have to wear something that you’re willing to ruin. And no matter how easy you make it to eat, you will always end up with leftovers.

Everything I know about fruit, I learned from my aunt.

She taught me about seasonality, which state grew which fruit best, the difference between good and bad produce, and how to choose the best specimens. Citrus had to be heavy because it meant it was full of juice. Strawberries are ripe only when the shoulders are fully blushed. She laughed at how my dad would pick up and knock on watermelons, because she’d just flip them over and look for the discoloured spot that was obscured from the sun. If it was yellow, it meant that it was super sweet. “What is he listening for?” she’d say mockingly.

I’d watch her put together a fruit snack for herself – her cuts were utilitarian, each piece often still dripping in water that would pool on the bottom of the dish.

“Why don’t you make it nice like you do for us?” I’d ask.

“Because it’s just for me.”

During my childhood, I spent hours watching her carve and arrange fruit, absorbing the secrets of how to prise flesh from pith and shell. Eventually, I realised that while she presented fruit to us with such care and precision, she never touched a single piece of it herself. She was too busy eating the offcuts and bruised pieces in the kitchen that never made it to the platter. She saved the best bits for us – one of her many silent expressions of love.

11

Jess Ho recalls a food ritual from their youth, where the beauty lies in simplicity.

THERE GOES THE

d o o h r u o Neighb After 37 years, almost 9000 episodes, 63 weddings, 20 births and 68 deaths, Neighbours is coming to an end. We look back at the street that looked back at us.

by Anthony Morris @morrbeat

Anthony Morris is a freelance writer specialising in film, pop culture and bad jokes.

E

ven if you’ve never seen an episode, you know the theme song. For almost four decades, Neighbours has been a celebration of a certain kind of daggy yet relatable Australia, albeit one packed with high drama.

But now it seems, those good neighbours aren’t needed any more. After UK network Channel 5 decided to stop airing the long-running Australian soap, local producers have axed the iconic series. A 90-minute finale will go to air on 28 July on Network 10.

It may have had its biggest success overseas, but even in its most over the top or silly moments, it remained at heart a soap opera about a bunch of families living on a regular, nondescript suburban street in middle Australia.

(Let’s skip past the fact Ramsay Street was obviously a dead-end court.)

When Neighbours made its debut on Channel 7 on 18 March 1985, it was a new approach to drama in Australia. Unapologetically suburban and relatively low stakes compared to its then rivals, it was an attempt to win viewers by reflecting their lives back at them.

Created by producer Reg Watson after his success with Sons & Daughters (he was also responsible for Prisoner and The Young Doctors), he took his inspiration from the more down-to-earth soaps coming out of the UK. “I wanted to show three families living in a small street in a Melbourne suburb, who are friends,” Watson said in the book Neighbours: Behind the Scenes.

weak. After four months Channel 7 gave it the axe.

Channel 10, which needed a new drama to freshen up its schedule, swooped in and picked it up for a second series.

A better fit on the more youth-orientated Ten, especially once a revamp added a number of younger characters, Neighbours rapidly went from strength to strength. And so began the story of Scott Robinson (Jason Donovan) and Charlene Mitchell (Kylie Minogue). Rapidly entangled in an on-again, off-again romance after Scott catches Charlene trying to break into her mother Madge’s house, they soon – with the help of the Channel 10 publicity machine – became the series’ breakout stars.

It seemed that Neighbours-mania couldn’t get much bigger when Scott and Charlene walked down the aisle in an episode that aired on 1 July 1987. A ratings smash, it was watched by more than two million viewers, or one in eight Australians. The Donovan and Minogue publicity tour saw near riots at shopping centres across the nation. Both would soon release hit singles. And yet, they were still only getting started.

22 JUL 2022

“Humour was to play a big part in it and the other important thing was to show young people communicating with older people… The show’s simplicity is where its strength is.”

At home in the fictional suburb of Erinsborough (the real Ramsay Street is Pin Oak Court, in Melbourne’s Vermont South), it originally focused on three families: the Ramsays, the Robinsons and the Clarkes. A lot of families have come and gone since then, especially in recent years as the show gradually – some say reluctantly – became more diverse and reflective of the real Australia. (The show’s production company Fremantle Media last year commissioned an independent review into allegations of racism on set.) Some faces have stayed the same, original cast member Stefan Dennis (who plays local bad guy Paul Robinson) a series mainstay to the end.

While Watson would later joke that he aimed too low when in his initial pitch he modestly claimed that the series could maybe run for 20 years, at first it didn’t seem likely it’d make 20 weeks. While it rated well in Melbourne, the Sydney numbers were

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BY XXX FREMANTLE/NETWORK 10, GETTY

GOODBYE NEIGHBOURS

Classicts Momen

2003

2004

DEE AND TOADIE SEAL THE DEAL

THE LASSITERS COMPLEX BURNS DOWN

1987

CHARLENE AND SCOTT GET MARRIED!

In late 1986 Neighbours began airing in the UK on BBC One, with each episode shown twice a day, at lunchtime and early evening.

By 1990, it was pulling in more than 20 million viewers a day (with fans reportedly including Princess Diana and the Queen Mother). With episodes airing a year or so

rumours she’d be returning for the show’s 30th anniversary in 2014, she was glad Charlene hadn’t been killed off. “I’m just happy that she’s still around,” she told the UK’s ITV. “I have such fond memories of Neighbours.” So it’s no surprise – and no secret – that she and Jason Donovan will be back for the final episode.

Even at its most over the top…it remained at heart a soap opera about a bunch of families living on a regular, nondescript suburban street.

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later in the UK, Minogue and Donovan were ready-made stars with singles set to go by the time the marriage episode aired; they’d both leave the series within a few months of each other to chase overseas stardom.

Minogue has always spoken highly of her time on the series. Even when refuting

SCOTT AND CHARLENE: BACK TOGETHER

“Both Kylie and Jason needed very little persuading at all,” current Neighbours executive producer Jason Herbison told Inside Soap. “It’s a lovely show of respect to Neighbours, and I was thrilled when they said yes. It didn’t feel right to end the show without them.” He could’ve also mentioned Mark Little as Joe Mangel, who’s also returning – alongside Guy Pearce, Natalie Bassingthwaighte, Olympia Valance, Peter O’Brien, Ian Smith and others – for the series’ farewell.

Kylie and Jason’s success established a familiar pattern, as the show became a stepping stone for Australian acting talent.

While it was usually the younger actors who benefited, older ones did well out of it too.

Alan Dale, who played Jim Robinson, headed off to the US and became a familiar face playing rogue generals and rogue presidents in a variety of dramas and action films such as NCIS, Ugly Betty and Captain America: Winter Soldier.

It’s probably easier to name an Australian actor who didn’t get their start on Neighbours.

Chris Hemsworth appeared in one episode, while brother Liam had a multi-episode story arc as a paraplegic surfer (eldest brother Luke was also briefly on board). Radha

2015

2018

WILD WEDDING FOR DONNA (MARGOT ROBBIE)

NINA (DELTA GOODREM) BACK FOR THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY

MAGDA (AS CELEBRANT JEMIMA) WEDS AARON AND DAVID

Mitchell, Holly Valance, Delta Goodrem, Natalie Imbruglia and Brooke Satchwell were all regulars; Margot Robbie played Donna Brown for three years. Guy Pearce was an early mainstay; Russell Crowe had a four-episode storyline as a con man and Ben Mendelsohn was an early love interest of Charlene’s.

Several celebrity fans have also made a guest appearance over the years: The Wiggles, Lily Allen, Clive James, The Spice Girls’ Emma Bunton, Shane Warne, André Rieu and, inexplicably, Paula Abdul, to name just a few of the famous faces who have appeared on the soap.

If the chance to spot a big name wasn’t enough to draw you in, the plotlines weren’t afraid to go for broke.

Who could forget Bouncer’s dream sequence in which he got married?

(Bouncer, in case you’ve forgotten, was a dog.) Then there was Harold (among others) coming back from the dead; Madeleine West playing both Toadie “Toadfish” Rebecchi’s wife and a con artist pretending to be Toadie’s wife; and the classic storyline where Susan Kennedy (Jackie Woodburne) had amnesia and thought she was 16 (she was in her forties at the time).

Neighbours wasn’t afraid to tackle new ground, either. A same-sex kiss between on-screen couple Lana (Bridget Neval) and Sky (Stephanie McIntosh, who’s also Jason Donovan’s real-life half-sister) proved controversial in 2004. Soon after marriage equality became legal in Australia, Neighbours screened TV’s first gay wedding between David (Takaya Honda) and Aaron (Matt Wilson) – officiated by Magda Szubanski as marriage celebrant Jemima DaviesSmythe. While in 2019, Georgie Stone (as Mackenzie Hargreaves) played the show’s first transgender character.

Then there was Neighbours’ general fondness for disasters that included but was not limited to a plane crash, a tornado, an exploding wedding and a bomb in the pub. Will they find something else to explode for the final episode? Here’s hoping.

Despite all this – and so much more – the series went into a gradual ratings decline in the 2000s. By 2010 it was struggling to pull in half a million viewers a night (rival soap Home and Away was managing double that). Being bumped to one of Ten’s digital-only channels in 2011 locked in the low viewer numbers; the only thing keeping it going was the fact that most of the production costs were covered by overseas sales.

When those sales were cut off, the end was inevitable.

Culturally Neighbours is iconic. But the real loss with its axing is to the local industry, and the steady opportunities it provided for entry-level creatives. For decades it’s been a vital training ground – not just for the actors who went on to overseas fame, but for the many writers and crew putting out two-and-a-half hours of television a week for 48 weeks a year.

That’s a loss we’ll feel for years to come.

“It’s a melancholy day for me,” Stefan Dennis told Studio 10 when talking about his final day filming Neighbours.

“I closed the studio door behind me on my very last scene, my very last dialogue scene, and I suddenly surprised myself by getting incredibly emotional.”

The end of one of the great success stories of Australian television – a series that gave the world Kylie Minogue and so much more – is enough to bring even the evil Paul Robinson to tears.

THE FINAL EPISODE OF NEIGHBOURS SCREENS 28 JULY ON NETWORK 10.

2022

IAN SMITH, KYLIE MINOGUE, JASON DONOVAN, ANNIE JONES AND STEFAN DENNIS REUNITE FOR THE FINALE

s r u o b h g i e N e m a F f o Hall ALAN DALE

KYLIE MINOGUE

JASON DONOVAN

RUSSELL CROWE

NATALIE IMBRUGLIA

LIAM HEMSWORTH

DELTA GOODREM

GUY PEARCE

MARGOT ROBBIE

BEN MENDELSOHN

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PHOTOS BY FREMANTLE/NETWORK 10, GETTY, ALAMY

2010

We Became Good Friends

Richard Castles recalls eating at Harold’s Cafe and drinking at Lassiters alongside the residents of Ramsay Street.

Richard Castles is a Melbourne writer and frequent contributor to The Big Issue. He believes the secret to life is regular engagement with ducks.

27 MAY 2022

I’d read rumours of tensions behind the scenes at the Nunawading studios where Neighbours is made – and I’d be surprised if there weren’t a few over the course of 37 years – but I never felt a hint of them in my days on set. I was always amazed by the professionalism, patience and meticulousness of the crew, right to the last day of shooting.

That last day was 10 June this year. I was touched to find out that an assistant director had personally picked her favourite extras for that last day, and I was one of them. I had evidently done my job well – that being to turn up, get into position and then be seen without being noticed, the delicate balancing act of the background artist. That, and an ability to mime conversation, and not bump into Toadie or Dr Karl as you walked past.

But even as a bit player I felt the charge in the air on that last day of shooting. It felt like a little bit of Australian history happening in front of me. And Neighbours has traversed a goodly portion of Australian history. Just compare the changes from series one in 1985 to series 37 this year – the kinds of characters and storylines explored – as Neighbours adapted to reflect the real changes happening in broader Australian society. Multiculturalism, gender diversity and mental health issues have all been grist for the Neighbours’ mill, a far cry from the simple soapie dramas of suburban Australia in the 80s.

As we wrapped up on that final day, some of the barriers broke down in all the emotion. There were hugs and photos with cast and crew. I told Annie Jones (Jane Harris) that I had never asked for a photo in all my time there, and she delightfully obliged. (Trivia: Annie Jones originally auditioned for the part that went to Kylie Minogue.)

For a show I’d hardly watched, I felt teary as we said our goodbyes. I guess it is the same for any workplace closing down – whether it’s an office, restaurant, shop or factory. It is a place where people have played out many episodes in their lives, in this case both in front of and behind the cameras.

I got to know many of the extras over the years, and some of us will no doubt keep in touch. I’m hoping to catch up with one overseas later in the year. Neighbours helped us become good friends.

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have a confession: I don’t think I’ve watched a whole episode of Neighbours in my life. I can’t really say why. I was 17 when it first aired in 1985, and just didn’t get on board. And yet, somehow the whole vibe of the show has been part of my life for 37 years, like a living culture.

I know about Scott and Charlene, and Paul Robinson, and Plain Jane Super Brain. I remember Mrs Mangel and Madge.

I know Lassiters and Harold’s Cafe. I know the theme song by heart, and the houses on Ramsay Street. Like some of my real neighbours – whose stories have become part of the fabric of the street – the people of Erinsborough slowly became fixtures in my life.

That, in large part, accounts for the show’s success.

While we may not have watched every episode in the binge‑watching manner of today, the Robinsons and the Bishops were just always there, like – well – like the neighbours we chat to over the hedge, or check in on, once in a while. That those neighbours were played by stars often destined for international fame, such as Guy Pearce, Margot Robbie and Kylie Minogue, didn’t hurt the ratings either.

My relationship with Neighbours, however, changed when I began working as an extra, or “background artist”, on the show some years ago. Although, as an extra, I was very much on the periphery, I felt like I’d at least moved into the neighbourhood. While the dramas – the weddings and break‑ups – were happening in the foreground, I was often there in the background, walking in the park, or sitting at a table at Harold’s Cafe or the Waterhole.

In fact, astute observers may have noticed that, even with all the romantic goings-on in the neighbourhood, I was possibly the biggest philanderer in the suburb, as I was usually sitting with a different woman every day of the week.

(Even Paul Robinson only married six times on the show.)

They might also have noticed that I have worked as a doctor, a business investor and a road worker.

As extras, we didn’t have much contact with the cast, and were encouraged not to interact with them, or even look at them really. It’s understandable. They are hard at work, remembering lines, hitting marks, and so on. No-one likes to have someone staring at them while they are working.

But on those occasions where some necessary or natural interaction happened, I generally found the cast to be as friendly as your nicest neighbours. Their generosity to the community is renowned.

The Old Block

finished taking photos we’ll move on,” tour guide Aaron said, for the 67th time that day.

Tour company owner Terry Smit was there. He had a round, focused face and wore an oversized pirate earring in his left ear. Smit said the high point for these tours had been 2006, when the Commonwealth Games brought an influx of Brits to Melbourne. Tours used to run seven days a week. A woman handed him her phone to take a photo of her outside The Waterhole. He happily obliged, then turned back to me and shrugged. “Nothing lasts forever.”

A woman named Lisa had made the trip from Brisbane.

She wasn’t trying to be melodramatic when she said it felt like someone was dying. “It’s really hard. This show has been a part of my life forever.” She described the viewing pleasure as a type of voyeurism, hooked by the heightened drama of other families’ lives. Many talked about how the show gave stability to their day, even if nothing else in their life was stable.

“Neighbours was about two things,” Lisa said. “Love and family.”

A crack of thunder rang out and Aaron took it as a sign to herd us back on the bus. It was a four-minute drive to Ramsay Street (or Pin Oak Court as the real people who live there know it), enough time for Aaron to tell us about the time a couple of drunk guys rolled up one night and took nudie photos on a verandah. It must be nice living there.

The street looked so much smaller than anyone imagined, the houses stuck in a 1980s time warp. We milled around in the drizzle beside the Robinson house, the Ramsay house, Mrs Mangel’s house. Aaron wielded a prop “Ramsay St” street sign like a scythe, passing it around for photos under the garden arch at Karl and Susan’s place. We all agreed it was far too cold for nudie photos on the verandah of number 24.

Lisa looked round at the semi-circle of neat houses, symbols of a simple suburban dream. Thirty-seven years of heightened drama; of love; of family.

“These days people don’t know their neighbours,” she said. “So the show replaces that connection. I guess people don’t need to know their neighbours because they’re inside watching Neighbours.”

It started hailing. We made a dash for the bus and Aaron set course back to Flinders Street. The windows were steamed up.

When you looked back you couldn’t see Ramsay Street at all.

Ricky French is a Melbourne-based journalist and Big Issue columnist.

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PHOTOS BY BUNYIP TOURS AND SUPPLIED

A

aron has been a tour guide for just four weeks.

He’s an affable chap, driving buses to Victoria’s hottest tourist destinations: the Great Ocean Road, Mornington Peninsula, Phillip Island’s Penguin Parade. And Vermont South.

For 21 years preceding Aaron’s mere four weeks, a white bus emblazoned with “Neighbours Tour” in the unmistakable font of the long-running soap has been plying this unlikely route, conveying fans to the Channel 10 studio where the action was filmed, and to the real but not real Ramsay Street itself. This would be one of the last ever tours.

There were 17 of us on the bus. At a rough guess I’d say around 16 were huge Neighbours fans. I’ve not watched the show since circa 1994, but for a few years I was as obsessed as my fellow passengers currently were. Around half were from interstate. Two were from England. Aaron told us a story about a couple from England who travelled to Melbourne the other week just to do the tour. “They flew in on the Friday, did the tour Saturday and Sunday, flew home on the Monday.” It would have been a good story even without the best part: the couple got engaged on the Sunday tour, at Ramsay Street. They waited two years during the pandemic to get engaged, because they wanted to do it in a cul-de-sac in Vermont South.

Our bus pulled into the studios in Nunawading. There was another much flasher bus already there, with a Manchester United logo on the side. England’s most loved/hated Premier League team was in town. Had the players really chosen an outing to Nunawading for fun on their day off? Short answer: no. A few team staff trundled out, and I asked if Harry Maguire and co were sitting on the bus, waiting for the rain to stop. No, I was told. The players were way too young for Neighbours.

Fair call, but there was definitely youthful blood in our group. One young pup wore a “Toadie” T-shirt – referencing the show’s troubled teen turned lawyer, thrice married – and I latched on to him as my interpreter as we drifted around the outdoor sets, pausing for photos at Sonya’s Nursery, the 82 tram, Grease Monkeys, Karl’s greenhouse and Harold’s Cafe.

Numerous Logie awards the show had won were displayed in a dusty glass cabinet flanked by a rubbish bin and a microwave, inside a donga-like building on a service road.

“Are these the actual Logies?” I asked Aaron.

“I think so,” he said.

We stood around in the backyard of married couple David and Aaron’s house as if invited to a barbecue where no‑one had remembered to bring any food or drink. “If you’re

22 JUL 2022

Ricky French takes the opportunity to do one of the final Neighbours tours of Vermont South.

Angels at My Table A

s soon as I step in the house, I feel uneasy. My eyes are instantly drawn to the bottle of wine and bunch of paper-wrapped flowers. I step closer to the table, and my pulse skips a beat as I see the note. It’s handwritten on cream-coloured paper and fills a whole page. I read the signatures on the bottom first. It’s the first time I’ve seen the tenants’ names. Let’s call them Arlo, August, Bodhi and Kai. This is the Northern Rivers, after all.

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Six months ago, we had rented out our house and embarked on an adventure. Our neighbours had gathered to wish us goodbye. We had COVID-safe embraces. A few tears were shed.

“I hope the tenants are okay,” I said.

The agent had told us that four young men were moving in. I imagined loud music and drunken escapades. We gave our neighbours our contact details in case we needed to intervene. At least we could be sure they’d be glad to see us back.

We are fortunate to live on a friendly street. It can take a long time to get from home to the shops. This isn’t because it is far, but because numerous conversations always happen on the way. When my husband does handiwork in the garage, he has a constant stream of helpful advisers.

It’s a unique relationship, the one with our neighbours.

None of us are going anywhere. We need to make this work.

We might not be married, but we’re bonded for life.

My unease grows as I read the note. The tenants talk about how much they loved staying in our house. How magical it was. How they called it “the boathouse”. And then the kicker.

We loved meeting your neighbours, all of whom are such lovely and welcoming people. You are so lucky to live on such a street.

I put down the note and look around.

The house is pristinely clean, but a few mementos of our tenants remain. In every room there’s a scented candle.

Plants hang from macrame potholders and drape down beside the shower. A couple of toiletries have been left behind – homemade lemon myrtle body wash and vegan shampoo. I have sons in their twenties, and they wouldn’t think to burn scented candles. They wouldn’t make lemon myrtle body wash. Who are these young men?

I look them up on Instagram. There are pictures of them surfing. At music festivals. Lounging around with friends.

I need more. It’s time to talk to the neighbours.

Over the next week, I have numerous conversations with the neighbours.

I don’t need to raise the topic of the tenants – they do it first. They smile when they talk about them. Their eyes brighten.

“They were such lovely young men,” says the woman on the right. “Not noisy at all.”

“I wanted to introduce Arlo to my granddaughter,” says the man across the road. “He works with disabled kids.”

“I took Kai up to the Buddhist temple,” says the neighbour on the left.

“I’d like to get them back, to stay in my apartment downstairs,” says the guy down the street.

It’s like a collective infatuation has taken hold. They can’t talk about them enough.

The more I hear about these young men, the more mythical they become.

“During the floods, they went out in their boats every day.

Who knows how many lives they saved?”

“For weeks they came home covered in mud because they’d been helping clean up people’s houses.”

“They restored my faith in humanity.”

I begin to feel like we’ve been visited by angels. And then it comes.

“We had a street party for them when they left.”

You had a street party for them? Where was our street party? And that’s when I realise – what took me so long? – they liked the tenants better. It’s like we’ve arrived in the middle of a celebration and turned off the music. We’ve spoilt everyone’s fun. Broken up the love-in.

“When are you going away again?” asks one neighbour hopefully.

“Not any time soon,” I say firmly.

And, when that time comes around, I can assure you of this: only party people need apply.

Lisa Walker writes adult and young adult fiction. Her latest novel, Trouble Is My Business, features a wise-cracking Byron Bay teen detective.

illustrations by Grace Lee

Lisa Walker got along well with her neighbours – and then she invited four young men to move in.

Good Neighbour the eskies onto the trees. At the same time he also had to keep an eye on Daphne, who tended to wander, trimming overhanging flowers from neighbours’ front gardens. “They look lovely in our vases,” she would say.

He nursed her to her final farewell and shortly after sold the house and moved across town. “Too many memories here.”

For his last street party before moving, the children filled his footpath with chalk drawings: Noel in his blue overalls, Noel in his Santa suit, Noel in his barbecue apron holding a fishing rod.

Noel pushing a lawn mower.

The icing on the cake that December simply said “Thank you, Noel.”

For a few years he would reappear on the first Sunday of December, Santa hat on his head, his new lady on his arm.

Another neighbour became the street’s unofficial caretaker, including hosting the party, and displaying the brightest Christmas lights. (His carport is very handy if the weather is less than welcoming in early December.)

Christmases came and went, with Noel’s absence noted. “None of us are getting any younger,” someone would say, while turning the sausages.

But then, one day, the tail-end of the news is on the television and there is Good Neighbour Noel at a Welcome to Country smoking ceremony on the other side of the city.

A local council event on 26 January. He’s wearing a cloak of possum skins and waving at flies with twigs of gum leaves.

The caption says, “Uncle Noel, Elder”.

He’s talking briefly about forebears and ancestors and traditional custodians, about looking after Country, looking after the rivers and the fish and the trees.

A few neighbours knock on each others’ doors the next morning, or send text messages, trying to join the dots.

Adoptive parents…Swan Hill…a generation of children.

Vin Maskell is a regular contributor to The Big Issue and the editor of music memoir site stereostories.com and sport site scoreboardpressure.com.

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ood Neighbour Noel” we called him, though not to his face. Then it would be “Noel, thanks for bringing the bins in.” Or “Noel, you didn’t need to mow the nature strip.” Or “Noel, thanks for hosting the street party again.”

Sometimes the salutation would change to “Noel, have you got a minute?” or “Noel, can you give us a hand?”

And of course he always did have a minute, always could give you a hand.

A gasfitter by trade (and the street’s unofficial caretaker), he would give you mates’ rates for maintenance to the heaters or the stove or the hot-water service. One invoice had no monetary fee or GST. “A banana cake, if you can,” he wrote on the slip of paper that he popped under the front door.

Noel and his livewire partner Daphne (“No, we’re not married!” she said regularly) were some of the older residents of the street back then.

Fifty or more years ago, he had moved into Number 13, when his adoptive parents made the shift from country Victoria. No siblings.

“Swan Hill,” Noel said at one street party, sweating under his Santa Claus suit. “Good fishing up there on the Murray, among the river red gums.”

Waving flies away, he gestured to the more modest trees in our street. “I planted most of those when I was a kid. Not exactly river red gums, but they do the job. And the council was never going to do anything.”

The street party – first Sunday of December – was always held outside Noel and Daphne’s place, which was midway up the street, shaded and easy for Noel to set up his barbecues (yes, plural), trestle tables and eskies.

Neighbours brought salads and sausages and burgers and drinks and cakes and resumed conversations from 12 months ago.

Children swarmed up and down the road – a suburban side street – blocked off unofficially with witches hats and a few cars parked at right angles. (“Council permission for closing the road for a street party? Blow that. We’d be waiting till the end of time.” Or words to that effect.)

The kids played till after dark, giddy on soft drinks and Christmas lights, Noel and Daphne’s the brightest. The adults drank and yakked and Daphne came into her own, always one for a party, a shindig.

Come the morning after, Noel would be up early to pack away everything, emptying the melted ice-block water from

22 JUL 2022

It was only when his neighbour moved across town that Vin Maskell got to know who he really was.

Series by Klaus Pichler

The Big Picture

Just Cos Sometimes we all need a holiday – even if it’s just from ourselves.

by Chris Kennett chriskennett

Chris Kennett is a Melbourne-based TV writer and script editor with experience in screen, stage, radio and print.

A REPTILOID CHILLAXES

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FOR MORE IMAGES BY KLAUS PICHLER: KLAUSPICHLER.NET.

22 JUL 2022

I

f you’ve ever attended a sci-fi or gaming convention, or simply seen enough social media, you’re likely acquainted with the art of cosplay, the subculture of costumed roleplay (cos + play, get it?) that has surged in popularity since the 1990s.

If this spectacular trend has somehow eluded you, however, let’s just say it’s a step up from wearing a cardboard mask to a Halloween party. Dedicated cosplayers may spend many hundreds of hours – not to mention dollars – assembling the precise look of a favourite film, video-game or comic-book character before serving themselves up for very public display at cons or competitions.

Austrian photographer Klaus Pichler found himself fascinated by the dual private-public nature of the devoted becostumed, a tension he explores in his series Just the Two of Us. “Who hasn’t had the desire just to be someone else for a while?” he asks. “Dressing up is a way of creating an alter ego, a second skin, which one’s behaviour can be adjusted to and causes a person to be perceived differently.”

Documenting cosplayers and practitioners of a range of other costume traditions in this arresting collection, Pichler’s unifying hook is that instead of appearing in their usual social spaces – festivals, conventions and parties – his subjects are fully dressed up in the privacy of their own homes, pursuing ordinary activities.

“The choice of location is not a coincidence,” says Pichler. “Nowhere else would it have been possible to portray the mask and, figuratively speaking, the person behind it in the same picture.” He declines to reveal the identities of his subjects as he fears spoiling the intended mystery. “The purpose of this setting is to create questions: Why did the person choose this particular costume? Does the decoration style of the home give any kind of clues? And, most importantly, the question at the centre of it all: Who on earth is hidden behind the mask?”

Who indeed? While two-thirds of the people who participated in the series were men, Pichler discovered there was no typical cosplayer. Rather than the expected crowd of sci-fi geeks or roleplayers, he met people from all walks of life. “In the beginning I thought I would get to know a lot of nerds, but I discovered that most of these people have settled lives. They have families and they are integrated into social life,” he told Wired.

While the tradition of dressing up has long been central to many cultural traditions, Pichler sees the blooming of costume trends such as cosplay as a response to our stressful age, and a way to feel empowered. “This increasing desire for transformation, the creation of a kind of parallel reality and identity, can without a doubt be related to increasingly difficult circumstances in society,” he says. “Therefore, dressing up and related activities can, in this context, be regarded as a temporary withdrawal from civil life.”

ISN’T THAT MASTER CHIEF FROM HALO?

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ANGELS NEED TO EXERCISE TOO

MUSIC GIVES YOU WINGS

THE DOG’S USED TO IT

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HOLY BAND PRACTICE BATMAN! XXX

Letter to My Younger Self

I Feel Like the Happiest Man on Earth Dinesh Palipana is a doctor and disability advocate – who thanks his mum for getting him through the teen years and medical school.

by Anastasia Safioleas Contributing Editor @anast

PHOTOS BY FRASER SMITH, LANA NOIR, JAKE BRUMLEY

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W

hen I was 16, I didn’t know myself.

We had moved from Byron Bay to Brisbane. We moved around so much and I went to nine schools when I was a kid, but Byron Bay was where I had spent the longest period of time; we were there for five years. When we moved away, I found it really difficult. It was a big move – I was angsty about it. But at the same time, I was very loved and had everything. Mum worked hard to give me every opportunity.

I was a terrible student. My parents were academic so when I was a kid they really nurtured that. But when I came into my teens, I was distracted with other things.

I was skipping school and riding my bike and hanging out with friends. It changed when I went to Year 11 and 12 in Brisbane, that was when I started to focus on school a lot more. I find it funny when parents come to our hospital and say, “Can you tell my son or daughter how hard you worked when you were in school to become a top doctor?” My report card would show how many days I was absent and my mum would get the report cards and go, “What were you doing?!” I’m so grateful for everything that she’s done for me, even when I was a pest. There were times she had to fetch me from the police station for doing silly stuff. Even then, she believed in me and had enough love to know who I

STRONGER BY DINESH PALIPANA IS OUT 26 JULY.

TOP: DINESH WITH HIS MUM CHITHRANI PALIPANA BOTTOM: RETURNING TO THE SKY. DINESH’S FIRST FLIGHT WAS FROM SRI LANKA TO AUSTRALIA ON HIS 10TH BIRTHDAY

22 JUL 2022

Every day is a surprise. Yesterday I was on a plane to Melbourne to do a talk and I was just sitting there thinking, I can’t believe anyone would want to hear what I have to say.

I’m constantly surprised at where life has taken me. I have a huge amount of gratitude for that. As a kid growing up in Sri Lanka, I never would have imagined me as a 16-year‑old going to school. I would have never imagined me when I had the accident in 2010. Every single day is a surprise for me.

I’m surprised at where my life is and I take stock of that because I think we have to take stock of the things we have.

Do I live by any particular motto?

I have a few! One of the amazing things someone did for me was they put up the poem ‘Invictus’ by my bedside [after the accident]. I used to see it every day. That poem sums up a lot of things. It means “undefeated” and talks about not giving up when things get hard, which really resonated with me. That poem strikes a chord with me the most.

I wouldn’t go back to any particular day or time in my life. I wouldn’t because I love this moment and where we are now. I don’t know what the future is, and the past has made me who I am today. I’m happy and feel fulfilled, so I wouldn’t go back. I’d be right here, right now.

I would tell my 16-year-old self that today Dinesh is a grateful person who has everything. And I’d tell him that everything that has happened to me has been for the good – I’m grateful for everything that has happened to me. I’d tell him that I’m a person who has gone through challenges and they’ve made me better than I ever imagined I could be, and given me things in life that I never imagined I would have. And I would tell him that I’m someone who now believes that everything’s okay. That I’m happy.

I’d tell my 16-year-old self that when things get tough, keep going. You have everything you need inside of you to overcome the challenges that might come. I wish I could tell him that everything will be straightforward and that everything will be easy, but it won’t be – and that’s not a bad thing. Everything that is going to happen will be for the good. Be grateful and enjoy the moments because you have so much in front of you.

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am despite all those things, and to believe in a brighter future for me.

At 16 I loved playing basketball and I loved cars. Anything with an engine. I still do. I had a conversation with a friend this morning about learning to fly.

I have friends from school that I’m still best friends with. We have a lot of good memories. I made the most of that time. I’m glad because life changes, right? The spinal cord injury has made me a very different person now, so to experience a lot of those things – that was a good thing.

Mum can do anything. She’s always like, “Okay, we can do this.” There are no limits. She’s always believed in whatever idea I had, she’d say you can do that and this is how you can do it. She taught me how to shave, how to drive, how to open a bank account. There’s always been Mum. She was probably the only person who influenced my life a lot. And still does.

She’s still a patient, strong, amazing lady.

The biggest challenge in my life has been the spinal cord injury [a car accident left Dinesh with quadriplegia while he was halfway through medical school]. Without any doubt it has been the hardest thing. It was hard in so many ways, but I had depression when I was going through law school, and that was a different kind of hard because that really affected my soul. When we talk about mental health, the injury and suffering of the soul is a very difficult thing. In The Happiest Man on Earth, Eddie Jaku writes about his experiences of the Holocaust and what he had to live through, but says he’s the happiest man on Earth. I met his family a little while ago and said, “Look, I’m sorry but I want to take that title away from your granddad because I feel like the happiest man on Earth.” I feel like that. But when I was going through depression, I was so sad. Nowhere near as hard as the spinal cord injury – that’s been very difficult – but depression was a different kind of difficult.

The day I graduated from medical school was one of the happiest days of my life.

I had the accident in 2010 and went back to medical school in 2015. I picked up where I left off and graduated in 2016. There was so much work, so much risk, so much uncertainty, so much sacrifice to get to that point. And to be there and share it with my mum and some of the people I love the most, I still remember how that felt. I can remember the smell and the sight and the music. I can remember so viscerally what it felt like that day. Yeah, that’s one of the happiest days of my life.

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by Ricky French @frenchricky

PHOTO BY JAMES BRAUND

I

t was around 8pm on a Tuesday night during the recent school holidays that my 15-year-old, having just completed the task of watching every video ever uploaded to YouTube in the history of the internet, announced he’d run out of things to do and would like to catch the train into the city the next day. He had, he said, “things to do”.

I remember the first time I caught a train by myself. Actually, I only remember snippets of it, on account of being only four years old at the time. Those were different days. I remember my mum putting me on the carriage and seating me opposite the driver, and giving the driver instructions to remind me which station to get off at, where (all going well) my uncle and grandma would be standing on the platform to pick me up. These were of course the days before mobile phones. I remember the driver letting me sit on his lap as he drove, and letting me honk the horn (no euphemism). Oh, to go back to the days when train drivers could let children they’d met five minutes ago sit on their laps while driving trains…

By the time I was 15, train trips to the city usually meant browsing through record shops for CDs I couldn’t afford to buy, maybe meeting friends at McDonald’s, or sometimes seeing a movie. That was when I was young and innocent. The “breaking into condemned buildings to smoke pot” stage didn’t start until I was 16.

But my son had other ideas for a good time out in the city, and I’d like to ask you whether, as parents, we should be worried.

Here’s what he did. He got off at Melbourne Central and bought a milkshake and a cookie.

So far, so normal. Next, he went to the State Library and found the room with back issues of newspapers, and was excited to find the issue of the Herald Sun with the famous ‘Teal Conceal’ front page, which ran in the lead‑up to the federal election. I know he found this

exciting because he sent me a photo of said front page, with his hand giving me the “thumbs up” sign. But hey, whatever floats your boat…

He then got back on the train and caught it to State Parliament, where he hoped he’d be able to go inside. He couldn’t, so he observed democracy from a safe distance before getting back on the train and going to Flinders Street Station, where he bought Lord of the Fries and took his lunch down to eat by the Yarra River.

Finally, he got back on the train and caught it to Flagstaff Station (“because I’d never been there before”) and was delighted to find the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court nearby. Having happily ticked off the major intellectual, political and judicial institutions in the city, he came home and went back to his room to see if any new YouTube videos had been uploaded since he’d been gone.

Now, I ask you again: should we as parents be worried about this behaviour? Is my child growing up so fast that he’s bypassed the rebellious teenager stage altogether and gone straight to his late sixties? It’s true that he’s wildly independent. Tomorrow his mother and I are going away on a junket to the Gold Coast, leaving him at home with two dogs to look after and three dinners to cook for himself. He’s very happy about that. It gets better though. When I asked him what he had planned, he said he’d probably “apply for some jobs”.

So I ask yet again: should we be worried about his freakish level of maturity? Does he just see the dubious level of maturity I routinely display, and this is his way of rebelling? I guess there’s still time for the reckless and irresponsible phase to kick in.

I’d hate for him to miss out on all the fun.

Ricky is a writer, musician and worried parent.

Fellow columnist Fiona Scott-Norman is taking a short break.

22 JUL 2022

On the Rails

I remember the driver letting me sit on his lap as he drove, and letting me honk the horn (no euphemism).

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Ricky

Eric Gravel

Film 28

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Eric Gravel gives the action-thriller treatment to a tale of a single mother managing everyday crises.

by Philippa Hawker @philippics

Philippa Hawker is a writer on arts and film.

PHOTOS BY PHILIPPE QUISSE/PASCO, PALACE FILMS

An Everyday Action Thriller

Gravel’s second feature, following Crash Test Aglaé (2017), Full Time premiered at Venice Film Festival in 2021, where it won Best Director and Best Actress in the Orizzonti section. As Julie, Calamy (of Call My Agent! fame) radiates energy and tenacity. Julie must improvise, hustle, cajole, think quickly and take advantage: almost every situation threatens to precipitate a crisis, given her daily arrangements are so delicately balanced. And with the transport strike, she’s almost always running somewhere.

Julie’s workplace – a five-star Paris hotel – is very different from her home in the countryside, although both are places where she is perpetually on call. As the head chambermaid, her job demands military precision, attention to prescribed detail and adherence to the rules.

Gravel wanted to give her this kind of job, he says, because it told us something about Julie. Despite initial appearances, she is a perfectionist. “I knew this job of making beds perfectly – telling and training others – was something that would make us understand who she is, even if the job is not the one she wants.”

Full Time is about choices, he says, but he does not want Julie to be judged for them. “If she makes different

FULL TIME IS IN CINEMAS 28 JULY.

22 JUL 2022

It’s something we all feel at some part of our life: will I have the luxury of choosing?

choices, maybe she can give herself an easier life – but not the life that she wants. I think it’s very complex when you want something, and she wants it all. She wants a good job, a great life for her children, she wants to live in the countryside.

Maybe if she chooses to let go of one of those things, it would be easier for her. We all relate to that: what’s the sacrifice I’m ready to make, or not?”

Gravel isn’t interested in putting secondary characters up for judgement LAURE CALAMY AS either. Julie’s boss, Sylvie (Anne Suarez), EVERYDAY ACTION HERO JULIE rides her hard. And she saddles her, at the most inconvenient time, with a new staff member to train. Yet she does seem to be trying, within limits, to give Julie some leeway.

“I didn’t just create an antagonist,” Gravel says. “She has her own problems and she is scared for her job too. I like to have this kind of mirroring effect between characters. I had that in my first film too. It is a way of saying, maybe Julie in another part of her life might be Sylvie.”

Full Time gives us an intimate, immediate portrait of Julie at every stage of her day, yet there is also much of her background that we are not made aware of. Gravel didn’t want to go into her past, he says. “I wanted to tell the story in the present. At one point during the scriptwriting I had an exchange with my producer and I filled in some mysteries and some questions, then we shot a scene with some answers. But I wasn’t sure if I wanted to show that. During the editing, we took it out, and I was happy.”

When it comes to the film’s ending, he doesn’t expect everyone to perceive it in the same way. “I realised that I knew what I wanted to say, but also that people can see what relates to them.” After all, he says, “I think the answer is not in the ending, but in everything that happens before.”

His next feature, like his previous one, is also about work: “I come from a working family. I saw my father work for peanuts and have a hard life, and I thought as a child, What will my relationship with work be?

Will I be a slave of my work? I think it’s something we all feel at some part of our life: will I have the luxury of choosing?”

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I

n one sense, Eric Gravel’s Full Time is an action movie – the story of a character on a race against time, a tale of unexpected obstacles and quick decisions set to a pulsating electronic score that amplifies a sense of tension and pressure. Yet it’s also a film about the everyday; about childcare issues, cancelled trains and the difficulties of assembling a kids’ trampoline.

Antoinette in the Cevennes’ Laure Calamy plays Julie, a single parent with two small children, a service job, financial problems and a long commute into Paris. She has applied for a position that might change things for her, but a transport strike has thrown her plans into disarray: her car has broken down, the elderly woman who helps with childcare is finding it hard to cope, and her ex-husband isn’t keeping up with support payments – or answering his phone. Everything around her seems to be falling apart. She is living between order and chaos and trying to make it work.

Getting to a job interview in this situation almost feels like Mission: Impossible.

“When I was writing it, it was like an action movie,” Gravel says. This decision was at the heart of the portrayal of Julie: “I need to know what she is thinking, what her move is, what she wants to do next. I thought, if we know that, we are going to identify with her.”

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Making music is a scary but fun journey of self‑revelation for Alexandra Lynn, aka Alex the Astronaut.

by Stephen A Russell @sarussellwords

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

PHOTO BY JAMIE HEATH

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Music

Alex the Astronaut

Out of This World

L

istening to the breezy way Sydney-based Alexandra Lynn – aka Alex the Astronaut – shares her innermost thoughts on her pop songs, you might think she hardly blinks as she lets it all hang out. Since 2017, the singer-songwriter has demonstrated a seemingly unconscious and direct way of communicating personal revelations. If you cast your mind back to that year, you’ll remember that this was when LGBTIQ Australians were thrown headlong into the marriage equality “debate”. Homophobia was writ large in endless newspaper columns and nightly news segments. But there was Lynn on the radio, singing, “It’s not worth hiding if you think you might be gay, or different in another way. You’re perfect just the same.”

The upbeat, folk tune ‘Not Worth Hiding’ from Lynn’s second EP See You Soon saw the artist come out to the world joyfully, while encouraging others to shed their shame and fear. Flash forward to second album How to Grow a Sunflower Underwater, her follow-up to ARIA‑nominated The Theory of Absolutely Nothing (2020), and she casually reveals both her recent autism

Shyness crashed into Lynn’s social life when she was diagnosed. “I got super self-conscious, because I thought that maybe someone was seeing something about me that I didn’t realise, or that my friends felt sorry for me,” she says. While she’s still wrestling with that, and with the often reductive depiction of neurodiverse characters in film or on television, writing has helped her process it. “At first I was like, ‘I’m not like [The Big Bang Theory’s] Sheldon. I’m not Rain Man’, and eventually it was more like there’s a circle of a spectrum with abilities in every area and different things people can bring to the world.”

Portraying these ideas through the chimeric nature of cephalopods came to Lynn while she was snorkelling at Clovelly beach during Sydney’s lockdown. She’d seen other folks splashing around and promptly sought out a nearby diving shop. “I bought a snorkel and flippers and thought, ‘Oh god, I’m gonna use this once.’ Then I ended up going four times a week. You’ll never regret a swim, watching stingrays, colourful fish, octopus and little baby sharks. It was a big part of healing.”

The dreamy nature of Netflix doco My Octopus Teacher helped her hone her lyrics. “It communicates beautifully that there’s so much that we don’t know,” Lynn says. “And an octopus, which most people eat for calamari, is an amazing creature that can change colour, regrow limbs and lead a full life.”

Lynn wants to live her life to the fullest, especially after she found herself being a carer during the pandemic, a gruelling responsibility that took its toll.

She explores these difficult feelings on album tracks ‘Sick’ and ‘Haunted’. “I have so much empathy for people who are carers and people who are sick,” she says. “You take being healthy and having people around you be healthy for granted. And it can flip on a dime.”

How to Grow a Sunflower Underwater doesn’t shy away from life’s challenges, but it doesn’t surrender to them either. Whether it’s navigating break-ups or mental health, or untangling identity, what Lynn offers to her listeners is hope – a little light at the end of the tunnel.

In many ways, her new song ‘Haircut’ is a companion to her 2017 hit ‘Not Worth Hiding’. A soaring, plain‑spoken song about difficult emotions, it locates joy in self‑discovery. Or as the artist says: “I wanted to show that this can be really exciting.”

HOW TO GROW A SUNFLOWER UNDERWATER IS OUT NOW.

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spectrum diagnosis and her wrangling with gender identity (for now, any pronouns are fine).

“It’s annoying that when people talk about gender or sexuality, the big thing is that announcement,” Lynn says. “People don’t realise that the announcement comes at the end of a long journey, and sometimes there’s no announcement. We have to get better at having awkward conversations that make you vulnerable with people who will support you.”

But the open-book approach doesn’t come easy for the now 27-year-old. “It’s a funny balance,” Lynn says. “I’ve written songs since I was 12 and always about the things that were happening to me.”

But the reality of making an album means there’s a long gap between doodling lyrics and fronting up on stage. “It’s sometimes a little confronting,” Lynn adds.

“You want everyone to feel supported and understood, and that’s why I write those songs. But then it’s also like, ‘Oh my God, I’m revealing all this information, and it’s scary.’ But I don’t know any other way of writing, and part of the reason is to work out these big scary things.”

The rewards are more than worth it, she says. Many fans have reached out since Lynn released her single ‘Octopus’ – about her autism diagnosis – in March this year. “I’ve had parents message me and say, ‘My child heard this song, and she said that she’s an octopus too.’

And it just brings tears to your eyes. It’s such a privilege.”

22 JUL 2022

I got super self-conscious, because I thought that maybe someone was seeing something about me that I didn’t realise, or that my friends felt sorry for me.

Chris Womersley

Books

Masterstroke According to writer Chris Womersley, nothing is more punk than the real-world theft of a Picasso masterpiece.

by Kirsten Krauth @kirstenkrauth

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PHOTO BY ROSLYN OADES

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Kirsten Krauth is an author, poet and arts journalist. Her latest novel, Almost a Mirror, is also a popular podcast about Australian 80s pop and post-punk music.

In The Diplomat, he imagines the aftermath: the central plotters have disappeared; the painting has been copied; and the fakers, painters Edward and his wife Gertrude, are surviving in London by creating fictional works by fictional painters of the 1920s and selling them to rich Russians for cash and drugs. For Womersley, the theft had a “punkish” appeal. “With the people who did it…I wonder if they were almost surprised that they managed to pull it off.”

Womersley was part of the 1980s and 90s drug-soaked music scene in Melbourne and those decades inspire much of his work, the writing alive with an intimate sense of place, whether it’s the back alleys of Fitzroy or the sin and salvation of St Kilda. Both book titles allude to buildings – the Cairo Flats in Fitzroy and The Diplomat motel in St Kilda – rather than foreign lands or roles.

He started going to the elegantly wasted Seaview Ballroom when he was 16 to see bands like Nick Cave’s The Birthday Party and the debauchery of the place lingers in his memory, along with a Dungeons and Dragons convention that he attended as a teenager, which took place in The Diplomat. In one of the book’s funniest scenes, Edward is caught up at this event and disguises himself with roleplay costume in a farcical

THE DIPLOMAT IS OUT 28 JULY.

22 JUL 2022

An unsolved crime is always a great gift for an author, isn’t it, as you can always fill in the gaps.

attempt to escape from the cops. “The Diplomat had a seedy reputation among musicians, and so for years I had in my mind [that] I’d love to do a story or scene that somehow had these two subcultures meeting up somehow in The Diplomat motel,” Womersley laughs.

While many books about addiction focus on the highs and the visceral experience of using heroin, Womersley instead weighs up the routine of it, the daily grind, the drudgery of scoring – and even the love that can inhabit this space between Edward and Gertrude – along with the grief of losing someone to an overdose. “Originally I did conceive of it more as a novel in which Edward’s addiction was active, but that mutated over time,” he says. He chose to write instead about the recovery period after years of drug abuse, “investigating…a crisis about Edward’s identity and his success or otherwise as an artist – whether he made the correct decisions in his life.” Womersley says he was a drug user for a long time, too. “A lot of it is kind of exciting, but after a certain point it’s just literal drudgery…wake up, get drugs, repeat over and over again.”

While The Diplomat can be scathing about the superficiality and commercialism of the art world, portraying artists as vain and vindictive, there are also beautiful descriptions of Gertrude and how she paints and draws, using the colours that Edward mixes, and her belief that the act of drawing or painting people makes you love them – that you need to love them to capture them well. Does Womersley feel the same way about his characters? “Love is a strange word but certainly you need to understand people; like the villain never thinks he’s the villain of the story, right, he always thinks he’s the hero”, he says. “And understanding is a sort of empathy, and empathy is a sort of love. I do think you need to love your characters [even if] they’re not necessarily the most moral or greatest people.”

In conversation, Womersley has the disarming habit of turning questions round so they are pointed back at me, which offers an insight into his innate curiosity about why people behave the way they do. I ask him why he returns often to the 1980s and 90s cultural landscape of Melbourne in his fiction. “I write books for my 18-year-old self… the kind of book I would love to have read when I was younger and greener and more sort of open,” he says. “And it’s like a message passed under the door… I just imagine some person in their room or on their couch reading a book of mine and getting a kick out of it – and that’s pretty nice and special.”

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D

o you remember the Picasso painting stolen from the National Gallery of Victoria in the mid 80s? Award-winning writer Chris Womersley was so taken with the headline-grabbing story of the Weeping Woman that he set his novel Cairo around it, taking up the theme of who stole the painting. In his latest novel, The Diplomat, he continues the narrative thread into the 1990s and follows one of the original characters, Edward, returning from London to Melbourne to reassemble the fragments of his life after a stint in detox for heroin addiction.

Splashed over the front pages and creating a stir in Melbourne and beyond, the stolen painting was eventually returned, but questions remained.

Who was responsible and how did they get away with it? Womersley sees his latest book as not so much a sequel as a companion piece to his earlier novel. “An unsolved crime is always a great gift for an author, isn’t it, as you can always fill in the gaps,” he says. “And I was terrified when I was writing Cairo that either the case would be solved or someone would fess up to it.”

Film Reviews

Aimee Knight Film Editor @siraimeeknight

I

was in a lift recently with two gentlemen who were effervescent with joy. “We just saw Top Gun!” they told me, a total stranger. The smart money says that’s Top Gun: Maverick – the long-awaited sequel to the hot-shot 1986 hit – which, at the time of writing, just soared past a billion big ones at the box office (likely much more by the time you read this). It’s one of several blockbusters currently resuscitating the screen industry post-COVID. As I said to the blokes riding shotgun with me in the lift: cinema’s back, baby!

While I’m stoked that folks are heading to multiplexes in droves, my mind is also on smaller, independent theatres like SA’s Mercury Cinema. After a recent application for operational funding was rejected by the state government, it’s unclear how the boutique picture house – celebrating its 30th birthday this year – will keep the projector aglow without fervent community support.

The Mercury is home to the seasonal Adelaide Cinémathèque program, an integral pillar of the city’s screen culture. Catering to the cravings of omnivorous local cineastes, it serves up brain food to counterbalance the moreish popcorn treats of Maverick et al. Similarly, Melbourne Cinémathèque is a hub for nourishing programming, currently presenting such underseen Ukrainian titles as Kira Muratova’s Brief Encounters (1967), suppressed by Soviet censors for two decades. You won’t catch that one at the multiplex, but if you do intend to see it at ACMI on 3 August, be sure to spread the word. AK

FROM UKRAINE, FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY

FALLING FOR FIGARO 

The highlands are alive with the sound of Mozart in this culture clash comedy about living your dreams. Australia’s Danielle Macdonald (Patti Cake$) leads as prodigious US fund manager Millie, whose bougie London life is on the uptick with a coveted promotion and decidedly alright boyfriend. But thoroughly romantic Millie is unfulfilled, so she heads for the hills, determined to study opera in Scotland under the tutelage of a former star. As the “Diva of Drumbuckin” Meghan Geoffrey-Bishop, Joanna Lumley is the film’s saving grace – a soprano Yoda to Millie’s prima donna Luke Skywalker. Their heated master-apprentice dynamic is briefly amusing, but the outdated idea that one must suffer (ie endure bullying and ridicule) to create great art is misguided at best.

A tepid rom-com subplot involving fellow pupil Max (Les Misérables’ Hugh Skinner) meanders into Hallmark Channel territory, with a dash of Whiplash. Aside from a few solid musical moments, the big beats mostly fall flat, but this could be a cosy matinee for the right crowd. AIMEE KNIGHT OFFICIAL COMPETITION

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

The simple pleasure of seeing Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas reunited on screen shouldn’t be taken for granted – but it’s disappointing to see them reduced to limp showbiz caricatures in this contrived meta comedy.

Not unlike a Simpsons episode, the film involves an ageing industrialist (José Luis Gómez) who finances a prestigious film to embellish his legacy. Cruz plays the hand-picked auteur, Lola Cuevas, who may or may not be full of it; she annotates her script with cigarette butts, seduces the producer’s daughter, and approaches directing as performance art. Entangled in her eccentric rituals are lead actors Félix Rivero (Banderas), a Hollywood charmer, and Iván Torres (Oscar Martínez), a disciplined thespian. Actor feuds are the stuff of tabloid legend and Ryan Murphy revisionism, but any potential frisson is eclipsed by the film’s trite commentary on art and commerce. As a tame, gratingly self-aware roast, Official Competition squarely panders to the Cannes jury; however, its theatrics only occasionally manage to entertain. JAMIE TRAM

THE REASON I JUMP 

Naoki Higashida was 13 when he wrote his bestselling book The Reason I Jump, about his experience as a non-speaking autistic person. This immersive screen adaptation weaves extracts from Higashida’s book (read by Jordan O’Donegan) between footage of, and interviews about, five young non-speaking autistic people: Amrit Khurana, Joss Dear, Ben McGann, Emma Budway and Jestina Penn-Timity. The Reason I Jump will teach allistic audiences new things about the autistic experience. There is, though, an irony at the heart of this project. While Higashida’s book debunks the widespread misconception that non-speaking autistic people can’t articulate their own thoughts, ideas and experiences, director Jerry Rothwell largely relies on his subjects’ parents to speak for them (apart from some brief moments where Emma and Ben use communication aids). This tension between the film’s intentions and its execution undercuts what is otherwise a compassionate and beautifully shot project. CAITLIN MCGREGOR

Small Screen Reviews

Claire Cao Small Screens Editor @clairexinwen

DON’T MAKE ME GO  | PRIME VIDEO

SURFACE

 | SHUDDER

 | 29 JULY ON APPLE TV+

Jenna Cato Bass’ freaky South African tale joins a growing trend in the horror genre: films about mothers and children. In the company of Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook (2014) and Babak Anvari’s Under the Shadow (2016), Bass adds something fresh to the genre by interweaving the traumas of apartheid with the strengths and vulnerabilities of maternal bonds. Good Madam follows three generations of women: Tsidi (Chumisa Cosa), her mother Mavis (Nosipho Mtebe) and her young daughter Winnie (Kamvalethu Jonas Raziya). They all live under the roof of a white madam, Diane, to whom Mavis provides care.

Before long, it becomes clear that Diane is on the verge of death – but the flesh, hands and minds of Tsidi’s family make up the raw materials necessary for her life to continue.

Good Madam’s undercooked character motivations and subtle tone may not sate all your spooky cravings, but the unique spin makes it one to watch. With teeth-clenching tension and a smattering of fantastic jump scares, it might even make you check in with your mum. ZACH KARPINELLISON

How can you piece together a life you’ve completely forgotten? This is the question asked of Sophie (Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Black Mirror), a Californian trophy wife who, having been told that she had jumped off a ferry and lost her long-term memory, questions the perfect life into which she has awoken.

In Veronica West’s white-collar thriller, the answer lies at the hands of duplicitous spouses and familiar strangers – lingering, just out of reach, behind the bulwarks of intense trauma and guessable Apple passwords. Unfortunately, Surface does little more than churn through its semi-predictable twists; it lacks the impetus required of a good psychological thriller and the prerequisite emotional power for impactful slow-burn TV. But what Surface lacks in depth it gains in style. Images blurred with lopsided focus, tides of metaphor-laden water, and hushed San Franciscan cityscapes all evoke Surface’s prize quality: the entrancing sense of disquiet that comes with the realisation that beautiful people occupying perfect lives are not as flawless as they first appear. VALERIE NG

C

anadian comedian Nathan Fielder is one of the most idiosyncratic personalities working in the field today. He’s best known for the docu‑comedy Nathan for You, where he assisted small businesses via unorthodox methods.

Memorable episodes involved him creating a parody version of Starbucks, or leading a sleeper cell of taxi drivers to sabotage an Uber service. He went on to produce the acclaimed How to With John Wilson.

Over on Binge lies Fielder’s latest offering, The Rehearsal – a surreal, brazenly unique experience that bulldozes the boundaries of reality TV. The series follows Fielder as he helps guests “rehearse” difficult conversations in their lives. He recreates entire buildings, hires armies of actors, and gets the guest to run through every possible conversational branch.

A man who lied to his trivia group about having a masters degree rehearses his confession in a simulacrum of his favourite bar. A devout Christian considering motherhood “parents” a troupe of child actors, from babies to teens.

Things quickly become curiouser and curiouser: Fielder begins to insert himself into the experiments, devises tests of character that border on psychological torture, and rehearses moments in his own life to cope with his deceptions. One guest aptly compares Fielder to Willy Wonka – an inventor of bizarre wonders but also, essentially, a master manipulator. The stunning scale of the constructed scenarios, along with Fielder’s own opaque persona, will leave you losing your grip on what’s truly real. CC

22 JUL 2022

GOOD MADAM

HAVING A FIELDER DAY

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Don’t Make Me Go poses the question: how cool would it be if John Cho was your dad? The answer: extremely cool. Here, Cho plays Max, a single dad to a teenage daughter, Wally (newcomer Mia Isaac). The discovery of a terminal brain tumour sends Max into a tailspin. With Wally’s mother out of the picture, who will care for Wally if he dies? Convincing a reluctant Wally to join him on a road trip to New Orleans, under the guise of driving lessons, Max secretly hopes to reunite Wally with her estranged mother. Along the way, the pair bond over roulette, dance lessons and Iggy Pop – with Max trying to make the most of their time left together. A sweet father-daughter indie that hits familiar, but nevertheless comforting, emotional beats, the Tribecaselected Don’t Make Me Go announces a new talent in director Hannah Marks. Though its rug-pull of an ending doesn’t quite succeed, the winning lead performances, clever dialogue and heartfelt sincerity make it a trip worth taking. JESSICA ELLICOTT

Music Reviews

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Isabella Trimboli Music Editor

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THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

t always seems like an injustice when you discover a brilliant artist who has been neglected or left unsung by the media and the public. Alice Cohen – whose new solo album Moonrising is out this month – is one such artist.

The 63-year-old has been making music since the 80s. First she was in The Vels, a synth-pop band that toured with the Psychedelic Furs and had a minor Billboardcharting hit with the single ‘Look My Way’.

However, the success of the group, which were produced by Steven Stanley (who also produced Tom Tom Club), was short-lived. In the 80s and 90s, she led the grunge-outfit Die Monster Die, whose crushing guitar chords and petulant but melodic vocals should have made them as big as other alternative acts of the decade. But again, success was elusive.

It is on her solo records that you can really hear that she’s one of music’s bestkept secrets. On Moonrising, her seventh album, Cohen crafts transfixing music that is indebted to the past but feels like it’s operating in its own mystical realm. This is glamourous, gothic pop that morphs components of glam rock and new wave into new and dramatic shapes. Produced with analogue instruments like vintage synthesisers and old drum machines, it has a rich, robust and elegant sound that computer programs frankly cannot replicate. Cohen’s witchy vocals float over this mix, singing of lace, chandeliers, tinted glasses and stardust.

It’s romantic and transportive music – the best soundtrack to a foggy, icy winter. IT

HIDDEN GEM: ALICE COHEN

@itrimboli

MUNA MUNA 

‘Silk Chiffon’ was one of 2021’s most inescapable pop moments. Three-and-a-half minutes of breezy pop perfection, the synth-driven song was an unfettered expression of queer joy, with indie star Phoebe Bridgers lending her vocals. The track opens MUNA’s third album, which marks the beginning of a new chapter for the Los Angeles-based trio, now signed to Bridgers’ Saddest Factory Records. Taking cues from the likes of Robyn, Carly Rae Jepsen and The Chicks, MUNA is a diverse yet cohesive record that is both contemplative and explosive. MUNA enlists more indie royalty on the seductive ‘No Idea’, co-written with Mitski – it’s the kind of dark, angular pop song that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Charli XCX album. Elsewhere, as on the ambient, string-soaked ‘Loose Garment’, MUNA ruminate on the end of love, not with regret or anger but with acceptance. Dropping a self-titled album three records in makes perfect sense in the case of MUNA – they’re remaking themselves in their own image, and it sounds glorious. GISELLE AU-NHIEN NGUYEN

GANG CALLED SPEED SPEED

SEVEN PSALMS NICK CAVE

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Following a demo and some singles, the first studio release by Sydney band Speed, Gang Called Speed, has solidified them as figureheads of Australian hardcore. Speed strike an exacting balance of savage and tight, their sound rooted in New York hardcore of the 90s and an obvious love of metalcore.

Front to back, this release packs more punch than a UFC fight – every song contains crowd-inciting vocals, tough-as-nails mosh parts, and breakdowns that would impress the most brutal of metal fans. Among the intensity though, it’s still fun: track ‘Another Toy’ is a perfect example, with vocalist Jem Siow exclaiming “Another toy thinks they know my name/WE AIN’T BUILT THE SAME”.

Ultimately though, Gang Called Speed is a mission statement to bring listeners into a fiery, passionate world of hardcore, encapsulated at the end of ‘Big Bite’ as a crowd repeatedly chants “Gang Called Speed”.

This is truly a must-listen for fans across the entirety of the heavy music spectrum.

During the sessions for his devastating 2021 album Carnage with Warren Ellis, Nick Cave recorded a set of psalms he had written over a single week of lockdown. Religious praise is very much present in these short pieces, but so are love, mercy and other themes. The tracks are arranged with a synthetic sheen that evokes both New Age (‘I Come Alone and to You’) and choral works (‘Splendour, Glorious Splendour’). But the music never gets in the way of these affirmations, which Cave delivers in spoken word. As an exercise in lyric writing, it’s masterfully rendered. The psalms last only 12 minutes in total, and are followed by an equally long and largely instrumental track that bridges the gap between ambient bliss and foreboding chaos, reprising some of the unmoored harmonies from the earlier psalm ‘I Have Wandered All My Unending Days’. It’s hard not to read Cave’s family tragedies into this soul-searching work, but even without that context, this is a powerful statement that invites revisitation and communion.

ANGUS MCGRATH

DOUG WALLEN

Book Reviews

Jo Case Guest Books Editor @jocaseau

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BOOTSTRAP GEORGINA YOUNG

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Gregory Day writes with beauty and openness about the Australian landscape, grappling with language, mythmaking and abiding questions about who and where we are, without shying away from Australia’s cultural complexity. From meditations on the colour of the clay being exhumed by road workers in his home town on Wadawurrung Country, to listening for the whoo-hoo of powerful owls while with grieving friends in an old-growth Otways forest, this collection of essays embeds language in nature so it might be shared between people.

This is nature writing that presses an urgent message: Day looks to a mutual, regenerative relationship between people and places to tackle loneliness and environmental stress caused by global heating. Day’s essays are wrought with an ear for language that saw him recently shortlisted for the Miles Franklin. While at times academic and not always an easy read, Words Are Eagles invites a broad audience to grapple with how we relate to place, and is ultimately a must for bookshelves Australia-wide. DUNCAN STRACHAN

Part small-town love story and part timetravel thriller, Georgina Young’s second novel manages to pull off this unlikely hybrid of genres. The story starts modestly enough, following Jackson Sweeney as he struggles with being a young gay man in a small, gossipy community in western Victoria. But when he meets a dashing stranger named Bootstrap, Sweeney and his equally adrift mate Marnie are thrust into a complicated chase through time and space. Quirky love triangles collide with twisty suspense and bracing action as the central pair’s past and present flames are pulled along for the ride.

Despite that high concept, Young grounds the book in the cadences of daily life in regional Australia, while also having lots of self-aware fun winking at the conventions of sci-fi and romance storytelling. Crackling with irreverent energy, Bootstrap should appeal to fans of TV’s Future Man. It also overlaps nicely between YA and adult fiction, appealing to a wide range of readers. DOUG

SUNDRESSED: NATURAL FIBRES AND THE FUTURE OF FASHION LUCIANNE TONTI 

Sundressed is a troubling yet hopeful appraisal of nascent regenerative trajectories in the fashion industry. Reflecting on the disastrous global impacts of fast fashion, Tonti investigates innovators who are consolidating the ethical production of natural fibres. Each chapter highlights one such fibre – from its cultivation, preparation and processing to the point at which it hugs human skin. Tonti quantifies fast-fashion’s waste and environmental damage; her interviews with innovators and committed waymakers are inspiring. Tonti’s contention is that the global fashion industry can be part of the climate crisis solution. Beyond simply “doing no harm”, well-managed clothing production can be environmentally regenerative – and beautiful. A question remains, however: how will ethically and regeneratively produced garments become affordable, given the cost of production? Can beautifully crafted clothing be for everyone? SARAH BACALLER

WALLEN

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WORDS ARE EAGLES GREGORY DAY

22 JUL 2022

id you keep a teenage diary? My mum read mine when I was 15 and grounded me, after she read that a friend wanted to give me an acid trip as an early birthday present. What she overlooked was that I’d responded with a firm, “No, thank you”.

I’d recently devoured 1971 bestseller Go Ask Alice, the anonymous diary of a California teenager whose descent into addiction began when her glass of Coke was dosed with LSD at a house party. Two weeks later, she was injecting speed.

Soon, she was having sex and dealing drugs to primary schoolers. Later, the diarist was institutionalised after being slipped acid once more, this time via chocolatecovered peanuts while babysitting. Two years after the diary begins, it ends: her parents apparently found her dead of a drug overdose, discovered the diary, and passed it to publishers as a cautionary tale. I guess it worked on me.

A new book just published in the US, wonderfully titled Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World’s Most Notorious Diaries (by Rick Emerson) reveals what you might have guessed: the diary was a fake. It was written by Beatrice Sparks, a Mormon youth counsellor, and launched a career of so-called teen diaries “edited” by Sparks, including one by a boy embroiled in devil worship. Con-artist and imposter stories have been big this year: Elizabeth Holmes, Anna Delvey and now Beatrice Sparks. JC

TEXT PUBLISHING.COM . AU

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Public Service Announcement

by Lorin Clarke @lorinimus

Many of us periodically become experts in obscure Olympic sports. I’ll have no interest in, say, skateboarding or the luge or whatever for three years and then come year four I’m shaking my head in disapproval when the plucky Canadian missed it by that much after her world-beating performance in the semis. Becoming an expert in something you have never cared about before is such an excellent way to focus the mind and, surprisingly, it can make you feel good about yourself. You’d think that sitting on the couch shouting at fit people breaking the land speed record would make you feel lazy. In fact, what it does is allow you to improve as you watch them. Your analytical skills are honed. Your powers of observation are rewarded. You’re developing little emotional attachments – you totally favour the German bloke because he was nice to the guy from Great Britain when things went pear-shaped for him in the heats. By the end of it you’ll feel like you could probably step in and coach if they needed you to.

I recently became an expert in whales. I went to something called a Whale Festival, which was entirely excellent, where marine biologists and archaeologists taught us incredible things we had no idea we hadn’t known. We even witnessed these giant creatures in the wild, hurling themselves out of the sea. Now, if someone told you about a massive creature as big as a two-storey building that’s descended from dinosaurs and has a built-in sat nav and sonar communication system, and if they told you it also sings underwater more loudly than any other animal on the planet and could well have X-ray vision, you’d probably file that person in the sci-fi section of your local library. They don’t even have ears (whales, that is), so they hear each other’s singing

in the vibrations of their own jaws and skulls. And they migrate together and – see? Becoming an expert in things is very exciting. And sure, maybe it bores everyone you talk to about it later, but I guarantee it will shift your perspective. There aren’t many opportunities for adults to do that, at least not by choice.

You can become an expert in a person, too. I became an expert in my grandmother for a while. She was starting to lose her grip on what was happening around her in her later years, and shifting her back in time was a sure-fire way of restoring a sense of herself. So I asked her everything. I was like those police in cop shows. I asked Grandma to go over her story again and again. But what about this bit? But how did she feel when this happened?

She was a wonderful storyteller and I was an expert on her entire life in no time. Becoming an expert on a person requires their consent – obviously, you don’t want to hector anybody against their will – but if you pick the right person, it can be beneficial for both of you.

Otherwise, you could be an expert in spotting things.

Or you could be an expert in baking something. Maybe you could learn about spiderwebs or cloud formations or ancient burial rituals or corporate logos.

I have a neighbour who is an expert in making ugly, forgotten spaces beautiful. She has transformed tiny triangles of dirt into exploding gardens of colour. I have no idea what else she does. Maybe she saves lives for a living. Maybe she looks after an elderly relative. Maybe she works for the council, or in a bookshop, or runs a cleaning business. Whatever it is, she is an expert in something else, too. Maybe her workmates don’t even know about this. Maybe they couldn’t even imagine this little island of fascination quite separate from the bit of her life we all think we’re meant to be concentrating on.

Public Service Announcement: turn on the Olympics.

Figure out a spiderweb. Talk to your granny. Become a drive-by expert in something you never thought you’d know.

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

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H

ere’s a great tip for what to do when you’re stuck in a rut: become an expert in something.

I know, it sounds exhausting. But not if you do it right.

Public Service Announcement: there are so many things you don’t know. See if you can find out some of them. Become a drive-by expert and feel the power of a tiny bit of knowledge surge through a part of your life that previously contained nothing.

22 JUL 2022

Call Me Ishmael

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Tastes Like Home edited by Anastasia Safioleas

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FOOD PHOTO BY SARAH BUCKLE, PORTRAIT BY MONICA PRONK

Tastes Like Home Jessica Beaton

Lemony Chicken and Risoni Soup Ingredients

Method Rinse the chicken well under cold water, then place it in a large heavy-based saucepan with 1 tomato, roughly chopped, along with the onion, celery, carrot, peppercorns, garlic, bay leaf and 8 cups (2 litres) of water. Finely chop the remaining tomatoes and set aside.

Place the lid on the saucepan and bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Simmer for 1 hour, or until the chicken is tender and comes off the bone easily. Check every 30 minutes to ensure it stays at a gentle simmer, and skim any scum off the surface of the broth.

Turn off the heat and carefully transfer the chicken to a plate.

When it is cool enough to handle, remove the chicken meat from the bones and shred finely or coarsely, depending on your preference. There is plenty of chicken, so set aside some to toss through pasta or make a delicious sandwich filling, or as finger food for a baby or toddler.

While the chicken is cooling, strain the liquid through a fine mesh strainer, lined with a muslin cloth or a light, cotton tea towel if you wish, for a clearer broth. Reserve some or all of the carrot and celery and discard the rest of the vegetables.

Return the strained broth to the saucepan and bring to the boil over medium heat. Add the risoni and cook for 10 minutes or until al dente. Return the chicken, carrot and celery to the soup and stir in the parsley and reserved chopped tomatoes. Add the lemon juice a little at a time until you reach your desired flavour. Season with pepper to taste.

Cool the leftover soup and portion into airtight containers.

TIP Keep the leftover soup in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 2 days or freeze in airtight containers for up to 2 months.

Jessica says…

D

uring the cold, wintry months there is nothing quite like a nourishing bowl of lemony chicken soup to warm me up from the inside out. It’s made in a big batch, and I love filling my freezer with leftovers to enjoy for a warming lunch or a simple dinner served with some crusty bread. With so much to go around, it’s perfect for sharing with friends and family too.

In fact, the reason why I love this soup so much is that it was gifted to me by a gorgeous friend as part of a little food care package, which also included some garlic bread and chocolate biscuits, when my fourth little boy was a newborn. Those early days of caring for my new babies have been some of my absolute favourite and treasured moments.

The days can be all-consuming and exhausting too, and the generosity and kindness of a cooked meal is forever remembered – especially when it tastes so good! When sleep-deprived with a snuggly baby in your arms, simply knowing that you have a delicious meal on hand to sustain you and serve to your family is just as comforting as the meal itself.

In turn, we love paying this recipe forward and gifting it to new parents, sick friends or a family who needs a nutritious meal, or even simply as a thank you to a special someone.

Our lemony chicken and risoni soup is a nourishing broth made with a range of lovely herbs and vegetables, with the risoni and shredded chicken adding additional nutrients and texture.

It’s the boost every immune system needs. The soup is easily adapted to suit the particular taste or textural preferences of family members at all ages and stages.

Now I have a large, active family who seem to be always on the go, this soup takes me back to those slow, treasured newborn days in an instant. Isn’t it so lovely how food can do that?

THE FAMILY MEAL SOLUTION BY ALLIE GAUNT, JESSICA BEATON & SARAH BUCKLE IS OUT NOW.

22 JUL 2022

2 teaspoons black peppercorns 4 cloves garlic, halved 1 bay leaf 3/4 cup risoni 1 large handful flat-leaf parsley, chopped 1 lemon, juiced Ground black pepper, to taste

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1.6kg whole freerange chicken 3 tomatoes 1 brown onion, roughly chopped 2 celery stalks, roughly chopped 2 carrots, roughly chopped

“I promise to help end homelessness.”

Petrina Dorrington, Melbourne, Victoria

Every night 116,000 people in Australia sleep homeless. While another 1.5 million live in serious housing stress. We have a housing crisis. We can’t let this go on. And with Homes for Homes, we won’t.

Make yours at homesforhomes.org.au

Puzzles

ANSWERS PAGE 45.

By Lingo!

by Lee Murray leemurray.id.au ADULTING

CLUES 5 letters Forest path No longer fresh Race in stages Roofing tile Stories, legends 6 letters Episodic story Hamburger sauce Imprudently Rope for holding an animal Without effort or difficulty 7 letters Glide Hurriedly In an angry way True life Worldly 8 letters Vigorously

Y

I

T

R

L

A

S

E H

Sudoku

by websudoku.com

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

6 5

7 1 6

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

4

8

2 3 5 1 7 6 3

Puzzle by websudoku.com

Solutions CROSSWORD PAGE 45 ACROSS 1 Greenwash 6 Nepal 9 Treason 10 Burrito

11 Santa 12 Spaceship 13 Holy Grail 15 Steed 16 Ultra 18 Old school 20 Estonians 23 Egads 25 Ailment 26 Provide 27 Lists 28 Carl Sagan

DOWN 1 Gates 2 Eternal 3 Nostalgia 4 Aunts 5 Hobnailed 6 Nerve 7 Prithee 8 Loop pedal 13 House call 14 Aromantic 15 Socceroos 17 Tattles 19 Orating 21 Needs 22 Super 24 Sheen

20 QUESTIONS PAGE 9 1 c) Finland 2 Six 3 A small, stoppered perfume bottle 4 Peter Phillips 5 Geelong Cats 6 Janis Joplin 7 Peter Greste 8 True 9 Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton 10 Quokkas 11 Kylie Minogue and Robbie Williams 12 The Hand That Signed the Paper 13 Richard Burton 14 Northern Territory 15 Kazakhstan 16 Latvia 17 Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast 18 Reverses/undoes your last action 19 a) Brooklyn Beckham 20 Roosevelt

22 JUL 2022

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

Every answer must include the central letter.

Plus, which word uses all nine letters?

by puzzler.com

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Word Builder

Admit it: at least half of you cringed when you saw this word. The verb adulting is a slang term we usually associate with younger people.

Adulting, however, has been around for longer than you might think.

The noun adult comes to us from the same Latin verb as adolescent: alēscere “be nourished”.

With the prefix ad(roughly “towards”) we get adolescere “grow up”. From this base, adolescent is “someone who’s still growing up”, while adultus is “someone who’s finished growing up”. The verb adulting “doing the everyday things of adult life” is relatively new – it made it into the Oxford English Dictionary in 2020! However, we see it pop up occasionally before then, as far back as 1979. So really, adulting appeared before the millennials did.

Crossword

by Chris Black

Quick Clues

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

1

2

3

4

9

5

6

7

8

10

11

12

13

14

15

ACROSS

1 Environmentally spin (9) 6 Landlocked country (5) 9 Crime of betrayal (7) 10 Tex-Mex staple (7) 11 Christmas figure (5) 12 Enterprise , for example (9) 13 Arthurian legend (4,5) 15 Horse (5) 16 Extremely (5) 18 Traditional (3,6) 20 Europeans (9) 23 Archaic exclamation (5) 25 Disorder (7) 26 Supply (7) 27 Catalogues (5) 28 Astronomer (4,5) DOWN

20

18

21

19

22

25

23

24

26

27

28

Cryptic Clues

Solutions

ACROSS

DOWN

1 Working when gears spin (9) 6 Crashed plane in mountainous country (5) 9 Model has motive for crime (7) 10 Rub the wrong way, angrily riot for meal

1 Billionaire ends scandals with these? (5) 2 Non-stop energy and rental strains (7) 3 Looking back, FT ignored stagflation,

in Juárez? (7)

11 Famous presenter annoyed Qantas bypassed the

capital? (5)

12 Craft joint after Jacuzzi with loveless CEOs (9) 13 Glory! Hail new legend (4,5) 15 Horse supporter in South Dakota (5) 16 Very into Soul Train (5) 18 Traditional seasoned fish? (3,6) 20 New sensation for Europeans (9) 23 Say “spots” as old-fashioned expression of surprise (5) 25 Let main characters make complaint (7) 26 Supply expert with short film (7) 27 Bank’s records (5) 28 Scientist cooked lasagna and cheesy ravioli

starters (4,5)

1 Entrances (5) 2 Everlasting (7) 3 Affection for the past (9) 4 Family members (5) 5 Like some old boots (9) 6 Audacity (5) 7 Please, archaically (7) 8 Musician’s tool (4,5) 13 Type of doctor visit (5,4) 14 Not amorous (9) 15 Australian national team (9) 17 Dobs (7) 19 Giving a speech (7) 21 Requires (5) 22 Brilliant (5) 24 Lustre (5)

surprisingly (9) 4 Family members occasionally value notes (5) 5 Repaired bad hole in pair of boots, perhaps? (9) 6 Hide aboard container vessel? (5) 7 Restore the pier, please, it’s archaic (7) 8 Scoured Old Aleppo for musician’s assistant (4,5) 13 Doctor’s visit to treat locals, he seized uranium (5,4) 14 I’m an actor sadly unlikely to be Romeo (9) 15 National team’s very entertaining, Aussie shouted overseas (9) 17 Times breaks stories and spreads rumours (7) 19 Making speech about oxygen classification (7) 21 Requires massages on air (5) 22 Fine purse damaged (5) 24 Polish family in Hollywood (5)

SUDOKU PAGE 43

6 5 1 7 4 8 3 2 9

2 3 8 5 1 9 6 7 4

7 4 9 6 3 2 8 1 5

9 2 5 1 7 3 4 6 8

8 7 6 2 9 4 5 3 1

3 1 4 8 6 5 7 9 2

5 6 3 9 8 1 2 4 7

4 9 2 3 5 7 1 8 6

1 8 7 4 2 6 9 5 3

Puzzle by websudoku.com

WORD BUILDER PAGE 43 5 Trail Stale Relay Slate Tales 6 Serial Relish Rashly Halter Easily 7 Slither Hastily Irately Reality Earthly 8 Heartily 9 Hairstyle

22 JUL 2022

17

45

16

Click 1991

Arnold Schwarzenegger and George Bush

words by Michael Epis photo by Getty

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THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

S

omewhat immodestly, Arnold Schwarzenegger reckons he was invited to Camp David by US President George Bush Snr more often than anyone else. The country retreat in the rolling wooded hills of Maryland, about 100 kilometres north of Washington DC, is where presidents holiday, receive visiting heads of government – and Hollywood movie stars. But when Arnie visited, there wasn’t much relaxing.

The way he recounts his visits, it was all go, go, go.

“It was exhausting. We were doing sports from morning to night, we were doing skeet and trapshooting, horseshoe throwing and working out with the weights and doing wallyball, which is volleyball against the wall.

It went on and on…so by the time I went to bed at night I was exhausted. That’s all I can tell you,” the world champion bodybuilder later told CNN. On this visit it was snowing, and the president wanted to teach Arnie how to toboggan. The Austrian was familiar with snow, and could ski, but was not acquainted with the toboggan. “So we went down totally out of control and of course we crashed into [first lady] Barbara Bush, who broke her leg then after that, and so that’s why he sent me this picture.” Bush signed the

picture above with the words “Arnold – Turn, damn it, turn!!”, which would seem to verify Arnold’s version of events, which he also recounted in his autobiography Total Recall. Given the title, it’s hard to argue with Arnie.

But that is not what the world was told at the time.

“Barbara Bush broke a bone in her left leg yesterday when she hit a tree while sledding at Camp David, the White House said,” is how the Associated Press reported events. “The mishap occurred on an icy hill while the first lady was in a sledding party with President Bush, several grandchildren, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger and other guests.” So Arnie was placed at the scene of the crime.

Arnie appeared on the podium with Bush while the latter was running for president in 1988, when the older man dubbed him “Conan the Republican”. The favour was returned in 2003 when Arnie successfully ran to become governor of California, then again in 2004 when he endorsed George Bush Jnr’s bid for re‑election as president.

On Bush Snr’s death in 2018, Arnie said of their relationship: “He was kind of like a mentor and kind of like a father figure at the same time.”