The Big Issue Australia #605 - Shane Warne by The Big Issue Australia

605

2019

17 OCT 07–20 NOV FEB012020

p28.

THE GRUFFALO

p32.

SPICKS AND SPECKS

WARNIE

Ed.

THROUGH S HIS OWN EYE

and p40. MKR’S

COLIN FASSNIDGE

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Contents

EDITION

605

16 Where Have All the Insects Gone? Strange things are going on in the world of insects – and we are struggling to work out what it all means.

28 BOOKS

Where the Gruffalo Roam It’s 21 years since Julia Donaldson brought the world the Gruffalo – now she’s bringing it to Australian stages.

12.

Nice One, Shane by Michael Epis

Shane Warne opens up on his childhood, his mistakes – and why it’s important to smell nice!

THE REGULARS

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

24 Ricky 25 Fiona 34 Film Reviews 35 Small Screen Reviews 36 Music Reviews 37 Book Reviews

39 Public Service Announcement 40 Tastes Like Home 43 Puzzles 45 Crossword 46 Click

BEHIND THE COVER

Warnie tells The Big Issue: “I trained my absolute ring off, and it paid off in the end.” photo by Robert Wilson/Getty

30 MUSIC

From the Lab After a decade’s absence, art rockers Stereolab are back on the road.

Ed’s Letter

by Amy Hetherington Editor @amyhetherington

E FO RT NI GH T LE TT ER OF TH

Sounds of Summer

very summer, we’d pile into Nanna Stella’s neat house on the edges of Tatura, a Goulburn Valley town famous for its butter and award-winning vanilla slices. It was a sweaty four-hour drive from our place that we’d spend stuck to the vinyl seats in the back of the Valiant. We’d roll out drowsy and red-faced, and start capering with our cousins. Almost 30 of us kids would be running in and out around the place. It was noisy, brilliant chaos. Out the back, we’d play cricket between the fruit trees, the Hills Hoist and a pumpkin patch. The usual backyard rules applied: six and out; one-handed catches off the shed; underarm bowling was allowed for the littlies. One time, one of the older boys – maybe Jason or Dean or Christopher – smashed a hole in the fibro panelling as he dived past his crease. That’s when we took the game across the

road to the sale yards. Back at Nanna’s, under the ceiling fans, the cricket played on the telly. It was the sound of summer. In this edition, Contributing Editor Michael Epis speaks to one of Australia’s best-ever cricketers (and commentators), Shane Warne, in a revealing Letter to My Younger Self. He shares his lessons to live by, including this pearler: “People never forget good manners – or if you smell good. Always smell nice and have good manners.” At 50, Warnie is still making headlines. Last month, the King of Spin auctioned his prized baggy green cap to raise more than $1 million for the bushfire appeal. Now, he’s joining other legendary players for an all-star Bushfire Bash. We also take a look at those other crickets – the creepy crawly kind – as science writer Rhianna Boyle asks where have all the insects gone? – and explains why it’s something we should feel more than a little antsy about.

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The Big Issue Story The Big Issue is an independent, not-for-profit magazine sold on the streets around Australia. It was created as a social enterprise 23 years ago to provide both a voice and a work opportunity for people experiencing homelessness and disadvantage. Your purchase of this magazine has directly benefited the person who sold it to you. Big Issue vendors buy each copy for $4.50 and sell it to you for $9, keeping the profits. But The Big Issue is more than a fortnightly magazine.

Your Say

On behalf of a friend of mine, I wanted to say a big thank you to The Big Issue vendor in Grenfell Street, Adelaide, who took the time to ask my friend Lizzy if she was okay. Lizzy’s husband passed away recently, and she was upset and crying in a busy city street with lots of people in suits walking past, trying hard to ignore her. The Big Issue vendor was the only one who acknowledged her and her sadness. Thank you – your small kindness made a big difference. Love your work and the magazine. And a big shout out to Garfield, my local vendor in the Norwood Mall. TONIA MEZZINI NORWOOD I SA

I’ve read a lot of The Big Issue over the years and I must say Ed#602 is the best yet! But can we make the top 10 songs that define the decade 12 instead of 10. Let's add ‘Beautiful Strangers’ by Kevin Morby about the Paris terrorist attacks and ‘Stay High’ by Brittany Howard. Keep up the great work – and in the words of “The Man” Mundine: “Loves youse all”. TIM SIMONS CAMP HILL I QLD

• Our Women’s Subscription Enterprise provides employment and training for women through the sale of magazine subscriptions as well as social procurement work. • The Community Street Soccer Program promotes social inclusion and good health at weekly soccer games at 19 locations around the country. • The Big Issue Classroom educates school groups about homelessness. • And The Big Idea challenges university students to develop a new social enterprise. CHECK OUT ALL THE DETAILS AT

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As winner of Letter of the Fortnight, Tonia wins a copy of The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson. We speak to her on p28. 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.

SELLS THE BIG ISSUE AT DAVID JONES, HAY ST MALL, PERTH

interview by Simon Grammes photo by Ross Swanborough

PROUD UNIFORM PARTNER OF THE BIG ISSUE VENDORS.

Ibrahim

I was born in Port Hedland Hospital in 1990, the only boy with four sisters. It was a rocky start to life: I was very sick for the first few months and the doctors didn’t know what was wrong. After about three months and just after my parents got told that I had about three days to live, it finally became clear that I had cystic fibrosis. I can only imagine the relief of my parents and the stress that must have put on them. When I was four my family moved to a small country town south of Perth called Manjimup, where we lived on a cherry farm. Dad was doing fly-in fly-out work while Mum took care of us kids. I was in and out of hospitals. Mum was very supportive – she is a very strong woman and I can’t thank her enough for what she has done for me throughout my life. I remember lots of medications, needles and physio for my lungs. I was on adult medication, which made me struggle to control my emotions. I wasn’t an easy person to get along with at times. All I wanted to do was lie on my bed and watch TV. I also struggled in school. One of the highlights at that time was the Starlight Foundation giving me and my whole family a trip to Queensland to visit theme parks. I got to ride in the Batmobile and meet the ScoobyDoo gang – that was amazing! After I graduated Year 12, my health deteriorated, and I was told that I needed a double lung transplant to save my life. Left with the prognosis of less than six months to live, I got extremely lucky and received a transplant in 2010. A few weeks before the transfer I had the chance to run out with St Kilda at a West Coast Eagles game – a highlight of my life! Unfortunately, that was the last time we’ve beaten the Eagles in Perth. I’m a massive Saints supporter and try to go to a game every season when they come over to Perth. After recovering from the transplant, it took me some time to find my feet. I wasn’t doing much and struggled to find work until I joined The Big Issue in 2017 through my support worker at the time, who was also one of the coaches of the Big Issue Street Soccer program. I love being part of the vendor community and having a chat with customers. It’s helped me a lot with my social skills. I also started going to Street Soccer, and it really helps me keep fit. I should be the next big thing considering some of the goals I’ve scored over the years! Last year was a great year for me. I went to Sydney to take part in the Street Soccer Nationals, got my driver’s licence and found a job as a cleaner for a few hours a week. I’m loving life and hopefully things will get better and better. I want to get married and one day have kids, and of course. I hope St Kilda will break their premiership drought very soon. I would like to thank everyone around the country who buys The Big Issue!

07–20 FEB 2020

Meet Your Vendor

Streetsheet

Stories, poems and pictures by Big Issue vendors and friends

I Believe in Miracles

VENDOR VALENTINE

VENDOR MICHAEL AND HIS BRIDE, HEATHER

MICHAEL

love selling The Big Issue. I make an effort to smile warmly to my customers and lovely people who pass me by on the corner of Albert and Charlotte Streets, Brisbane. Everyone has their struggles. I hope I can brighten someone’s day. I was diagnosed with depression in the early 90s and schizophrenia in 2006. Some years were miserable. I spent a lot of time on my own. I was lost in a gambling addiction. I didn’t care about anyone but myself and my gambling. Thanks to a 12-step fellowship, I have been able to stop gambling for more than six years. My life has improved dramatically. I went to Grow Group in 2013 and I attend meetings weekly. It’s a mental wellness community that has really helped me come out of my shell. And helped me find love. In 2014 I was attending a meeting when a lady asked me to have a coffee with her. We started to go out together and we started a relationship. The miracle happened for me last April when Heather and I were married at St David’s Uniting Church in Coopers Plains. It was a wonderful day. It was lovely to have friends and family gathered in the church with us. Heather is so gentle and caring about others. I think she admires me doing something about my problem with gambling – rather than continuing to suffer my addiction. I think that she likes that I drive fairly carefully as well. I had given up hope of finding a bride; I have always had low self-esteem. I feel very fortunate and it’s just lovely to find that special person to live with. We have a saying in our 12-step fellowship: “Stay around until the miracle happens for you.” I’m overjoyed that I don’t gamble today. I can be a good husband to my wife. I hit rock bottom six years ago. Now I love life and have some new friends. I attend a Uniting Church, which has supported me. Our wedding day was the greatest day of my life. Thank you Big Issue, my customers and God.

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MICHAEL CNR CHARLOTTE & ALBERTS STS I BRISBANE

Think kind thoughts and remember there are beautiful people out there. RAYLENE, PERTH

An Act of Kindness On Saturday 26 October I was selling The Big Issue. When I was nearly home, I realised my bumbag was missing. I raced back to Bicton Shopping Centre and asked every shop owner, but it wasn’t handed in. I had just made $150-ish. I was very disappointed, and I was also worried about my new digital card reader I’d got on the Thursday. I was stressed to the max and tore my car apart and found it. Later in the arvo, I received a call from my son Jarran who sells on Saturday arvos

in Como. He was telling my story to his customers, and a gentleman gave him $150 to give to me. It made me cry happy tears. I wish to thank this man for his kind gesture and will be sure to pay it forward. It didn’t stop there. Back on my pitch, I was given $50 even though I didn’t need it – Ali would not take no for an answer. THANK YOU! I guess what I’m wanting to say is think kind thoughts and remember there are beautiful people out there who really care about others. RAYLENE BICTON SHOPPING CENTRE I PERTH

Farewell Brother Farewell to my Sydney Harbour Bridge brother. I work at Milsons Point and my brother Rob worked at Circular Quay. Long before he passed away, he said, “Tell everyone, Rob has left the building.” His joyful singing voice will never be forgotten. ALEX F MILSONS POINT I SYDNEY

Operation Back to Work I just want to say a big hi to my customers and everyone who supports The Big Issue. I haven’t been around much because I’ve been having some operations. I’m happy it’s all done, and I’m keen to get back to work.

my pitch, we would get into all sorts of arguments. In the end, we became good friends. GERRY Q CNR CREEK & QUEEN STS I BRISBANE

Goodbye, Jeff As soon as I saw the photo I knew, and then I cried. I admit I never knew Jeff as well as some, but he was the sweetest one in The Big Issue pack. Jeff was wheelchairbound so I imagine that’s how he spent a large part of his life. Having said that, I can honestly say I never heard the fellow whinge about the tough deal he was handed in life; in fact, I never heard the

fellow whinge at all! Maybe he also followed the greatest footy team to ever play the game (the Tigers). But I’ll never forget his smile, and the next time I find myself moaning and banging on about some pointless nonsense, I’ll remember him and think how lucky I am to just be here. Goodbye, Jeff. STEVE B NORTH MELBOURNE & CARLTON I MELBOURNE

Calendar Days Since The Big Issue calendars came out I have sold lots of them and I also got five $20 notes for them. Thank you and God bless. CRAIG J DULWICH HILL I SYDNEY

ROBBIE N YAGAN SQUARE I PERTH

Your Favourite Vendors Are Back! To all our good customers, Doug and I are back doing The Big Issue so please come and see us – your favourite vendors! We’d love to see you all. Good luck and God bless you all for the new year ahead. SHARON COLLINS & SWANSTON STS I MELBOURNE

Cat Tales

MELBOURNE

Pitch Pals “Deny”, as I would call her, first walked down to me at my pitch and said: “What are you doing?” I said: “I think it’s pretty obvious, I’m selling The Big Issue!” She said: “What’s The Big Issue all about?” I said: “About the feelings and lives of those doing it tough.” Every time Deny came to

was looking through some stuff in my room last night and I found some of my certificates from my school days. I found my 2010 encouragement award that I got on the night of my primary school graduation. I had some great times during school. I really didn’t like high school much but that’s another Streetsheet. Thanks for reading. NATASHA B RAINE SQUARE I PERTH

07–20 FEB 2020

GARRY FLAGSTAFF STATION I

School Days

ALL VENDOR CONTRIBUTORS TO STREETSHEET ARE PAID FOR THEIR WORK.

I am happy to say my two cats Collingwood and Bully are doing fine. Squishy has passed on. But I always remember the good times.

Hearsay

Richard Castles Writer Andrew Weldon Cartoonist

“

My goal for the next decade isn’t to be liked but to be understood.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on his goal for the social media company to be more outspoken about its position on issues such as freedom of expression, encryption and targeted advertising, in order to be trusted, if not necessarily liked by all. Will this include showing the “like” count when he posts these announcements to his Facebook page?

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USA TODAY | US

“Insecurity and a lack of funding is severely hampering our work. Donor governments have not understood that this is the world’s fastestgrowing displacement crisis. We still see a small aid response in a huge human catastrophe.” Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, on the worsening humanitarian crisis in Burkina Faso. The council warned that up to 900,000 people could be displaced by April. Islamic extremist attacks have escalated dramatically, with the number of deaths rising from about 80 in 2016 to over 1800 in 2019, according to the United Nations. AFRICA NEWS | CG

“We Finns have our sauna. And traditionally, it’s where we make decisions. So now that we have five women in charge, we can all go to the sauna together and make the decisions there.”

Sanna Marin, 34, the Prime Minister of Finland and the youngest female head of state in the world, on where her woman-dominated cabinet will go to sweat the big stuff. TIME | US

“We can now share these images and videos, which are the most detailed of our Sun to date. NSF’s Inouye Solar Telescope will be able to map the magnetic fields within the Sun’s corona, where solar eruptions occur that can impact life on Earth. This telescope will improve our understanding of what drives space weather and ultimately help forecasters better predict solar storms.” France Córdova, director of the US National Science Foundation, on the first images sent back from the new Daniel K Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii. The most detailed images ever obtained of the Sun’s surface

show a pattern of giant boiling cells, each about the size of Texas, which help create convection, where heat from inside the Sun is drawn up to the surface. Do remember to keep slip, slop, slapping this summer. CNN | US

“The Brexit 50p coin is missing an Oxford comma, and should be boycotted by all literate people.” English author Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials trilogy) on the new Brexit coin, which reads, “Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations”. Should it go or remain? The Oxford comma is a controversial, contentious(,) and contestable grammatical convention among quarrelsome grammarians, which is unlikely to be resolved as quickly, swiftly(,) and expeditiously as Brexit. BBC NEWS | UK

“What I do is if I have a scary phone call or a scary thing to ask, I’ll call someone before and after I do it, to say that I’m going to do it and get support around it so that it doesn’t feel so terrifying and it feels more like if somebody’s cheerleading me and goes ‘Oh, what happened?’ It becomes more entertaining than fraught with anxiety.” Comedian Maria Bamford offers her advice on having difficult conversations, like asking for a pay rise. Go Maria! You got this. VULTURE | US

“Clubs may be able to offer heart screenings or other health measures to highly committed fans who are at the greatest risk of experiencing increased stress during the game.” Dr Martha Newson, researcher at the Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion at Oxford, on studies that found that devoted soccer fans experience such high levels of stress watching their team play they are at risk of a heart attack. Dare we say, it’s just a game? BBC NEWS | UK

20 Questions by Big Red

01 Who was recently named 2020

Australian of the Year? 02 Which Australian mammal has

cube-shaped poo? 03 The UK released a new coin to

commemorate Brexit: which denomination is it? 04 Which two jersey numbers did

Kobe Bryant wear in his 20-season career with the LA Lakers? 05 Which are the only two South

American countries that do not border Brazil? 06 What is the world’s oldest operating

airline? 07 In the Australian animated

series Bluey, what’s the name of Bluey’s dad? 08 What is the minimum age for a

US President?

THE AUSTRALIAN

“It seems dark now, but on the other hand it seemed dark when I was a kid, too. I’m not saying it was better then, or worse then, or worse now, or whatever, but I remember in the first years of the Reagan presidency, I went to bed every single night and was 17, 18 years old thinking, ‘I wonder if I’ll

wake up in the morning? I wonder if this is going to be the night that the exchange takes place?’ you know? It was one minute to midnight for a lot of that time. It was a dark time.” Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay; Wonder Boys) on there being dark times in the past, too. ROLLING STONE | US

“I am not sure that differences in anatomy and biomechanics would explain this finding… Women seem to be better than men with maintaining a steady pace, which is important for long-distance running performance. Mental strength probably plays a major role when running over 100 miles.” Professor Evangelos Pappas, head of physiotherapy at the University of Sydney, on a study that found that the longer the running distance, the narrower the gender pace gap, with women performing better than men in distances over 300km.

Pashmina wool? 10 Which multi-Grammy-winning

song uses samples of Sydney traffic light sounds? 11 Hammerfest is the world’s most

northern city; which country is it in? 12 How many judges preside in the

High Court of Australia? 13 What is Elton John’s middle name? 14 Which virus is said to have

originated in the Wuhan region of China? 15 What’s the name of the 1854

rebellion that occurred in Ballarat between gold miners and colonial forces? 16 What is the only food that is said to

never spoil? 17 Who was named Female Athlete of

the Decade by the Associated Press? 18 What is the name for a collective

of camels? 19 How many cards is each player

dealt in Bridge? 20 Who play the two titled roles in

TV series Kath & Kim?

THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

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

ANSWERS ON PAGE 43

07–20 FEB 2020

“We are now expressing how close the world is to catastrophe in seconds – not We’ll never know, hours, or even unfortunately. Overheard on the street by Belinda minutes. We of Carlton, Vic. now face a true emergency – an absolutely unacceptable state of world affairs that has eliminated any margin for error or further delay.” Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, on the symbolic Doomsday Clock moving to the closest point to midnight in its 73-year history. Bronson is known to be a real hoot at parties.

“We can walk there faster than you can explain.”

09 Which animal produces

EAR2GROUND

My Word

by Ben Walter @ben_walter

PHOTO BY GETTY

e’re standing on the edge of the Derwent River north of Hobart and the trees are busy nodding. “Yep,” they seem to be saying, “it’s windy.” They’re right. The squalls are pumping up clouds that swell over the hills. Not a great day for much at all; definitely not for working with bees. Bees like the clear, still, sunny days when they can potter outside and sniff the flowers. I know how they feel. This should be an inside day for both of us. But here I am, dismantling a hive frame by frame as the bees drone around me. The work is much heavier than you’d think. Each box in the hive can hold about nine frames, and the frames can weigh two or three kilos when the honey is running. I’m slow, useless, learning. I lever the frames out, scanning the comb. My hive tool stabs into capped honey; it comes away sticky. I use too much smoke, or not enough. There are plenty of awkward movements – the bee suit and gloves are unfamiliar, and they make me feel disconnected, like I’m working underwater or repairing a satellite. It even looks like I’m in a spacesuit; my kids giggle when I first put it on at home. Then they quickly ask me to take it off. The boxes build up next to the hive, each stacked at an angle on top of the last. A couple of hundred bees are perched on my suit; most of them, I’m told, on my back. I could ferry them away without noticing and stroll into a cafe, the supermarket. Later, when I take off my gloves, I count the stings pressed into the goatskin. There’s pleasure in working with living creatures, of learning new techniques and working with tools in a different way. I want to hurry back into town and buy a hive, paint it up, build some frames and wait for the bees to come knocking. That’s pretty much what I thought would happen; my wife had made me a birthday card, a chipper insect in black and yellow: “Let’s Get Bees!” She paid for me to take a course and I was very keen. Bees seem to fit our life – we’re tucked on a patch of the Huon Valley, growing as much of our food as we can. Maybe they’ll help pollinate our fruit trees. Maybe we’ll make up jams with the honey, blending it with blackberries plucked from the roadside and plums dangling from the trees along our fence lines. Maybe the bees will help me feel a little less scared of the future. I don’t know what will happen with

all the climate stuff, and it seems wise to be prepared with knowledge, skills, and, well, food, if things go bad. There aren’t so many bees about this year, partly because of all there is to be scared of. It’s been a bad season in Tasmania – the leatherwood failed in the hot and dry last summer, amid all the forest fires. Flowers didn’t open up; hives burned. Leatherwood honey tastes something special, but it’s not just that. It’s the most important honey crop down here, producing great quantities of nectar at a time when the rest of the bush is done flowering. So the bees have been doing it tough. Beekeepers have still been building up their hives. I always swore I’d never get livestock. My grandmother had cattle, sheep, goats, a Welsh mountain pony stud, and it tied her to her farm. It can be strange, this longing for a connection to the land; maybe I don’t want to feel too connected. There’s a lone chook wandering about our yard; the others have died over the past year, by age or violence. Letting them free range is a calculated risk. Chooks fend for themselves pretty well, but even they need to be checked regularly to make sure there’s enough water and backup pellets for food, to collect their eggs, and confirm they’re doing okay. Bees are a little like chooks, especially in the warmer months – you should open up the hive every few weeks to make sure they have enough food, to check the queen is laying as she should, to watch for signs of swarming and make sure there’s no disease. You need be responsible. There’s the wiring of the frames, the extraction of honey; you have to be careful with stings, and there’s the matter of bee poo on winter washing lines. Apparently, this is a thing. Keeping bees is not a set-and-forget project. We’ve got a baby due soon, and honestly, I don’t have space in my brain for another set of responsibilities. My head feels crammed; there’s enough buzzing going on as it is. But I wonder: how much stress is based on the sense that something has to be done right now? I don’t need all that honey just yet. The bees can wait a year. For now, there’s a space in the sun under the apple trees. One day, I hope there’ll be a hive or two sitting on a pallet. We’ll make a home for the bees, and I’ll get more gentle and efficient. They’ll sing around the garden. We’ll share their honey. I’ll still make plenty of mistakes, but hopefully they’ll be slower ones. Ben Walter’s latest book, Conglomerate, was shortlisted in the Tasmanian Premier’s Literary Prizes. He is the fiction editor at Island magazine.

Ben Walter contemplates a swarm of new responsibilities.

07–20 FEB 2020

To Bee Or Not to Bee

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Letter to My Younger Self

NICE ONE, SHANE

Shane Warne shares his lessons to live by: good manners, good friends and good scents.

need to go through it and work out what you like, what you don’t like. It’s very important to get an education the best way you possibly can. When I went to school and mucked around you got sent to the principal’s office, Keith Jones at Mentone Grammar, and you got six of the best and it hurt. So if you chose to fool around in class, be a disruptive influence, be an idiot, you copped it. Some of it seems a bit barbaric – “What, he used to practise his golf swing on your behind?” – but it worked – it gave you discipline. It’s tough for teachers these days. If you have a kid that is disruptive in the classroom, there’s really no power or fear to hold over them. There’s just detention. Whoopy-do.

07–20 FEB 2020

was like every other 16-yearold boy in Victoria, wanting to play AFL football. I tried all sports. I loved my cricket, loved my tennis, I loved the beach in the summer. Me and my mates used to kick the footy around all the time. I wanted to be an AFL footballer, but wasn’t quite good enough. I was lucky that cricket found me. School got in the way of sport to be honest. Year 12 has always been tough, but I think sometimes the schools put too much pressure on the kids. Some of the kids doing Year 12 now are under so much pressure. There’s not a lot of schooling you use in the real world, but having said that, you still

PHOTO BY JULIAN KINGMA/HEADPRESS

by Michael Epis Contributing Editor

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

People never forget good manners – or if you smell good. Always smell nice and have good manners.

Discipline’s a really important part of life. I mean, everyone needs discipline. You can’t just do what you like. Teenagers have so many more choices now, so many distractions. Things are so easy to get, whatever they might be into – alcohol, drugs. Back in my day, you know, we played sports. I never got caught with the wrong crowd. I was always just sport, sport, sport. We loved a beer, but that was as far as it went by way of experimenting. I saw the other side, too, though. What drugs can do. Unfortunately some of my closest friends I grew up with got involved in the wrong crowd and they got off the rails and led down a path that, uh, you know, I wish they never had. It’s affected them and their families big time later in life. That’s why I’ve never touched drugs. My parents were my heroes, and my biggest influences. When I think what my dad had to go through in life and what he did for us – providing us with a home and sending us to the best schools, [giving us] the opportunity to play sport, driving me and my brother around to all our sporting things, being there and supporting us – that was really so good. And they never interfered; they weren’t pushy. I really respect that and I’m grateful for what my parents did for me growing up. They were strict, created a great environment and brought me up knowing the difference between right and wrong. The biggest lessons I learnt from my dad are that nothing comes easy, hard work will pay off and manners are free. My mum is a really good reader of people. I’ve watched Mum, and she can sum up a person within five minutes. So I learnt my social skills, people skills, from Mum. I learnt respect from my mum. Manners were huge with Mum too, like respecting your elders. And the little things, like making sure your room is clean. When I was captain of Rajasthan Royals and Victoria and Hampshire, I wanted us to have the cleanest rooms of all the teams. That may sound small or insignificant, but it’s really important. I also wanted us to be the most liked team off the field. For instance at Hampshire when we finished in the dressing room, we wouldn’t just leave the room a mess with tape or drinks and bottles and everything, but put it all in the bin, clean up after ourselves. After tea you’d take your plate off the table, give it back to the ladies and say thank you. My mum taught me that. She taught me to respect people. I pride myself on those little things. And that’s something I’ve instilled in my children. They’re very respectful and very well-mannered. Although

they’re not really kids anymore, they’re turning 23, 21 and 19. They’re very grateful for their opportunities and what they have. People never forget good manners – or if you smell good. Always smell nice and have good manners. It’s not easy, dealing with disappointment. My dream was to play AFL football and I was shattered when I got the letter from St Kilda telling me my services were no longer required [Warne played under-19s and reserves with St Kilda]. That was heartbreaking for me. It can go two ways when your dream is shattered – you can blame the world and say it’s someone else’s fault, or you can be more inspired and try harder at the next thing. So when I got the chance at cricket I made sure I wasn’t going to fail at that. I trained my absolute ring off, and it paid off in the end. In sport we all have coaches but sometimes they can’t do everything; they can’t satisfy every single need you have. So I had a mentor, Terry Jenner, and I connected with him big time straight away, learning from his life lessons, some of the things that he didn’t do well enough. He didn’t want me to make the same mistakes he did. [Jenner played Test cricket and later served jail time for embezzlement to pay gambling debts.] When you’re younger you think you know better, and there’s too many people out there that think they know everything. But I was lucky that I was inquisitive. I had a mind that wanted to learn. I didn’t know everything, but I wanted to learn as much as I could. And I think like anything – you hear the information, then it’s up to you what you do with it. Now it might not work for you. For me, it’s little things like having a notepad and pen next to the bed. It’s for those little thoughts, whatever they might be, that come to you – family, fathering, things I want to do, and I just stop whenever they come into my head. So put a pen and paper next to the bed – it’ll help you. I was – I am – very lucky to have good people around me. There’s so many sharks and hangers-on. If you’ve got three or four friends that would do anything for you – and you’d drop everything and do the same for them, be there for them when they needed you – that’s really important. It’s not about having 100 friends; it’s about having a few good friends that you would do anything for, and vice-versa. I’m lucky to have two or three friends like that. Sure, I have a lot of friends and acquaintances and people I know, but it’s those three or four close friends that count. I think that’s important.

ABOVE With the baggy green, donated to raise bushfire relief funds, 2020

PHOTOS BY GETTY AND TIM GARRAFA/NEWSPIX

MIDDLE With children Summer, Jackson and Brooke (from left), 2008 BOTTOM With the World Cup, 1999

SHANE WARNE WILL PLAY IN THE BUSHFIRE CRICKET BASH AT THE SCG ON SATURDAY 8 FEBRUARY, WHEN HIS BAGGY GREEN STARTS IT’S NATIONAL TOUR.

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BELOW Those were the days

LEFT Bowling Shane, 1992

We all make mistakes, always. I’m gonna make plenty more and I’m 50. So it’s about how you deal with them. It’s about taking responsibility for your actions. You can always blame someone else and have an excuse. But I’ve never pretended to be anything I’m not, and I think that’s why people still like me, and they miss me playing. I think they think “What you see is what you get with him”. It’s always been “If I make a mistake, I’m sorry”. People respect you for taking ownership of your mistakes and responsibility for your actions. Simple as that. There’s no point pretending. Like, I don’t like fancy restaurants – you have to go through the drive-in at McDonald’s on the way home – the serves are so small. Give me a red-and-white tablecloth, a spag bol, some garlic bread, a beer and I’m happy. There’s a time and place for everything. Perception doesn’t always equal reality. People think I go out every night and all this other stuff – it’s just not true. I like being at home with my kids and my friends and playing Galaga on the old Space Invaders machine. We watch movies and just hang. I love that stuff. I’m so grateful. I’ve achieved so much I never thought I would. To set up my own foundation and give away millions of dollars to sick and underprivileged children… We saved lives. There are people still on this planet because of what the Shane Warne Foundation did. We helped them. We mentored them. We did so many great things. It’s a shame in the end that it stopped – the kids were the biggest losers out of it. I’m proud of that, to have been able to give back and help. And I’ll continue to do that. I don’t need big accolades for it. Like donating the baggy green [which fetched more than $1 million for bushfire aid]. It’s raising more now as it travels around the country, and it’s got a couple of months to go, so hopefully it’ll top two million bucks. Extraordinary really. If there was one day in my life I could go back to? Oh wow. Geez. Never been asked that. Umm. I would love to be there for the birth of all of my children. I was only there for one of them. Unfortunately cricket then, you didn’t miss games. Once I was on an Ashes tour, the other time a World Cup. I missed the birth of my eldest, Brooke – but flew home for two days – and my son, Jackson. I saw my youngest daughter’s birth, Summer. That’s the way it was then. Yeah, I’d go back there.

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Where Have All the Insects Gone?

Summer is here, and so are all the creepy crawlies. But as Rhianna Boyle explores, the reality is many of our insect species are under threat.

Rhianna Boyle is a Melbourne-based science writer and scientist.

07–20 FEB 2020

If we lost insects, ecosystems would collapse... We can’t live without them.

ill-defined. Among them, habitat loss; the intensification of agriculture, especially increased pesticide use; the introduction of invasive species; light pollution; road deaths and climate change. Another reason for the panic is the lack of data Yeates mentions – we can’t monitor species if we don’t know they exist. The National Insect Collection contains 12 million specimens of Australian insects and related groups like mites, spiders and centipedes, but Yeates says that the majority of those, and an estimated three quarters of Australia’s total insect species, aren’t yet named. “We have maybe 80,000 beetle species in Australia, and there are only three beetle taxonomists,” he explains. “Flies, there might be 60,000 species and there’s one or two people studying them. So it’s just a huge challenge that we’re really not resourcing to the extent that it should be.” This dearth of scientific knowledge makes it difficult to calculate the full extent of the damage the bushfire crisis has wreaked on our insect population. A globally acknowledged problem is “taxonomic bias”, where resources are directed towards large and charismatic animals at the expense of smaller ones. “Koalas are lovely… Australia’s ecosystem wouldn’t collapse without them though,” Yeates told Australian Geographic in January. “If we lost insects, ecosystems would collapse. They’re so heavily involved in nutrient recycling and pollinating, we can’t live without them.” The International Union for Conservation of Nature red list for Australian insect species reflects a lack of research – only 573 species have been assessed for conservation status, and many of these are large species such as butterflies and dragonflies. Of those categorised as being at risk, most have received very little public attention. The critically endangered Mount Donna Buang wingless stonefly, for example, or the giant torrent midge and McCarthy’s plant louse, both endangered, don’t seem to make the news. As an advocate for “small brown beetles and moths”, Yeates points to mallee moths as an example of insects that are potentially under-researched and at risk. “There are about 5000 species – so a huge diversity of these tiny little moths that basically only entomologists know exist,” says Yeates. “Their caterpillars have developed the ability, which is quite unusual, to eat

PHOTOS BY GETTY AND iSTOCK

here has been something small and shiny missing from the festive season over the past few years – where have all the Christmas beetles gone? A group of native species that fittingly resemble baubles, the metallic scarabs have long heralded the start of summer in Australia. But anecdotal reports suggest they are no longer appearing in the large numbers of the past. Whereas our ancestors’ misdeeds were supposedly punished with too many insects – those biblical plagues of locusts – the modern narrative is that our ecological sins will result in too few insects. And pardon the pun, but the butterfly effect is damning: the loss of nature’s pollinators could mean anything from the deaths of insectivorous birds, to total agricultural collapse, to a world drowning in cowpats due to a shortage of dung beetles. There’s no denying it; the research from overseas is concerning. Take 2017’s nowfamous Krefeld study, for example, in which a group of mostly amateur enthusiasts in western Germany analysed the biomass of insects in nature reserves near where they lived. They found a seasonal decline of 76 per cent over the course of the 27-year study. Similarly, a 2019 review of 73 studies showed patterns of shrinking populations for many species, especially butterflies and bumblebees and some types of beetle. The authors estimated that 41 per cent of the world’s insect species were in decline, and stated that without action, “insects as a whole will go down the path of extinction in a few decades”. But these widely reported claims were criticised as “exaggerated” by several other scientists. David Yeates, director of the Australian National Insect Collection at the CSIRO, doesn’t want us to panic just yet. He stresses his distaste for the term “insect Armageddon” and its repeated use in the media over the past year. “We’ve heard from overseas entomologists that they think that in parts of Europe and North America there may be serious declines in insect populations,” he says. “We don’t know what’s happening in Australia – we certainly don’t have enough data to tell yet or make any definitive statement.” Perhaps part of the reason for the high emotions around insect declines is that in many cases the causes are nebulous and

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Entice insects to your garden by cultivating insect-friendly native plants. Build an insect hotel! Hit Google for numerous examples for inspiration. Put down the fly spray – it kills all creepy crawlies, not just the ones you’re aiming at. Turn off your outdoor lights. They might disrupt the feeding, mating and migratory habits of nocturnal species. Become a citizen scientist and track insects on your smartphone via apps like iNaturalist Australia, Butterflies Australia or Wild Pollinator Count.

07–20 FEB 2020

How to Help Insects

devastating declines experienced overseas. In North America, an average of 30 per cent of honeybee colonies have been lost each year since 2007, putting strain on the honey industry and on pollination services, which are vital to the production of many food crops. In the past 20 years, commercial beehives around the world have been affected by colony collapse disorder, a mysterious phenomenon in which most of the bees appear to desert the hive. As with wild insects, many of the same culprits are implicated in the decline – monocultures in agriculture, pesticide use, and a range of bee parasites and diseases, including the varroa mite. Thanks to strict quarantine measures, Australia remains the only country in the world that is varroa-free, and our honey industry has reaped the benefits. However, the ABC recently reported that the recent drought and bushfires have affected the flowering gums essential to honeybee survival, potentially damaging the industry. Overseas, interventions to halt insect population declines have ranged from encouraging citizens to plant more flowers and retain rural hedgerows, to biological control using predatory species and putting miniature trackers on bees to observe their foraging behaviour. Neonicotinoids and fipronil, insecticides which are thought to be responsible for many insect population declines, have been banned in the European Union. However, scientist Caroline Hauxwell has written that while well meaning, these bans may be counterproductive if they result in a reversion to older types of pesticide, which are potentially more harmful. David Yeates points to the growth of citizen science technologies, including a new app to monitor Australian butterflies, as positive developments that will help to fill knowledge gaps. While insect research may be lacking and the science of “insect Armageddon” may be in dispute, when it comes to taking action on insect conservation, even those scientists who favour caution agree that uncertainty is not a good reason for doing nothing. Manu Saunders and colleagues of the University of New England write: “We may never know if global declines are truly happening, and we don’t need to wait for proof. Uncertainty can frame a more constructive and hopeful message.”

PHOTOS BY GETTY AND iSTOCK

dead eucalyptus leaves.” Such leaves are fibrous, nutrient-poor and toxic to many species. In wetter environments, the breakdown of leaf matter on forest floors – an essential step in the cycling of nutrients – is done by fungi, but in dry mallee ecosystems, the process depends on these caterpillars. Yeates explains that life in such a dry environment has a downside. “When fire comes through, it just incinerates the larvae in the leaf litter. It will reduce their ability to decompose the leaf litter and break the cycle of decomposition and renewal of nutrients in the soil.” Mallee ecosystems appear to be among those burned in the recent fires, but a lack of knowledge about their original numbers and distribution will likely make an assessment of the impact difficult at best. The bogong moth is another Australian insect species that seems to be undergoing a large population decline. In spring, this species migrates from warmer sites in the eastern states to the Victorian and NSW alpine regions, where it becomes an important food source for the critically endangered mountain pygmy possum. In the spring of 2017 and 2018, moth numbers crashed from around 8.8 billion in alpine areas to an almost undetectable number. In September last year, Zoos Victoria launched Lights Off for Moths, a public campaign to encourage everyone living along the moth’s flightpath to turn off any unnecessary lighting that may be interrupting its traditional migration. But as with many cases of insect population declines, says Yeates, an exact cause is difficult to pinpoint. “It could be the drought, which means that they might bounce back. It might be more habitat removal in central Western NSW. It might be climate change changing the life cycle of those moths, or it could be a combination of all those things.” There is a handful of success stories in Australian insect conservation. The Lord Howe Island stick insect was thought to be extinct for 80 years, before being rediscovered on a rocky outcrop in the ocean. The insects are now part of a captive breeding program run by Zoos Victoria, which plans to release them back onto the island once the rat population – the reason for their decline – has been eradicated. When it comes to introduced European honeybees, Australia has mostly escaped the

The Big Picture Series by Mariann Fercsik

Human Bee-ings Many have warned of a world without bees. One corner of China has suffered that fate – and come up with an extraordinary response. by Aimee Knight @siraimeeknight Aimee Knight is an Adelaide-based writer and Small Screens Editor of The Big Issue.

WHEN THERE ARE NO BEES, HUMANS HAVE TO DO THE POLLINATING THEMSELVES.

FOR MORE, GO TO FERCSIK.COM

07–20 FEB 2020

f you don’t have bees, then you’re really messed up,” says photographer Mariann Fercsik. Unfortunately, that was the problem Sichuan pear farmers faced in the 1980s. When China’s household responsibility system was introduced in 1982, agriculturalists in rural Hanyuan county replaced their rice paddies with fruit orchards. The hilly area was ideal for pears, and any yield surplus to the needs of the collective farming program could be sold for a profit. There were problems, though. Among them: lice. To deter any hungry bugs, farmers sprayed their crops with pesticides – “Eight, nine, 10 times a day,” says Fercsik. This knocked out the lice, but it also destroyed the pear’s natural pollinator in the process. Hanyuan county circa-1985 was home to almost 4000 colonies of Asiatic bees, reports Sichuan University. By the late 80s, colony collapse had decimated that figure, and beekeepers moved to the mountains with what remained of their hives. Pear growers pleaded to lease the bees, but the keepers refused. Bees haven’t been seen in the area in the decades since. In need of a quick fix, farmers took the matter into their own hands. “They created a mess with hand pollination…but they’ve mastered this mess,” says Fercsik, a Hungarian-British photographer now living in London. She originally envisaged a photo project about Transylvanian beekeepers. During her research, though, she came across the hand-pollinators of Sichuan province and, in 2013, travelled to Jiuxiang – a southern “village” that’s home to 250,000 people – to document the painstaking practice. With the help of her translator Mr Woo, Mariann met local pear farmer Shiqin Tang, who was in the midst of cultivating his crops. Using chicken feathers strapped to bamboo sticks, he and his workers delicately laced the open blooms with prepared pollen. A few decades back, this workload would have been shared across an entire colony of bees. Now it’s up to a family of eight or so, of all ages, to collect the Yali trees’ precious stamens, extract the pollen with a toothbrush, and dry it in a pan for 24 hours. Later, someone else scales the Jinhuali trees, patiently painting every single stigma with the vital, life-giving dust. It’s intensive, precise work that most families have down to a fine art – but with rising labour costs, its long-term viability is being called into question. “I’m standing there, taking portraits, thinking I’ll have half a day, minimum,” says Fercsik. Next minute, everyone’s downed tools and is heading home. “They’ve been doing it for so long now, they [can pollinate] the whole orchard in an hour.” To match the analogue process of hand pollination, Fercsik shot on film using a Hasselblad camera from 1972. “You look your subject in the eye,” she says. “It’s more intimate than with a digital camera.” She recalls an older woman wearing pink. The language barrier meant they couldn’t exchange a word, but Fercsik took the woman’s photo and gave her a Polaroid of the portrait. Afterwards, the pear farmer cooked Fercsik a fresh bowl of noodles. “Intimacy can be arranged without communicating the same language,” says Fercsik. Around the world, ecology and the economy can be a prickly pair, but in some places, the juice proves sweet.

A COUPLE SET OFF TO DO SOME POLLINATING

THE ANTHERS â&#x20AC;&#x201C; THE PART OF THE STAMEN THAT CONTAINS THE POLLEN FOR THE PEARS

COLLECTING THE POLLEN

READY TO POLLINATE, WITH CHICKEN FEATHERS ON BAMBOO STICKS

SELECTING THE ANTHERS USING A TOOTHBRUSH

THE FLOWERING HANGDUAN MOUNTAINS

FARMER SHIQIN TANG IN HIS PEAR ORCHARD

Ricky

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Our young people are not learning basic life skills; some can’t even correctly download an app.

by Ricky French @frenchricky

Heroes, Just for One Day

ith the pomp and protest of this year’s Australia Day finally dissipating like a savage hangover, the time has come to reveal our unsung heroes who missed out on recognition. While most media outlets focus on the winners, grinners and sometimes sinners, this column pays tribute to our country’s invisible achievers, destined to remain in obscurity if not for our keen-eyed sleuths. Finn Otway of Albury failed to win recognition for services to country despite inventing a failsafe way of pilfering expensive items from supermarket self-serve checkouts. “For those on minimum wage, we see this as akin to how the biggest corporations pay no tax and rip off workers. When the supermarkets stop underpaying staff, we’ll stop scanning avocados as onions.” Mr Otway didn’t have a chance to finish his speech, as undercover store security guards ushered him out for patting down, where a 12-pack of AAA batteries was found down his pants. “It’s a bunch of lettuce!” Mr Otway protested. Miles Mulligan of Castlemaine unfathomably failed to win an Order of Australia despite ordering Uber Eats every day in 2019. In a slightly deflating speech delivered from his couch, Mr Mulligan said he was pessimistic about the country’s future. “Our young people are not learning basic life skills; some can’t even correctly download an app. I know of at least four people who are forced to cook food in their own homes due to technological deficiencies in their diet. As for me, I can’t even afford a deposit on a house. I tell you, this country is broken.” Julie Bunbury of Broken Hill was unlucky to miss out on a bravery award after rescuing a koala stuck in what appeared to be a healthy, green eucalyptus tree. “I just saw it stuck there. It was obviously terrified. Everyone knows that a koala’s natural habitat is on charred ground, hopping from foot to foot like a toddler playing hot potato, and drinking from a firefighter’s helmet,” she said. Ms Bunbury said conditions for koalas

were likely to get worse as autumn approaches and the weather cools. “We need to seriously consider backburning any remnant areas of native bush, preferably using that land for commercial developments.” Ms Bunbury has started a crowdfunding campaign to free koalas from healthy gum trees and return them to their traditional home in the arms of celebrities. The Australia Day Honours List was another hotly contested affair, and Simon Gawler of Maryborough can feel justifiably aggrieved at missing out on a military award after successfully thwarting a terror attack at Melbourne Airport. Mr Gawler spied the terrorists – disguised as a family of widehipped waddlers from the Gold Coast – attempting to bring the airport to a halt by standing motionless on the moving walkway that links Terminals 3 and 4. “I saw straight away this was a sophisticated ploy to provoke chaos, which may well have achieved the terrorists’ ultimate aim: the complete annihilation of Western society. By treating this device – designed to expedite the forward movement of bipeds – as though it were some kind of fairground amusement park ride, these terrorists would have caused a logjam behind them so severe that a mass crush would occur, possibly even causing a delay to QF478 to Sydney.” But most unlucky of all to miss out on an award is the Prime Minister himself. ScoMo appeared to be a shoo-in to win Australian of the Year after displaying unflinching commitment to freeing the country from the dangerous burden of carbon. “I would have expected far more recognition for my contribution,” the PM said. “Storing all this carbon in the ground can’t be good for anyone.” Casting an eye across a smouldering city, the PM looked puzzled. He scratched his head and asked an adviser: “How good is Australia?”

Ricky is a writer, musician and non-AustraliaDay-award recipient.

by Fiona Scott-Norman @fscottnorman

PHOTOS BY JAMES BRAUND

t has come to my attention that I am doing Instagram wrong. There are many reasons for this, the largest slice of the pie chart being labelled “I can’t be arsed”. Oh, I’m on it, and I’m way more active on it than I am on Twitter (which, frankly, is little more than my handle and the sound of crickets), but while I post maybe twice a week, influencers spend six hours a day. And it’s abundantly clear that even after two years I haven’t settled on a “brand”. I am so no “influencer”. There are, for example, zero images of me looking smoking hot in startling white gym wear, gazing lovingly into my phone as I take a photograph in a mirror of my huge shapely muscular arse. That’s everyone else on Instagram. To be honest, colour me relieved that I am Too Old for that shit, because if I were in my twenties I would 100 per cent be scrolling these feeds and crying on the inside about my lack of a Kardashian butt, 10 million followers, and the confidence to #livemybestlife. At least I get to spend that time laughing hysterically. I mean, Jaysus. I know it’s meant to be inspiring, all that posing by the sea in tasteful wheat-coloured spandex, but I just can’t muster the self-absorption. My suspicion is it drains away post-menopause, with the oestrogen. When you’re no longer driven by a voracious vajajay, the urge to display your beautiful plumage recedes like the tide. Fact is I’m phaffing on Insta, not using it for its intended purpose – driving eyeballs to an aspirational lifestyle product, which is supposed to be me and my fitness/clothing/ homewares/eating gorgeously arranged platters of fresh berries empire. Unless, of course, “eccentric, random and shameless” is a) aspirational, and b) monetisable. A scroll of my feed reveals, I suppose, a cluster of recurring subjects: “chickens”, “looking bedraggled after swimming, usually wearing unflattering goggles”, “DJ in the house”, “bad taxidermy”, “nice people holding a copy of This Chicken Life”, “wearing my dead mother’s clothes”, and “occasional photographs of Greg being pressed

into service wearing novelty underpants with a rooster on the crotch”. My fave photo is of me post-swim, pale, unlovely and sodden in a bikini, crouching awkwardly next to a peacock in full display. To be fair, my feed is great. Why do I only have 746 followers? So many reasons – see “can’t be arsed” above. And influencers are Satan and I can’t see the point. Also, due to my digital cluelessness, when I created my account I took the Insta-generated name because I didn’t know any better. It’s fsn5713. Catchy! And also, I don’t have the focus to conceptualise myself as a brand – I do about 18 things – and I oscillate between showing off and then not wanting to be a dick. I’m vain enough to want to look fierce, woke enough that I want to represent Women of a Certain Age, but candid and lazy enough to put up multiple pics in which I resemble a lady Austin Powers. I also cannot be arsed with hashtags. To date I’ve not tried to achieve anything beyond “Here’s something entertaining and honest”, but with a deal less rigour and success than Celeste Barber (nearly seven million followers! Fark). Barber’s the Australian comedian who’s made her career by hilariously mocking Instagram Influencers, and, lately, using her follower base on Insta and Facebook to raise $51 million for the bushfires. Celeste’s a lovely clown – her mimicking the performative perfection of Instagram is pure bouffon – and her fan base leapt to support when she asked for help. She’s played the system, and by ridiculing influencers, she’s become one. Genius. It’s post-modern, and it works. This is the kind of influencer we need right now, because the world is not perfect. It’s leadership by another name, and for that I might get my head around hashtags.

Fiona is a writer and comedian who is #livingherbestlife.

I know it’s meant to be inspiring, all that posing by the sea in tasteful wheat-coloured spandex, but I just can’t muster the selfabsorption.

07–20 FEB 2020

Instagram Influenza

Fiona

In My Blood It Runs

Film

Adults Never Listen Arrernte/Garrwa boy Dujuan Hoosan made headlines last year when he addressed the UN about the treatment of Aboriginal children in Australia; In My Blood It Runs is the newÂ documentary thatÂ tells his story. by Meleika Gesa-Fatafehi

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

@endlessyarning

Meleika Gesa-Fatafehi is a proud disabled Torres Strait Islander and Tongan storyteller/rapper who, on occasion, says something funny.

DUJUAN HOOSAN, IN HIS ADDRESS TO THE UN

largely ignored. Over three years of filming Dujuan, Newell began to understand “how intertwined all the systems of oppression are”. From schooling, welfare, child protection, to juvenile detention – these systems are meant to protect individuals, but often end up doing the opposite. The film observes how each is connected, with disturbing and often heartbreaking results. Dujuan’s intelligence is clear, yet he is expelled from a number of schools that can’t accommodate him, repeatedly falling through the cracks. In one scene, he quietly reads his report card aloud to himself. Dujuan, a gifted healer who speaks three languages, has received a long line of E grades. The camera follows him as he cries in frustration. That Newell can stay with this painful, private moment speaks to the intimacy and trust she’s established with Dujuan and his family. Through scenes like this, the film urges viewers to see the consequences of an education system that prioritises Western knowledge. Newell observes teachers and school curriculums that invalidate Indigenous stories IN MY BLOOD IT RUNS IS IN CINEMAS 20 FEB.

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Adults never listen to kids like me, but we have important things to say.

and beliefs: “I find it a bit confusing about the spirit and Dreaming,” one bemused teacher says, “but we’ve just got to believe it.” Even when Dujuan changes to a new school with Indigenous teachers, the language classes have been cut to 30 minutes per day by the state government. When Dujuan is expelled again, he’s at risk of being sent to juvenile detention. In the wake of the ABC’s 2016 reports of torture of Aboriginal kids at Don Dale Youth Detention Centre, this looming threat of incarceration becomes horrifyingly real. Throughout the film, and especially during its tougher times, we see the unwavering love that Black families hold for each other. Films by non-Indigenous directors about Indigenous people too often ring false in relation to kinship, but In My Blood It Runs captures the beauty of what it’s like to belong to a strong, resilient community. “It’s so important to represent family structures properly,” Newell explains. “Especially Indigenous kinship structures, which are very different to the nuclear Western family structure.” She says this authenticity comes thanks to the contributions of cultural advisers. Newell sought out their comments and concerns, alongside members of Dujuan’s family, who are credited as collaborating directors. In the final scenes, we meet a happier Dujuan now living in the Borroloola Community. He exclaims how much he loves his father’s country and what he’s learning – a mile from the misunderstood child skipping class at the beginning of the film. Newell nimbly shows how connecting to culture and learning traditional knowledge allows Indigenous children to not only want to learn, but also to heal in the process. It’s been years since she started making In My Blood It Runs, but Newell assures me that Dujuan remains the same. “He’s still cheeky and not at all camera shy,” she laughs. Last year, at age 12, he addressed the United Nations Human Rights Council – making history as the youngest person ever to do so. He was calling for the age of criminal responsibility and incarceration to be raised from 10 to 14, a move supported by the Law Council of Australia, Amnesty International and the Australian Medical Association. “Adults never listen to kids like me, but we have important things to say,” he said in his address. “I want my school to be run by Aboriginal people. I want adults to stop cruelling 10-year-old kids in jail. I want my future to be out on land with strong culture and language.” Later this month, Dujuan and his grandmothers will travel to Parliament House, where they hope Prime Minister Scott Morrison will meet them and listen to their concerns. “Dujuan has a gift with words,” Newell says. “Australians have a lot to learn. If only they could take a moment and listen.”

hen you allow a young person to show you their world or speak their truth, you’re surprised,” says Australian filmmaker Maya Newell. Premiering at the prestigious Hot Docs festival in Canada last year, Newell’s compelling new documentary In My Blood It Runs highlights Australia’s treatment of Aboriginal children, related through the eyes and poetic storytelling of one very special 10-year-old. Cheeky, rebellious and magnetic, Dujuan Hoosan is a proud Arrernte/Garrwa boy who lives in the Hidden Valley Town Camp on the fringes of Alice Springs. Through Dujuan, we begin to grasp at what it’s like to grow up Aboriginal in Australia, and the ways the country is failing him. “The education system is still assimilating Aboriginal children to be white,” Newell says. “But this film is about much more than just the education system.” Newell’s debut feature Gayby Baby (2015) provoked debate when it was banned in schools by the NSW state government. Centred on four children raised in same-sex families, the documentary gave voice to the children who are so often spoken for, allowing them to tell their own stories, their way. In the ensuing national debate, Gayby Baby contributed to the movement for marriage and adoption equality. With In My Blood It Runs, Newell again looks to children to illuminate an urgent issue that has been

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Books Julia Donaldson

by Thuy On

PHOTO BY STEVE ULLATHORNE. THE GRUFFALO © JULIA DONALDSON AND AXEL SCHEFFLER 1999 - MACMILLAN CHILDREN’S BOOKS

@thuy_on

Thuy On is Books Editor at The Big Issue.

ulia Donaldson birthed a fanged, horned, brown-furred, orange-eyed monster – and has never looked back. That monster was The Gruffalo, published in 1999, which is celebrating its 21st birthday this year. The picture book, so idiosyncratically illustrated by Donaldson’s long-term collaborator Axel Scheffler, has been translated into more than 60 languages, sold in excess of 13.5 million copies, been adapted for stage and screen – and won over millions of hearts. With its short, rhyming structure and repetitions that beg to be read aloud, it’s a long-running hit with both preschoolers and their adult counterparts. Arguably Donaldson’s most beloved and bestknown creation, the book is about a brave, inventive mouse who fends off the predatory intentions of a fox, an owl and a snake by telling them he’s about to have tea with a “Gruffalo”, whose scariness comes from the combination of “Grrr” and “buffalo”. That’s not all: He has knobbly knees, and turned out toes. And a poisonous wart at the end of his nose. The twist is that the Gruffalo, a figment of the mouse’s imagination, ends up being all too real. As well as the Gruffalo books (there is a sequel, the equally brilliant The Gruffalo’s Child), Donaldson’s other rhyming stories include Room on the Broom, Stick Man, and The Snail and the Whale, all illustrated by Scheffler. Donaldson is truly prolific, with more than 180 published works to her name, including specialist phonics guides used in schools. Now she’s poised to tour Australia with her large stable of big and little creatures, each fierce, clever and funny. “On the whole I’m grateful that The Gruffalo is a nice springy trampoline on which I can bounce my other books up and down,” she says.

JULIA DONALDSON WILL BE APPEARING AT ADELAIDE WRITERS’ WEEK (29 FEB-5 MARCH) AS PART OF ADELAIDE FESTIVAL. HER TOUR ALSO TAKES HER TO PERTH FESTIVAL, MELBOURNE, GEELONG AND SYDNEY.

07–20 FEB 2020

Children beware – the Gruffalo has come to life, and is coming to a stage near you!

Where the Gruffalo Roam

Donaldson, who shares her time between West Sussex and Edinburgh, started out writing songs for children’s television, moving on to books after one of her songs made its way into print (A Squash and a Squeeze). She has credentials as both a playwright and performer, and also writes fiction for older children, as well as poems and songs. Her creative beginnings were on the streets, where she was a busker, alongside her husband. They’d sing in folk clubs and she’d write topical songs (for adults) for radio and television. Her versatility and performance skills mean she’s more than equipped to deal with the ubiquitous screen culture today. “While it’s true that children (and adults) can be very screen-oriented, I don’t think there’s any problem interesting the youngest ones in picture books. Apart from anything else, it means they are getting a nice cosy time and individual attention from their parents or carers,” she says. “My own picture-book stories range from those suitable for toddlers or even babies – such as Toddle Waddle (illustrated by Nick Sharratt) – through to more sophisticated ones, like The Troll (illustrated by David Roberts). I don’t actually think too much about the age group when I’m writing; it’s up to the publishers and booksellers to target the appropriate age group.” Donaldson stresses that contrary to what some may believe, the art of picture books is mentally demanding: “Every word counts, and particularly if they’re in verse there’s a lot of crafting and shaping. In some ways it’s harder writing for older readers. I’ve written only one book for teenagers, Running on the Cracks, and it took me about eight years! (Though most of that time just consisted of thinking about it on and off.) But at least you know vaguely what’s going to happen next in your story, and even if you’re not feeling wildly creative you can put in your 1000 words or whatever your target is. Whereas with younger books, you might feel very much in the mood to write but without a really good idea.” Unlike many other children’s authors, Donaldson’s work doesn’t end on the page, but makes the transition to the stage. She admits that a lot of her enjoyment lies in “the adrenalin of treading the boards – the sociable contrast with the more solitary work of writing. One quite fun aspect of the performances is interactivity: getting children – and sometimes adults – from the audience to act some of the roles.” And what is she looking forward to the most bookwise on her tour here? “Choosing the animals in What the Ladybird Heard, a crime story set on a farm. I’ll also be performing my latest book with Scheffler, The Smeds and the Smoos, which is a story of alien love, a little like Romeo and Juliet. It involves lots of children on stage playing the red Smeds and blue Smoos. What could go wrong?”

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From the Lab After a decade-long hiatus, London’s Stereolab return to the stage with their cosmic and kitschy electronic soundscapes. by Doug Wallen

@wallendoug

Doug Wallen is a former music editor of The Big Issue.

ART ROCKERS STEREOLAB

Music

Stereolab

What’s lucky is that still, after all these years, people really love the music.

STEREOLAB TOUR AUSTRALIA IN MARCH INCLUDING ZOO TWILIGHTS AND GOLDEN PLAINS FESTIVAL.

07–20 FEB 2020

together when the band play it live now? “You reduce everything to the simplest level and build it back up,” Gane says. “You’re helped by the records – a lot of the time we have to listen to how we actually played them live [originally]. But sometimes we decide to do it a different way.” Thanks to today’s technology, Stereolab can now include songs in their live sets that wouldn’t have been easy to pull off before their hiatus. For example, Dots and Loops opener ‘Brakhage’ has what Gane describes as “shimmering sequencer lines that go through it”, meaning that part has to be programmed rather than played by hand. But by re-recording that element and certain percussive parts onto a modern sequencer, the band can now include those more mechanical elements while the members play live. “We can’t always capture the sound we had on the record, but we never tried to do that, even around the time of Dots and Loops,” says Gane. “We never tried to get that full electronic world. We just played it like a band: mainly guitar, bass and drums.” The main requirement, he adds, is that the songs maintain the intensity they always had. During the band’s hiatus, Gane devoted himself to the synth-driven instrumental ensemble Cavern of Anti-Matter, which recently soundtracked the arty horror film In Fabric. He has also rebuilt his recording studio in his adopted Berlin, and worked on high-profile remixes. Sadler, meanwhile, has released some lushly celestial solo albums and collaborated with Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox and rapper Tyler, the Creator. The obvious question is whether Stereolab’s return to touring has sparked any interest in writing new material. “It’s not ruled out,” Gane replies, “but at the moment it seems very complex for various reasons. Mainly for me probably, having to write the music. I’m just gonna have to see how I feel when all of this [touring] is done.” Whatever the future of Stereolab’s writing and recording, for now fans can relish the rare treat of seeing them live and the enduring gift of their newly reissued catalogue. As for Gane, a full-time musician who’s never had another job in his life, he will continue to pour himself into music in some form. Obviously, having spent two decades building up a band as beloved as Stereolab has ensured that he can continue to do that. “What’s lucky is that still, after all these years, people really love the music,” he says fondly of the current tour. “The [reception is] no different to when we were playing the first time. I’m happy with that.”

ew bands in the 1990s were as distinctive as Stereolab, a London ensemble mingling cerebral French and English lyrics with a joyful melange of genre-crossed ingredients. Even while evolving dramatically from album to album across that decade and the next – from overdriven art-rock and syrupy cosmic soundscapes to hiccupping programmed electronics and kitschy throwback pop – they remained immediately identifiable. That makes Stereolab’s return something of an event. In tandem with a reissue campaign covering most of their 10 albums, the band have reconvened after a decade-long hiatus for a world tour that includes Australia. For all their longevity and widespread influence in indie rock and beyond, though, they remain a cult act – something co-founder Tim Gane is quick to acknowledge. “It’s not like it’s worrying the charts,” Gane says via Skype. “But the reactions to the reissues have been really great.” That ambitious project, done in partnership with Warp Records and the band’s own Duophonic label, kept Gane busy even before Stereolab went back out on the road. He mastered the reissues from the original tapes, and helped to oversee the attendant swathes of bonus material. Nearly 30 years after he started the band with French-born Laetitia Sadier, whose breezy bilingual singing is perhaps the most permanent element in Stereolab, Gane has been happily surprised by fan response to the touring. “It’s amazing, really. I wasn’t expecting that much,” he says, laughing. “It came about pretty abruptly, but people have been very enthusiastic. In a lot of places we’re playing to more people than we were the first time.” That makes sense. With streaming platforms making music instantly accessible yet fleeting at the same time, Stereolab’s deeply layered, idiosyncratic albums reward focused listening. And because Stereolab didn’t sound much like anything else happening in the 90s, their music doesn’t feel dated. Between its offbeat intellectual airs (from Gane’s cryptic album titles to Sadier’s Marxist-influenced lyrics) and its meticulous cherry-picking from across neglected genres and eras, the music is far removed from that decade’s popular image of angst-driven male guitar slinging. Even during the 00s – when the band lost multi-instrumentalist and Queensland native Mary Hansen to a tragic bicycling accident in 2002 – Stereolab still managed to sound stubbornly unique and newly reconfigured on each album. Case in point: the band’s 1997 landmark Dots and Loops embraced a glossy electronic sheen that contrasted with the fuzzy coat of noise common on their earlier material. So how does all that disparate material come

Adam Hills is getting the band back together for three more episodes of the much-loved music quiz show. by Brodie Lancaster @brodielancaster

Brodie Lancaster is a writer, editor, author and critic based in Melbourne.

ell, come on! Mosh me! I don’t care,” Tina Arena proclaims, as Myf Warhurst, Alan Brough, Anne Edmonds and Tom Gleeson oblige. On drums, Kram from Spiderbait lets rip a spontaneous beat as they jump and jostle the soprano in a way she never experienced during the mosh pit’s grungy heyday. “You never know how a guest is going to react to something, but that was exactly what we’d hoped – but better,” Adam Hills tells me over the phone from his home in London. That’s where he and a Spicks and Specks writer and producer came up with the idea to have Tiny Tina, as she was known on Young Talent Time, mosh on a special episode dedicated to the music of the 1990s. It’s the first of three specials rolling out in 2020. In its initial run, the beloved ABC series spent almost seven years on air, finishing up in 2011. In 2018, a reunion special became the most-watched ABC program of the year, which led to an Ausmusic Month special last November. This year’s trio of themed episodes focus on the 90s, 2000s and 2010s, respectively. Following a 2014 attempt to reboot the show with different hosts and team leaders, the reunion’s popularity proved one thing: it wasn’t just the format of the light-hearted quiz show that drew audiences every week, but the specific chemistry between Hills, Warhurst and Brough. For Hills, that connection holds true. “We knew that we had something between us [and] we always said, when we were making the original, that we wouldn’t do it without the others. So if one person wanted to leave, then we’d all go.” Since relocating to the UK, Hills has returned to hosting. In the late-night chat show The Last Leg he’s found a new pair of co-hosts – comedians and presenters Josh Widdicombe and Alex Brooker – and has learned that he’s incredibly lucky to have bottled

THE SPICKS AND SPECKS 90S SPECIAL AIRS 23 FEBRUARY ON ABC TV AND IS AVAILABLE THEREAFTER ON ABC IVIEW.

PHOTO COURTESY ABC

Adam Hills

Small Screens THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

More Spicks, More Specks

lightning twice now. “When you do find the right people, it’s a bit like marriage: you just know. “When we were halfway through making these specials, Myf said, ‘What’s been great about doing other TV shows [since the show ended] is realising how special a thing that we had.’” Between Warhurst and Brough’s encyclopaedic music minds, Hills assumed a role somewhere between fun uncle and ringmaster, holding everything together. “I was almost like a translator. I was just reading off a card; Myf and Alan were the ones who knew all the stuff, and I translated it to the people at home.” Hills views the performers who drop into the show with amazement. “Music for me is a bit like magic: I don’t understand how it’s made. It’s a complete mystery to me and that’s why I’m enthralled by it. That was the thing with Alan, Myf and me: we were all in awe of the people who came on [because] we were all music nerds in our own different ways.” It’s clear on their faces during now-legendary appearances by Sarah Blasko and Megan Washington, who each brought about a collective case of goosebumps when they played the game ‘Substitute’. “I think with both of them, their album sales went up the following week purely from that. My theory was if you could sing ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’ using the words of a 1972 Toyota Corolla repair manual and make that somehow emotional, then you must be one hell of a performer!” Despite the show being wrapped for close to a decade now, Hills often hears from people who still regularly watch re-runs. Including his mum. “I’ll get a message from her every now and then going, ‘Hey, it’s the Rocky Horror episode’.” From the beginning, Hills was primed for the show embedding itself into viewers’ lives. “I remember when we started making it, our producer said, ‘In 10 years’ time you’re going to get people coming up to you going, I grew up watching your show. And that’s already happened! Anyone who was five then is 20 this year. There are now young musos that come on the show who grew up watching Spicks and Specks.” Over the past 15 years, Hills, Warhurst and Brough have heard from people who came from families who could agree on or share very little – besides a love of Spicks and Specks. As such, 2020 might just be the perfect time to return. “Someone on the street said to Alan, ‘I don’t necessarily always understand what you all are talking about, but it’s just nice to see people on TV enjoying each other’s company.’ “The world has changed [since 2011]. Politics and public discourse has, I think, become a lot more polarised. People are a lot angrier now. Watching 45 minutes of people just enjoying each other’s company and making jokes about music is a really lovely antidote. It might be a bit more powerful than we realise.”

MYF, BRO-MAN AND THE HILLSMEISTER

Film Reviews

Annabel Brady-Brown Film Editor @annnabelbb

f there is any justice in the universe, Antonio Banderas will win this year’s Oscar for Best Actor for his perfect, turtleneck’d performance as Pedro Almodóvar’s ageing alter ego in Pain and Glory. Please, just give him the gold statue already. Even as we’re chowing down popcorn and cheering on our favourites, we know the Academy Awards wield a scary power. As with the monster who ravages Steve McQueen’s town in The Blob (1958), they relentlessly gobble up space, and dare I say it, their taste is not always discerning. Of course, there is a world outside the Academy – one that better recognises the work of women and non-white filmmakers and actors. To this end, the Women in Film Festival is back in Melbourne (20-23 Feb). Festival opener is the excellent Vai (2019), a portmanteau film with contributions from nine Pacific filmmakers, stitched together to trace a life. Sydney that weekend welcomes Hyperlinks, the first festival presented by collective Static Vision, who’ve been programming important but hard-to-see films for a few years now (for example, RaMell Ross’ Alabama-set documentary Hale Country This Morning, This Evening, now on Prime). Screening at Marrickville’s Pink Flamingo Cinema, Hyperlinks is an “internet-focused film festival” whose 20 titles (many of them Australian premieres) include looks at Ghanaian scammers, the travails of online dating and YouTube collage films. ABB

ANTONIO BANDERAS, SANS TURTLENECK

FOR SAMA 

For Sama is a film dedicated by a mother to a daughter. The mother, Waad al-Kateab, is a Syrian journalist and activist who compiled more than 500 hours of footage from rebel-held Aleppo between 2011 and 2016, while civil war escalated around her. Her daughter, Sama, was born in 2015, and the film is al-Kateab’s attempt to explain and document the nightmare world into which her daughter was born. A deeply personal and brutally confronting first-hand account, For Sama is remarkable in its depiction of not only the devastating barrage of civilian casualties that punctuate their existence, but also the little-shown quotidian realities of life in wartime. In the middle of an unimaginable crisis, al-Kateab falls in love, marries, then starts a family with her doctor husband, Hamza, who runs a hospital under constant threat of attack. Pieced together with British filmmaker Edward Watts, this award-winning documentary is a powerful burst of humanity that cuts through the compassion fatigue of the 24-hour news cycle. JESSICA ELLICOTT THE LIGHTHOUSE

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“How long have we been on this rock for?” says one salt-encrusted man to the other. “Where are we?” These questions become increasingly hard to answer as Robert Eggers’ monochrome nautical horror film wears on. Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson star in this aggressively arthouse oddity, depicting a wily lighthouse keeper and his assistant, sequestered on an island off the coast of New England with only each other and a gaggle of antagonistic seagulls for company. They develop a bond that’s both intimate and highly volatile. Fuelled by a considerable supply of liquor, their evening conversations segue into violence as easily as raucous song and dance. It’s not long (or is it?) before the younger man finds himself gripped by cabin fever, which takes the form of surreal, tentacle-filled visions. Gleefully mashing together low humour with high style, Eggers borrows heavily from Herman Melville as well as the 1929 silent film The Lighthouse Keepers – though to less satisfying ends than his inventive debut, The Witch (2015). KEVA YORK

H IS FOR HAPPINESS 

Candice Phee (Daisy Axon) is a ray of sunshine in Albany, WA. But sunshine isn’t to everyone’s taste, and her over-achieving style and can-do attitude aren’t winning her friends at school – apart from newcomer Douglas Benson (Wesley Patten), who may be from another dimension. At home things are wretchedly down to earth, with her mother (Emma Booth) bedridden with depression after the death of Candice’s infant sister three years ago, and her father (Richard Roxburgh) broke and angry thanks to a business dispute with his now-wealthy brother (Joel Jackson). Can Candice’s optimism find a way to heal her family’s wounds? The 12-year-old heroine’s quirkiness and the film’s bright palette suggest a simplistic feel-good effort, but director John Sheedy (working from Barry Jonsberg’s YA novel) brings out the story’s nuances. It’s an insightful, entertaining and, at times, moving coming-of-age tale that doesn’t shy from its darker side – or from a live performance of the Bee Gees’ ‘Islands in the Stream’. ANTHONY MORRIS

Small Screen Reviews

Aimee Knight Small Screens Editor @siraimeeknight

LOCKE & KEY  | NETFLIX

BLACK COMEDY

 | DVD + DIGITAL

 | ABC TV + IVIEW

Wildly ambitious and visually exquisite, this futuristic fairytale sees damsels in distress staging their own rescue missions – with varying degrees of success. On the island Paradise sits a “centre for emotional healing” where misfits like Uma (Emma Roberts, Scream Queens) and Yu (Awkwafina, The Farewell) get hyperfeminine makeovers before re-entering polite society. But the French chansons piped into sakura-pink bedrooms are just a smokescreen for a sinister scheme to strip young women of their individuality. The debut feature from Spanish director Alice Waddington, Paradise Hills is a feminist sci-fi with the pastel palette of Katy Perry (a selling point for some, a turn-off for others). While Waddington’s vision is grand, the script – by Nacho Vigalondo (Colossal) and novelist Brian DeLeeuw – needs another draft or two. Peppered with provocations on gender norms, sexuality, the beauty and wellness industries, marriage and more, it shies away from taking any definitive stance. A fiercer thesis would futureproof this good, almost great, survey of the feminine mystique. AIMEE KNIGHT

Back for a fourth and final season of observational humour and physical gags, this sketch series maintains its high standard of biting wit and skewered racial stereotypes. While this season is a bit tidda-less, it does showcase “Great Moments in Black History”, and the mental torture a white woman goes through over a child’s racial faux pas. The first episode features a recurring sketch about a university’s Indigenous support team, and its commentary on performative white ally-ship will undoubtedly appeal to fans of Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Us. That thread’s dark intensity is contrasted with lighter sketches on the intricacies of non-Indigenous folks wearing Aboriginal flag T-shirts (sorry, Damien Leith). The second episode includes Bjorn Stewart chewing the scenery as a stereotype-breaking “coconut” who goes too far in a hostage situation. And finally, with large mobs comes a big question: how close is this hook-up to incest? Now don’t go shaming your Aunties – watch the latest season of Black Comedy. NATHAN SHELDONANDERSON

ids know the sky is blue. They need to know what to do when it’s falling.” So goes the wisdom of Mr Pickles, host of the (fictional) children’s program Mr Pickles’ Puppet Time – itself a show within a show on the Showtime series Kidding, which is definitely not for kids. A fantastical take on grief, healing and familial trauma, Kidding is an off-road vehicle for comedian Jim Carrey, whose trademark intensity cannot be contained by his character’s starched shirt and sweater vest. PBS hero Mr Pickles is the wholesome alter ego of father and husband Jeff Piccirillo (Carrey). On weekday afternoons, he’s the embodiment of eternal sunshine, and an obvious riff on beloved real-life presenter Mister Rogers, remodelled by Kidding’s creator Dave Holstein and occasional director Michel Gondry. Away from his rainbow set, though, Jeff is a wounded soul struggling to recover from a life-changing accident, as decades of emotional repression fracture his “trusted brand”. Kidding toys with society’s suspicion of men who love children. It’s challenging stuff, but it’s not nefarious nor depraved. It’s about the edges of empathy, and its bittersweet tone is deftly handled, especially in the new season as the beguiling moments of absurdity kick up a gear. A surreal song-and-dance number is a wonderful showcase for Carrey’s versatility as a tragicomic clown with a crystalline singing voice and bruised vulnerability. Stream Kidding season two on Stan from 9 February. AK

07–20 FEB 2020

PARADISE HILLS

CARRY ON CARREY

You know what’s cool? Keys. Move over James Dean. Based on the comic book by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodríguez, this supernatural series bets the house on the questionable coolness of keys. After their father dies, the Locke family relocate to their ancestral home – wait for it – Keyhouse. The Locke siblings (played by Jackson Robert Scott, It; Connor Jessup, American Crime; and Emilia Jones, What We Did on Our Holiday) discover magical keys that give them powers, but dark forces want each one for their key ring of doom. Locke & Key creeps around a big old mansion avoiding any commitment to the mind-bending gothic horror elements of the comic. The spooky edges are smoothed out in favour of a more palatable young-adult drama, in which teens who don’t feel special find out that they’re actually the centre of the universe. The mysteries are entrancing enough to see out the series, depending on your level of tolerance for the charmless Locke clan. CAMERON WILLIAMS

Sarah Smith Music Editor

LIZZO: POSI VIBES

t’s a bit of a cliché to talk about music as escapism, and yet we persist in doing so because whenever music lifts us out of a gnarly space and transports us to the transcendental, we want to share the experience. I recently went to two very different shows but had almost identical emotional responses to each – something I’ve been puzzling over ever since. The first was Lizzo playing at The Forum Theatre in Melbourne. A force of charm and pure posi vibes, the American singer rasied her fans out of their physical surroundings, giving them permission to revel in unadulterated joy. Performing mostly bangers from 2019’s Cuz I Love You, Lizzo elicited the kind of extraordinary vocal and bodily response from a crowd that is rarely seen. Feeling utterly rejuvenated, a couple of days later I found myself at The Corner watching Cardiff post-hardcore faves Mclusky. Squeezed in among the late-thirties dudeheavy crowd, facial hair and denim jackets as far as the eye could see, I was overcome by the same lightness I’d felt at Lizzo as the mouthiest man in music, Andrew Falkous, reminded us all how great a rock show can be. How does shouting along to lines like “Fuck this band/And their demon seed…” elicit the same joy as singing “It ain’t my fault that I’m out here getting loose… Gotta blame it on my juice, baby”? Hell, maybe it doesn’t really matter after all. SS

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@sarah_smithie

TROUBLE IN THE AIR NEW WAR

MAN ALIVE! KING KRULE

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With the Melbourne Town Hall’s iconic grand organ as part of their arsenal, postpunk locals New War take their already impressive sound to staggering new heights on Trouble in the Air, the quartet’s third record. A sense of unease and disillusionment permeates Trouble, making it an apt soundtrack to our troubled times. The earth-shuddering organ traverses both mood and tone – from the frenzied urgency of ‘Redbeard USA’, right through to the mournful rumination of ‘Emerald Dream Eyes’ – while never overwhelming Melissa Lock’s formidable bass playing or lead singer Chris Pugmire’s vocal. The live arrangements facilitate an immediacy hard to achieve in a studio setting, counterbalancing both sparse and soaring moments to great effect. These components make for a breathtaking finale on ‘Purple Heart’, a nine-minute epic that should rightfully see New War regarded with the same reverence as the heavyweights of their genre. HOLLY PEREIRA

On ‘Cellular’, the opener on his third King Krule LP, English moodist Archy Marshall stares into the apocalyptic abyss “in the palm of [his] hand”. Witnessing fresh horrors on his phone, he descends into hell: riding the tube until he has no signal. Man Alive!, the followup to The Ooz (2017), is another nocturnalsounding record – only here, it’s a dark night of the soul. Marshall digs into existential dread and contemporary tragedy, singing of crises both migratory (“Men that drowned holding their daughters/And weren’t allowed refuge from the horrors”) and ecological (“We don’t have long ’til this earth is drowned”). Across 16 tracks and 42 minutes, he seeks solace in other people and altered states; though the guttural groans of ‘Stoned Again’ suggest he finds none. Marshall is more collage-oriented producer than structural songwriter, and the roiling, decaying atmosphere he summons on Man Alive! is uneasy, noisy, near-nauseating – not a study in life, but in death. ANTHONY CAREW

THE SLOW RUSH TAME IMPALA 

It’s Tame Impala’s first album in five years, and Kevin Parker, the band’s only member, has had time to think about time itself. The Slow Rush is full of introspective reflection about the nature of forever, with bursts of casual profundity and if-you’re-high realisation. The best songs on predecessor Currents exposed his heartbreak like a raw nerve, and his best work here comes in moments of clarity, before he allows things to get too diffuse. ‘Lost in Yesterday’ reinvigorates an old formula – the trademark shuffle beat and prominent bassline invoking a circuitous paranoia – while ‘Glimmer’ sees Parker lean further towards house than ever before. Three tracks each sprawl over six minutes, but despite the confessional lyrics on ‘Posthumous Forgiveness’, and the earworm hook of ‘Breathe Deeper’, these songs lack the all-or-nothing lucidity of longer Currents cuts such as ‘New Person, Same Old Mistakes’ or ‘Let It Happen’. The Slow Rush maintains moments of intimacy, but it feels purpose-built for stadiums and festivals; in these contexts it will likely thrive. GREER CLEMENS

KEVIN PARKER

Music Reviews

Book Reviews

Thuy On Books Editor @thuy_on

THE FIRST STONE HELEN GARNER

A KINDER SEA FELICITY PLUNKETT



This year marks the 25th anniversary of this highly contentious work by Helen Garner. She wrote candidly, some would argue foolishly, about a Melbourne sexual harassment case in which two young women accused the head of their residential college of indecent assault. Depending on where you stand, the author was either unfairly and unseemly supportive of the man involved, or she was merely highlighting the muddy area of male-female interactions. Now, in the post #metoo era, The First Stone deserves another reading, if only to remind you why it was and remains a divisive book. This anniversary edition includes a foreword by Leigh Sales and an afterword extracted from Bernadette Brennan’s book A Writing Life: Helen Garner and Her Work. Also included in this edition is a 1995 Good Weekend interview with Garner, as well as her essay from the same year, ‘The Fate of the First Stone’. The subtitle “Some Questions About Sex and Power” is a salient reminder that the work is more exploratory than conclusive. THUY ON

In her latest poetry collection A Kinder Sea – a title attributable to Emily Dickinson – Felicity Plunkett cultivates and extends the poetic tradition of oceanic metaphor. From time immemorial the ocean has offered inspiration to writers, and Plunkett takes the beauty of its unfathomable depths to heart in her work. Her words are radiant and shimmery in their evocations: “The sea mutes my words/They seep, touch nothing, cross strait of black and white…” There’s something quite dreamy, languid and mesmerising about her language. Often, the very act of expression is linked to the sea: “When I try to write you/near, my words break the sea’s caul/tear solitude, foam into hymn”. There is romance and passion, yes, but also isolation and violence in this collection. The push and pull of nature (the moon, tides, shorelines, weather patterns, birds and sea creatures) are all showcased soundly here. It’s poetry that makes you slow down and linger. THUY ON

THE LAST SMILE IN SUNDER CITY LUKE ARNOLD 

The debut novel from Australian Emmy Award-winning Black Sails actor Luke Arnold is Harry Potter for adults – with a recurrent hangover thrown in for good measure. Man, the least of the many creatures inhabiting the world, has destroyed magic, and in so doing has brought all of creation – elves, dwarves, vampires and sirens alike – down to his own grubby, mundane level. Enter Fetch Phillips: sometime soldier, private investigator and recreational drunkard, oft-as-not unemployable man-for-hire. When a well-respected and essentially retired vampire goes missing, Fetch is called upon to track him down. Along the way, he encounters a range of races and characters, all well thought out and strangely believable. Bleaker than Terry Pratchett, more believable than JK Rowling, and with a (quite literal) bite that Ben Aaronovitch would envy, Arnold has put the demon back into the demon drink, and has done so in an amusing and thought-provoking manner that is sure to garner new and enthusiastic fans. CRAIG BUCHANAN

FELICITY PLUNKETT

07–20 FEB 2020

Each year on Valentine’s Day, Levithan penned a tale for his friends.

hether you celebrate Valentine’s Day or not, 19 Love Songs by David Levithan is a collection of stories and poems that will make you feel lighthearted and tender. Even the background story is adorable. Each year on Valentine’s Day, Levithan penned a tale for his friends, and in this anthology they are collected for the first time. Though there is a bit about young, awkward, tentative love, not all the tales, or “tracks” as he calls them, are gooey romantic ones. There’s whimsy and humour and pain: what Levithan calls “traumedy”. As a gay man himself it’s not surprising that Levithan offers plenty of same-sex stories, but there are also tales about the bond between a mother and son in a single-parent household, tracks about “the giddy buoyancy of friendship”, a comic about kisses, and inspiration from the pop songs of the 80s – the mixed-tape era. Levithan explains the difference between an unarticulated crush and an unrequited one and writes: “Love is a conversation /between you and the one you love/held inside/the pages of a life.” TO

Public Service Announcement

by Lorin Clarke @lorinimus

Paint something. Draw something. Doodle. Colour in. No, you don’t have to be good at it. I might be able to magically alter the way time works, but nothing in my power has ever made me able to paint something that wasn’t best explained away as a silhouette of a flower. What does happen though, every time I paint or draw or doodle while on the phone, is that time stops. Other things become less important. The effects of painting on the brain are both immediate and long-lasting. Scientists tell us that painting forces us to focus, relaxing all the other things happening in our busy brains, and causing our bodies to relax while our minds undertake one, singular cognitive task. Longer term, painting helps our memory, making us less likely to forget things when we’re older. In other words, you’re stopping time in the immediate present and enriching your experience of it a little bit further down the track. Staring at a fireplace stops time. You can stare at a fire for what feels like an hour, completely lost

in thought, only to jolt to attention and look at the time – but it’s only been four minutes? How did that happen? Fireplaces are time machines, travelling to the present. You can speed up time by talking to someone. Standing in a queue, waiting for a train. I was recently waiting in line at a shop and a white-haired old man knelt down in front of a little girl wearing a tutu and said “Hello there. What’s your favourite book?” and the rest of us watched them, suddenly wishing just a little bit that the queue (once crawling) would slow down a little so we could see their character arcs reach their narrative conclusion. Her name, by the way, was Iona and her favourite book was about a family of mice going on holiday. His name was Neil and his favourite colour was purple and he wasn’t a fan of liquorice (neither was she). Neil and Iona could have passed around a hat at the end of their exchange and shared a hearty lunch with the proceeds. It seems like you should experience time in the same way throughout your life. But just look at young children – they experience time that deals mostly in the present. Press this, jump off that, eat this, stomp your foot at that. Alternatively, walk through a retirement facility and try not to feel impatient and fast. See how slowness is deliberate and considered. See how the past is everywhere. Time can’t really be stopped or slowed down, but you can transform the way it applies to you with so many little tricks. Close your eyes and shut the world out and feel how those two minutes are different from every other minute of your day. Read a book for 20 minutes and feel your elastic brain accommodate years, engage with ideas, embody voices and emotions, become other people. This is a Public Service Announcement: all we have is time. Don’t be a slave to it. Make it dance for you. You’re much more magical than you think.

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

was watching a movie recently about time travel. It was for teenagers. I don’t know any teenagers. Shoosh. Your judgement is not welcome here. Point is, this important contribution to cinema made me realise something. When I was a kid I liked the idea of waking up one day and being able to turn back time. Now, though, travelling backwards to another era to unhook a snag or murder a dictator seems like a lot of stressful work for not much reward. What does appeal to me, though, as a person who is, well, older than a teenager, is the idea of stopping time. Completely. Not much. Not for long. Not entirely. Just to catch up a bit. To watch the TV shows everybody keeps telling me I have to watch. To read the books whose purpose, otherwise, is to form a tower on my bedside table, threatening to kill me in my sleep. To get back to people. To perform all my software updates. Thinking this through, though, I realised that actually, I do alter time, in small ways, because I am magical enough to make that happen. And so are you. You can control time. Here’s how it’s done.

07–20 FEB 2020

Dance With Time

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Tastes Like Home edited by Anastasia Safioleas

FOOD PHOTO BY RANDOM HOUSE, PORTRAIT BY JEREMY GRIEVE

Tastes Like Home Colin Fassnidge

Slow-cooked Roast Lamb Shoulder with Colcannon Ingredients

Green Sauce 2 bunches flat-leaf parsley 1 bunch basil 1 bunch mint 1 clove garlic 2 small fillet anchovies

100ml sherry vinegar 100ml olive oil 50g cornichons 50g capers 1 tablespoon mustard Salt Colcannon Rock salt (to bake on) 5 desiree potatoes, whole and unpeeled 100g butter, unsalted 200ml hot milk 1 bunch flat-leaf parsley 2 small spring onions, finely sliced Salt Splash of olive oil

Method Preheat the oven to 90°C. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over high heat and seal the lamb shoulders on each side until nicely browned. Place into an ovenproof dish with the vegetables, herbs, spices and wine, and pour enough stock so the meat is covered. Cover with a lid and cook for 12 hours. Remove from the oven and set aside to rest. To make the green sauce combine all the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. To make the colcannon, preheat the oven to 200°C. Cover a baking tray with rock salt and place the potatoes on top. Bake for 1 hour or until tender when pierced with a skewer. While still hot, scoop out the flesh and pass through a mouli, ricer or fine sieve. Place into a saucepan over low heat and add the butter and hot milk. Stir until smooth, then mix in parsley and spring onions. Season with salt and dress with olive oil. A salad is optional.

Colin says…

low-cooked roast lamb shoulder and colcannon reminds me of my childhood, growing up with my brother Andrew, our mum Colette and dad Tony in cold and wet Dublin. I remember walking home from school and opening the front door and the smell of the lamb cooking would hit you. It was like a big warm hug. Being Irish, every mealtime we had four different types of potatoes! There have been many wars fought over the recipe for colcannon. Northern Ireland have their version and we have our version and ours is better! Mum was the main cook in our house but Dad also had two dedicated days – on Wednesday he would cook one of his favourites, Tony’s Famous Fried Onion Rings. Sundays he’d cook a roast. The preparation would start on Saturday night when he would soak his dried peas to make mushy peas to go with the roast potatoes. It was a house built on cooking; food was not just fuel, it was a major part of our day. My mother always took to the preparation with a joyful spirit. She loved to cook and that really was the start of my culinary journey, being inspired by Mum and trying to recreate the meals she cooked. I would sometimes cook for everyone but then I was banned from the kitchen because I left too many dishes. Chefs are not known for washing up! I started cooking at home when I was young and went on to work for the best chefs in the world where I learned the rigours of cooking. But when you get older you always come back to where you started. I often cook lamb and colcannon for my wife and two daughters at home. It’s a staple at our dinner table. Most of our dinners are based around what I can cook in a pot and serve at the table. It’s good because there isn’t any washing up! If there are any leftovers we can make a pie, so it is the meal that keeps on giving. Nowadays I would happily eat the lamb with a salad as I’m getting older and watching my weight. MKR: THE RIVALS IS SCREENING NOW ON CHANNEL 7.

07–20 FEB 2020

Splash of olive oil 2 lamb shoulders oyster cut, bone in 2 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped 1 brown onion, peeled and roughly chopped ½ bunch rosemary ½ bunch thyme 1 tsp fennel seeds 1 tsp coriander seeds 2 star anise 200ml white wine 2L chicken stock

Serves 10

Puzzles

ANSWERS PAGE 45

By Lingo! by Lauren Gawne lingthusiasm.com YES

CLUES 5 letters Carrying out (a task) Funeral hymn Jewellery for fingers Long hill‑crest Wine residue

A O N R G E I

S D

Sudoku

by websudoku.com

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

1 9 4 5 2 7 7 5 2 3 6 4 7 6 2 1 9 1 5 4 7 5 3 1 8 8

6 letters Blueprint Carrot‑coloured Fire‑breathing creature Prescribed amount Wilfully disregard 7 letters Looking at a book Worry greatly

Puzzle by websudoku.com

Solutions CROSSWORD PAGE 45 ACROSS 1 Quality 5 Calypso 9 Opportune 10 Neist 11 Tooting 12 Theatre 13 Peru 14 Archbishop 16 Trajectory 19 Stet 21 Steps up 22 Periwig 24 Irene 25 Cafeteria 26 Mistral 27 Strudel

DOWN 1 Quoit 2 Appropriateness 3 In ruin 4 Younger 5 Cheetah 6 Lingerie 7 Paint the town red 8 On the spot 13 Potassium 15 Menswear 17 Topical 18 Rip-offs 20 Crater 23 Grail

8 letters Drivers’ info board (2 words) Use symptoms to identify

20 QUESTIONS PAGE 9 1 James Muecke 2 Wombat 3 50 pence 4 8 and 24 5 Ecuador and Chile 6 KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (established Oct 1919) 7 Bandit 8 35 9 Goats 10 ‘Bad Guy’ by Billie Eilish 11 Norway 12 Seven 13 Hercules 14 Coronavirus 15 Eureka Stockade 16 Honey 17 Serena Williams 19 A caravan 19 13 20 Jane Turner and Gina Riley

07–20 FEB 2020

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

by puzzler.com

Word Builder

We think of the words yes and no as being so simple that, like atoms, they can’t be divided into smaller parts. While that’s certainly true now, these small words have more complex histories. Yes was originally gise or gese, a phrase in Old English meaning “so be it”, made up of gea “so” (our modern yea) and si “be it”. This gese was stronger than gea, which could also indicate yes. Common variations have only been recorded relatively recently; yeah in 1863, yep in 1889 and yup in 1906, as these informal responses didn’t make it into earlier, formal texts. No is also an emphatic combination, of the earlier Germanic ne “not” and a “ever”.

Crossword

by Steve Knight

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

Quick Clues ACROSS

1 Feature (7) 5 West Indian music style (7) 9 Advantageous (9) 10 Scottish word for next (5) 11 Sounding (a horn) (7) 12 Playhouse (7) 13 South American country (4) 14 Religious rank (10) 16 Path followed by a flying object (10) 19 Instruction to ignore a marked alteration (4) 21 Rises to the occasion (5,2) 22 Formal hairpiece of judges and barristers (7) 24 Woman’s name (5) 25 Informal restaurant (9) 26 Wind (7) 27 Pastry dessert (7)

14 15

DOWN

20 21

Cryptic Clues

Solutions

ACROSS

DOWN

1 Character is drunk in the dock (7) 5 ASIO spy lacks back-up inside plant (7) 9 Convenient to shake up one left in detention (9) 10 Train set in Scotland’s next (5) 11 Snorting cocaine is common in South London (7) 12 Mad Hatter finishes riddle and plays here… (7) 13 …up around queen’s country (4) 14 Tutu is one piece with bow at the front (10) 16 Design jet car with conservative flight path (10) 19 Lead singer oddly tweets Let It Be (4) 21 Raises cat, adopting pet in retirement (5,2) 22 Judge locks up Assange under Scandi law,

1 Leave boxing ring for games ring? (5) 2 Elastic I prepare so pants fit (15) 3 Derelict pub bottles peeled fruit (2,4) 4 Our GenY represented this way? (7) 5 Revolutionary escalates hate for African

alibi crumbling by closings (7) 24 Her anger not entirely new (5) 25 Order ice tea far from here? (9) 26 Invalid court case striking single blow (7) 27 Sweet cows rustled (7)

1 Iron or rubber ring used in a game (5) 2 Suitability (15) 3 Derelict (2,4) 4 More junior (7) 5 African cat (7) 6 Underwear (8) 7 Celebrate flamboyantly (5,3,4,3) 8 Immediately (2,3,4) 13 Chemical element (9) 15 Male clothing (8) 17 Contemporary (7) 18 Scams (3-4) 20 Cavity or hole in the landscape (6) 23 Chalice (5)

sprinter (7)

6 Teddy set to fish on great lake (8) 7 Refreshing pint at 3dn to celebrate (5,3,4,3) 8 Funny photo sent straight away (2,3,4) 13 In the lab K-pop endless play is a must (9) 15 Pocketing income NSW earned suits

department? (8)

17 Equatorial rainforest’s initial cull is newsworthy (7) 18 Grave message very loud in overseas scams (3-4) 20 Club-head speed slower by the last hole (6) 23 Ash will report on the Cup (5)

SUDOKU PAGE 43

2 8 3 6 7 4 5 1 9

9 7 1 5 8 3 4 2 6

5 4 6 2 1 9 7 8 3

1 2 7 3 9 5 8 6 4

6 5 8 1 4 7 9 3 2

4 3 9 8 2 6 1 7 5

3 1 4 7 5 2 6 9 8

8 6 5 9 3 1 2 4 7

7 9 2 4 6 8 3 5 1

Puzzle by websudoku.com

WORD BUILDER PAGE 43 5 Doing Dirge Rings Ridge Dregs 6 Design Orange Dragon Dosage Ignore 7 Reading Agonise 8 Road sign Diagnose 9 Organised

07–20 FEB 2020

Click 16 SEPTEMBER 1984

Prince Charles, Prince Harry, Princess Diana

words by Michael Epis photo by Getty

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

enry Charles Albert David was born at St Mary’s Hospital, London on 15 September 1984. Less than 24 hours later his mother, Princess Diana, and father, Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, stood on the steps of the hospital to have their photo taken. Harry’s relationship with the paparazzi – and his troubles – had already begun. When in turn his son, Archie Mountbatten-Windsor, was born 35 years later, on 6 May last year, he and his wife, Meghan, opted to skip the hospital steps photo, which was interpreted by the readers of royal tea leaves as a break with tradition (which had begun only three years before the picture above). The narrative had long been set – Harry would do things differently. The public had to wait several days for a photo of the newborn and his parents. If Harry has a problem with the paparazzi, it should come as no surprise. They hounded his mother into misery, and took photographs of her as she lay dying. Indeed, they contributed to her death. When Diana left the Hôtel Ritz Paris in the early hours of 31 August 1997, she was trailed by paparazzi. The driver, Henri Paul, whose blood-alcohol level was three times the legal

limit, accelerated to more than 100km/h in a 50km/h tunnel, presumably to escape them. He hit a pylon, killing himself, Diana and her companion, Dodi Fayed. Harry, just shy of his 13th birthday, was left motherless. The press and the paparazzi backed off, but soon resumed the hunt. A nation’s wrath was visited upon Harry when, aged 20, he was photographed at a friend’s fancy dress party smoking, drinking and wearing a Nazi armband. It may well have been another Nazi episode that drove him over the edge and out of the bosom of his royal family. In 2018 the BBC ran an image, circulating on the Nazi white supremacist fringe, of a gun pointed to Harry’s head, for being a “race traitor”, alluding to his marriage to Meghan Markle, who is biracial. The BBC argued that the article was in the public interest, leading to the conviction of two men, but the damage had been done. It later apologised. Now Harry and Meghan have taken Archie off to live in Canada – and the paps have immediately intruded upon their privacy. Things got no easier for Diana when she escaped the royal family. The story seems to be replaying via her second son. Good luck Harry.