The Big Issue Australia #649 – James Bond by The Big Issue Australia

DANIEL CRAIG ON HIS LICENCE TO THRILL

649

Ed.

12 NOV 2021

30. xx.

32.

34.

COURTNEY BARNETT NAKKIAH LUI and JOHN SAFRAN

NO CASH? NO WORRIES! Some Big Issue vendors now offer contactless payments.

NATIONAL OFFICE Chief Executive Officer Steven Persson Chief Financial Officer Jon Whitehead Chief Operating Officer Chris Enright Chief Communications Officer Emma O’Halloran National Operations Manager Jeremy Urquhart EDITORIAL Editor Amy Hetherington Deputy Editor Melissa Fulton Contributing Editor Michael Epis Contributing Editor Anastasia Safioleas Editorial Coordinator Lorraine Pink Art Direction & Design GOZER (gozer.com.au) CONTRIBUTORS

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Contents

EDITION

649

30 MUSIC

A Little Time to Think COVID has had an effect on housebound Courtney Barnett’s new album – she didn’t want to disturb the neighbours.

32 SMALL SCREENS

Apocalypse Wow

12.

When it came to making a comedy about the end of the world, Nakkiah Lui took inspiration from her grandmother.

The Name’s Craig, Daniel Craig Delayed, not deterred, Bond is back – and the winning formula remains true, with the master spy’s trademark car, gadgets and vodka martinis all in tow for Daniel Craig’s farewell outing, after first taking his character to his “spiritual home”. cover photo by Greg Williams/Danjaq LLC/MGM contents photo by Nicola Dove /©2019 Danjaq LLC/MGM

THE REGULARS

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

22 The Big Picture 28 Ricky 29 Fiona 36 Film Reviews 37 Small Screen Reviews 38 Music Reviews

39 Book Reviews 41 Public Service Announcement 42 Tastes Like Home 44 Puzzles 45 Crossword 46 Click

34 BOOKS

Smoke and Mirrors John Safran is stirring trouble again, and this time he has Big Tobacco in his sights.

Ed’s Letter

by Amy Hetherington Editor @amyhetherington

No Time to Dally

LETTER OF THE FORTNIGHT

s I venture into Melbourne’s CBD for the first time in eons, I feel a bubble of joy. There in the distance I spot a familiar sight – a Big Issue vendor, mag and calendar in hand, back at work, brightening the city streets. He’s chatting to a customer. I don’t want to interrupt, so instead I wave from a distance. The last time I was here, the city was a silent shell, its workers still at home. I’d come in to catch up with Gamal for his photo shoot for the 2022 Big Issue Calendar (you’ll find him in July, when you grab your copy from your local vendor for just $20). We met on his pitch on Degraves Street. Usually buzzing with outdoor diners and shoppers, it felt like we had the laneway to ourselves. But as Gamal posed for the shoot, a man walked past. “Hello Gamal! You’re looking well,” he called out. “This spot, this area, I’ve been working here for about 12 years,” Gamal

explained to me. “Many people here know me, not all, but most of them.” A few moments later, as we walked past a cafe on Centre Place, a woman called out, “Gamal! It’s so lovely to see you!” At that, a man ran out of the kitchen, calling: “Gamal! I love you!” This is Gamal’s community. This is the magic, the heart, of The Big Issue. And it’s wonderful to see it back in action all across the country. Also back in action is our cover star, James Bond. While the suave superspy may have saved the world from many a diabolical villain since the 1960s, not even 007 was spared from the COVID pandemic. Now, two years after its original release date, No Time to Die will finally premiere in Australia this month, giving many of us a good reason to get back in the cinema after lockdown. In this edition, we chat to Daniel Craig about his fifth and final outing as Bond, and meet a new 007. And we take a look behind the scenes at what makes Bond, James Bond.

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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

I look forward to next year when I can hang up my new bright, colourful Big Issue Calendar with the photos of valued vendors and cartoons that make me smile. I hope every day in 2022 brings happiness to everyone at The Big Issue. JESSICA GEELONG WEST I VIC

Ronnie, you are a legend! Thanks for making my day by greeting me with a cheery smile and a good joke. ROB BRISBANE I QLD

Dear Michael, thank you for taking the time to explain to me how The Big Issue works and encouraging me to have a look inside the magazine. I read some great stories! Have a great day, and know your work is appreciated as you’re a nice person. ALICE MELBOURNE I VIC

Hi Nathan, it was great chatting to you the other day at Newtown Station. It’s great to meet such a warm character like you on my commute in the morning. Absolutely made my day! FELIX SYDNEY 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 23 locations around the country. • The Vendor Support Fund will offset the cost price of products for vendors, allowing them to earn a larger margin on their own street sales. • The Big Issue Education workshops provide school, tertiary and corporate groups with insights into homelessness and disadvantage, and provide work opportunities for people experiencing marginalisation. CHECK OUT ALL THE DETAILS AT THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Jessica wins a copy of Nadiya’s Fast Flavours, a cookbook by Nadiya Hussain. You can whip up her Banana Skin Bagels on p42. 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

Lynn

SELLS THE BIG ISSUE AT BEAUMONT ST, HUNTER ST MALL & ALDI MAYFIELD, NEWCASTLE

interview by Anastasia Safioleas photo by Simone De Peak

PROUD UNIFORM PARTNER OF THE BIG ISSUE VENDORS.

12 NOV 2021

I was born in Sydney, and when I was eight we moved to Queensland. We then came to Newcastle when I was 11. I’ve got a brother who lives in WA but we don’t have any contact. I have stepbrothers and sisters but it’s complicated. I don’t talk to any of them. I would love to, but… I didn’t enjoy school but it was an escape from the house. The kids used to tease me, but it got me away from my father and my grandmother. I finished school, got to Year 12 but only because my parents said if I didn’t have a job at the end of the holidays, I had to go back for Year 11 and 12 – so I went back to school because I had no idea how to get a job. I didn’t know how to write resumes, how to present myself. I had anxiety and depression and I didn’t even know about it. It was hard times. After high school I fell pregnant and had a son. And then I met my husband, and I had another child. We raised the two boys until he walked out. That’s a long story. I’ve been selling The Big Issue seriously for only six months, but I’ve been with the magazine for three years. It’s going really good. I find it helpful because if I sell a magazine and a homeless man is looking through a bin, I can offer him lunch. It helps me and other people out. I definitely have regulars who come and buy the magazine. Even if they don’t buy the magazine they stop for a chat. One regular customer has become a good friend. I was sick and she cooked me dinner and brought it round. It was very sweet. There’s a gentleman with two kids that regularly buys. And there’s an older couple who always come by and say g’day. I’m a published poet. I’ve been writing poetry for about five or six years. I’ve been in The Big Issue three times, and I’ve been published in books. I’m also an artist – I do acrylic on canvas. I just put one of my paintings online for sale. I’ve been painting since my last breakdown, which was in 2012. I used it as a form of therapy – I pretty much painted myself better. I’m doing a lot better than I was then because I couldn’t even come out of the house. Now I’m out selling The Big Issue. I’ve come a long way. With the money I make selling The Big Issue I’m able to buy extra food when we need it. I have more money to help people out or to help myself out, buying extra food for me and Andrew. He’s a work colleague, a fellow Big Issue vendor, and he comes over for dinner nearly every night. Sometimes I shout dinner, sometimes he shouts dinner, it just depends. But most of the time I cook. What I love most about selling The Big Issue are the people and the walking because I’m losing weight. And my children are happy for me that I have a job and I’m not annoying them every day on the phone.

Streetsheet

Stories, poems and pictures by Big Issue vendors and friends

Welcome Back!!! VENDOR SPOTLIGHT

LENNY

After four months it’s so good to see the NSW vendors go out and sell mags again. Keep up the good work – the West is always here for you! I’m really looking forward to seeing every vendor in Australia working again. Fingers crossed for the Victoria and ACT vendors now they’re out of lockdown and selling again. Stay safe fellow vendors, sanitise your hands and sell heaps. KELLEE MISS MAUD I PERTH

New Opportunities

BOOK CLUB BUDDIES: THOMAS AND LENNY

More Than a Customer

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hen I met Thomas on my pitch for the first time, he had a big smile on his face, and he spent a while chatting to me while buying the magazine. It was a Friday, a day off for him, which he liked using to hang out in West End and engaging with anyone willing to have a conversation. He was probably my first regular customer on my pitch in front of Avid Reader bookshop. I enjoyed meeting him, making a connection. One day, he invited me to join a book group he wanted to run, not just reading about non-violent communication but also practising it. I was hesitant at first, but I’m glad I accepted his offer to do something I hadn’t done before. Non-violent communication helped me in some dark days long before selling The Big Issue. Our fortnightly book group meetings became something to look forward to, connecting in a meaningful way to some random strangers, who soon turned into friends. Sharing stories turned a customer into a friend. I met his lovely wife Imke and his kids Rosie and Sam. I went to his birthday party, and spend lots of time in his company outside my office. I’m happy that my work on the streets helps me to connect to the people I see regularly. I enjoy the smiles and yarns I encounter. After all, we’re all just people, doing our best to navigate through life. Whether rich or poor, with a safe place to sleep or not, there’s more that connects us than what separates us. Supporting each other brings much more joy than fighting each other, and I’m grateful for a job that allows me to experience that. Thanks to all you lovely people making me feel part of the community. Keep up your good work. LENNY AVID READER I BRISBANE

Three of us used to sleep rough at a Salvos cafe before the pandemic. However, just before last year’s first COVID lockdown, we moved to help a new op shop set up in High Street. This is my first time helping at an op shop, especially sorting out the donated stuff and gradually learning to do pricing for certain items. This op shop also helps to give away free food like frozen food packs and pastries to those in need. I am still able to sell The Big Issue during weekends when there are other volunteers helping in the shop. Despite the few unexpected on-and-off lockdowns for these two years, I am grateful and thank God for all his provisions to me. SUE I MELBOURNE

Family and Friends Thanks to all my customers for your support and great conversation. I enjoy seeing you all. Thinking about how difficult the last year has been, and I realised how supportive my family and friends are. I never knew I had that kind of support there. GARRY FLAGSTAFF, CNR WILLIAM & LONDSDALE STS I MELBOURNE

Farewell Theo Theo was a busker in Rundle Mall; he played the drums with his hands. I had not seen Theo for a couple of weeks. Then I was told he had

passed away, at the age of only 52. Theo was friendly – he would come and talk to me and Fifi. He told me he did not need the money he received from busking, he just liked meeting and talking to people in the mall. He said if he stayed at home, he would be too lonely. When he did receive money, he would give it away to people in need. Theo was one of the most lovely and decent people I have met in my life. Theo, I will miss seeing you and talking with you. RUTH CNR JAMES PLACE & RUNDLE MALL I ADELAIDE

No Monkey Business A lady got hit by a Lime electric scooter near my pitch. I watched her wait for an ambulance. I like the Lime scooters, I’ve ridden one before. They’re good for a fun trip around town. But some people take risks on them, and that can put other people

in danger. Please play it safe on your scooter and keep aware of what’s around you. No monkey business! Let’s keep the injuries down. DAVID K WILLIAM ST & QUEENS PLAZA I BRISBANE

Run for Fun About two or so years ago, I was involved as a participant in the City2Surf fun run. I had such a great time going to Bondi from the city through the bridge that starts at the Cross. I was humbled by people who helped sponsor me and my participation in the event. I managed to raise over $1000 for The Big Issue. So, thanks to all my customers – they all bring a big smile to my face so they can also have a smile for free when they buy the mag. Plus thumbs up to Big Issue staff, organisers and volunteers. LUKE CNR ELIZABETH & MARKET STS, CITY POINT TOWER I SYDNEY

Does Anybody Care? The trees in the Amazon are falling Species are dying Forever Does anybody care? In the cities The homeless beg Drug dealers hustle And bikies flex their muscle Does anybody care? Our world is dying No currency rules In the environmental wastelands In the cities What happens when the money runs out? Does anybody care? We need to find another planet ’Cos this one might be gone if we’re not careful Does anybody care? DANIEL K WAYMOUTH ST & HUTT ST I ADELAIDE

Welcome Home! On 13 October I finally moved into my new house. I am sooo happy and I am feeling sooo much calmer. Where I live now is so much quieter than where I used to live. Also, after six years I finally have a laundry – I was able to buy a washing machine, so I can now wash when I want to.

CAROLINE IS HOME SWEET HOME

ALL VENDOR CONTRIBUTORS TO STREETSHEET ARE PAID FOR THEIR WORK.

12 NOV 2021

CAROLINE LONDON COURT I PERTH

Hearsay

Andrew Weldon Cartoonist

I don’t know that I’m ready to accept this yet. Today I lost a mentor and friend, our country lost an icon, but most importantly a family has lost their hero and soulmate. Sending love to all the Newtons, especially Patti. My heart is broken. Rest In Power, Albert Watson Newton.

Grinch – but he’s warning that trees may be harder to come by this year, due to environmental factors (droughts, bushfires and floods, for real trees) and global supply chain issues (for fake plastic trees). Yep, climate change and COVID are killing Christmas. NPR I US

“Finally, I made my best space tacos yet: fajita beef, rehydrated tomatoes & artichokes, and HATCH CHILE!” US astronaut Megan McArthur celebrates harvesting green chillies grown on the International Space Station with a zero-gravity taco party – a welcome relief from the usual space diet of pre-packaged food. SMITHSONIAN MAG I US

Rove McManus pays tribute to Bert Newton, who has passed away, aged 83. TWITTER

“My name is Cleo.” The first words uttered by four‑year‑old Cleo Smith after she was found alive and well 18 days after she went missing from a Western Australian campsite.

about me, but if I weren’t who I am today, I would have been a combat journalist. That was one of my dreams.” Lady Gaga on the day she sang at US President Joe Biden’s inauguration.

PERTH NOW I AU

VOGUE I UK

“We put a hat on him. We put him on Facebook, taking him for a walk, giving him some sunshine. It’s all a bit of fun. It’s amazing what entertains people.” Colin Craig-Brown on his mate Doug – the world’s largest spud, who was dug up on a small farm near Hamilton, NZ. If Colin has his way, all 7.8 kilos of Doug may soon be transformed into a nice drop of vodka.

“Change is not going to come from inside there. That is not leadership. This is leadership... We say ‘No more blah, blah, blah... No more whatever the fuck they’re doing inside there.’” Swedish environmentalist Greta Thunberg on Glasgow’s COP26, where world leaders were trying to find ways to stop the Earth overheating – or not.

“Being the first person with albinism elected in this kind of office, there is high expectation, not only in Malawi, but the whole world is looking forward to what I would do.” Overstone Kondowe, on being the first person with albinism elected in Malawi, where Amnesty International reports that more than 20 people with albinism have been murdered since 2014.

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AFRICA NEWS I CD

MASHABLE I US

CNN I US

ABC I AU

“Ushering 45 out and 46 in is something I’ll be able to tell my children all about. Singing in a Schiaparelli bulletproof dress. I don’t know if people know this

“They were off the rhythm, they missed beeps, and were performing in general, worse.” Arturo Forner-Cordero, from University of São Paulo, on a study that shows sleep-deprivation can cause you to “sleepy walk”: it alters your gait, your ability to avoid obstacles, your balance – and it’s harder to keep the beat with music.

“Really, there are no such thing as bad Christmas trees – they’re all beautiful.” Jami Warner, the executive director of the American Christmas Tree Association, doesn’t want to be a

“I knew this day would come. People get intrigued if you do special things in special places.” Taiwanese maths teacher Chang Hus, who has been posting his (fully

20 Questions by Rachael Wallace

01 What would an American call a

drawing pin? 02 Who won the 2021 season of

SAS Australia? 03 Which food additive consists of the

skin and bone of animals? 04 What day of the week was

1 January, 2000? 05 In which Australian city is

Manuka Oval? 06 Adrian Edmondson, Rik Mayall,

Nigel Planer and Christopher Ryan starred in which classic 1980s TV comedy series? 07 Which world city also goes by the

nickname The Bride of the Sea? 08 True or false? One of the original

uses of Listerine was as a cure for gonorrhoea. 09 With a population of 72,

THE IRISH TIMES I IE

“I used to not do as many books because I was bringing up nine children, which is time‑consuming.” Bestselling novelist Danielle Steel on writing just four novels a year when her children were young. HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW I US

“Any movie we do…the rule is we’re not going to use real guns. That’s it. We’re going to switch over to rubber guns.” Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson announces his move after the tragic death on the set of Rust, where a gun fired by Alec Baldwin killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. VARIETY I US

“I just remember how great it was to work with him and how great he was. Because you are not just messing around, you are not

Pimpimbudgee is in which Australian state or territory? 10 Mordecai and Rigby are characters

in which children’s show: a) Adventure Time, b) Paw Patrol, c) Regular Show or d) Peppa Pig? 11 What is the name of the generation

who are the children of millennials? 12 The book Eats, Shoots & Leaves by

Lynne Truss is about what subject? 13 Which is the higher poker hand –

four of a kind or a flush? 14 What is chrometophobia a fear of? 15 English artist Andy Brown created a

portrait of who using 1000 tea bags? 16 Which Jewish festival is celebrated

“Definitely not going to jail. Sorry I have blonde hair white skin a great job a great future and I’m not going to jail. Sorry to rain on your hater parade. I did nothing wrong.” Dallas real estate agent Jennifer Leigh Ryan, on Twitter earlier this year, after she flew on a chartered jet to storm the US Capitol and stop Joe Biden becoming president. She has just been sentenced to two months’ jail.

over eight days usually starting in early December? 17 Which two singers collaborated on

the 2013 song True Love? 18 What is the final letter of the

Greek alphabet? 19 What has Facebook rebranded

itself as? 20 Little Rock is the capital city of

which US state?

12 NOV 2021

TAIPEI TIMES I TW

singing with Joe Bloggs, you are singing with John Lennon.” Paul McCartney on making magic with John Lennon.

NPR I US

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

ANSWERS ON PAGE 44.

clothed) maths lectures on adult “I don’t know what I site Pornhub, said. I wasn’t paying which earned attention.” him $364,000 in Young boy to his mother, a year after some overheard by Lyn of viewers enrolled Footscray, Vic. in his courses. You do the maths. He got the idea when he wondered where he could get his videos in front of college-aged students. EAR2GROUND

My Word

by Clementine Ford @clementine_ford

hen deprived of our usual avenues for love and connection, humanity finds other ways of experiencing joy. So it was with the pandemic. Some of us formed communities in online spaces. Others took up skills and hobbies they hadn’t previously considered. Me, I began taking weekly walks with my friend Alice, meeting in the park or along the river on our child-free nights. I’d like to say we held highbrow discussions on these moonlit strolls, but mostly we got a bit stoned and talked about boys. Alice and I had met a year or so earlier, in a parenting group we’re both in on Facebook. I was wary of her at first. Before we’d properly even spoken with each other, she’d invited my son and me to join her on the annual camping trip she takes with other friends and their children. Who is this weird woman? I thought to myself, bristling against the anxiety of spending time in the company of strangers. But I didn’t want to be rude, and so drove to the campsite one day, stood around awkwardly for a few hours, and then begged leave for personal reasons. Later, I would learn that this was the kind of thing Alice does. Makes friends, I mean. And not just casually. Alice makes friends of people, pursuing them with the same gentle charm we hope to bring to those we intend to make our lovers. I fell in love with Alice after she invited me to help launch her second novel, a dystopian fiction set in a ruined future Melbourne wracked by climate change and floods. I agreed reluctantly, still fearing it was an elaborate set-up to force me to be friends with a person I would never normally seek out – the kind of person who goes camping. When The Glad Shout appeared in my mailbox the following week, I left it for a day or two before picking it up to skim read the first few pages. I didn’t put it down again until hours later, when the light had moved across the sky and the cicadas were beginning to sing outside. I felt myself changed in some way, gripped by the depths of this woman’s talent – her incredible fucking talent – and the ways she had so expertly managed to capture something innate about the tedium of women’s domestic lives without the writing becoming tedious itself.

There are many ways to fall in love, and it just so happens that I fell in love with Alice in almost all of them. We have had (thankfully, only a few) bitter fights on street corners, in parks and in living rooms, both of us expressing some interior rage or frustration that was less about each other than about life itself. More commonly, we have been each other’s sounding boards and champions. Ours is tactile friendship, although to be honest it feels simplistic to call it a friendship at all. It is more appropriate to think of Alice as my anamchara, a Celtic word I’ve learned recently that means “soul friend”. Your anamchara is a person with whom you can share your innermost self without fear of judgement or hostility. They are, to borrow a more modern literary reference, your person. I feel blessed in this life to have a handful of soul‑friends, each of whom I can be fully, completely myself in front of. But if we are to allow ourselves the fancy of imagining reincarnation as an act of souls meeting repeatedly throughout eternity, Alice is the one I’ve met many times over, and we will continue to meet until the sun burns out and all of existence as we understand it ceases to be. We often make the mistake of seeing friendship as secondary to romantic love, particularly where women are concerned. No matter who we’re attracted to, women are culturally instructed to aspire to domestic partnership of some kind. We are born, we come into maturity, and we find someone whose mere presence is supposed to water us for the rest of our days. But for so many of us, our true experience of love – of being known and understood – comes not from those who may lie next to us at night, but from the anamchara who become our people. I imagine myself sometimes, old and grizzled and grey. It isn’t a generic lover I see next to me, rocking on the proverbial porch. It’s Alice. Alice with her long, dark hair (which will by then be silver) and her brown eyes (which I have always mistaken for being ice blue). Alice with her thoughtful gaze and unexpectedly lewd vocabulary. Alice in repose, considering the world and all that it has offered us. Alice, who made of me a friend and gave to me a life. I love her, and it’s as simple as that. Clementine Ford is a writer living on Wurundjeri land in Naarm/Melbourne. Her latest book How We Love: Notes on a Life is out now.

Clementine Ford finds that there are many ways to be in love, to be known and understood.

12 NOV 2021

Soul-mates

PHOTO BY COLUMBIA PICTURES/ALAMY

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CRAIG, DANIEL CRAIG

THE NAME’S

Daniel Craig talks about the long process behind his fifth and final outing as James Bond – including the influence of MeToo, the director who almost got the job, and just how much he loves the gadgets too.

12 NOV 2021

o Time to Die takes place a few years after Spectre. Bond has retired from the world. Where do we pick him up? He’s gone back to his spiritual home, Jamaica, he’s out of the service, but Bond is not the sort of character that likes idle hands. He’s kept himself busy, kept himself fit, kept his edge. We were trying to find what exactly had happened, but you can never quite tell exactly. One of the things that happens is a whole load of coincidences. Which is always a good way to start a movie, because then you’re off to the races quite quick! Suddenly there’s a double-O agent and [CIA operative] Felix Leiter in his life. So he needs to know what’s going on. Felix asks him to do a job; he’s not officially working for the CIA, but this is a favour to Felix, because he’s a friend. That sets the ball rolling and he’s off to Cuba. The Bond movies always reflect the world in a way. How does No Time to Die do that? It’s impossible not to, and if you look at the Bond movies, how people are dressed dates them. But also, what’s happening in the world influences them. I don’t think we set out necessarily to directly do it, and I think you’re off to a bad start when you try to bring what’s happening in the world into them and reference it too much, but it’s the fears that we talk about. We talk about what our bad guy wants – do they want to destroy the world? To dominate it? Do they want to share the world with only their people? All these questions have to come up, and invariably what happens is you start relating them to what’s going on. When [producers] Barbara [Broccoli] and Michael [Wilson] were doing GoldenEye, people asked why they were making a Bond movie after the Cold

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12 NOV 2021

quite vociferous about it, because you have to. We knew we had to stop and look at it. You’re always going to be on set trying to tweak things, which is great, but you need the foundation of the scene. And that’s what we did – we worked it out, which was great. This is your fifth time as Bond. Is he an easy man to find? One of the things is that when I first started playing him, about three months would get me into shape for the movie. It’s now about a year, so even though I don’t have a script at that point, I’ve still started the process in my head because I’m trying to get fit and get ready for any stunts, so in a way it’s not a switch. It’s a process. Suttirat [Anne Larlarb], our brilliant costumer designer, came out to New York and we sat and chatted about clothes, which was a long time before we started shooting. You have Lashana Lynch as a new double-O agent. How satisfying is it to move the story along with actors like her? I thought that was part of the fun of it. Especially with characters like Lashana’s Nomi [as the new 007]. We’ve had a lot of questions about MeToo and I’m not batting it away, but we can’t directly solve it with Bond, it’s more the way we think. You put someone like her character into the story and you have an incredibly strong character calling him out and that to me is the way to do it. And that doesn’t mean he’s going to go and change, he’s still James Bond and still flawed, but at least you’re allowing the audience to say, “That’s not right…” In Barbara we have a very strong, feminist voice anyway, and she’s been doing this for a long time. And we have Lashana, Ana de Armas and Naomie Harris, who are all brilliant actors in strong roles. Audiences expect spectacle and gadgets from Bond. What can No Time to Die offer? I’m a huge fan of all of that. I’d always say, “Yeah, but…gadgets!” We’re getting them back in. We had a lot of gadgets in Spectre and now we’ve doubled down. They need to be fresh and we haven’t got Bren guns in the front of the DB5, we’ve got miniguns. We’ve upped it a teeny bit!

War because it’s all over. How wrong we were! The world is as complicated as ever, or seems that way, and what do the bad guys want? We have to do that, but it’s a Bond movie, so our bad guy has a lair, and that’s important. Because at the end of the day it’s a family movie and as gritty as I’ve made them, I hope we’ve kept them in the realms of fantasy. You have Cary Fukunaga this time as director. What did he bring? We went through the process with Danny Boyle [who left as director in 2018 citing creative differences], which is one of those things, that happens BOND: a lot on movies. It’s just that on Bond LICENCED TO KILL movies the spotlight is very intense. It was all very adult and amicable. Cary was available and had talked to Barbara before about making a Bond film. He’s one of those visionary directors with a very strong visual style and you need someone with a strength making a Bond movie. It’s a big deal. And to have somebody who has such strong filmmaking language and a knowledge of moviemaking is so important because consistency is vital, A TENSE MOMENT IN M’S OFFICE... not just in the storytelling, but in the way it feels and looks. So the audience isn’t saying, “Hang on, what’s going on?” Cary is also young and has a lot of stamina. It’s seven months of shooting! It’s having the energy. We’re just lucky to have him. Plus the fact he’s a writer, it was important for us because we were at the stage where we were tweaking it constantly. Why was Rami Malek the right choice as villain? DOUBLE 007: LASHANA LYNCH’S He was awesome and very busy, NOMI, WITH BOND and we were lucky to get him. I think his name came up fairly early, but it was one of those things where we wondered if he’d do it. We didn’t have the part there yet. So as much as it was a lovely idea, you’ve got to at least be able to say, “We haven’t got all the words, but this is what it is.” Then we did, and we had to try and get him in. What you don’t want to do, especially with someone like Rami, is promise it and then not deliver. RAMI MALEK AS THE VILLAINOUS SAFIN Rami has talked about a meeting with you, Cary and Barbara Broccoli to re-work a scene in a day. A few decisions were made like that. I got injured, which freed me up and I would get

Steven MacKenzie goes behind the scenes to examine the elements that make the Bond movies – the look, the gadgets, the cars and the martinis. by Steven MacKenzie The Big Issue UK

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@stevenmackenzie

HOW TO BE LIKE BOND

BOND’S VIEW TO A HILL

amalgamate that with the spirit of the legacy of the franchise.” Bennett adds: “That is key in any Bond movie – it has that unique freshness and it’s timeless as well.” One of their tasks on No Time to Die was to design a house in Jamaica where Bond has been living under the radar. What kind of house would Bond live in? “A lot of Bond is about the actor playing him,” Callow says. “So what state of mind is James Bond in, and what does Daniel Craig bring to James Bond? How can we represent that personality and mood, that moment in the life of James Bond, through architecture and design? “So Bond’s retired from the service. He’s gone to get away from it all in Jamaica. What would he be doing in Jamaica? Well, he’s not going to be sitting around sipping martinis – he’s not in that kind of moment in his life. He’s going to be fixing boat engines, fishing and reading books. So what kind of books would he be reading at this point in his life? “He’s got taste. He’s got elegance. He’s understated. British. It’s classy. Bond enjoys quality but it’s not to show off. Things will be well made, well considered.” “He also has a sense of humour,” adds Bennett, of the spy with a quick quip.

He’s got taste. He’s got elegance. He’s understated. British. NEAL CALLOW, BOND ART DIRECTOR

12 NOV 2021

f you’re watching a Bond movie, you know it. Dynamic angles. Bold shapes. Dark and light. This is the James Bond aesthetic in its simplest sense, established by the makers of the early movies, especially Sir Ken Adam, who designed many of the iconic sets, from Goldfinger’s Fort Knox interior in 1964 to the volcanic lair in 1967’s You Only Live Twice. As art directors on No Time to Die, Andrew Bennett and Neal Callow are charged with maintaining that legacy. “Ken Adam was…half drinking in the most innovative ideas in art and architecture of the time, and the other half was about composing shots for film, using shadow and light and dramatic angles to frame the characters in a memorable composition,” Callow says. “We try to do that as much as possible and pay respect to the legacy. But it still has to be contemporary. Bond represents the current political, artistic, stylistic climate of the world. “Lots of the architectural language will have some of the spirit of previous Bond films but reworked in a contemporary way. Our job as art directors – and that of anyone on the creative side of Bond – is to keep up to speed with developments and innovation in architecture, lighting, decoration. Absorb and

THE BOND LOOK I

WELL CONSIDERED: THE JAMAICAN HIDEAWAY

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THE GADGETS James Bond is famous for his spectacular stunts and gadgets, and for close to 45 years Chris Corbould has been helping 007 achieve his mission of blowing audiences away. No Time to Die is Corbould’s 15th Bond film. His first was in 1977: “My claim to fame on The Spy Who Loved Me was that I built one of two ski poles that turned into a gun,” Corbould says. Over the years, his role has grown. On No Time to Die, he is special effects supervisor and vehicle supervisor. He works closely with the writers, director and producers to develop the action sequence opportunities that the storyline presents. “I believe the most important things in any Bond script are the screenplay, characters and locations,” Corbould says. “Once you’ve established that then the action starts.” No Time to Die features a plane-submarine, gunfights in Cuba and a car chase featuring a stalwart of the series, who is not human. “There’s a very exciting sequence with the Aston Martin DB5. I was so happy that it wasn’t the DB5 in its normal cameo role, just driving into the sunset or looking pretty. It was back in full combat mode. “We had lots of discussions about whether the DB5 should remain true to how it was in Goldfinger, with those original weapons and gadgets, or whether we should update them. Cary Fukunaga, the director, made the decision that it’s a bit of both.” That conversation reflects a wider one about the Bond films. How to keep the character modern and relevant, while also true to his roots. “There are a lot of boxes that have to be ticked in a James Bond film for the diehard fans,” Corbould explains. “‘The name’s Bond, James Bond’ is going to be in every film. There is a legacy, a lot of nostalgia involved. People in Britain and around the world have grown up with James Bond. They remember fantastic feats – the guy skiing off the side of a mountain and a Union Jack opening as a parachute. There are so many iconic moments, it’s ingrained in our mindset. The public really take Bond to their heart and feel part of it. But you can’t just keep reproducing the same material, so you have to keep to

the tradition but with a twist that keeps it interesting and exciting.” Bond is about pushing boundaries, always teetering on the brink of plausibility. “Whenever I’m dreaming up a sequence, I have to believe in my own head that it’s possible. It might be edging on the borders of reality but for the audiences to believe it, it has to be doable. You can push it so far, but as soon as you go past that borderline it becomes unbelievable.” Corbould references Die Another Day, Pierce Brosnan’s 2002 Bond swansong, which included an invisible car and an infamously sludgy CGI surfing scene. “Some of us felt we pushed the CGI boundary too far,” he continues. “The producers realised themselves that we probably had gone too far. Hence the Daniel Craig era, where it went back to basics.” And now the mission is over for Daniel Craig – and Corbould has ensured us he’s going out on a high. “This is going to be a truly special Bond. On an emotional level, it’s way beyond any other Bond I’ve worked on. You’ve still got all the action, the set pieces, the cars, the gadgets that audiences love, but it’s taken the whole storyline to a new level as far BOND: LICENCED TO as I’m concerned.” KILL

There is a legacy, a lot of nostalgia. CHRIS CORBOULD, BOND SPECIAL EFFECTS AND VEHICLE SUPERVISOR

CHRIS CORBOULD ON SET WITH HIS TOYS

THE DB5 IN NO TIME TO DIE

Shaking the martini, it gets much colder. ERIK LORINCZ, BOND COCKTAIL CONSULTANT

COOL AS: BOND AND PALOMA (ANA DE ARMAS) AT THE BAR

the bottle, pour into the jigger, pour into the shaker, grab the shaker and shake it like the person had done this every day for 10 years” – all for a scene that was edited down to seconds. Lorincz has been part of the franchise ever since, and in No Time to Die, Bond is back on his trademark drink. So what is the secret of shaking rather than stirring? “Shaking the martini, it gets much colder,” Lorincz explains. “If you stir a martini, you would reach a temperature of about zero Celsius but when you shake a martini, you would get to minus 6, minus 8. “If I put two martinis next to each other and one was shaken and one was stirred, you would notice the difference straight away. The one which is stirred would taste much stronger on a sip. The alcohol would be much more pronounced. When alcohol is colder, you don’t actually feel its strength.” Controversially, Lorincz points out that

stirring helps “maintain the viscosity, the silkiness of the spirit”. He compares a chef using fire to mix ingredients and flavours to a bartender doing the same with its opposite. “For us, the tool to combine flavours is ice. Obviously, we work with different types of ingredients, whether it’s a liqueur, where the density of the liquid is much thicker because of the sugar level, or even herbs or spices, fruits, strawberries, raspberries. “In order to mix them together you need something in the shaker that’s combining with the other liquids and that’s the ice.” Lorincz now runs the esteemed Kwānt in London’s Mayfair – and he knows what happens next. “Trust me, when the movie comes out every second martini drinker will feel like he’s Bond.”

NO TIME TO DIE IS IN CINEMAS NOW.

12 NOV 2021

The vodka martini has been with us from the first Bond movie, Dr No in 1962, where the preference that it be “shaken, not stirred” began. But what’s the difference? There’s nobody better to ask than Erik Lorincz, the cocktail consultant to the franchise. Born in Slovakia, he was head bartender at The Savoy’s American Bar in London when he found himself serving Bond producer Barbara Broccoli about a decade ago. A friend jokingly suggested she bring him into the world of Bond. “It was almost a year later I received a call from a phone number ending with 007,” Lorincz recalls. It was Broccoli. “She said, ‘Hey Erik, I would like you to come on board and help us make sure that when Bond’s ordered a martini that it comes out perfectly like it would from your hands.’ I was like, ‘Sure, absolutely.’” On the set of Skyfall (2012), Lorincz helped the actor “hold the jigger, hold

TEXT COURTESY OF THE BIG ISSUE UK BIGISSUE.COM

THE VODKA MARTINIS

Letter to My Younger Self

Women like me became discreet revolutionaries The first woman to head up Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Stella Rimington, is neither shaken nor stirred by her reputation as the “James Bond housewife superspy”.

@janeannie

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was a child of the war, born just four years before the Second World War broke out. We left Nottingham and went to stay with my granny in Wallasey, across the river from Liverpool. And we lived there when the Liverpool docks were bombed. By 1951, when I turned 16, people were finally looking towards the future again. That was the year of the Festival of Britain, on London’s South Bank. It was to celebrate a new start. I remember a fairground and a Dome of Discovery, full of new scientific inventions. I found it enormous fun. The government were saying, “The gloom is over now and we have something to look forward to.” Do I think we’ll have a Festival of Brexit in a few years? I very much doubt it. My father fought in the First World War and he was subject to periods of depression. He was very fond of my brother and me but he wasn’t very communicative. I had a closer relationship with my mother. She propped us all up. She had worked as a midwife in the East End, just like the nurses in Call the Midwife. But she came from an era when women weren’t expected to have a job after they married, so she gave her work up after the war. I do wonder if she ever thought about what her life might have been like if she’d been born at a different time. It must have been very stressful, carrying the weight of two small children and a very anxious husband through the war. I regard her as an unsung hero when I think of her.

PHOTOS BY ALAMY AND GETTY. TEXT COURTESY OF THE BIG ISSUE UK, ED#1323, BIGISSUE.COM @BIGISSUE

by Jane Graham The Big Issue UK

STELLA RIMINGTON INSPECTS AN ENIGMA DECODING MACHINE AND DOCUMENTS AT BRITAIN’S PUBLIC RECORDS OFFICE IN KEW

12 NOV 2021

about telling anyone what I did, I was on the front of every newspaper. It was a very strange period actually. A mixture of elation and alarm. My mother was stunned. I hadn’t talked to my daughters about what I did, though I think they had their suspicions. Their friends were all saying, “Ooh, I read about your mum.” I had one friend who was very hurt. She was traditionally left wing and thought the services were the enemies of the people. So when she found out what I had been doing all those years she was very upset and didn’t speak to me for ages. We tried to combat the press’ initial image of me as the James Bond housewife superspy and I think we were making some progress. Then of course the new Bond film had Judi Dench as M, and she was said to be modelled on me. So rather than knocking the James Bond thing on the head it became quite fun. If I could go back and relive one day it would be the day I went to meet the men who had so long been our enemies, the KGB. The idea was that we would help them legislate the secret services so they could operate in a democracy. But really…they saw us as extraordinary creatures from another world. I was the only woman at the table, of course. At the concluding speech one of them said, “In your country you have a woman Prime Minister, you have a lady Queen, and now we have a woman leading your intelligence service.” There was a sense of “you must be mad”. But still, that was one of the most amazing things that ever happened to me. I didn’t think it would ever be possible to go to Russia. I thought the Cold War would last for my lifetime. Yet there I was in the British ambassador’s Rolls-Royce with the Union Jack flying on the bonnet, driving through a snowy Moscow night to have dinner with the KBG. It was something straight out of a novel. The 16-year-old Stella would be completely amazed by the way my life has gone. Some of the things I’ve seen she didn’t even know existed. She would have worried that my life wasn’t safe, because she came out of a world of fear and saw it turn into what looked like a new peace. And everything I’ve been involved in has not been about peace, it’s been about protecting against threats. But that hasn’t made me a more fearful person. Quite the opposite.

I found work as a county archivist after university but I did assume I would eventually get married and then my career would come second to my husband’s. And it did for a while. When he got a job in New Delhi, I immediately gave up work and went off to be a diplomat’s wife. India was fantastic but I found the life rather boring – hosting tea parties and getting involved in amateur dramatics. When we came back to England, I expected we’d start a family, but it didn’t happen [yet]. I suppose I was kind of a failed mother at that point, so when I managed to get a job as a typing clerk in MI5 my husband encouraged me. I thought the MI5 work was interesting but I was slightly bored because the women were very clearly second class. I had a degree just like the men, but we were regarded as men’s helpers. But as the 70s went on, and we had Women’s Lib and the Sexual Discrimination Act, those vague feelings that it wasn’t quite fair began to mount. Women like me became discreet revolutionaries. We were politely saying, “Why are we not thought fit to do the real work?” And things began to change. It wasn’t easy for me. I split up with my husband when my older daughter was about 10. From then on we were a single-parent family with two growing girls. And me in a full-time, 24/7 kind of job. We managed with a combination of au pairs, nannies, the lady down the road. It was a bit hand-to-mouth at times, I admit. My daughters talk it about it sometimes, usually very generously. They say it was good to have a mother who was doing something, but it wasn’t as cosy a childhood as they might have had. The end of the Cold War was a time of vast excitement and great hope. Suddenly the world began to change radically. Everything I had been working against began to crumble. Gorbachev had started an avalanche, which led to the total collapse of the Iron Curtain. It was a bit like 1951 again, that sense of the world opening up. But I’m not optimistic about the future right now. I feel the world is in a very worrying state with the rise of nationalism and people retreating behind borders. Things feel very unstable. The golden hope of the late 80s has not been fulfilled. I was finally told I’d been made director general of MI5 just after the end of the Cold War. So getting that job just felt like part of a series of amazing things happening. I was very excited and thrilled and surprised. The government then decided that, for the first time ever, they were going to announce the appointment of the new MI5 boss and tell people who I was. So after years of being very cautious

series by Alexey Vasilyev

The Big Picture

From Russia, With Love Deep inside the Arctic Circle a new film industry is being born, brought into being by intrepid moviemakers who won’t let a little thing like sub-zero temperatures stand in their way. by Khalid Warsame @kldwarsame

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Khalid Warsame is a writer, critic and arts worker who lives in Naarm/ Melbourne. He writes essays and short stories.

TWINS SEMYON AND STEPAN FEATURE IN THE OLD BEYBERIKEEN, BASED ON THE FOLK TALE ‘THE OLD WOMAN WITH FIVE COWS’, ABOUT THE CREATURE OF THE SWAMP, THE DULGANCHA

FOR MORE IMAGES, GO TO ALEXEY-VASILYEV.COM.

12 NOV 2021

ife here is not easy,” says photographer Alexey Vasilyev. “Nine months of winter, with December, January the coldest, when temperature drops to -50 degrees.” The Republic of Sakha, also known as Yakutia, is a vast and extreme land. It is the largest territorial subdivision in the world, larger by a fifth than Western Australia. It comprises one-fifth of Russia – and is home to just one million people, largely because almost half of it is above the Arctic Circle. In the depths of winter, all life slows and in some cases grinds to a halt (except for the vast mining operations dredging oil, diamonds and coal from the earth). “People prefer to sit at home at this time, watch TV shows, study photography. But mostly, of course, watching TV shows.” Perhaps that helps explain why Yakutia has spawned its own film industry. Known as “Sakhawood”, it may be no match yet for Hollywood, Bollywood or Nigeria’s Nollywood, but these intrepid directors, actors, film crews and writers are carving their own niche – which fascinates Vasilyev, a Yakut local himself. “I am captivated by their dedication to the art of cinema,” he says. “They really love what they do. They are ready to take out loans, sell their property, go into debt, work somewhere else, just to find money to make a movie.” Vasilyev only recently became interested in this fledgling film industry. “I didn’t know anything about local cinema, and to be honest I preferred to watch European, American films. I looked at our cinema arrogantly, believing that it was all child’s play. But my opinion changed… These guys really strive to make interesting films, high-quality films.” More than a dozen Sakhawood films have been screened internationally, picking up numerous awards. The films often draw from local legends, culture and folk tales, but also speak the international language of film – comedy, horror, drama, even the zombie apocalypse, as in Stepan Burnashev’s Respublika Z (2018). “I call on the gods for their blessing before filming, I ask them to feed the fire and the earth,” Burnashev told Time. Film language is international, but the local language is Yakut – a Turkic tongue, which means subtitles are necessary for Russian speakers. Initially, Vasilyev began spending time with directors such as Burnashev to satisfy his own curiosity about the filmmaking process, and quickly grew to admire and appreciate them. “They want to tell stories about themselves, talk about problems and joys, share something intimate. They are artists, they are directors, they cannot do otherwise.” For Vasilyev, it is his life’s work to document and share the stories of his people with the world. “I was born and raised in Yakutia, and in all likelihood, I will probably die here,” he says. “But until I die, I will continue to study my native land, its life, people. It is an inexhaustible source of inspiration.”

ACTOR MARIA MIKHALEVA HAS A REST ON SET OF THE OLD BEYBERIKEEN

ACTOR AFANASY KARAMZIN WALKS ON WATER IN HORROR FILM THE CURSED LAND

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DIRECTOR STEPAN BURNASHEV (RIGHT) INSTRUCTS ACTORS IN FEDOT LVOV, WHICH HE SAYS IS ABOUT PEOPLE LIVING IN COMPETITION WITH EACH OTHER IN MODERN LIFE – AN ATTITUDE INCOMPATIBLE WITH SURVIVAL IN THE COLD FAR NORTH

FILM FANS BUILT A COPY OF THE RAZOR CREST FROM THE MANDALORIAN, AND SET IT UP IN A PARK WHERE PEOPLE CAN HAVE THEIR PHOTOS TAKEN WITH IT

12 NOV 2021

ON THE SET OF THE OLD BEYBERIKEEN

Aisle Be There for You

Rijn Collins is an award-winning Melbourne writer whose collection of memoir, Voice, is published by Somekind Press. You can find her work at rijncollins.com.

12 NOV 2021

he supermarket was on the other side of the village. I had to cycle there, shopping bags shoved deep in the pockets of my long red coat, hood up against the Finnish cold. It was all I could do not to look over my shoulder for wolves, Red Riding Hood pedalling through the forest. It took me so long to translate the food labels that I often ended up with the same things each week. Buttery kirsikkapiirakka (cherry pie), some poro steaks (reindeer) and a small bottle of divine lakkalikööri (cloudberry liqueur). I knew no-one in Finland; the conversation with the cashier would sometimes be my only conversation that day. Back in my attic at the writing residency I would cook, then carry the meal down to my studio. The door was often nudged open by one of the residency cats, each named after Finnish gods and goddesses. And I’d eat my feast, watching the sun drop low over the pine trees. Supermarkets have always been a source of solace for me. They anchor me in my travels and comfort me at home. Whenever housemates or partners baulked at the task of grocery shopping, I’d always volunteer. The shelves held the promise of nurturance, as well as a constancy that I appreciated when nothing in my life seemed predictable. At the age of 18 I fell into a period of intense agoraphobia. It lasted two years. I could avoid social occasions and family gatherings, but what about toothpaste or cat food? I would inch my way down Swan Street, in Melbourne, eyes on the footpath, waiting for the red logo of Bi-Lo to signify safety. Unable to work, I lived off food vouchers and would patiently add everything up on my calculator, determined to make every cent last. The contents of the basket held the only self-care I had access to, and I clung on tight. When I began living on my own in my thirties, I honed my culinary skills. My friends knew I wasn’t available on Saturday nights. Instead, I pored over recipes, cooked a huge feast often hours in the making, and ate it in the company of old blues records. Even when depression tried to pull me underground again – especially when this happened – I would search for fresh nutmeg to grate into stewed plums, or a round of cheese to bake, studded with cloves of garlic. It never

took much money; I rarely had any. But when I walked into a supermarket, I knew I would be leaving with something to strengthen me, no matter how small. After a particularly traumatic break-up, I reacted in a manner familiar to many: a new haircut, and a dwindling appetite. I lost weight, I lost faith. But one morning, months later, I looked down at my supermarket basket and saw I’d chosen The Good Cereal. It was a small sign, but one I recognised as heralding healing. The first place I go when I land in a new country, after I’ve checked into a hostel or writing residency, is the supermarket. When my bedside has raspberries or bread, I feel anchored there, already at home. It doesn’t always work out in my favour though. In Estonia, intimidated by the language and seasick from the ferry, I selected ingredients based purely on their names: ploomikompott, kassitoit and suhkrukuubikud. Back in my subterranean hotel room, lightning splitting the sky open, I sat down to a meal that turned out to be a jar of stewed plums, a small tin of cat food, and a box of sugar cubes. In Berlin, I bought cheap champagne for the charm of the Rottkäppchen name, meaning Red Riding Hood. My own red coat came with me on all my travels. Delighted to be able to haggle in German, I picked up a packet of supermarket prawns at half-price. I was so proud of my language skills that I never thought to question the discount. My cast-iron stomach was fine, but my travelling companion was struck low with food poisoning for pretty much her entire stay. The weekly supermarket shop has taken on a different dimension these days. COVID took my job but I’ve finally found some part-time shifts. I’ve opened the recipe books again. This time I’m not just nourishing myself but also my husband, stepson and a three-legged tuxedo rescue cat. In lockdown, the aisles were really the only time I saw other people en masse, all looking for self-care in a world where that’s rarely been more important. As restrictions ease I keep my distance, but I also keep my tradition. I’m baking spiced cakes to honour the change of seasons. I gather brown sugar, cinnamon and cloves. It’s not a complicated recipe, nor an expensive one. But a supermarket seems the perfect place to start welcoming the return of the light.

No matter where she is in the world, Rijn Collins knows what’s in store.

Ricky

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Except that means choosing somewhere to go, and I’ve kind of forgotten how to do that.

by Ricky French @frenchricky

The Choice Is Yours

ith the end of the year now tantalisingly close, it’s the traditional time to start worrying about how to spend the summer. Look around – what are your options? For those of us jammed into the southeastern corner of the country – most of us, although perhaps not the lucky ones – it’s been a strange old year, in case you hadn’t noticed. Having the bulk of the country’s population unfortunately means you get the bulk of whatever easily transmitted disease is going around – and New South Wales and Victoria have learned the hard way about the downsides of big city life in a worldwide pandemic. Thanks to the brilliant scientists who developed vaccines – and no thanks to the protesters who tried (and failed) to derail the whole thing – we suddenly have options again. I don’t want to say “freedom” because that word has become both hackneyed and hijacked, and I never want to hear it again Incidentally, don’t you think it’s ironic that people who bang on about wanting their “freedom” are usually the ones who have never had it taken away? You don’t see anti‑lockdown protesters rallying to demand freedom for detained asylum-seekers, do you? But back to options, which is what I wanted to talk about. We’ve suddenly gone from having virtually no options to having, well, some. Our world has opened up beyond the home and the local park. Provided we’re double-jabbed, we can now travel where we like, at least within our own state. Except that means choosing somewhere to go, and I’ve kind of forgotten how to do that. Also, wherever you choose to go is likely to be booked out. This happened last summer too. The pent-up masses were so excited to have options again that they all exercised their option to go somewhere – everywhere, it seemed – at the same time. Good luck finding somewhere to stay, though. This has

truly been a boom-or-bust pandemic for the tourism industry. If you run a tourism operation you’re either empty or completely overrun. And good luck finding staff, especially if you run a business in a rural area. Owners of these businesses have only two options: do what you can to make it work, or close down. Many have already done the latter. The possibility of overseas travel is now here. The world seems expansive and exciting, but also hard work and a little bit scary. The pandemic is never really gone, even when you think it is. Do you want to get sick somewhere far from home, in a country that might already be on its knees with corona cases and a crippled health system? In some ways I’m going to miss the simplicity of lockdown life. But in most ways I’m not. My household is pretty comfortable in its own shell, and we did a good job of waiting this beast out. It’s extended families I feel for. Grandparents missing out on precious time with the grandkids, families locked out by border closures. Whatever your situation I’m sure the priority this summer will be to reunite with your family and do what we did at the end of last year: lament the disaster year that was, and tell each other that next year will be much better. So I guess freedom and options are linked. Freedom is having options, and by that I don’t mean the option to carry on selfishly by taking to the streets to protest that you’ve lost your freedom when all you’ve lost is your capacity for critical thinking. As the world around us slowly expands and the warmth of summer signals a chance to reconnect, many will be looking at options closer to home. For many, that first freedom is family.

Ricky is a writer, musician and soon-to-be traveller again.

by Fiona Scott-Norman @fscottnorman

PHOTOS BY JAMES BRAUND

hen I first heard about “the great resignation”, I presumed it was simply a society-wide slump of the shoulders. “Nailed the mood,” I mused, as I ticked off my reasons for feeling resigned, and realised I barely had enough fingers and toes to accommodate. Hey ho. I’m currently writing in a hurricane with no power. Given Melbs had an earthquake a few weeks back, well, does a complex low and a supercell storm require its own finger? These days it barely rates a knuckle. As is sometimes the case, I was half-right. Accurate-adjacent. The Great Resignation, as it’s dubbed, is an existential reckoning unfolding in the American, Australian, and beyond, labour markets. Due to the pandemic and – gestures – everything, vast swathes of people are reassessing their work options/life choices/hopes and dreams and are resigning or contemplating it in the many millions. Microsoft estimates 40 per cent of the global workforce, which is loads. In short, there’s a collective awakening in progress that making our lives wretched for money isn’t a deal weighted in our mental or spiritual favour. And neither is staying in a career that has burnt you out, just because it’s secure. After two years of a pandemic, employees be like, “Wait a minute, this stressful, unsatisfying job is a terrible way to spend the remaining sweet, wild days of my life. What IS important to me? It’s not Zoom meetings and spreadsheets for the man!” Then they rip out their headsets and run from the building as if their hair is on fire. This isn’t new, per se. There have always been poets and dropouts and yogis and tree‑changers and YOLOers and bucket lists and communes and grey nomads with bumper stickers on the back of their motorhomes that read “we’re spending our children’s inheritance”. The difference is that peeps aren’t “dropping out” but looking for

better conditions or meaningful work. Careers they might enjoy. Peeps be going, “Sod it, I’ve always wanted to, say, grow asparagus or found a startup”, and they’re pivoting. And, because the times are – all together now – unprecedented, it’s global. According to Aaron McEwan, a behavioural scientist who knows these things, the movement of talent is so significant and sharp it’s different to “anything we’ve seen in living memory”. How exciting! Look, I thought it was just me. Nothing like the busyness dropping away to reveal, yipes, the existential sadness lurking underneath. Behind the screen fatigue and online classes, is that, wait, an enormous rut that I’ve been ploughing? Am I essentially doing the same thing over and over until I die now? Yes. The answer was yes. My conundrum in a nutshell – “I am burned out and bored, but what sort of nutbag gives up guaranteed teaching and other work during end times, particularly when they’re, ahem, not in the first flush of youth?” (Did I mention security?) This nutbag. Actually, I’m a double nutbag, because I’m applying to do my masters in theatre directing, which means I’m committing to study and the performing arts. Ahahaha. Look, someone has to and I’m not even joking. It’s not at all “sensible”. But it’s a risk that thrills me, and a risk I have to take, because the alternative is despair. And if each of us opts for business as usual, the world as we know it is doomed. The Great Resignation suggests 40 per cent of the working population are rolling the dice. This is a global reset. This is the moment! Diem is being carpe-ed! So what options are you pondering? What bright penny are you turning in your pocket, wondering if you dare spend it? Mate, I know this: it does you no good in your hand.

Fiona is a writer, comedian and penny collector.

12 NOV 2021

Now Time to Dice

There’s a collective awakening in progress that making our lives wretched for money isn’t a deal weighted in our mental or spiritual favour.

Fiona

A Little Time to Think

by Lachlan Kanoniuk

Lachlan Kanoniuk is a Melbourne-based screenwriter and critic.

PHOTO BY MIA MALA MCDONALD

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Music

Courtney Barnett

Never one to disturb the neighbours, Courtney Barnett dials back the big guitar energy on her new record, reaching for a bit of space and texture instead.

t’s approaching dusk as the desert sun sets on Joshua Tree, California, and Courtney Barnett has lost track of time. “A couple of weeks, maybe even a month now?” she says over the phone. The songwriter, cherished for her matter-of-fact witticisms, is trying to recall when she arrived for her current Stateside sojourn, where she’s preparing for a fully-fledged return to touring after a dearth of live shows worldwide. Barnett’s struggle to ascertain timeframes is relatable. As the title of her third album proclaims: Things Take Time, Take Time. The sonic and thematic makeup of the album is a product of the circumstances of the past two years. The bombastic blasts of guitar and drums

despite Mozgawa’s bona fide credentials as a rock drummer, synthetic drums play a major part in the songs. “I don’t spend too much time comparing what I’ve done previously to what I’m doing now,” Barnett says. “To me, my ‘sound’ is just me when I sit down with a guitar and sing. It’s a bit more fluid to me. Maybe this album sounds like my first EP a little bit,” she says, referencing I’ve Got a Friend Called Emily Ferris (2012). “I feel like I was trying to find this kind of calmness on this new album. There’s this cyclical, mechanical repetition. Which feels kind of hypnotic. Which I think is the mood I was looking for, the mood I was kind of craving.

“But then on every single song, Stella plays live drums as well. Every song has this balance of drum machine, live drums, and then an extra percussion layer. It just gave everything such a beautiful amount of space and texture.” Her homespun ethos in the songwriting process is a byproduct of being housebound and “not wanting to disturb my neighbours”. Restraining herself from going full throttle resulted in delicate moments such as the harmonics of ‘Here’s the Thing’. “I feel like I had a guitar in hand all day, every day, through 2020. It was nice, because when I’m on tour, usually the only time I play guitar is on stage,” Barnett says. “A song like ‘Here’s the Thing’ is quite simple, but it has this otherworldly, dreamlike quality. I wouldn’t have got there if I hadn’t kind of spent all that time figuring it out.” Conversely, ‘Turning Green’ gleefully indulges in a Crazy Horse-style blowout solo that would not just wake the neighbours, but the whole postcode. “The guitar solo…was definitely a studio moment,” laughs Barnett. “The loudness of not caring.” If she’s daunted by the prospect of the new album, the return to touring life and the release of the candid documentary Anonymous Club (shot by collaborator and friend Danny Cohen, who spent three years recording her on tour and at home) she isn’t showing it. “It’s a whole new kind of world. I’m excited to share the album and play the new songs. Plus being able to see friends over here, hopefully making some music along the way.” THINGS TAKE TIME, TAKE TIME IS OUT NOW.

of the previous album have been dialled back, only occasionally roaring into focus. Her personal, frank lyrics are still present, nestled into a recurring motif of checking in on your mates and tending to the little things. On lead single ‘Rae Street’, a call for change is immediately followed by “I might change my sheets today”. It’s a funny line, possibly underselling its potent message that larger-scale change begins on a micro level. “Well, I like that line because I feel like it’s quite open to a few different meanings,” says Barnett. “I wouldn’t want to push anyone too far either way of how to interpret it. But I do like that idea.” The songs of Things Take Time, Take Time were debuted live, in small venues in solo mode, which lends them a fitting intimacy. In July this year, Barnett made use of the trans-Tasman bubble and played a run of dates in Aotearoa/ New Zealand. “That was really special. Because that was the first time I’d toured in like a year and a half. They’d had a bit of live music, but it was the first international artist that they’d had over [since border restrictions] from what a lot of the people told me. People were just really excited to see music, and I was really excited to play again. It was just this really nice back and forth.” On first listen, the hallmarks of Barnett’s work are clearly pronounced. But that familiarity is augmented by new elements added into the mix. One such element is Warpaint drummer Stella Mozgawa, who handles production duties. The pair reconnected after working together on Lotta Sea Lice (2017), a collaborative album with fellow artist Kurt Vile. The kicker here is that

12 NOV 2021

I feel like I was trying to find this kind of calmness on this new album. There’s this cyclical, mechanical repetition. Which feels kind of hypnotic. Which I think is the mood I was looking for, the mood I was kind of craving.

Nakkiah Lui

Small Screens

NA KK IA H LU I (IN BL UE ) FO R TH E EN IS D OF TH E WPR EP PE D OR LD

Between outbreaks and lockdowns, First Nations actor and writer Nakkiah Lui made a comedy series about the end of the world. by Raelee Lancaster @raeleelancaster

Raelee Lancaster is a Wiradjuri/Biripi writer and library assistant based in Brisbane.

akkiah Lui has a plan for surviving the end of the world: tinned water, a motorcycle and spirulina. “As a millennial, I might never own my own house,” says Lui. “As an Aboriginal person, I might never get my land back. So, what do I do? I might need to get a bunker somewhere. Maybe I can afford that?” From her hit romantic comedy play, Black Is the New White (2017), to writing for the second season of Hulu’s anti-historical dramedy The Great (premiering 20 November on Stan), Lui spans genres, mediums and continents. The latest addition to her resume is Preppers, a comedy series about a group of outcasts preparing for the end of the world…whatever that looks like. Co-created and written by Lui and Gabriel Dowrick, the six‑parter also stars Lui as Charlie, the audience’s conduit into the world of prepping.

PHOTO BY NOEL MCLAUGHLIN

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Apocalypse Wow

12 NOV 2021

“She’s tried to do things the right way, but it’s just decimation.” Lui is fascinated by this, calling First kinda been the white way,” says Lui, who always knew Nations people “the original preppers”. she’d star in Preppers, even before developing Charlie “If shit hits the fan and if everything were to go awry, as a character. “She doesn’t know who she is, and she’s what is it as people that makes us survive and create not very happy. It’s a story about someone who has to community and hope from that?” reconnect with themselves and their past in order to While Preppers deals with serious topics – First find a future.” Nations people as survivalists, land reclamation and, Lui met Dowrick – her writing and life partner – on of course, the end of the world – it is, at heart, a comedy. the ABC TV sketch series Black Comedy (2014-2020), Lui notes that balancing silliness and seriousness where Lui was an actor, writer and producer, and is often tricky, and admits to getting it wrong in the Dowrick an editor. “We’ve both come from a background past. The key, she believes, is to “punch up” rather of working on comedy, especially something like Black than down. “It’s about always trying to make sure we Comedy, where we spoke about a lot of racial issues in think about what we’re laughing at. Is it inclusive? Is it the sketch comedy way,” says Lui. critiquing the power that we’re trying to dismantle?” The pair were commissioned to write Preppers Here, Lui reminisces about her late grandmother. about five years ago. The first version was sillier and Before her passing, she said to Lui, “What can you do if more absurd, gaining focus in the second draft. Then, a you can’t laugh?” Lui keeps that in mind as her career cataclysmic event swept the real world: the coronavirus continues to soar. pandemic. Between outbreaks and lockdowns, Preppers “After my nanna died, I really dove straight in was filmed on Darug and Gamaragal Country, but new and started writing ferociously,” Lui recalls. “She questions were thrown around the writers’ room. While Preppers doesn’t To laugh in the face of oppressive power – put forth one cause to me, that’s the biggest kind of rebellion. for Armageddon, Lui and Dowrick wondered whether their show about the end of the world, experienced so much, especially at the hands of racial taking shape against a looming yet undistinguishable violence in this country, and being born a woman. Being future, should centre on the pandemic. able to laugh in the face of oppressive power – to me, “What we had to figure out, which I think is a really that’s the biggest kind of rebellion. You can take away interesting thing in television all around, is how to talk everything, but you can’t take away the ability to laugh.” about COVID in the show,” Lui explains. “I wouldn’t have With Preppers, we’ll all be laughing at the end of the been able to tell you that toilet paper would be the first world. But the real question is: how does one prepare thing we were going to run out of.” for that? When Lui isn’t drowning in nihilism at the Coronavirus isn’t the only factor Lui contemplated. prospect of fighting for her life and eating human She and Dowrick had to turn their “obsession” with flesh on a desolated continent, she’s working on her reality shows like Doomsday Preppers and Doomsday end‑times checklist. Bunkers into a fictional comedy experience. In her “I’ve been trying to get my motorcycle licence and research, Lui infiltrated online prepping communities a ‘bug out’ kit and learn how to start a fire and live to learn more about the lifestyle. off the land,” Lui lists. “You need cans of water or a “I noticed when watching Doomsday Preppers, it’s filtration system, and enough MREs [Meal, Ready to Eat] a really fringe community,” she says. “You’d see people for at least 72 hours. And a first aid kit. And clean socks try and guess what a community would look like in and shoes – so many things can happen to your feet.” the future if everything stopped existing as it is now. Even with all this planning, Lui is still unsure she has I thought that was really interesting and, in a way, kind what it takes. To survive the end of the world, it seems, of hopeful.” one must have particular taste buds. Many practices and values inherent in the prepping “I watched this guy on Doomsday Preppers. He community hit close to home for Lui, a Gamillaroi and had tanks and tanks full of spirulina, because it has Torres Strait Islander woman. “I have a lot of family who a high protein content, lots of nutrients and minerals live out in regional New South Wales. They all know and vitamins. how to start a fire and hunt things,” she says. “I think “He was convinced the end was going to come and he prepping in that way, it’s in my community’s culture.” and his family could survive on his spirulina,” Lui says. Lui brings up 1788, when the First Fleet descended “So, I tried to eat spirulina after that.” on Gadigal Land, and how British invasion, colonisation Her verdict? “It’s disgusting.” and the genocide of Aboriginal people was, in itself, an apocalypse. “I know from being a First Nations person PREPPERS IS ON ABC TV AND ABC IVIEW. that my family created dreams and hope from utter

John Safran

Books In his latest gonzo outing, John Safran burns the Big Tobacco industry and its weaselly war on words. by Doug Wallen @wallendoug

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

PHOTO BY PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Smoke and Mirrors

reappear, including Catholic priest Father Bob Maguire, who has joined Safran over the years on TV, radio and even in song. “I’ve created a sort of universe,” he agrees. Safran gets a lot of material just from going around to humble locations in Melbourne’s suburbs, from Brunswick and Fitzroy to Doncaster and his own neighbourhood of Balaclava. He travels further afield too, venturing to Adelaide, Launceston and Auckland. This mostly local focus echoes his previous book about extremists, which explored how that fringe phenomenon is playing out right here in Australia. Foregrounding actual human voices – especially his own – Safran teases out a series of revelations that help illuminate the extent of Philip Morris’ reach. The corporation quietly funds research centres to push its desired health claims (for example, that IQOS isn’t as

life-threatening as traditional smoking), owns a life insurance company that offers lower premiums to smokers who switch to IQOS, and has invested in the rival vaping industry. Philip Morris is also a fixture of superannuation funds and investment portfolios, meaning you could be invested in the company without knowing it. But what really incensed Safran was Philip Morris’ targeted distortion of language, from the coinage “unsmoke” to a clinical-sounding substitute term for tar (NFDPM, or “Nicotine Free Dry Particulate Matter”). As a committed Scrabble player, he realised early on that Puff Piece is actually “a book about words”, and about how definitions can be remade to serve new purposes. So instead of selling cigarettes packed with deadly tar, Philip Morris can claim to offer a safer alternative that may not be any safer after all. If this doesn’t sound like the most thrilling reading material, that’s where Safran’s unique and personable approach comes in. He points to a moment in the book where he considers embarking on an international press junket paid for by Philip Morris, with all its tangled ethical implications. “I’m lost in it, asking, ‘Is this bad or good?’” Safran recalls. “Good, because now I’m a character in my own book. It’s good when characters are compromised.” In the face of such uncertainty, he simply follows his instincts as a storyteller. “I usually just go with what seems uncomfortable or funny,” he says, “and hope I’m getting it right.” PUFF PIECE IS OUT NOW.

12 NOV 2021

I usually just go with what seems uncomfortable or funny, and hope I’m getting it right.

nly John Safran could have written Puff Piece. While the distinctive Melbourne writer and documentarian unpacks the convoluted rebranding of tobacco giant Philip Morris, he does so by inserting himself into the story and running with it. That means the book mirrors his own spontaneous, chaotic, often hilarious journey of discovery. “You have to hold your nerve as a writer,” he says over the phone. “I’m slightly pushing my luck because [the writing method is] a bit indulgent and not getting to the point [straightaway]. But you trust yourself that somehow your audience will like it in the long run. I reckon a lot of writers psych themselves out.” Safran’s approach won’t surprise his established fans – Safran’s penchant for crackling wit and memorable stunts has been a personal trademark ever since he first graced Australian TV screens on the ABC’s 1997 documentary competition Race Around the World. Shows like Music Jamboree, John Safran Vs God and Race Relations followed, balancing his attentiongrabbing antics with keen insights and playful curiosity. What might surprise them, however, is the topic of his new book. Subtitled “How Philip Morris set vaping alight (and burned down the English language)”, Puff Piece is Safran-style investigative journalism aimed squarely at the multinational colossus. He delves into the corporation’s campaign to “unsmoke the world” by replacing traditional cigarettes with an electronic device called an IQOS, featuring a so-called HeatStick that looks and functions a lot like a cigarette. (Philip Morris argues that the HeatStick heats tobacco rather than burning it, producing a vapour rather than smoke.) But it’s not as if Safran went directly from impersonating the masked American band Slipknot on Music Jamboree (as he did in 2002) to this. The intervening years saw him pursue diverse radio and TV work before pivoting to books with the true crime tale Murder in Mississippi (2014). That book also inserted Safran into the proceedings, as did his follow-up, Depends What You Mean By Extremist: Going Rogue With Australian Deplorables (2017). In that context, Puff Piece isn’t such a departure. “My absolute first thing in the public eye was just going along with an opportunity,” says Safran. “I didn’t grow up thinking about being on TV.” As for his shift to books, he quips: “It’s my job: I have to do something.” Of course, he still has plenty of fun with it. To promote Puff Piece, Safran’s Instagram page sees him repurpose classic tobacco advertising (and fashion gear), while his face is photoshopped onto the iconic Marlboro Man on his website. And the book sports both his trademark digressions and enjoyably flippant asides, plus an unlikely Greek chorus consisting of his rabbi, his father and an ex-girlfriend who just lost her own father to cigarette-related cancer. Safran seeks counsel in them all, in tandem with interviewing representatives of the vaping industry and some minor Philip Morris employees. A few talking heads from his previous books

Film Reviews

Annabel Brady-Brown Film Editor @annnabelbb

ome of history’s most epic battles are fought on battlefields – and some are fought on dancefloors. Others, in bathtubs. In an early scene from Quadrophenia (1979), a public bathhouse becomes the unlikely arena for a much mythologised clash of cultures: the mods versus the rockers. The Kinks’ hit ‘You Really Got Me’ is yelped by Jimmy (Phil Daniels), the fashion-obsessed, pill-popping teenage wastoid who is trying to drown out the Gene Vincent-crooning rocker in the neighbouring tub. Such banal yet volatile encounters run through the gritty coming-of-age tale – which was inspired by The Who’s classic rock opera of the same name. They lead to an electric centrepiece where teen armies uniformed in either green parkas (mods) or leather jackets (rockers) self-destruct at Brighton Beach. Less a jubilant musical than a portrait of alienated youth, the film was released years after the first wave of mods had faded from Britain’s subcultural map. What endures are images, like Jimmy sharing a cigarette with the King of the Mods, “Ace Face” (a stylish young Sting), in the back of a paddy wagon. Quadrophenia plays nationally this month as part of the British Film Festival’s ‘7 from the 70s’. For an even more soul-rattling take on youth run amok, there’s Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971). The cult classic follows a violent, slang-spouting youngster, Alex (Malcolm McDowell), and his “droogs”, carousing in a nightmare future Britain. ABB

STING IN THE TALE

ZOLA 

A’Ziah “Zola” King’s story was first told by she herself – in 148 tweets. That real-life viral Twitter thread is now adapted into feature film Zola, a playfully dark and twisted journey, recounted from the perspective of its titular heroine (Taylour Paige). Seduced into taking part in a get-rich-quick scheme by kindred stripper Stefani (Riley Keough), Zola is joined by her mysterious “roommate” (Colman Domingo) and Stefani’s boyfriend (Nicholas Braun). The foursome take a road trip down south, reaching the seedy underbelly of Tampa, Florida, where the sight of Confederate flags flying overhead spells misfortune. The narrative is funnelled through writer-director Janicza Bravo’s unique direction and brought to life by a dynamic ensemble cast – their chemistry is on full display during one hair-raising hotel scene. Throughout the film, motives lie hidden. Characters switch loyalties and controlling personalities exploit desperate individuals, dragging Zola – and us – on a ride full of suspense. BRUCE KOUSSABA THE BOSS BABY: FAMILY BUSINESS

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU



Since the original 2017 hit film, 30 years have passed in the Boss Baby universe, and the computer-animated, corporate infant heroes have grown up without changing much. Tim (voiced by James Marsden) is now a stayat-home dad; his little brother Ted, the original suited infant (Alec Baldwin), has become a rich absentee uncle. For reasons both complicated and ultimately unimportant, the estranged siblings are recruited by new Boss Baby Tina (Amy Sedaris) to temporarily turn back into their child selves and infiltrate an elementary school run by a suspicious tech mogul. Despite loading the sequel with chases, bright colours and exaggerated funny faces, director Tom McGrath unfortunately focuses more on the emotional struggles of the adult characters than those of the many equally troubled kids. The extended Boss Baby mythology will probably confuse franchise beginners, but the references to Oprah, Enya and Sinatra will surely be meaningless to children in the audience. KAI PERRIGNON

BLUE BAYOU 

Korean American adoptee Antonio LeBlanc (played by writer-director Justin Chon) is an out-of-luck tattoo artist desperately trying to make ends meet in New Orleans. An altercation with a cop sets off a catastrophic chain of events, which leaves Antonio, an ex-felon, at the mercy of the country’s notorious immigration laws. Facing deportation to a place he has no connection with and that he left at age three, Antonio finds himself in a race against time to try and stay in America with his stepdaughter Jessie (Sydney Kowalske), wife Kathy (Alicia Vikander) and their unborn child. Blue Bayou is let down at times by its not-so-subtle attempts to grapple with too many urgent, real-world issues at once. But the quietness of Antonio’s relationships with friends and family devastatingly questions the quiet, intersecting injustices of the foster, law enforcement and immigration systems. For those left vulnerable on the margins, seemingly inconsequential moments can have tragic results. SAMIRA FARAH

Small Screen Reviews

Aimee Knight Small Screens Editor @siraimeeknight

SWAN SONG  | 12-21 NOV, SYDNEY FILM FEST ON DEMAND; IN CINEMAS 26 DEC

HELLBOUND

 | DISNEY+

 | 19 NOV ON NETFLIX

Based on the book of the same name, Dopesick investigates the greed, deceit and corruption behind America’s opioid crisis. Michael Keaton stars as Appalachian doctor Samuel Finnix, a cipher for the countless clinicians who were duped, pressured or bribed into prescribing OxyContin. The series spans multiple timelines across the 90s and 2000s – its constant time-jumps can be hard to follow, but reflect the highly addictive drug’s insidiousness. Despite a star-studded cast, which also includes Rosario Dawson and Peter Sarsgaard, Dopesick retains a sense of everyday reality, demonstrating how addiction can happen to anyone. Unbelievable’s Kaitlyn Dever is particularly sympathetic as a young woman slipping into reliance, while Will Poulter (Midsommar) is compelling as the sales representative pushing Finnix to prescribe the drug. Dopesick’s pacing is slow, but never boring – rather, it has the meticulous, forensic tone of a true crime or murder series. Rightfully so: the creation and distribution of OxyContin is no less than a deadly crime. IVANA BREHAS

Ninety years on from James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931), the horror genre still loves a good angry mob. Trading pitchforks for baseball bats, and torches for the glow of digital screens, Hellbound plunges into a delirious world where sinners are dragged to hell in broad daylight. There’s something inescapably silly about director Yeon Sangho’s (Train to Busan) vision of damnation, where agents of God adopt the tar-slicked, jacked-up physique of Marvel’s Venom, and deliver excessive beatdowns on civilians like hired goons. Unfortunately, Yeon evaporates this potential by approaching the series as a plodding police procedural, pitting deadbeat detective Kyeong-hoon (Yang Ik-june) against an entrancing cult leader, Jin-soo (Yoo Ah-in). The retributions radicalise a public ravenous for schadenfreude and a chance to prove their own moral purity, encasing the show in an overwrought metaphor for cancel culture. The chaos delivers some perverse delights, such as an execution livestreamed on daytime news, but it’s not quite enough to save Hellbound’s soul. JAMIE TRAM

nchorman castmates Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd have reunited for the dark comedy The Shrink Next Door. Set in 1980s New York City, it follows lonely curtain merchant Marty Markowitz (Ferrell) as he’s taken for a ride by the sly psychiatrist Dr Ike Herschkopf (Rudd). Based on the eponymous podcast, this is a slow-burn cautionary story about boundaries, ethics and male friendship – like a reverse What About Bob? (1991), with the “head-shrinker” here infiltrating his patient’s life out of duplicity and greed. It’s also an interesting complement to Ted Lasso’s second season, with both Apple TV+ titles exploring how men who miss their fathers behave in, and respond to, the work of talk therapy. It’s been 17 years since Ferrell’s Ron Burgundy launched a thousand catchphrases. The endearing actor is older (not just by virtue of time’s linearity, but because he and Rudd get greyed up to look 70-ish in time jumps to the 2010s), though his hapless Marty is only a tad wiser than his hubristic news anchor. Still, the miniseries is a mature, reflective extension of Ferrell and Rudd’s chemistry. Fans will be pleased to hear them sing together again, as Marty and Dr Ike perform a reading from the Torah at the former’s bar mitzvah redux. The affecting scene echoes their surprisingly sentimental rendition of ‘Afternoon Delight’ in Anchorman. If that’s not enough to tip the scales of curiosity, Shrink… also features returning co-star Kathryn Hahn in a powerful selection of high‑waisted trousers. Oy! AK

12 NOV 2021

DOPESICK

SHRINK, GOOD WRAP

Udo Kier puts the fun in funeral as elderly hairdresser Pat Pitsenbarger, hired to give his late frenemy her last do. “Bury her vis bad hair,” Pat deadpans at first. He just wants to die alone in his retirement home, smoking cigs and meticulously folding napkins to pass the time. But memories pull him back to the decrepit Ohio backwaters of his youth, and he relives each painful love and loss en route to the memorial service. The middle act of this sweet dramedy definitely drags (pun very much intended) as strangers line up to politely ask Pat about his past and gift him glittery accessories. As he grows in confidence, so does the film, blooming into a mournful farewell to small-town safe spaces (oldschool gay bars, beauty parlours). Kier is fabulously louche: with each ring Pat adds to his bony knuckles, his physicality brightens, gradually regaining his former glory like a gay Thanos. And you can’t beat the crowd-pleasing power of a well-deployed Robyn song and Jennifer Coolidge cameo, however brief. ELIZA JANSSEN

Music Reviews

DEL REY OF SUNSHINE

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

ana Del Rey has released her excellent eighth studio album, Blue Banisters, her second album this year, following on from Chemtrails Over the Country Club. It’s an understated affair, exemplified in the album’s relaxed cover, where the singer sits barefoot on an outdoor porch, sandwiched between two German Shepherds. The production is restrained, with piano ballads and sprawling five-minute songs reigning supreme. It’s an album that solidifies her singular songwriting talents – her ability to create new meaning out of a dense tangle of cliches, the melding of the mundane with hallucinatory, surreal and sentimental odes to America. While there has been a glut of recent music that has attempted to capture life transformed by fire, plague and protest, Del Rey is one of the few pop artists to capture the moment’s strange nihilism with both grace and humour. For example, in ‘Black Bathing Suit’ she sings, “Grenadine quarantine, I like you a lot/It’s LA, ‘Hey’ on Zoom/Target parking lot/And if this is the end, I want a boyfriend.” Or in my favourite, the wonderful album closer ‘Sweet Carolina’: “You name your babe Lilac Heaven/After your iPhone 11/’Crypto forever,’ screams your stupid boyfriend/Fuck you, Kevin.” Blue Banisters indicates the exciting new directions her music may be heading in. On ‘Dealer’, the album’s standout track, she collaborates with British artist Miles Kane for a bluesy, psych-rock fever dream, her voice reaching exhilarating heights. IT

Isabella Trimboli Music Editor @itrimboli

REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS TO COME PAPAPHILIA 

The rich bounty of new albums from Melbourne City Council’s Flash Forward series continues with Remembrance of Things to Come by Papaphilia, an alias of visual artist Fjorn Bastos. Working in collaboration with dancefloor luminaries Kuya Neil and Various Asses, Bastos weaves irresistible, relentless and dense drum programming through an array of samples ranging from South Asian classical and popular music to significant moments in American dance and soul music history. Bastos and her collaborators contort this material into consistently exhilarating shapes, often employing reverse effects, referencing its title. Here, Papaphilia offers us a relationship to time that privileges the cyclical, casting dance music’s loop-based form as a means of escape from the linearity of Western notions of progress. When the drums do abate, we’re allowed glimpses into the historical tapestry of sounds upon which the tracks are built, including a delicious excerpt from SWV’s ‘Rain’ in its final track. It’s a potent beast, as functionally available for the dancefloor as it is a joyous and playful document of cultural hybridity. MARCUS WHALE

CLEAREYE SHINING BITUMEN

PUNK YOUNG THUG

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For an album wearing throwback genre hallmarks proudly on its sleeve, Cleareye Shining from Melbourne-via-Hobart outfit Bitumen is a triumph in evading pigeonholes. The elements of metal, industrial and alternative pop congeal in a frequently augmented concoction of programmed drums, gnarled guitar licks and soaring vocal lines, creating moments of thrilling urgency and sheer brute force. Album highlight ‘Spun Gold Heaving’ genuflects to the altar of 80s metal titans while brandishing teeth-gnashing riffs. There’s a flash of dark liturgic disco on ‘Out of Athens’, leading into the turbo-charged adrenaline rush of ‘Put Down My Name’. A disarming burst of a big beat loop heralds ‘Moving Now Now Now’, a testament to the record’s ability to alchemise cohesion from disparate touchstones. Closing track ‘Luxury Auto’ opens with the sound of footsteps and a door unlocking. It’s a cinematic rush that wouldn’t sound out of place over the end credits of the upcoming Matrix instalment.

Two years on from the commercial and critical success of his debut, So Much Fun (2019), Young Thug returns with something more mellow and contemplative. There are few artists who have such an effortless sense of melody as Young Thug, his high-pitched drawl wrapping itself around any given beat with reflex-like precision. Hearing Thug navigate an almost dizzying array of complex, melodic flows on tracks like ‘Droppin Jewels’ or ‘Stupid/Asking’ is to see a master at work. Yet amid the genius, there is also a significant amount of bloat. In what has now become an unfortunate trend within hip-hop, Punk clocks in at a gaudy 20 tracks. Multiple features are thrown sloppily together, in songs that feel shoddily mixed, as if rushed onto the record to ensure maximum engagement on streaming services. Despite these excesses, Punk remains a clear, coherent record, which confidently leans into the introspective tone that defines many of Punk’s best tracks – brilliant moments that almost make a great record. LUKE MCCARTHY

LACHLAN KANONIUK

Book Reviews

Melissa Fulton Deputy Editor @melissajfulton

SEVERAL PEOPLE ARE TYPING CALVIN KASULKE

I SHOT THE DEVIL RUTH MCIVER

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Calvin Kasulke’s debut novel begins as Gerald makes the grim discovery that his consciousness has become trapped inside his work’s Slack channel. When he announces this to his co-workers, he’s met with disbelief, but manages to convince colleague Pradeep to take care of his unconscious body while he tries to escape his digital confines. Kasulke’s novel is written entirely in the messages that Gerald and his colleagues at the New York-based PR firm send on Slack, and the banalities of workplace communication: the exchange of gifs, photos of pets and meaningless emojis are mined for their comedy. There’s nothing new about shining a light on the everyday inhumanities of the office, but the appearance of Several People Are Typing during a two-year period where workers have had to spend more time than ever before communicating digitally makes it feel of-the-moment (or opportunistic, depending on your viewpoint). It’s a shame how uninspired much of the novel’s light sci-fi plot machinations are, and how broad the comedy is. JACK ROWLAND

Halloween can be a shocker, especially when it dredges up memories that might be best forgotten. The woods around Southport, Long Island, were the scene of a grisly double murder 20 years ago, but a local youth was caught and charged, the case closed. Or so everyone presumed. Enter journalist Erin Sloane, recently returned to the sleepy community of her youth, with a brief to dig into the past, and a desire to set the record straight. The question is, can she do either while hiding dark secrets of her own? The closer Erin gets to uncovering the secrets she and her one-time neighbours have long suppressed, the more terrified she becomes. Ruth McIver has delivered an intense tale, drawing together the threads of lost childhood, small-town implosion and sexually charged teen angst, weaving them into a fastpaced narrative. The winner of the 2018 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers, I Shot the Devil will chill every bit as much as it confronts and entertains.

LOVE & VIRTUE DIANA REID 

Sex, power and consent. The intricate, unspoken politics of female friendship. Ambition and betrayal. Forgiveness and grudges. This immersive, archly witty campus novel explores these themes with a deceptively light touch. In her first year of university, Michaela takes a residential scholarship and works hard to fit in while pretending not to, surrounded by privilege she also pretends not to notice. She falls into an intense friendship with self-curated intellectual beauty Eve, until a shock revelation involving questions of ethics, consent and genderpolitics-in-action forces a rift. There are echoes of Curtis Sittenfeld’s superb campus novel Prep in Michaela’s blend of aching vulnerability and affected nonchalance, and in the novel’s canny insider-outsider class commentary and knife-sharp anthropological observations. Love and Virtue beautifully captures the complex contradictions of new adulthood, with its alternately thrilling and terrifying new freedoms, and the tug of war between the pressure of peer conformity and the lure of becoming more yourself. JO CASE

CRAIG BUCHANAN

COLLABORATORS: ELLIE LAING, ADAM GOODES, DAVID HARDY

12 NOV 2021

or thousands and thousands of years, Aboriginal people lived in the land we now call Australia,” begins the debut picture book by Adnyamathanha and Narungga man, AFL legend and 2014 Australian of the Year, Adam Goodes. “The land was where people built their homes, played in the sun, and sat together to tell stories. When the white people came, they called the land Terra Nullius. They said it was nobody’s land. But it was somebody’s land.” Targeted at children aged four to eight, Somebody’s Land is the first in a series of five picture books called Welcome to Our Country. Co-authored by Ellie Laing and with bright and colourful illustrations by Barkindji man David Hardy, it’s a celebration of the ancient sovereignty of this country, an invitation to address the hurt in our history, and a conversation starter for anyone who’s ever wondered what an Acknowledgement of Country really means. “As a new father, with my daughter now approaching the age where she will start school, I’m so proud to be publishing a series of books about Australia’s Indigenous history,” says Goodes. “This book is a reflection of me. I’m incredibly hopeful. I choose to be positive, to help us heal as a nation.” This is honest, lively and vital reading for the whole family. Make sure your school has a copy, too. MF

Public Service Announcement

irthdays are a bit different when you’re an adult, hey? When I was a kid, birthdays were the absolute business. You’d gorge yourself on sugar and sprint around in circles, squealing in delight with a bunch of kids whose names you could barely remember, while a red-faced five-year-old had an emotional breakdown over one of the party games before the parents arrived to pick everybody up, dunk them in the bath, and put them to bed with a stomach‑ache from all the food dye. By the time you reach the teen years, friends know friends’ birthdays off by heart and your parents try and catch your best eye-rolling angle for a photo in front of a cake of your choosing. But adulthood, as usual, gets a lot of this wrong. Public Service Announcement: let’s revolutionise the birthday. The other thing I have never liked about birthdays, as an adult, is that I rarely remember (if I ever knew) my friends’ birthdays. Social media thinks it’s helpful in this regard, but it’s actually robbing us of something important. Both my grandmothers used to have birthday books. Don’t know what a birthday book is? Chances are you are under 107 years old. Birthday books were physical books into which you had to handwrite your friends’ birthdays and then copy them into your calendar at the start of each year. There was no Facebook reminding you that the accounts supervisor from three workplaces ago just turned 40. There was no option for quickly posting the letters “HB” with a balloon emoji on someone’s page and getting away with it. You had to keep track. The benefit of this was that you got real points for knowing. If you remembered someone’s birthday, it was an act of dedication and emotional generosity. I worked at a place once that was lovely at birthdays. People brought in cake for each other and chipped in for gifts. It was the best. Until it was a little too much. Once, at a staff meeting, someone suggested it was getting out of hand (balloons had been delivered that prevented egress from the building). So I, a bold innovator, proposed a brand new birthday system. Now, I don’t mean to talk myself up, but it still shocks me that this approach has not been more broadly implemented across society.

Here’s the concept: adult birthdays are at risk of being a bit embarrassing when people remember them, and a bit depressing when they don’t. It’s awkward to forget someone, and it’s awkward to be forgotten. So here’s what we do. We reverse it. When it’s your birthday, you send people presents and cards and tell them you love them and call them up and sing daggy songs at them. That way, the entire year, you only have to remember one date. Your birthday. The rest of the year? You’d better believe you will be surprised constantly by messages and presents and people singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to you when you were actually right in the middle of something very annoying and had forgotten you even had friends. This is better in every way, and I think you know it in your heart of hearts. So here’s how we can extend it. Treat the entire year like that. Be the person who surprises friends for no reason. Send messages saying, “OMG! It’s Tuesday! Congratulations on being really good at Tuesdays. Here is a list of things I really like about you. Also, I made you some cake.” Send people a card out of the blue. Leave a nice tip. Go and visit that relative you visit only on their birthday. Take them some flowers. Be the birthday that happens to people when they’re not even birthday-adjacent. Be the mirage in the birthday desert. You don’t need to tell people why you’re calling. You don’t need to send a sincere text. I have a mate who sometimes sends me a text that just says “oi”. We know what that means. It means, “I love you and I’m thinking of you, whatever your life is doing right this minute.” Say “oi” to someone. If anyone asks you who thought of this birthday reversal idea, no need to credit me. I’m just an incredible innovator who never gets taken seriously in staff meetings. Public Service Announcement: you don’t need a reason to celebrate the people you love. Sometimes all you need is a text message. 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.

12 NOV 2021

Reverse the Birthday

by Lorin Clarke @lorinimus

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Tastes Like Home edited by Anastasia Safioleas

PHOTOS BY CHRIS TERRY

Tastes Like Home Nadiya Hussain

Banana Skin Bagels Ingredients

4 bagels 4 slices of cheese Mayonnaise 8 slices of pickle

Method

Wash the banana skins thoroughly and pat dry. Remove and discard the tough stalks, then chop the rest into thin strips about 3cm long. Pour the oil into a small non-stick pan and turn the heat to medium. Add the onion and cook till golden brown and dark – this should take about 5-10 minutes, so not very long. Add the garlic and stir through, cooking for a minute. Now add the banana skin and the salt and cook for 5 minutes. Add the barbecue sauce, brown sauce and the ketchup and mix through to warm. Turn on the grill. Take the bagels, slice in half and pop the eight slices on a tray. Cover the four bottom halves of the bagels with the banana skin mix. Add a slice of cheese on top and grill everything till the cheese has really melted and the top halves are toasted golden. Take out and add mayo to the four top halves. Add the pickles to the cheese, cover with the bagel tops and they are ready to devour.

PLAN TO RECREATE THIS DISH AT HOME? TAG US WITH YOUR BAGELS! @BIGISSUEAUSTRALIA #TASTESLIKEHOME

his recipe is the very essence of the person that has been created when I look in the mirror. Straddling two worlds. British because of where I was born, branches and leaves. Bangladeshi because of everyone that came before me, roots and soil. Seen and unseen. This recipe is a mix of those worlds. Banana skin, a waste product for many, was an ingredient for us growing up. My dad cooked it, my grandad cooked it and when there was too much, as often there was, the cows and buffalos got a look in. Yes, it was human feed and cattle feed! My grandad said it was good for us. How it was good, he never really explained. But now I know it is packed full of potassium! It was often cooked gently, with plenty of chilli and fermented fish, over an open fire till the banana strands were unrecognisable, the aroma intense and the flavour something to behold. So to take it away from the traditional way of cooking and simply whack it between a bagel is scary, but also daring and special, because, what a recipe! As a mother of three kids, we buy bananas in every food shop – we have peel coming out of our ears. If you know me, you know how much I hate waste. If I can freeze, pulp, dry or dehydrate something to save it, I most certainly will. As a total non-purist, I love that a recipe can be adapted and changed to suit us and our needs. So, thank you to my father and forefathers for the beautiful ingredients, for which I will be forever grateful, but it’s time to stick it between some bread! This combines my love of bread with my love of a simple ingredient, making for a quick dinner. Thinly sliced banana skin, cooked in onion and garlic, ketchup and brown sauce (a world away from the open fire) all piled onto a bagel, grilled with some cheese, topped with sliced pickle and devoured. This is taking something I learned as a child and bringing it to this generation, while keeping the essence of everything that home meant to Grandad. He was a no fuss, no waste and eat well kind of guy – and that is exactly what this recipe is. So when my kids say “we don’t just eat the bananas, we eat banana skins too” without flinching, it keeps a little bit of my grandad’s memory alive. This recipe is home – two homes, but home nonetheless. NADIYA’S FAST FLAVOURS BY NADIYA HUSSAIN IS OUT NOW.

12 NOV 2021

To Serve

Nadiya says…

6 ripe banana skins (about 400g) 4 tablespoons oil 2 small onions, thinly sliced 1 clove of garlic, minced ½ teaspoon salt 2 tablespoons barbecue sauce 2 tablespoons brown sauce 1 tablespoon ketchup

Puzzles

ANSWERS PAGE 45.

By Lingo! by Lee Murray lee.am.murray@gmail.com POSH

CLUES 5 letters Duty lists Friend of Porthos and Aramis Garden terrace Resulted Scram! (2 words)

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

6 letters ___ de Rossi, Nip/Tuck actress ___ Okonedo, The Slap actress Hey ___, magician’s call South African shrub Stockings stockist 7 letters Cafeteria (2 words) Extra (2 words) Mornington Peninsula resort Quick retort Tough wiry grass 8 letters Winners’ awards

Sudoku

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

P O E A H S

by websudoku.com

2 5 9 6

7 1

1 4

7 3 7 2

2 1 6 8

5 9

5 7

4 6 2 4

Puzzle by websudoku.com

Solutions CROSSWORD DOWN 1 Plan B 2 Retrospectively 3 Durian 4 X factor 5 Heeding 6 Legacies 7 You must be joking 8 Not needed 13 Limericks 15 Broccoli 17 Karaoke 18 Redhead 20 Assail 23 Tenet

Using all nine letters provided, can you answer these clues? Every answer must include the central letter. Plus, which word uses all 9 letters?

by puzzler.com

ACROSS 1 Paradox 5 Halcyon 9 Alternate 10 Gaunt 11 Buoyant 12 Include 13 Lope 14 Fragmented 16 Muckrakers 19 Tend 21 Railcar 22 Distort 24 Credo 25 Operation 26 Skyline 27 Delight

Word Builder

No-one knows for sure where posh came from, but there are a few theories floating about. The most popular: it stood for “port outward, starboard home”, for the most comfortable (and most expensive) cabins in ships travelling between Britain and India. Alas, there’s no evidence for this one. The most likely theory: posh started its life in 1800s Britain as the Welsh Romani påš xā̊ra “halfpenny”. It wasn’t far to London criminal slang as posh “money”, and then to mainstream British English as posh “having a lot of money” or “upper class”. By the 1910s, posh had broadened to the meaning(s) we know today, including positive qualities associated with the rich, such as “elegant” or “luxurious”… and negative ones like “pretentious” and “snooty”.

20 QUESTIONS PAGE 9 1 A thumbtack 2 Sam Burgess 3 Gelatine 4 Saturday 5 Canberra 6 The Young Ones 7 Venice, Italy 8 True 9 Queensland 10 c) Regular Show 11 Alpha 12 Punctuation 13 Four of a kind 14 Money 15 Queen Elizabeth II 16 Hanukkah 17 Pink and Lily Allen 18 Omega 19 Meta 20 Arkansas

by Steve Knight

Quick Clues

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

1 Puzzle (7) 5 Serene, pleasant (7) 9 Take turns (9) 10 H aggard (5) 11 A ble to float (7) 12 E ncompass (7) 13 R un with a long bounding stride (4) 14 I n pieces (10) 16 S preaders of scandals (10) 19 G ravitate (4) 21 Train consisting of a single carriage (7) 22 W arp (7) 24 S tatement of beliefs (5) 25 S urgical procedure (9) 26 H orizon (7) 27 P lease (7)

14 15

DOWN

19 20

Cryptic Clues

1 Contingency (4,1) 2 With consideration of past events (15) 3 Fruit possessing a pungent smell (6) 4 Special quality (1,6) 5 Taking notice of (7) 6 Endowments (8) 7 Phrase demonstrating incredulity (3,4,2,6) 8 Unnecessary (3,6) 13 H umorous poems of five lines (9) 15 Vegetable (8) 17 F orm of singalong entertainment (7) 18 Term describing a person of particular

hair colour (7)

20 A ttack (6) 23 P rinciple (5)

Solutions

ACROSS

DOWN

1 Average difficulty Times puzzle… (7) 5 …ideal for beginners to help answer lateral

1 Labor rejected notice for contingency (4,1) 2 Harry Potter is clever, finishing Malfoy

clues you’d otherwise neglect (7) 9 Yo-yo is neat? (9) 10 F irst Granny, then maybe her daughter could be drawn (5) 11 B right light (7) 12 C over tattoo (vulgar) for audition (7) 13 B ound when pole dancing (4) 14 H ollows concealing magnet cracked in parts (10) 16 S pooner’s rugby players who dig up the dirt? (10) 19 Team’s first goal; to look after… (4) 21 …track coach (7) 22 I ’d sort out intro to Time Warp (7) 24 R ose breaks company doctrine (5) 25 R unning to open air assembly (9) 26 A fter finishing Neighbours , Kylie embraced new horizon (7) 27 M ake darker entrance (7)

ACROSS

by looking back (15) 3 Smelly fruit bats ruin ad (6) 4 Special feature promoting rubbish about foreign exchange (1,6) 5 Attending to garden chore, initiated by husband not wife (7) 6 Lies about recycling pen to make gifts (8) 7 Junior admits ordering jumbo kites. I don’t believe it (3,4,2,6) 8 Unnecessary tone ended broadcast (3,6) 13 F ive liners in French sea, one stuck in spreading slick (9) 15 Vegetable oil, corn cob – no missing ingredients (8) 17 P opular entertainment in Korea, played after two fifths of vodka? (7) 18 S tyles heard Ed Sheeran, perhaps (7) 20 I diot picks up beer mug (6) 23 24ac sci-fi movie on Netflix: Alien (5)

SUDOKU

7 6 2 9 1 5 3 4 8

8 9 5 6 4 3 7 2 1

1 4 3 2 8 7 9 6 5

6 5 8 3 7 2 1 9 4

2 7 1 4 5 9 6 8 3

9 3 4 1 6 8 5 7 2

4 2 6 7 3 1 8 5 9

5 1 7 8 9 4 2 3 6

3 8 9 5 2 6 4 1 7

Puzzle by websudoku.com

WORD BUILDER

12 NOV 2021

5 Rotas Athos Patio Arose Hop it 6 Portia Sophie Presto Protea Hosier 7 Tea shop To spare Portsea Riposte Esparto 8 Trophies 9 Atrophies

Crossword

Click 1954

Vladimir Petrov

words by Michael Epis photo by Getty

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

his scared-looking little man arguably shaped Australian political history more than any other. Born Afanasy Mikhailovich Shorokhov, to Siberian peasants, he took the name Vladimir Proletarskiy, to prove his revolutionary credentials, before given a new name by his employer, the KGB. The name’s Petrov, Vladimir Petrov. He was posted to Australia in 1951, with wife Evdokia, likewise a Soviet spy. Petrov set about recruiting, grooming a Polish doctor, Michael Bialoguski – who worked for ASIO. In the Soviet office in Canberra everyone spied on each other. Deeply unhappy, Petrov drank too much. Adverse reports on him were filed. KGB chief Lavrentiy Beria had just been purged, tried and executed back in the USSR. Petrov was recalled to Moscow – and feared the same fate. After some soul searching, and drinking, he defected on 3 April 1954, guided by Bialoguski. Petrov did not tell Evdokia. Ironically, her first husband, also a spy, had been denounced; her marriage to Petrov was one of convenience, thinking he was a safe harbour. Ten days later as Parliament rose for an election, Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced the defection and its royal commission. A week after that,

the Russians tried to hustle Evdokia home. At Darwin airport, she defected too, reluctantly, fearing for her family. Menzies, of course, was re-elected, narrowly. Labor leader “Doc” HV Evatt became convinced the affair had been concocted to hurt him. Two of his staff members were revealed to have provided information in Russian hands, and a third was implicated. Evatt asserted these documents were forged. They weren’t. He asked hostile questions at the commission, disturbing colleagues and the public. Labor was splintering. The last straw was when he stood in Parliament in 1955 and said that Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov had assured him the whole affair was indeed a conspiracy. Labor MPs held their heads in their hands. Evatt had just made himself unelectable. Menzies called a snap election and won in a landslide. The tear in the ALP’s fabric had become a split, birthing the Democratic Labor Party – whose existence condemned Labor to opposition for 18 years federally, 27 years in Victoria. Petrov assumed another new name – Sven Allyson – and the couple lived out their lives in Bentleigh, Melbourne, until 1991 (him) and 2002 (her) – by which time Evdokia had reunited with her migrated sister.

12 NOV 2020