The Big Issue Australia #628 – Dolly Parton by The Big Issue Australia

Ed.

628 15 JAN 2021

28.

NAOMI WATTS

24.

THE SCOOP ON MR WHIPPY

and

E XC L U S I V E INTERVIEW

42.

PERI-PERI CHICKEN

NO CASH? NO WORRIES!

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Contents

EDITION

628 24

A Scoop of Sunshine For writer Vin Maskell, summer means blue skies, ‘Greensleeves’ and a soft‑serve cone dipped in nuts. He takes a look inside the iconic Mr Whippy vans that put the cherry on top of long, lazy January days.

28 FILM

Wings Beneath Her Wings We talk to Naomi Watts about new her new film Penguin Bloom: one family’s tale of hope, healing and a special baby magpie.

12.

I Will Always Love…

by Jane Graham

In her candid and sparkling Letter to My Younger Self, the inimitable Dolly Parton gives us the lowdown on her crush on Johnny Cash, her fierce self-determination and her need to clear the air with Elvis. cover photo by Stacie Huckeba Butterfly Records, LLC

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

26 Ricky 27 Fiona 36 Film Reviews 37 Small Screen Reviews 38 Music Reviews 39 Book Reviews

41 Public Service Announcement 44 Puzzles 45 Crossword 46 Click

TASTES LIKE HOME

Peri-Peri Chicken South African-born chef Duncan Welgemoed shares his dad’s recipe for the most important dish in his life: peri-peri chicken.

Ed’s Letter

by Amy Hetherington Editor @amyhetherington

E FO RT NI GH T LE TT ER OF TH

What a Doll!

f you could have one last conversation with someone, who would it be? It’s a question we regularly ask celebrities for our popular Letter to My Younger Self column. As I type this question, my Aunty Lorrae’s voice immediately whispers in my ear, and I’m overcome. I’ve written in these pages before about how she inspired me to become a journalist, like her; how in retirement she’d often lend a hand as a proofreader here at The Big Issue. Lorrae died last July, and I ache for one last chat with her, to say the things left unsaid, to say thank you. Now, in her soft Scottish brogue, she’s telling me to get on with writing this. As for our cover star Dolly Parton, she’d love one last conversation (and hopefully a duet) with Elvis Presley. She’d like to clear the air after she refused to let him record one of her most famous songs, ‘I Will Always Love You’,

because it went against her principles. “I know who I am. I know what I’m not. I know what I can and cannot do,” she tells us. “I don’t feel like I have to answer to anyone but myself and to God. That’s my rule.” In this edition, the much-loved superstar, who turns 75 this month, generously shares her guide to life. Her rags to rhinestones story is well-known (the University of Tennessee even offers a history class on Dolly’s life), as is her big-hearted philanthropy – from donating US$1 million to a COVID-19 vaccine trial, to creating thousands of jobs at her Dollywood theme park near her birthplace at the foot of the Great Smoky Mountains. But it’s her ability to connect, to unify folks from opposing belief systems and across generations, that is most remarkable. As her friend Jane Fonda said: “It’s like through her songs she opens her arms wide and embraces such a broad swathe of people that don’t always feel seen, and it’s why people love her.”

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

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 24 years ago to provide both a voice and a work opportunity for people experiencing homelessness and disadvantage. Your purchase of this magazine has directly benefited the person who sold it to you. Big Issue vendors buy each copy for $4.50 and sell it to you for $9, keeping the profits. But The Big Issue is more than a magazine.

Your Say

I live in country NSW and on the Friday before Christmas, I was taking my two young granddaughters to see Santa at David Jones, Elizabeth Street. I stopped to buy The Big Issue and was thrilled to purchase it from Dave S from Sydney, the front cover and Page 3 celebrity! Talking with Dave was the highlight of my preparing for Christmas. Best wishes to all Big Issue vendors for 2021. CAROL HORTON POKOLBIN I NSW

How lucky is Australia to have Jackie French? (‘From the Flames’, Ed#626). Jackie spreads love, kindness and positive action wherever she is. How she courageously manages to be involved in so many efforts at once I’ll never know, but I’m so grateful she is. Thanks, Jackie, for inspiring us. LOIS KATZ GLEBE I NSW

I’m sending my best wishes to you all for a successful 2021. Like Hugh Taggart (Your Say, Ed#626), I too try to spread The Big Issue love around by leaving my copies for others to discover. I’ve left them in street libraries and on bus seats here in my patch of Brisvegas. JAN HANLON-SMITH ASHGROVE 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 20 locations around the country. • The Vendor Support Fund will offset the cost price of products for vendors, allowing them to earn a larger margin on their own street sales. • The Big Issue Classroom educates school groups about homelessness. CHECK OUT ALL THE DETAILS AT THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Carol wins a copy of Growing Up Disabled in Australia, edited by Carly Findlay OAM. You can read an extract by Eliza Hull on p18. We’d also love to hear your thoughts, feedback and suggestions: SUBMISSIONS@BIGISSUE.ORG.AU

YOUR SAY SUBMISSIONS MAY BE EDITED FOR CLARITY AND SPACE.

Meet Your Vendor

interview by Melissa Fulton photo by Barry Street

PROUD UNIFORM PARTNER OF THE BIG ISSUE VENDORS.

15 JAN 2021

SELLS THE BIG ISSUE OUTSIDE BROADWAY, ADELAIDE ST, BRISBANE

Glenn

You’re not going to believe how many brothers and sisters I’ve got. I’m the youngest; I’ve got three brothers and four sisters. I was born with the cords around my throat and couldn’t sit up until I was one year old, couldn’t walk by myself until I was two. I went to West Ipswich State Special School. Put it this way: I could not wait to leave school. I live by myself in Ipswich. I started working at The Big Issue because I got sick of sitting around home doing nothing. Before I sold the magazine, I used to pick up trolleys, and I also worked at the Endeavour Foundation, at Wacol. When I was working there, we were making lolly stands for displays and stuff, and also making kitty litter. I was talking to one of the Big Issue guys, Ernie, who sells in Ipswich, and he told me all about the mag. I bought one off him one time and I took it home to read it, and it was very interesting. I thought to myself, I might have a go at selling them. And I rang up the office and went in for a meeting and they signed me up straight away. Every fortnight when the new mag comes out, I sit on the train and read it. My favourite section is this one, the vendor profile. And I’ve got my very own customer: my darling mother! She buys one off me every fortnight! I bring it home and give it to her. I see Mum just about every week. She’s what I call my bank manager. She handles my money. You’re not going to believe this: back in 2014, I was in hospital. I was in there for 195 days, with something called necrotising fasciitis. Look it up on the computer. It’s something to do with eating the flesh, and I had to have skin grafts on my chest. I couldn’t wait to get out of bloody hospital! I play darts on Monday mornings and do tenpin bowling on Wednesday nights – I’ve been bowling since 1991 and I’ve won so many trophies I don’t even know where to put them! We’re on top of the ladder at the moment, our team. We’re called The Cool Cats. Mum gets me a season ticket for the Broncos’ games too, and so I go to the footy. I hate it when I go home on the train and the bloody Broncos lose! I’m mad about the Broncos. Lockyer’s my all-time favourite player. And Alfie Langer. I’ve taken my mum to a couple of games. I’m trying to save up my Big Issue money. A couple of years ago Mum and Dad went on a cruise and I went with them, and Mum said that I had to try and save $1000 so I could go on this cruise. I found it really hard, but I really enjoyed the cruise! I’d love to do it again. I’m thinking about trying to save up to go on a holiday by myself. I’d love to go to my brother’s place in Wagga.

Streetsheet

Stories, poems and pictures by Big Issue vendors and friends

A New Kind of Normal I used to be a snob I used to have a diamond ring I used to have fine clothes Now I am like the ones I used to despise. I used to always work Sometimes 21 days in a row Without a break for a long time

Vale David

I am glad I did, as now I can live on my savings. I am not allowed

ANDREW JOSKE WA OPERATIONS MANAGER

To do much because Of the times we are in But I can still write and do art This is A new kind of normal DANIEL K HUTT ST, WAYMOUTH ST & NORWOOD | ADELAIDE PHOTO BY ROSS SWANBOROUGH

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

t is with heavy hearts that we farewell much-loved vendor David, who has passed away. David first started selling The Big Issue outside the Perth Town Hall in 2006. He became a colourful fixture on the streets of Perth and was fond of his reputation as “The King of the Streets”. The word larrikin was invented for David. He was strong-willed and bloody-minded and liked to push the envelope. “You’re not the boss of me!” was one of his favourite catchcries, always said with a cheeky grin and a twinkle in his eye. And it was true – David was determined to make his own way in the world, and made the most of the hand he was dealt. Hard rock was David’s passion – he loved going to gigs and had a rotating wardrobe of band T-shirts. Not one to do things half-heartedly, he lived and breathed the rock’n’roll lifestyle. Over the past few years, David formed a friendship with fellow vendor Claire – they worked on pitch together and their connection was beautiful. He was brash and sweet, generous and stubborn, loud and entertaining, and above all else unashamedly himself. And we loved him. Rest in peace, brother.

Cherished, Always My dearest David, thank you for lifting my spirits – “arracabbaca”. You live in my heart and I will cherish you always. Your spirit lives on with me; I will never forget you. CLAIRE AUSTRALIA POST I FREMANTLE

Hairs and Graces I would like to say a big thank you to Bou’s for Men hairdresser on Creek Street in Brisbane CBD. I went to get my hair cut and a gentleman paid for two haircuts last week and I got my hair cut for free today. So thank you Bou’s and the lovely people in Queensland!

I got to the front of the line Adam made a pun about my name and asked if I was “amazing” Grace. I finally managed to find my voice and tell him he was my role model because we both have a disability. When I went to walk away, he called me back. We ended up having a chat about all-abilities rugby and that is one of my favourite memories. Now that I know there is an all-abilities team in Canberra, I am playing rugby. Adam Hills has been my role model since I was a teenager.

Even though our disabilities are not the same, I can still relate to him. He sort of gave me hope that I could do whatever I wanted and I could make money by being funny. Adam Hills is one of the reasons I try to be a role model for people with disability, particularly children. A few years ago, I worked with a little boy with a hearing impairment. He identified that I was like him even though I am vision impaired, and since then we have had a close relationship. GRACE KAMBAH SHOPS I CANBERRA

NATHAN C 7-ELEVEN, CREEK & ADELAIDE STS I BRISBANE

You’re Not Alone

Role Model Citizen I met Adam Hills about two years ago when he was doing a show and a book signing. I bought a physical copy of the book just so I could get it signed – I had already listened to it on audio. I had to stand in a big line all by myself, which made me anxious. When

Hit for Six I’ve got a new sport! I’ve started playing cricket, and I’m loving it. I already play basketball, netball, soccer and footy, but cricket is completely new to me. It’s a bit like tennis with a bat! My boyfriend Jason plays it too, so it’s something we can do together. Plus, it’s keeping me fit! KELLEE MISS MAUD, MURRAY ST | PERTH

15 JAN 2021

GLENN F WOOLWORTHS CENTRAL I SYDNEY

ALL VENDOR CONTRIBUTORS TO STREETSHEET ARE PAID FOR THEIR WORK.

2020 has been a complicated year for all and we have all stuck together through it. For me it’s good knowing that we have great support everywhere we go. Life is not easy, but you have to jump hurdles to get to the finish line and that’s what we’re all doing at the moment. Think positive: set your goals on the future, don’t hold back and always remember you’re never alone. For me, I’m setting goals every week – they may not get done but I know I’m trying the best I can. And I know that I’m not alone doing what I want to do.

KE LL EE IS BO W LE D OV ER

Hearsay

Andrew Weldon Cartoonist

“

We were able to see that communication between animals can be learned, and that the behaviour of gazing at humans to access food is not related to domestication. Indeed, kangaroos showed a very similar pattern of behaviour we have seen in dogs, horses and even goats when put to the same test.

Dr Alan McElligott, from University of Roehampton, on research finding that when a human puts food in a box, a kangaroo will look at the human in an effort to get them to unlock the box – proving what Skippy knew all along. SCIENCE DAILY I US

“There are concerns about the impact of telecommuting, online classes and other activities that will reduce personal interactions and decrease marriages. Even if the virus is contained, we don’t know if the number of births will return to normal.” Takuya Hoshino, deputy chief economist at the Dai-ichi Life Research Institute, on fears Japan’s already low birth rate will fall further due to the coronavirus. JAPAN TODAY I JN

“They eat everything and they’re in every environment. They’re impressive, but devastating.” Dr Rowena Hamer, from University of Tasmania, on findings that feral cats kill an estimated two billion animals in Australia every year, being implicated in at least 25 mammal extinctions, and depressing the numbers of another 124 threatened species. THE GUARDIAN I AU

“What happened here today was an insurrection incited by the president of the United States.” Republican Senator Mitt Romney on President Trump’s followers, who invaded the US Capitol, ransacking Congress on the day that senators were counting the votes to install Joe Biden as president.

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

THE NEW YORK TIMES I US

“Actually, one of the reasons I got sober was I had just turned 26, and I said, ‘I got to pull my shit together before I’m 27, because 27 is the time you cross over that threshold into living or dying a legend.’ I didn’t want to not make it through being 27. I didn’t want to join that club.” Singer Miley Cyrus on quitting drugs and alcohol because she feared joining the 27 Club, alongside the likes of Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain. ROLLING STONE I US

“At least 50 new employees will join the ranks of our female drivers. We are very proud that Moscow transport is a territory that is accessible to people regardless of gender!” Russia’s Ministry of Labour on overturning a decades-long ban on women driving trains on Moscow’s Metro subway system. Special uniforms have been designed for the new recruits, who will be allowed to choose between a skirt or pants.

“We believe the risks of allowing the president to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.” Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, on blocking President Trump on Facebook and Instagram at least until the end of his term, due to Trump’s “use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government”. FACEBOOK

CNN I US

“I think we have just arrested the world’s unluckiest burglars.” Chief Inspector John Owen of Staffordshire police, England, on the two burglars arrested after one of them accidentally butt-dialled the emergency department mid-crime, allowing the police to listen in on their entire conversation.

“We found him naked in a tree covered in bites, cuts and mud... We were like ‘Oh shit, we better get him an ambo.’ I had to give him my shorts and everything.” Top End crab fisherman Cam Faust on finding a nude fugitive hiding out in a mangrove tree, covered in insect bites and avoiding crocs, after four days on the lam.

THE GUARDIAN I UK

NT NEWS I AU

20 Questions by Rachael Wallace

01 What was the name of Marilyn

Monroe’s third husband? 02 If you’re suffering nomophobia,

what are you fearful of being without? 03 Who was the first head of state to

test positive to COVID-19? 04 Who captained India in the first Test

against Australia, in Adelaide in December 2020? 05 Who is the Egyptian god of writing? 06 What was the British House of

Windsor previously known as? 07 What is the name of Madonna’s

fourth child? 08 Which three ingredients comprise

a traditional Italian soffritto? 09 The Indigenous game of marngrook

is said to have inspired which other code of football?

“The [Chinese Communist] party has once again reminded all private entrepreneurs that no matter how rich…you are, it can pull the rug out from under your feet at any time.” Author Bill Bishop on the disappearance of billionaire Jack Ma, at various times Asia’s richest person after founding online site Alibaba, and who has been critical of Chinese governance. Maybe he’s gone to Mars? THE GUARDIAN I UK

“Last year, President Trump extended painful economic

AFRICA NEWS I CG

“The Islamic Republic of Iran is very seriously following up on pursuing and punishing those who ordered and executed this crime.” Iranian judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili on his nation’s request to Interpol to arrest President Trump (and 47 other Americans) over the killing by drone last year of Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s top general. AL JAZEERA I QA

“We love you. You’re very special.” Outgoing US President Donald Trump, on his followers who invaded the Capitol while shouting “kill them”, referencing members of Congress.

10 What is the name of the nerve

commonly referred to as the funny bone? 11 How many Grand Slam singles titles

did Martina Navratilova win? 12 Which three-time Oscar winner died

on their 67th birthday? 13 Where in Australia would you find

the Big Bogan? 14 What is the name of the family dog

in The Simpsons? 15 Which Super Netball team was

stripped of premiership points and fined in December 2020 for breaching the salary cap? 16 Who won the first Australian of the

Year award in 1960? 17 Kerrin McEvoy has won four

Melbourne Cups. True or false? 18 Who was the second canonical

victim of serial killer Jack the Ripper? 19 John le Carré is the pen-name of

which recently deceased British author? 20 The octothorpe symbol is more

commonly known as what? 15 JAN 2021

TWITTER

sanctions placed on Zimbabwe, citing concerns about Zimbabwe’s democracy. Yesterday’s events showed that the US has no moral right to punish another nation under the guise of upholding democracy.” Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa on the chaos in the US Capitol.

THE NEW YORK TIMES I US

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

ANSWERS ON PAGE 44

“How strange. Well, back to “Hey, what cheese work...” do you want? Tasty Elon Musk – the or plastic?” former owner of Overheard by Sarah Colgan PayPal who now in Chelsea, Melbourne. heads Tesla cars (The answer was plastic.) and whose SpaceX plans to send humans to Mars – on the news that he has replaced Amazon’s Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest person. EAR2GROUND

My Word

by Colin Varney @earwormnovel

pocalypse holidays can be problematic. With borders closing and travel options narrowing faster than media ownership, my employers became concerned that too many staff were postponing vacations. So they coerced me into taking mine. Throughout lockdown, my partner Helen and I had been bunkered in a rabbit-hutch apartment. With construction commencing next door, it was an easy decision to shove a tent in the car and drive north, swapping the judder of jackhammers for the cackle of kookaburras. We’d been living in Sydney for five years but had seen little of the countryside. Here was an opportunity to explore. Just the three of us: Helen, me and Siri. Siri was chatty while navigating the labyrinthine suburbs, but settled into meditation during the long stretches of open highway. I was thankful, as I found her tone somewhat petulant and resented her interruptions. I bristled at her passive-aggressiveness when we’d detour for a toilet break and she’d insist we “proceed to the route”. But we’d be lost without her. Literally. Crowdy Bay, near Port Macquarie, doesn’t sound like the smartest place to holiday during a pandemic, but on weeknights the campground was sparsely populated. Nestled between grassland and banksias, it was a short walk from a wind-scoured curve of beach. Others on the site had spent funds usually reserved for airfares on camping bling. Elaborate tents built around central domes looked like harems. Extensive gas-cookers were rigged beneath flapping marquees. There was the hum of solar-powered fridges. That night, slumbering on a hand-pumped mattress, Siri wormed into my consciousness. Her instructions were becoming disturbingly existential. “Turn towards happiness,” she advised. “Take the Apathy Bypass. Consider moving out of slow lane. At the roundabout of life, avoid the final exit.” Morning was chilly. Warming our hands around coffee mugs, we became aware of a prehistoric creature eyeing us from the undergrowth. As it lurched forward, I remembered Jurassic Park was a holiday destination too. The goanna was so large that two individuals separated by its length would be COVID-safe. As it scoffed scraps from the ashes of the firepit, a black-and-white blur

buzzed its head. Two piping shrikes divebombed. They must have had babies nesting nearby. The lizard lunged at them with snapping jaws, until their persistent strafing paid off and it retreated ignominiously back into the scrub. In the following mornings, the commotion of the birds alerted us to further incursions from the goanna. We christened it Kerry, in a nod to the Packers. As evening drew in, terse negotiations began concerning the campfire. I placed confidence in my primal memory of pyre construction involving tinder, while Helen wielded a box of firelighters. Sensitive gender diplomacy ensued. On those occasions when my primitive instincts foundered and the firelighters were deployed, it was nice to be warm while feeling emasculated. As the sky bruised into darkness and the moon snared in the trees, mosquitoes stealthily sought chinks in our cloudy armour of chemical repellent. Here was a vast sequined night, assertive and unapologetic. The Milky Way was powdered across space and Mars winked redly. We peered upwards, simultaneously beguiled and belittled by the panoply of socially distanced stars. Siri haunted my dreams, correcting life’s misdirections. “Destination: writing your second novel. Proceed to the route.” I protested the task was too daunting. I needed extensive plot notes, more character development. Siri persisted: “Proceed to the route…” Next day, we trekked inland, finding ourselves in an eerie landscape of blasted trees. The bushfires of Black Summer had not left Diamond Head unscathed. They had roared through Crowdy Bay National Park, ravaging vegetation and wildlife. Yet barely a year later, the blackened trunks were supported by a sweep of greenery. Undergrowth was flourishing. New leaves bustled around the treetops. The bushytailed stalks of Balga, which require ash to flower, proliferated in the low scrub, quietly celebrating 2020. It had been a harrowing year. We were wearied by the heartbreak of the pandemic and its economic fallout and were apprehensive about the looming US election. (I heard Siri directing voters: “Veer left”.) Yet here was evidence of tenacity and regrowth. The regenerating bushland proved it was possible to rise from the ashes. Next morning, we drove back to the city invigorated and also shooting new buds. Colin Varney’s novel Earworm: A Tale Told By a Love Song was published in 2018. He has a complicated relationship with Siri.

In an end-of-the-world year, Colin Varney steels for the road, with his wife and an AI-abetted third wheel.

15 JAN 2021

You Can’t Be Siri-ous

Letter to My Younger Self THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Dolly Parton is country music’s greatest star, with album sales exceeding 100 million and 10 Grammys to her name. But Dolly is more than that – she’s a force for good, donating $1 million to fund a COVID vaccine and sponsoring children’s reading worldwide, inspired by the struggles of her illiterate father. Here, she shares a little more of herself – like her crush on Johnny Cash, the time she said no to Elvis and her pride in where she comes from. by Jane Graham The Big Issue UK @janeannie

15 JAN 2021

.”

DO LLY PA “I KN OW WHRTON : O I AM

I was about 13 when I first met Johnny Cash and that’s when Johnny was all strung out on drugs and everything, but he was so magnetic, so sexy. He was my first male grown-up crush; he just really moved me. That’s when I realised what hormones do and what sex appeal really means. He just kind of stirred me somehow. And so I guess that’s when I realised I was becoming a little woman. Oh, we laughed about it through the years. I told him, you know you were my very first crush, my first sexy grown-up crush. He always got a kick out of that. I knew I wanted to always stay true to my roots. I knew I loved my family – I would never shame them. I was proud of my family, but I just had a feeling inside my gut that I was supposed to do something more. I felt it in

INSET PHOTOS FROM DOLLY PARTON, SONGTELLER: MY LIFE IN LYRICS AND AP

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

actually was a pretty good girl at 16. I was in high school at the time but I had been taking my music very seriously for several years before that, taking trips back and forth to Nashville with my Uncle Bill Owens, from my home in East Tennessee 200 miles away. We’d take some old car, and sleep in the car, trying to go into different offices in Nashville. We’d stay a few days to try to get a few things going. I didn’t have time to run around and mess with boys. And my dad was pretty strict anyway, so I pretty much spent my teenage years just working on my music and hanging out with friends when I had an opportunity.

15 JAN 2021

TOP: THE PARTON FAMILY, WITH DOLLY STANDING SECOND FROM LEFT BOTTOM: WITH THE MAN IN BLACK, 1978

got for going against somebody’s ruling. I am strong in my beliefs. There is an old saying – to thine own self be true – that has followed me all the days of my life. I know who I am. I know what I’m not. I know what I can and cannot do. I don’t get myself involved in things that I know are out of my realm. But if there’s something I can do and I want to do, hell or high water ain’t gonna stop me. I’m an easy person to work with, but I will not bend to your ways if they go against mine. I have my standards and my principles and if you push me to a point that does not agree with my soul, I will call you on it, and I will not compromise. I don’t feel like I have to answer to anyone but myself and to God. That’s my rule. It’s true I would not compromise with Colonel Tom [Parker, Elvis Presley’s manager]. Elvis wanted to record ‘I Will Always Love You’. They planned the session, and told me they were recording the song. I’d been invited down to the studio to meet Elvis and be there when he sang my song. That was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. Who doesn’t love Elvis? But then Colonel called me the afternoon before the session and said, you do know we have to have at least half the publishing on any song that Elvis records? And I said no, I did not know that. He said, well, it’s just a rule. So I said, well, it’s not my rule. I said, I hate this more than you could even imagine but I cannot give you half the publishing. I just can’t do it and I won’t do it. ‘I Will Always Love You’ had been a number‑one song with me already; it was the most important song in my catalogue. And I cried all night long, ’cause I was so disappointed. It wasn’t Elvis – I loved Elvis. And I’m sure he was as disappointed as I was because he had it all worked up and ready to go. I know he loved the song. Priscilla told me later that he sang that song to her when they were coming down the steps of the courthouse after they divorced. That really touched me and I thought, Oh well, I can only imagine. But it wasn’t his fault. I found out later that Colonel Tom had an even bigger demand for any brand-new song Elvis recorded; in those cases 100 per cent of the publishing went to them. Yeah, Tom was a strict manager. He was a good manager and

my bones early on; it was just like a calling. I wanted to go beyond the Smoky Mountains. My family knew that as well, even though it was a little different for a low mountain girl. I’m very proud of the fact that I’m so much both of my parents. I can see it so plain in myself. I got my spiritual side and my musical side from my mom’s people. Most of them played musical instruments and sang, and we all grew up in the church. We were the family that played at funerals and weddings and all kinds of shindigs. My dad’s people were mainly hard-working people; I got his work ethic and willingness to stick to it until I get the job done. I know what part of me is Daddy and I know which part is Mama and I think it’s a good combination. It’s why I’ve lasted so long. Usually creative musicians are basically kind of physically lazy. They want to stay up all night and write and sing and sleep all day. But like my dad, I get up really early, I work hard and I go to bed fairly early. And I love the fact that I’m not a lazy head: I’m not sluggish. I think that’s been a big part of my success – I’m up and at it before most people can get out of bed. My mom and dad were both very proud of me. My mom was more lenient in the early days; she used to have to cover for me. My dad didn’t want me travelling – traipsing around, as he called it – he didn’t like me going away to Nashville. He and my mom used to have words about that. So I’d go before he got home from work and Mama had to defend me on that one. She’d say, she’s alright, and she’s gonna leave whether you like it or not. Mama understood it because she was a dreamer also. But he was pretty strict; I thought sometimes in the early days he was too strict. It’s not that he didn’t trust me, he just didn’t trust the world. But after I moved to Nashville he saw that I was serious about it and it was real work, and a dream that was actually possible. And he became my biggest fan and biggest supporter. I always knew my ambition was going to happen; they couldn’t preach it out of me. I was going to be a star, I was going to go to Nashville, I was going to sing my songs no matter what. I was never a rebel without a cause; I was not a rebellious child. I did it with grace and style. I wasn’t out to cause any grief at all for my mom or dad. But I was willing to take whatever punishment I might have

I love the fact that I’m not a lazy head, I’m not sluggish. I think that’s been a big part of my success – I’m up and at it before most people can get out of bed. songwriter. And yes, a lot of my songs are kind of melancholy. Some of them are sad, and some of them are pitiful. And I mean for them to be pitiful, those really sad songs like ‘Little Sparrow’ or ‘Jeannie’s Afraid of the Dark’. I have a big imagination and I become whoever I’m writing about. It’s like starring in a movie; I am that character in that song. So when I wrote it, I was Jolene. ‘Jolene’ has been recorded more than any other song that I have ever written. It has been recorded worldwide over 400 times in lots of different languages, by lots of different bands. The White Stripes did a wonderful job of it, and many other people. But nobody’s ever had a really big hit record on it. I’ve always hoped somebody might do someday, someone like Beyoncé. What I would say to my young self is all those dreams, they are going to come true.

If I could live one moment of my life again, I think it’s when I became an official member of the Grand Ole Opry back in the late 60s. When I found out it was going to happen I jumped up and down; I was tickled to bits. I had always wanted to be on the Grand Ole Opry. You would listen to it on the radio back home and hear all those singers and that was where you wanted to be if you were a country singer. I remember that night so well. I remember how proud I felt thinking of my people listening back home. That memory stands out the most because that was the very first big moment. But I’ve had many, many special nights since then. DOLLY’S NEW BOOK, DOLLY PARTON, SONGTELLER: MY LIFE IN LYRICS, IS OUT NOW.

15 JAN 2021

TOP: DOLLY SLAYS GLASTONBURY, 2014 BOTTOM: DOLLY AND HER ’DO, BACK IN THE 60S

It’s not going to all be fun and games – you’re going to have to pay the price and do your sacrificing – but it’s going to be worth it. I’d have to tell her about ‘I Will Always Love You’. To me that is really a classic love song. I had a number one on it twice, once in the 70s, then I did it in the movie The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and had another number one in the 80s. And then Whitney did it [in 1992] and it was considered one of the greatest love songs of all time. Still to this day I take a lot of pride in that. So I’d tell my younger self, you’re going to end up being very proud of your little old self one day. So just buckle up and be ready for the ride. If I could have one last conversation with anybody, I’d probably talk to Elvis. And I’d probably talk about ‘I Will Always Love You’ and say hey, I bet you were as disappointed as I was about all that and I still dream about you singing that song. Matter of fact, I even wrote a song called ‘I Dreamed About Elvis Last Night’ and I had an Elvis soundalike sing it with me and we actually sing “I will always love you” in it. And one day, I’m going to put that track out. So I think that I’d talk to Elvis, and just clear that up with him.

PHOTOS FROM GETTY AND DOLLY PARTON, SONGTELLER: MY LIFE IN LYRICS

I don’t blame him for asking, but I don’t blame me for saying no. When you write songs, you don’t know what’s going to be a hit. As a songwriter you know when some songs are better than others and I knew that ‘I Will Always Love You’ was probably one of the best things that I’d written, because it came from so much heart and soul. But you never know what’s going to be a hit or everybody would be rich. I knew it was a good song but I had no idea that it could ever become what it did, after Whitney recorded it and it went into such a big hit movie [The Bodyguard]. I’ll always be grateful to Kevin Costner and obviously I’ll always be grateful to and always love Whitney Houston. ‘Jolene’ and ‘I Will Always Love You’ were on the same album [1974’s Jolene]. In fact they came from the same cassette so it is possible that I wrote those two songs in the same day. ‘Jolene’ is a song about...you know, I’ve got my pride and I’ve got my strength. But when I write a song, I’m vulnerable at those moments. I leave my heart out on my sleeve. I’ve always said I have to leave my heart open in order to receive those kinds of songs. I have to feel everything to be a real

Never Needed Fixing It took a while – and involved wearing thick long pants on schoolday summers – now Eliza Hull recognises her disability as one of her greatest qualities.

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by Eliza Hull @musicelizahull

Eliza Hull is a writer, audio producer and musician. She produced the ABC series We’ve Got This: Parenting with a Disability, and And Then Something Changed for ABCME.

didn’t grow up disabled; I grew up with a problem. A problem that those around me wanted to fix, and that I began to want to fix too. I was raised in Wodonga, a regional town 300km north‑east of Melbourne. When I was five years old, I started falling over at school. I can still vividly recall the feeling of the rocks that got caught in my knees, the warm blood that would drip down my leg, and the numb, tingling sensation. My knees grew strong and firm. There were doctor’s appointments, hospital visits, questions and confusion, but never any answers. After each surgery, I watched red blood seep through my plaster casts. The hospital fairy would blow bubbles while I lay there, and celebrity footballers visited. Medical staff constantly talked about me, not to me. At five, I also started singing, which was a form of escape. After consulting with many specialists, my parents decided it was best for me to have several surgical procedures during childhood. Their intention was to alleviate my symptoms and make my life easier. On reflection, as an adult, I understand that this is what every parent wants. They cared so much and tried as hard as they could. It must have been scary for them – the uncertainty of what life would be like for me – because difference is something most of us are taught to fear. I was finally diagnosed with Charcot-Marie-Tooth, a disorder that affects the peripheral nervous system. Symptoms include progressive loss of muscle tissue and of touch sensation across my body, which causes me to walk

THIS IS AN EDITED EXTRACT FROM GROWING UP DISABLED IN AUSTRALIA, EDITED BY CARLY FINDLAY OAM, PUBLISHED BY BLACK INC BOOKS. AVAILABLE FROM 3 FEBRUARY OR PRE-ORDER VIA: BLACKINCBOOKS.COM.AU/BOOKS/GROWINGDISABLED-AUSTRALIA.

15 JAN 2021

I would be interested in coming to his church. It was out of town, he said, and would be full of people who could help me. “I think if we go, there would be a real chance we could solve your leg problem,” he said, smiling. Relief swept over me. I was suddenly floating, weightless. For that whole day I believed I would finally be fixed. I asked Mum if I could go. She said it was fine, of course: it wasn’t like I was asking to go to a party. I wanted to go to church. How innocent. The boy had his driver’s licence because he lived on the other side of the border, in New South Wales, where you could get your licence at 17. As he drove us down dusty roads under pink clouds, I sang along to the radio. I was so nervous I made pretend pictures on my knee with my fingers. We cracked jokes and I told him stories about my life. He listened attentively. The church building was old and weathered. Inside there was a mass of people having lively conversations by candlelight. I wanted to be inconspicuous, so I stood behind a group of them in the pews. It was like any other church service I’d been to, but this time I felt jittery, my palms sweaty. I sang the hymns with the congregation, our voices blending like a choir. “Before the service is finished, we have a special visitor who has come for us to pray for them,” the pastor said as he looked at me. “Please can you come forward, Eliza?” I walked anxiously to the front of the church, and a group of people quickly swarmed around me like bees, each of them chanting and praying. It got louder and louder. Hands were touching my back. I felt overwhelmed, suffocated and overcome by nausea. Why was I here? This question kept repeating in my mind. They wanted to fix me, because I had let them believe this is what I wanted. And why did I want this? Because I lived in a world where I felt I wasn’t accepted. Where difference was feared, not celebrated. Of course, the next morning I woke up and I wasn’t fixed. Funny that. Now, as I write this, I am emotional. I feel for that young, innocent version of myself. I want to tell her that she was wonderful just the way she was. That she didn’t need to hide her splints under thick black pants in the heat of summer. That she didn’t need to let the boys at school take her wheelchair at lunchtime, or to go to a church to be fixed. I wish I had grown up disabled. That identity, which I feared for so long, is now one of my greatest qualities. It’s who I am. As a 34-year-old woman, I am disabled and so very proud. I teach my daughter about disability. I sing about disability. I speak about disability. I advocate, and I share the stories of other disabled people. Now when a stranger asks, “What happened?” I smile, and say, “I have a disability.”

illustration by Eleonora Arosio

with a different gait. During my teenage years, I would describe it to people as a problem. If a shopkeeper, stranger or new friend asked, “What happened?” or “What have you done to yourself?” I would sometimes make up stories: “I got hit by a truck” or “I was in an accident”. But most of the time I would just reply that I had “a leg problem”. I felt inadequate and painfully different. When I was about to have my second round of surgery, I desperately wanted an escape, so I lied. The week before the surgery I announced with confidence to my friends that I was going to be fixed, that the surgery was going to make me walk straight. Deep down I almost believed it. I craved it so badly that my lie started to feel real. My friends created a book of well wishes, and everyone said how exciting it was going to be to finally see me run, climb stairs and walk properly. One friend wrote, “I can’t wait to be able to do sport together.” Of course, this was all innocent. We were young, and all of us, myself included, deeply wanted to be “normal”, to fit in. After the surgery, my friends must have noticed that I hadn’t been fixed, but they never mentioned it. I was grateful for their silence. In the weeks that followed, I let all the “cool” footy boys at school take my wheelchair at lunchtime. They raced in it down the hill. I would sit out on the oval, feeling stranded, my means of getting around suddenly gone. Strangely though, it felt good seeing the boys play with my wheelchair, like they were validating who I was. During the recovery from the surgery, I started using crutches and splints on my legs. Mum took me shopping to buy new shoes to fit the splints. I cried. I tried to hide my tears, but they poured out like an overflowing ocean at high tide. One shoe was my standard size, and the other was three sizes bigger, and the tongue of that shoe had to be cut to fit my foot. I was 14 and all I wanted was to be accepted. I felt like I was about to jump off a cliff – and at the bottom was a pit of schoolkids laughing at my expense. It was the summer holidays then – during those months most days hit 40°C in the shade. But on my first day back at school, I wore the oversized shoe with long pants to hide the splints. I was embarrassed to be me. Two of my closest friends also came to school wearing black pants that day in solidarity. This is one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for me. During the long days in the sweltering heat, I didn’t want to be seen. I wanted to wear a dress like all the other girls. I wanted to hide, to fix my condition, to make it disappear. I spent hours locked away in the music room, writing songs on the piano, full of angst and heart. My hair pulled back so tight I got headaches, braces on my teeth, pimples, crooked legs, grazed knees, pain, tiredness, heavy: it all felt overwhelming. It felt endless. In drama class that year there were two new boys who’d transferred from another school because our drama program was so well known and respected. They were arty and funny, and quickly fit into my school friendship group. One day one of these boys asked if

series by Alana Holmberg

The Big Picture

Endless Summer Melbourne photographer Alana Holmberg captures the languid days of summer in the sunniest spot in Europe. by Ricky French @frenchricky

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Ricky French is a Melbourne-based journalist specialising in feature writing and travel.

FROLICKING AT CLIFFBASE IN SVETA NEDJELJA, ON THE ISLAND OF HVAR, CROATIA

FOR MORE IMAGES FROM ALANA HOLMBERG, VISIT ALANAHOLMBERG.COM.

15 JAN 2021

n the remote southern coast of the Croatian island of Hvar, over the mountainous spine and down the vertical cliffs of a formidable escarpment, exists a place locals call “the sunniest place in Europe”. The village of Sveta Nedjelja might also be the simplest place in Europe. Rocky coves dip their toes in the clear, blue Adriatic Sea as it sloshes gently against the white sand. Rock climbers scale the escarpment, while walkers follow stone paths up to the high point where monks built a monastery inside an ancient cave, and on the beach a smattering of families get on with the serious business of basking in the glaring sun. It was this languid, endless and timeless summer that Melbourne-based photographer Alana Holmberg found herself documenting during a spur-of-the-moment two-week stay in 2019. “I felt like I’d discovered a secret,” she says. “An untouched paradise far removed from the party scene on the other side of the island. A place of peace.” Armed with a camera and a couple of rolls of film, Holmberg paddled her kayak into town each day, just as the sun was softening, and captured people at their most content – sprawled on towels on warm rocks; sunk into a bench seat overlooking the glistening sea; clapping along to a folk band in the courtyard of a family-run seafood restaurant; or gazing wistfully from a hammock, the troubles of the world kept at bay by that omnipresent sun. There’s a dreamlike, almost fantastical element to the landscape, where trees sprout from rocks metres from the sea, abandoned stone huts are camouflaged into hillsides, and colouring the images throughout are the carefree people, enjoying a lifestyle where all you need is sun, sea and a towel. “As a photographer you look for moments,” says Holmberg. “Life seemed so easy. People had their spots on the rocks. They would leave the water for the day but mark their spot on the rock with their towel for the next day. Life was wake up, swim in the sea, eat seafood, drink wine, repeat.” Viewers will instantly recognise the Europeanness of the devil-may-care attitude of leather-skinned sun‑worshippers, enjoying the good life by the water as the sun sets on another day in paradise. For Holmberg – who is the 2019 winner of the prestigious National Photographic Portrait Prize – this series of photos represents a departure from the heavier work she’s more known for. “These images were about finding moments and injecting humour and lightness. I felt really joyful making these and I wanted that to show.” Summers like these may feel timeless, but every summer must pass. When Holmberg arrived home from her trip there was a postcard waiting for her. She had sent it to herself, from Sveta Nedjelja. It simply said, “Remember this feeling.”

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SAND, SUN AND SEA, CROATIAN-STYLE

YOUNG REVELLERS EXPLORE THE DEEP, CLEAR ADRIATIC SEA

SOAKING UP “THE SUNNIEST PLACE IN EUROPE”

15 JAN 2021

BARTUL TOMIČIĆ, WHOSE FAMILY HAS GROWN LAVENDER ON THE ISLAND OF HVAR FOR GENERATIONS

A Scoop of Sunshine Vin Maskell gets nostalgic for that sweet summer treat: Mr Whippy ice cream. If you close your eyes and concentrate, you can almost hear the song, right? Vin Maskell is a regular contributor to The Big Issue and the editor of music memoir site stereostories.com and sport site scoreboardpressure.com.

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ou hear the chimes of the ice-cream van before you see the van itself. It’s a street or two in the distance, but you know it’s on its way. Those jinglejangle notes – sometimes a bit wonky but still recognisable as the song ‘Greensleeves’ – are as much the sound of summer as waves crashing, flies buzzing, air conditioners humming and barbecues sizzling. The sound of promise. The sound of hot, dry days. The sound of standing on the footpath in your bathers and your thongs and holding onto your notes and coins and trying to decide between gelati or soft-serve. Lemon

gelati? Chocolate ice cream with a sprinkle of nuts? Melbourne food truck owner Albert Cerminara, 41, has been an ice-cream man all his life. From the age of five he was helping his father serve gelati and soft serve from their 1977 Ford Transit ice-cream van. Several of Albert’s uncles ran ice-cream vans in Melbourne from the late 1970s. “As a young tacker, I’d travel all over the western region with my dad, and then my younger brother joined us,” he recalls. Albert worked in the van through primary school, high school and while studying for his law degree. “At the

height of summer we’d be out at nine in the morning and sometimes not home till 11 at night. It was pretty crowded, and back then we used to have the hot and noisy generator for the ice-cream machines inside the van!” Traditionally, ice-cream vans are solid, sturdy vehicles. Reliable. Familiar. Friendly. A little slow, by necessity. (You don’t want all that ice cream flying around when taking a corner too sharply.) A little daggy with their pink-and-white paint scheme and drawings of cartoon characters and all the different ice-cream options. And a little romantic too, in a nostalgic way. I was somewhat surprised, and mystified, when Albert’s van came tootling along my suburban street one warm day back in spring, when Melbourne was still in hard lockdown. There I was, at my desk, working away, when ‘Greensleeves’ wafted into the neighbourhood. My mind soon drifted to distant summers past, to the sweet relief of enjoying an ice cream under the hot, hot sun. I showed great discipline not to rush outside immediately and elbow the local kids out of the way – off the soft green grass and out of the shade of the bottlebrush tree – so I could be first in line!

15 JAN 2021

One of the most distinctive features of an ice-cream van is the music played to announce its arrival. The song is usually ‘Greensleeves’, a tune that harks to 16th century England. Back then, ‘Greensleeves’ was a song for lute and vocals: “Alas, my love, you do me wrong/To cast me off discourteously/For I have loved you well and long/Delighting in your company.” One persistent theory is that King Henry VIII wrote the song to seduce Anne Boleyn, the second of his six wives. Music historians note that the song, which was registered in 1580, was based on an Italian style of composition that did not reach England until after Henry’s death in 1547. Regardless of its origins, the song became a favourite for ice-cream vans in England, New Zealand and Australia more than 60 years ago. The founder of Mr Whippy vans, Englishman Dominic Facchino, was apparently a fan of Henry VIII, and settled on the tune that was long credited to the notorious king. Elsewhere in the world of ice-cream vans, you’re likely to hear the ragtime jazz tune ‘The Entertainer’ in the US and the French folk song ‘Frère Jacques’ in, yes, France.

Cream van is more Briggs than Beatles. He’s upgraded from an old Ford Transit van to a new Renault food truck. “More room for stock, more room for the heart of any ice-cream van – the machine that makes the soft-serve ice cream. And no noisy generator like the old days,” he says. “Dad still drives his 1989 van, though. Hardly enough room to swing a cat. Nonno is old school when he heads out – no SMS requests for him!” During the Melbourne lockdown Albert instigated a “pay it forward” donation jar, which has generated enough cash for the van to give away free ice creams at schools, kindergartens, a nursing home, to staff at a small local hospital and at a respiratory clinic – and sometimes to children who may have no cash when the van arrives in their neighbourhood. Danny Power, an 80-year-old nursing home resident who scored a free ice cream, told the Herald Sun the visit from Albert brought back memories from long ago. “The ice‑cream man used to ring the bell – ding-ding-ding! He’d go up and down the street, up and down, around the corner. All the kids would be out in the street, screaming for Mum, ‘I want an ice cream!’ It was fantastic.” “I love the fact,” says Albert, “that even with things returning to ‘normal’, the spirit of care and generosity that was fostered during COVID continues.” And does the Cerminara family tradition continue, with Albert’s children? “Absolutely. It’s a full circle. My sons Francesco and Luca often help out in the van.” Albert says the most popular soft‑serve ice cream is chocolate with nuts. Lemon and chocolate are the two most popular of the gelati. And Albert’s favourite summer treat? “Gelati, mixed gelati. Part of my Italian heritage!” The chimes of the ice-cream van fade away. You watch the vehicle recede into the distance, and around a corner. To another street. Another beach or park. You savour the sensation of ice cream on your tongue. The flavour. The way it melts down between your fingers. The sun is high. The day is hot. Life is good.

illustrations by Go Suga

@go_suga

Music to Our Ears

Back in the 1980s, when Francesco Cerminara and son Albert started, a single cone started at 65 cents. Nowadays, things have changed a little – prices begin at $4.50, and people can pay via EFTPOS – but the joy of ice cream remains the same. “I’m loving what I do,” says Albert. “We mainly do public events but during COVID we were getting calls and Facebook messages and SMS requests from people asking us to visit their streets. We’d start the music – ‘Greensleeves’, of course – and the kids and their parents would come out smiling, always smiling.” Across Australia ice-cream vans like Albert’s are commonly known as Mr Whippy vans, regardless of their official business name. This stems from 1962 when the British-based Mr Whippy franchise sent 10 vans on a ship from Southampton to Sydney. Twelve months later another two dozen trucks arrived. During the 1970s, the Mr Whippy company decided to sell its ice cream via its own shops rather than from its vans. Within a few years, the company had sold off the last of its vehicles. The name lives on, though. Part of summer days, summer memories, ice-cream trucks are part of popular culture. A Mr Whippy van appears in the 1965 Beatles film Help! A song called ‘Mr Whippy’ was the B-side to the 1969 John Farnham hit song ‘One’. (Yes, you’ll find it on YouTube.) The 1984 movie Comfort and Joy was a lighter look at the real (and very violent) turf wars between two Italian crime families and their ice-cream vans in Glasgow. And a recent video by Briggs, for the song ‘Good Morning’, features not only Muki on guest vocals but also a contemporary ice-cream van. Nowadays, Albert’s Mr Fresh Ice

Ricky

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‘This is the life,’ said an Aussie dad yesterday, while piercing a burned sausage with a fork on a barbecue.

by Ricky French @frenchricky

The Holidaze

t’s well known that nothing ever happens in January. Except for when it does. We bring you breaking news from holiday destinations all around Australia. This Australian Life “This is the life!” said an Aussie dad yesterday, while piercing a burned sausage with a fork on a barbecue in a Perth park. When questioned about what life it was exactly, the dad broke down and sobbed uncontrollably. A source says he forgot to bring the sauce. Magazine Launches First Issue The inaugural issue of The Sandy Crack hit the newsstands in Sandy Bay today, with an editorial proclaiming a zero-tolerance policy towards humour. “This is a serious magazine for serious people who need to know the crack,” it read. “Our tagline will be The news. Straight up. The crack.” Is Chivalry Dead? A husband claims that he was only trying to help when he pushed his wife off a well‑known jumping rock, into the swimming hole below. “The kids all jumped and loved it,” said the man. “Then my wife said she’d do it but chickened out and wouldn’t jump. I just gave her a bit of encouragement – now I’m the bad guy!” The woman is believed to have hit the water feet first, using her fingers to squeeze her nostrils closed. There are doubts the marriage will survive. “Now Is the Time,” Vows Family Dog A labrador says he spent 45 minutes looking at the sausage on a barbecue in a Perth park before deciding to eat it. The move prompted cries of “The dog just stole a sausage off the barbecue!” from local children. The dog claims the sausage had been abandoned: “The humans seemed upset because there was no sauce. I waited as long as I could before making my move. It was delicious.” There are unconfirmed reports that Mum later made a shooing motion towards the dog.

“So Is This It?” Asks Surly Teenager A 15-year-old girl has expressed displeasure at the holiday house her parents booked at the last minute. High demand for domestic holidays has meant many families have missed out on desirable accommodation, forcing some to shelter in homes with intermittent wi-fi and to cook using electric ovens. “I didn’t even want to come on holiday,” the girl said, poking at her phone in frustration. “And all there is to do in this town is visit farmers’ markets and eat gross cafe food.” Her parents sighed in response to the girl’s complaints. “This could well be the last family holiday with her,” they said, before brightening up. “It’s an incredibly exciting prospect!” “Embarrassingly Tiny” Waves Criticised By Once-a-year Surfers A group of students who go surfing once a year have slammed the size of waves at a popular NSW beach. “We waited 12 months for the chance to pretend we could surf,” one man said. “Then we get into the water and mums are pushing babies on boogie boards next to us, riding embarrassingly tiny waves and saying ‘Weeeeee!’ It’s false advertising.” One of the men, when asked if he had ever successfully stood up on a surfboard, said he almost did once and it was awesome. “I’m a natural surfer,” he said. “It’s all I live for.” They were last seen trying to work out how to get out of their wetsuits. Lame Horse Wishes It Was Lamer A horse with a sore leg has expressed disappointment at having to walk round a mobile petting zoo in a holiday town carrying little kids on its back. “Sometimes in my darker moments I wish I had a properly broken leg; do you know what I’m saying?” The horse was given an extra carrot as compensation.

Ricky is a writer, musician and a mean cook of a sausage. With sauce.

by Fiona Scott-Norman @fscottnorman

uite the while back I stopped giving bandwidth to star signs. I used to care, enough to know that I’m a Virgo with Virgo rising, with the concomitant tendency towards caustic criticism somewhat leavened by my fashion-splendid Libra moon, but that caravan has definitely moved on. Surely no-one turns to that page in the newspaper any more? Is there still a page? Is there still a newspaper? Is being “on the cusp” still a thing? One girl one cusp? Look, I’m on the cusp – with Leo, shake of mane – and I’m vain enough to be 10 per cent lord of the jungle, but astrology feels very mid-90s to me and something that I used to do, along with pot and stirrup pants. In 2021 we define people’s identities differently, don’t we? According to what they won’t or cannot eat. Vegan is the new sun sign. Paleo the new Uranus. There are FODMAPs and flexitarians. Pescatarians, lactose intolerants, coeliacs and the gluten frees. The vegetarians, the ethical omnivores, the “clean” fooders and, in a weird niche flex, those who only eat white food. There are, I believe, a few wild specimens of humanity still out there, roaming free, who will eat anything put in front of them – the crotch, as they used to say, out of a low-flying seagull – but that herd is thinning. Hosting a dinner party now requires spreadsheets, a war room and a degree of planning that used to be confined to seating guests at a Capulet-Montague wedding. I am not even joking about the spreadsheet. To be clear, I have entered my friends’ dietary requirements into a spreadsheet. Rachel, let’s say, has an encephalitic reaction to seafood; Ewan’s vegaquarian; Nigel’s a vego, can eat rice but not wheat, and poops fire if he eats soft cheese, hard cheese okay; Karen’s vegan but reacts badly to garlic, chilli or onion. The list goes on. The days of slapping a roast in the oven are gorn. I am not, however, complaining. Verily, I am proud of my spreadsheet, which gives me

a fighting chance of serving food that won’t see dinner guests reaching for an Epipen or the emergency carrots they’ve stashed in their handbag. This is what is required now, to be an adequate host. To make your gathering feel safe and welcome. What I’ve noticed is that folk are often reluctant to share their needs. They don’t want to be a “bother”. They’re happy to “bring their own food”. Hey lovelies, it’s okay! Asking you over means wanting to accommodate you! Don’t feel bad! Yet they do, of course. They’re trained to downplay any difference. Interesting that most of us now know to not be racist or homophobic, but vegans or people with, say, nut allergies are still considered fair game. They get hammered. In my IGA recently a man ranted at the top of his voice about “forking vegans” because he spotted a box of frozen meat-free prawns. He was furious. Why? People with food allergies aren’t being pernickety, they could die. And vegans? Vegans are impressive. They walk the talk. They set the virtue bar high just by going about their business, which is why, I suspect, non-vegans push back. We feel inadequate. It’s like hanging out with Jesus. Before realising that my local supermarket stocks fabulous vegetarian mince because we’re in the future now, I bought a kilo of textured vegetable protein from our local vegan shop – because dinner party – and as God is my witness it looked like dog kibble. It’s awful stuff. Pants. But vegans have eaten it regardless for decades because they have principles that they stick to. As an ethical omnivore with flexitarian rising and an intolerance to not eating cheese; respect. I doubt I’ll ever go vegan. But mates, I will cook for you and with love. Relax: I have a spreadsheet.

Fiona is a writer and comedian who reaches for the stars – and the textured vegetable protein.

15 JAN 2021

PHOTOS BY JAMES BRAUND

The Age of Vegaquarius

Hosting a dinner party now requires spreadsheets, a war room and a degree of planning that used to be confined to seating guests at a CapuletMontague wedding.

Fiona

There was lots of spirit and magic in the room, and it all contributed to the beauty of this story.

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Film

Penguin Bloom

NAOMI WATTS

OM H A B LOT T S A SAMANT AO M I W W IT H N

by Aimee Knight Small Screens Editor @siraimeeknight

PHOTO BY HUGH STEWART

he path to healing is rarely black and white, even when your travelling companion is a magpie called Penguin. Based on the true story of Samantha Bloom and her avian confidant, Penguin Bloom is “a remarkable story of survival” says Naomi Watts. The two-time Oscar nominee brings depth and integrity to her portrayal of Sam – who, while recovering from a life-altering accident, forms a restorative bond with a baby bird – in this heartfelt biopic from Australian director Glendyn Ivin (The Cry). Thailand, 2013: Sam is on holiday when she falls from a rooftop after leaning on a rotten railing, fracturing her skull, rupturing her lungs and shattering two vertebrae. She makes it home to Sydney paralysed from the chest down. Grief and confusion cloak the household as Sam enters a depressive spell, drifting away from her husband and their three sons. A few months later, middle child Noah saves an injured magpie fledgling, whom the kids dub Penguin. Drawn together by the bird’s fuzzy plumage and plucky charm, the Blooms find common ground again. When Watts encountered this story, she was touched by “what [Sam] lost and how she restored herself with the help of her family and this magical bird”. She quickly signed on – not only to play Sam, but to produce the film, too. Raised in England, Wales and Sydney, Watts is perhaps best known for her breakthrough role in the neo-noir Mulholland Drive (2001). She’s also portrayed

historical figures, namely the late Princess of Wales in the 2013 biopic Diana, and a character based on the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami survivor Dr María Belón in The Impossible (2012), for which she earned praise and award nominations aplenty. “When you take on a person that’s still around, it’s a lot of pressure,” Watts says from New York City. She says she feels an immense responsibility to get it right, especially when the subject has lived through something extraordinary, as Sam has. “You don’t always know how open they’re going to be. It’s different every time,” she explains. “With Sam, I felt so easy. She made herself so available.” Still, Watts felt awkward asking personal questions. She suspected she was getting greedy with Sam’s time. Then one day, during pre-production, Sam handed Watts the diaries she’d kept during recovery. Her on‑screen conduit was stunned. “I knew she’d reached some pretty dark places in that first year of healing,” says Watts. “When I saw it written by her own hand, not censored in any way, it became even clearer.” She resolved to honour Sam’s truth with the utmost respect. The film doesn’t shy away from Sam’s complex relationship to living with a disability, but Watts focused on “making sure that people are able to empathise with the situation”. Her physical performance was guided by Sam, too. But achieving Penguin Bloom’s affecting realism came with a unique challenge, and anyone who has experienced springtime in Australia will likely relate. “I’m not super cosy with magpies,” says Watts. “At least, I wasn’t when I went into this.” As a horse-riding youngster, she was swooped by a whole territorial tiding. “It was quite terrifying!” she recalls. Consequently, Watts spent her first day on set wondering whether the birds might try to peck out her eyes. And despite her passing resemblance to Tippi Hedren (The Birds), no Hitchcockian incidents went down. “We certainly had a couple of wonky moments with the bird pooping on my head, running straight down my face,” she laughs. “But pretty quickly – I would say it was a rapid turn – I just felt comfortable with them.

When Naomi Watts first heard Sam Bloom’s story – of hope, healing and a baby magpie named Penguin – she knew she wanted to share it with the world.

15 JAN 2021

Wings Beneath Her Wings

Gerry, Clipper, Eugene, Maggie May, Mavis, Pew, Pip, Wendell, Swoop and Hollywood all stood in for Penguin at various ages. Watts bonded with each one. “They definitely had personalities,” she says. “One was a teenager so he was always a bit moody and would burn out quickly. There was an older one that was more gentle. Gerry was my favourite.” Watts says the bird trainer, Paul Manter, did an astounding job, even teaching the feathered thespians two quirks for which the real-life Penguin was renowned: trotting about with her toy monkey, and nicking teabags. Naturally, the ever-curious birds were also keen to just do their own thing – a variable that could have been avoided with a CGI magpie. But a virtual bird wouldn’t have embodied the real Penguin’s silliness, spontaneity and free spirit. “There were moments where we turned the cameras on and hoped we captured something,” says Watts. “It required a huge amount of discipline to create that

PENGUIN BLOOM IS IN CINEMAS 21 JANUARY.

15 JAN 2021

THE BROTHERS BLOOM

TWO COOL CHICKS

space. Everybody had to be quiet and still so that the bird felt comfortable, because you want to get that magical moment. “It wasn’t always exactly how it was written on the page, but you’d walk away going, ‘I can’t believe we just got that.’” At times, Penguin looks at Sam, and they both seem to truly see the pain, vulnerability and strength inside each other. “Animals, creatures: they can draw out the emotions, can’t they?” says Watts. She relates to stories in which non-human characters elicit empathy in viewers, who are moved by animals’ emotional purity. “In different ways, they surprise you.” Of course, that element of surprise is also the wellspring for the film industry proverb “Never work with animals or children”. “We took on both!” laughs Watts, then adding, “We had some good wranglers.” She credits her co-star Andrew Lincoln (The Walking Dead) as “the great kid wrangler…so full of joy and energy”. Lincoln plays Sam’s husband Cameron, with undiluted love and devotion. A photographer who captured the Blooms during their intense phase of emotional transformation, Cam’s portraits are collected in the books Penguin Bloom: The Odd Little Bird Who Saved a Family and Sam Bloom: Heartache & Birdsong, and featured in The Big Issue (Ed#620). Under Ivin’s direction, the film honours the warm domesticity of Cam’s candid snaps. Scenes are often shot from Sam’s height in her wheelchair, the notable exception being when we see the world from Penguin’s point of view. From top to bottom, Ivin suffuses Penguin Bloom with an intimacy further charged by the real family’s presence on set. In fact, the film was shot in the Blooms’ actual Northern Beaches house, with Watts wearing clothes from Sam’s wardrobe and Cam working as on-set photographer. “It did feel raw,” Watts admits, though she was mostly struck by the Blooms’ generosity. “It felt like a little community. My kids were there, Andrew’s kids were there. There was lots of spirit and magic in the room, and it all contributed to the beauty of this story.” There are as many roads to recovery as there are leaves on trees, but the trek is rarely linear. Often it unfurls like a rising spiral, looping back on itself as we re-chart the psychic territory we inadequately call “the past” – from a different vantage point each time. That’s why “you’ve just got to be kind, right?” says Watts. “We’ve got to be kind to each other. When you go through something tough, nothing makes that more clear. “Empathy is a big thing, particularly now,” she says. “It’s always helpful, but after spending all this time in isolation, we miss that connectivity. It’s nice to see it on the screen.”

CHARLIE STEEN

Music

Shame

It’s a brutally honest time when you’re just left alone with your thoughts, your regrets and your dreams.

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S AME, C H A R LH IE ST W IT H A N D C EE E N F R O N T NTRE

by Brodie Lancaster @brodielancaster

Brodie Lancaster is a Melbourne-based writer and critic, and the author of No Way! Okay, Fine.

PHOTO BY SAM GREGG

change of scenery can clear your mind and allow fresh perspective. For Charlie Steen, new surroundings provided even more: the idea for a new album. After wrapping up a gruelling global tour schedule, the singer and songwriter in British post-punk outfit Shame moved into a new sharehouse. (It was a former nursing home he swears is haunted by a ghost that plays the theme song from James Bond’s Goldfinger on his flatmate’s Alexa, but that’s a story for another time.) Soon he got to work renovating the tiny alcove that acted as his bedroom. The colour he chose to paint the walls was Baker‑Miller pink, a hue best suited to the Barbie aisle of a toyshop. It became the backdrop for an extended house party that kept Steen in a permanent state of being on, the kind of high that brings with it a subsequent and inevitable low. “Because I’d just moved in, I had an excuse to christen the place several hundred times. But it gets to a point where you can’t keep doing it. You’ll be having a bath one day and just…cry for several hours when Karen Dalton comes on. That period when you’re going to sleep… It’s a brutally honest time when you’re just left alone with your thoughts, your regrets and your dreams. It’s a lot of time to self-analyse. You sort of self-medicate to miss out on that period, and then comes the time when you can’t do that any longer. I really just wasn’t comfortable being on my own. That was it. I was just avoiding being on my own.” Steen and his bandmates Eddie Green, Charlie Forbes, Josh Finerty and Sean Coyle-Smith had rarely been alone in years. They formed Shame as teenagers, kicking around south London, and after school they’d take the

DRUNK TANK PINK IS OUT ON NOW.

15 JAN 2021

The aftermath of a gigantic tour resulted in a period of pink contemplation for Shame’s Charlie Steen – and a new album.

Shame, But Different

bus to the grimy Queen’s Head pub in Brixton where they could rehearse as loudly as they liked. Their first record, Songs of Praise, was released in 2018, and saw comparisons to The Fall and Gang of Four proliferate as the five lads stormed stages all over the world. Their sound was boisterous and cocksure, while Steen returned often to singing about the act of being heard: having new and interesting things to say, people not liking the sound of his voice, demanding people listen. “I think [Songs of Praise] projects a lot of my insecurities, and [the new album] exposes a different side of them, or maybe analyses them. There’s always a lot of insecurity.” By the end of the tour schedule, the band – now in their early twenties – were ready for peace and quiet. They took a hiatus in 2019 to write and record Drunk Tank Pink, their second album, whose title references the walls of the room where Steen lived. In leaving the sticky carpets and idol worship of touring behind him, the record sees Steen turn inward and write about the sticky risk of rock star ego (on ‘Station Wagon’), loneliness (‘Born in Luton’) and holding out for something to make him feel good. On recent single ‘Water in the Well’ he sounds less like Mark E Smith and more like David Byrne, a kind of strutting ringleader for a circus of young men negotiating their sense of self. He lived most of this year still surrounded by those pink walls long after the record was finished. One day a text from his mum informed him that the exact shade he’d painted his room was the same one used in a US navy prison in an attempt to curb the aggressive behaviour of inmates – nicknamed drunk tank pink. “The main ideology behind Baker-Miller pink was that it’s a subconscious form of therapy or serenity,” he says. “I think the environment in which you write has a very large effect [on your music]. And I think often when you’re inside of it – like how we were when we were at the Queen’s Head – you’re not aware of how much it’s affected you and how unique an environment it is until you’ve left that.” As well as colour, psychologists have studied the way environments and sounds contribute to our identities, moods and senses of self over the course of our lives. After spending his formative years going from stage, to party, to tour bus, to interviews where he was asked to interrogate himself and his work – and repeating the cycle continuously – Steen was undoubtedly impacted by these context affects. He was evicted from the house in September and left its pink walls (and Bond-loving ghost) behind, so now in retrospect can see it as a place here he found his voice again. “I think a bedroom can tell you everything you need to know about a person. And it can tell you…if somebody is avoiding it as well. The record documents me learning to enjoy my own company.”

Catherine Jinks

Books 34

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Helter Shelter Catherine Jinks switches effortlessly between genres â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and this time the prolific author has switched gears for a taut thriller set in a remote bush homestead. by Doug Wallen @wallendoug

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

PHOTO BY PAUL DU MOULIN

CATHERINE JINKS

“After you’ve done a heavy-duty, grim adult [book],” she says, “you fancy doing a bit of light and fluffy.” Her new novel, Shelter, definitely qualifies as grim and adult. It’s an unflinching thriller about an isolated middle-aged woman, Meg, who takes in a fellow survivor of domestic abuse to keep her out of family court. But as Nerine and her two daughters secretly hole up on Meg’s bush property, they find themselves plagued by the mounting threat of either (or even both) of their violent exes. Cranking up the suspense with methodical focus, it’s a brutally effective potboiler that reads like approachable literature while satisfying the current demand for domestic thrillers centred on unreliable narrators. As Jinks learned some years ago, a lot of publishing is simply filling a desirable slot in the marketplace. Shelter is no anomaly for Jinks, however. She penned another fast-paced thriller in last year’s Shepherd, and while that novel also classifies as historical fiction, it shares with Shelter a propulsive,

SHELTER IS OUT NOW.

15 JAN 2021

What I’m really honing right now is a lean, mean, fast story.

no-frills approach to crime-influenced storytelling. Either book could be read in a single afternoon, especially once each plot sinks its sharpened hooks in, an observation that Jinks takes as an absolute compliment. “What I’m really honing right now is a lean, mean, fast story,” she says. Jinks originally wrote Shepherd as a screenplay, after experimenting with adapting some of her books for screen, which made it quite streamlined as a result. She set out to write a thriller set in a remote location, so she settled on a convict ship in 1840s New South Wales, where “there was no-one else around to help you”. Remoteness also looms large in Shelter, where the stretching rural Australian landscape provides an ominous stage for Meg’s sudden battle to survive. Inspired partly by living in the Blue Mountains for the past 21 years, with national park all around her and limited exit routes during the increasingly frequent bushfires, Jinks channelled that everyday isolation into the plot of her new book. And in classic thriller style, the characters spend most of the time so far from town that they can’t nail down a reliable mobile phone signal. As for devoting herself to the intense subject matter of domestic violence, she acknowledges that there are many topics and settings she wouldn’t be comfortable broaching. “There are some periods where I don’t feel like I could stand in the world and know it,” she says. “There are things I specialise in: Victorian England, colonial Australia, medieval France. I feel like I can walk around inside them. I couldn’t do the American Civil War, or the Holocaust.” But after reading a news story about a network of survivors hiding a woman from the reach of Australia’s family court system, she recognised extreme versions of what happens in many relationships. “I do feel connected to the idea of power imbalances inside relationships,” she says. “I think it’s pretty universal.” The subject is handled with utmost respect in Shelter, as Meg reflects on the subtle ways in which her ex-husband asserted himself over every aspect of her life, alienating their daughter to the point where she relocated to England. It reminds the reader how easily these imbalances can happen, and for how long abusers can remain exempt from meaningful prosecution. Though Jinks insists she’s slowing down compared to her early years as a writer, she has already finished another thriller – again with a female protagonist. And naturally, on the morning of our interview, she jotted down the text for a picture book while the idea was fresh. “That’s the nice thing about picture books,” she says with a laugh. “They don’t take very long.”

he idea of staying in your lane doesn’t appeal to Catherine Jinks. The Blue Mountains‑based author has written more than 40 books for adults and children, encompassing everything from fantasy and sci-fi to historical fiction and ghost stories. She has won a pile of awards too, including the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year no less than four times. “I hop around a lot, which isn’t ideal marketingwise,” she admits. “People like you in a little box. So that’s always been a problem.” To suit her prolific writing pace and also keep things interesting for herself, Jinks has been routinely catering to different genres and age groups for decades now. “I was always firing on a lot of cylinders creatively,” she says. “And I couldn’t spend too long on anything, in terms of getting it started and getting it finished, or I’d lose the momentum.” That has meant jumping into whole new genres simply because a given idea suits that particular form. She had never written horror before 2004’s The Road, but since she can’t bear to waste a good idea, she devoured a stack of Stephen King books to prepare and then joined the fray. Similarly, when she gets an idea for a children’s picture book, she’s compelled to get it on paper immediately. It might make Jinks tricky to pin down, both from a reading and marketing standpoint, but it does mean she can play those different modes off each other.

Film Reviews

Annabel Brady-Brown Film Editor @annnabelbb

s we sink into the holidays, now’s the time to catch up on some of the notable Boxing Day movies you may have missed. Beyond the cheesy escapism of Wonder Woman 1984, there’s the Argentinian queer romance End of the Century, which is a low-key delight. Sticking close to its two leads – two strangers who meet by happenstance, and then meet again 20 years later – the film plays a wistful game of Sliding Doors-style wish fulfilment as it splits across time. For families, the surprise charmer of the bunch is The Croods: A New Age, which sees the DreamWorks CGI family of cave-people flung into something like the present day. There’s an ensemble of stars lending voices (Nicolas Cage again boasts an expressive range of prehistoric groans as the frustrated father Grug) and the neon fantasia pops off the screen. From airborne hairpieces to cheeky riffs on modern-day masculinity and grooming, the gags fly thick and fast, promising to keep everyone well entertained. Perhaps a little too out there for the kiddies, Nobuhiko Ōbayashi’s cult classic House (1977) screens as part of the Japanese Film Festival (Brisbane this month; other cities to follow). Seven schoolgirls visit one creaky haunted house, and all hell breaks loose. This weird and wonderful cartoonish horror movie uses pop-art collage and animation in its hallucinatory sequences, with a possessed piano and a cat with green twinkling eyes ranking among the house’s most evil forces. A wildly inventive, unbridled wonder. ABB

HEAD IN THE CLOUDS

THE DRY 

Police officer Aaron Falk (Eric Bana) returns to his droughtstricken home town for the funeral of his childhood best friend, Luke, and soon finds himself entangled in his teenage past. Back then, a girlfriend drowned in the river and the boys were prime suspects; now, everyone thinks Luke killed his own wife and son in a murder-suicide, and Aaron is slowly drawn into investigating the deaths. Are the two somehow linked, or is Kiewarra just a town with darkness at its heart? Robert Connolly’s technically solid adaptation of Jane Harper’s bestselling novel features strong performances but skims across many of the mystery’s plot points, leaving the basic structure intact but hollow. It’s like a fast-forwarded Nordic noir, with clues popping up artlessly and suspects looming large, only to be dismissed a scene or two later. Best enjoyed as a moody character piece, its strengths lie in Bana’s charismatically brooding performance and the Wake in Fright-lite depiction of a bone-dry town struggling on the edge of nowhere. ANTHONY MORRIS AMMONITE

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With his debut, the queer agrarian drama God’s Own Country (2017), Francis Lee immediately established a chilly visual grammar of permanently overcast skies, taciturn characters and desire repressed by back-breaking labour. All of these remain in follow-up Ammonite, except transposed to a town along the British coast, where hardened geologist Mary (Kate Winslet) excavates for fossils along the beach. It’s unforgiving work that’s interrupted by the arrival of Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan), a high-society ingénue who’s placed under Mary’s care. What begins as reluctance on both sides dissolves into something murkier (and riskier) – a forbidden love affair as elemental as the crashing waves on the shore. At times, Ammonite veers too close to the beats of God’s Own Country, or last year’s romance Portrait of a Lady on Fire, but the intimate physicalities of both lead performances elevate this film with moments that feel like magic: the brush of a shoulder, a message hand-sewn into a handkerchief, a parting of the clouds. MICHAEL SUN

ONLY THE ANIMALS 

In the snowy hills of southern France, the disappearance of a wealthy, married woman ripples out and touches the lives of a seemingly random few – an insurance saleswoman, a waitress from the town over, an internet scammer on the Ivory Coast. Reality is, each of these lonely characters is far more connected than they realise. As if struck by the hand of fate, they soon become entangled in a sticky web of coincidences, with sobering and occasionally morbid consequences. Director Dominik Moll and editor Laurent Rouan have constructed a clever, intricate thriller – told out of sequence and from multiple perspectives – in which moments of warmth are quickly undercut by chilly uncertainty. The film is less focused on answering the inciting mystery than it is in sifting through the intense solitude of its characters, offering up an empathetic exploration of life’s innumerable and often unimaginable intersections. The bigger picture sometimes feels obscured, but your patience will be rewarded. SAMUEL HARRIS

Small Screen Reviews

Aimee Knight Small Screens Editor @siraimeeknight

BOWLED OVER  | 19 JANUARY ON SBS + SBS ON DEMAND

COME AWAY

 | STAN

 | DISC + DIGITAL

The physical realities of bodies, birth, sex and care are front and centre in this Stan Original Series. It follows Oly (Nathalie Morris), a high-achieving, ambitious, feminist Year 11 student who doesn’t know she’s pregnant until she goes into labour at school and gives birth in an ambulance. The premise alone is joy-making – having such a character represented on TV is rare – but what’s even more exciting is that Bump tells Oly’s story with compassion, nuance, honesty and humour. There is blood, there are stitches, breast pumps and leaking boobs. There is Oly’s mother Angie’s (Claudia Karvan) vibrator buzzing along the bedroom floor when Oly comes in to ask her to turn the music down. But the series also depicts more complex truths, like the fact that a mother can simultaneously love and deeply resent their child; and the way the arrival of a new baby – especially a surprise one – can strain and expand existing relationships. Bump is a clever show about the absurd, humbling and wonderful ordeal that is living with and for other people. CAITLIN MCGREGOR

Among a torrent of live action Disney remakes, Come Away is an oddity. A rich reimagining of classic children’s literature, the film follows siblings Peter (as in Pan) and Alice (as in Wonderland) after the tragic death of their older brother. Peter (played by Jordan A Nash) reverts into the Neverland of his imagination, while Alice (Keira Chansa) is drawn into the grown-up Wonderland of tea houses and wealth. Money troubles send the kids on a grand adventure to London, tangling with shady characters while their uppity aunt threatens to separate the siblings. It’s a family movie in all senses – there’s a little too much focus on the parents (Angelina Jolie and David Oyelowo), but it’s a bold choice from director Brenda Chapman (Brave) to show the parents as both the heroes and villains of the story. The references to Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland can be heavy handed, and the film’s inevitable ending is its weakest point, but overall it’s a charming reinvention that offers a surprisingly nuanced take on race, gender, grief and the difficulties of growing up. TANSY GARDAM

his time last year, so much of the country was alight. In the Snowy Valleys, NSW, the picturesque Sugar Pines Plantation was hit by bushfire. When the heat and smoke moved on, little was left but stifling silence. That is, until authors from the community channelled their grief into restoring voice to the trees down the road at Pilot Hill Arboretum. Their stories can be heard in the Dark Forest installation at Arbour Festival (on now until 15 February) and in a bittersweet episode of Creative Responders, a podcast that captures the “ritual of recovery” for artists, emergency management experts and the people impacted by natural disasters. Season two just wrapped, and its four vivid, textural, gentle episodes show how new growth sprouts through the ashes of tragedy. If you’re keen to take meaningful climate action yourself this new year, Heaps Better is packed with hope-punk anecdotes and helpful resources from folks making a tangible difference in their own spheres of influence. Presented by Greenpeace Australia Pacific, this four-parter also starts in the shadow of last year’s Black Summer, as hosts Jess Hamilton (Slaughterhouse Road) and Ash Berdebes (FBi Radio) make a sonic pinkie promise to save the planet. The duo’s nonchalant style – spruced with upbeat music and humorous sound effects – helps make the overwhelming subject matter that bit more palatable. As Greenpeace Australia Pacific’s CEO David Ritter notes, “Hope is having a plan,” and this warm, big-hearted series is an invitation to get started. AK

15 JAN 2021

BUMP

TRASH TALKING WITH HEAPS BETTER

Through fabulous frocks and heart-wrenching rock bottoms, the show must go on – and mustn’t be missed – in Bowled Over. This fabulous documentary converges on the 10th anniversary of Taboo, a legendary local drag show at the North Ipswich Bowls club, where the queens have poured years of blood, sweat and sequins into what is now revered as the town’s most feisty familyfriendly night out. There’s Taboo’s founder Karl, aka Crystal Heart, edging ever closer to hanging up his wig. Ross, aka wanda dparke, is destined to succeed when Carl abdicates. Then there’s 12-yearold Candy Featherbottom, representing the next generation taking Taboo and North Ipswich by storm. The cast of characters and the world they occupy may be small, but writer-director Mandy Lake compassionately reaches for larger issues like homophobia, rampant suicide in the LGBTQI+ communities, fatphobia and ageism. Bowled Over is the kind of unique, ambitious, yet spiritually Australian story that will no doubt inspire a feature film about a small, friendly bowls club, its charming drag queens, and how they saved one another from ruin. MERRYANA SALEM

Music Reviews

Isabella Trimboli Music Editor

new year, and finally gigs are returning across the country. Albeit in different forms than we’re used to: seated, socially distanced shows and outdoor concerts are the new normal (unfortunately, it will be a long while before we’re back in a mosh pit). But live music remains dogged by precarity – small outbreaks have caused some summer gigs and festivals to be postponed or cancelled. Yet there are many shows to catch that will help support local artists and venues. Later this month, Melbourne’s Malthouse theatre (in collaboration with touring company Penny Drop) will launch an outdoor concert series, featuring neo-soul singer Kaiit, gloomy electronic duo HTRK, South Sudanese superstar Gordon Koang and rockers RVG, among others. Two hours out of Melbourne, Purple Hen Winery will put on weekend shows throughout January, which will include sets from bands like Girlatones, Quivers and Cool Sounds. Wild summer festival Mona Foma is pushing ahead with a 90 per cent local, Tasmanian line‑up, which includes sets from Slag Queens and a “suspend symphony” Chairway to Heaven, which will see artists Rachael Kim, Katerina Stathis and Mads Davey create an evolving composition out of analogue synthesisers for Launceston’s Gorge chairlift. Curated by Sydney Fringe for Sydney Festival, Allowed & Local will showcase a bunch of iconic and emerging Sydney artists such as rapper B Wise, singer Emily Wurramara and experimental pop artist Sui Zhen, who will perform at beloved venues in the city. IT

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@itrimboli

EVERMORE TAYLOR SWIFT 

Taylor Swift has always known how to tell a story, one that cuts or floats or rushes. On Evermore, a surprise companion album to 2020’s earlier surprise of Folklore, she gives us some of her most lyrically complex work: folk-pop that glitters and thrums. Swift loops us into songs that give her space from herself – narrative arcs where we follow characters with their own complicated lives. There’s a set of affairs, a failed engagement, a murder. Swift is always herself, so of course there are love songs. ‘’Tis the Damn Season’ could easily be seen as calling out to all the country boys she wrote about on her early albums. ‘Coney Island’ is soft and sharp, supported by the deep vocals of The National’s Matt Berninger on lines like “Sorry for not making you my centrefold”. There are some disappointing moments of sloppy writing, but overall it is a joy to hear Swift depart further from pop conventions and make whatever kind of work she wants to. LAURA STORTENBEKER

MAN ON THE MOON III KID CUDI

SPARE RIBS SLEAFORD MODS

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Just when did Kid Cudi get so literary? Between being slated to produce and star in a film adaptation of Brandon Taylor’s debut Real Life, which was short-listed for a Booker Prize, and collaborating with Phoebe Bridgers (an artist whose lyrics, at their best, recall the insouciance of late 20th century American poetry) you start to wonder if ‘Mr Solo Dolo’ has finally moved beyond being simply the lonely stoner seeking to free his mind. The illusion is quickly dispelled when, on the second track of his latest album, Kid Cudi intones, “Tell my mum I’m sorry”. Mum isn’t the only one who deserves an apology: although this may be the final instalment in a trilogy that dates back to 2009, when Cudi was 25, the rapper remains content to sing about the sort of angst most people leave behind at high school. Guest artists provide the record’s most compelling cuts: Skepta, the late Pop Smoke and Bridgers on album highlight ‘Lovin’ Me’.

Nottingham duo Sleaford Mods have scarcely softened their abrasive sound over the years – Jason Williamson stages rhythmic rants that sit somewhere between hip-hop and spoken word, while producer Andrew Fearn lays down tinny threads of bass and beats. But on Spare Ribs, they welcome guest vocalists for the first time: Amy Taylor from Melbourne’s own Amyl and the Sniffers, who appears on bravado-fuelled ‘Nudge It’, and fellow English firebrand Billy Nomates, who makes a surprisingly soulful turn on ‘Mork n Mindy’. Those cameos provide welcome splashes of colour for a band whose prickly modern punk can sometimes feel one-note. Similarly, the title track’s DIY dance beats freshen the cumulative assault of Williamson’s scathing commentary on England in the age of Brexit and COVID. These mouthy mantras have staying power well beyond their initial bluster. More than a barrage of snide one‑liners, Williamson’s frustration speaks to a deeper sense of discontentment that rings true right now. DOUG WALLEN

DECLAN FRY

Book Reviews

Thuy On Books Editor @thuy_on

UNQUIET LINN ULLMANN

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Earthlings, a surreal literary experiment that tests the boundaries of social normalcy, is the second novel translated to English by award-winning Japanese writer Sayaka Murata. She’s won all of Japan’s major literary prizes, was named Vogue Japan’s Woman of the Year in 2016, and writes sharply observed characters, turning the realities of her own experiences up to absurd new levels. Murata uses the outsider as a vessel for social criticism. In Earthlings, Natsuki is the outsider – as a child she believes she has magical powers, and when she is abused by a teacher, Natsuki rejects socially constructed reality entirely, committing herself to the notion that she and her cousin Yuu are aliens from Planet Popinpobopia, who need to survive their time on Earth until they can find a way home. Murata’s acerbic commentary on capitalism is rudely refreshing. Earthlings is a clever, intensely entertaining antidote to the burden of social expectations. BEC KAVANAGH

Linn Ullmann – the daughter of director Ingmar Bergman and the actor Liv Ullmann, who starred in many of his films – has crafted a novel that reckons with the past. Unquiet, which is translated from the Norwegian by Thilo Reinhard, centres its protagonist’s rediscovery of a series of cassettes, on which are recordings of interviews she conducted with her father (who is clearly the stern and calculating director, although his name is used infrequently) before his death. Excerpts from these terse conversations, which were intended to form the basis of a book, appear alongside the protagonist’s recounting of her childhood – of the lack of warmth from either parent, who she states at one point also “wanted to be children,” so caught up were they in their own lives. Trying to pinpoint what exactly is fact or fiction is ultimately a less interesting task than merely allowing yourself to be engrossed by the emotional honesty that Ullmann has packed into this novel, which is told with great empathy and skill. JACK ROWLAND

ANTHOLOGY OF AUSTRALIAN PROSE POETRY EDITED BY PAUL HETHERINGTON AND CASSANDRA ATHERTON 

As an artform, prose poetry is becoming more popular in Australia, and here Paul Hetherington and Cassandra Atherton have curated a range of representative examples over the last 50-odd years. Poets both well known and lesser acknowledged are in the mix (including Ania Walwicz, Samuel Wagan Watson, Lisa Gorton and Bella Li). The overall result is a dynamic selection of dreamlike snatches of short (many are only a page long), highly visual and metaphorical works that run across the page, without breaking into the telltale stanzas associated with typical poetry. If you’re a little wary of contemporary poems, and feel too attached to the surety of prose, then try this anthology: the variety of forms will make it an easier transition. The best poems are self-contained stories, while others feel incomplete, as though they are part of a whole. And yet as the editors point out, many prose poems are never just driven by narrative but “gesture towards ideas, topics or concerns” and hence are typically fragments. THUY ON

EARTHLINGS SAYAKA MURATA

15 JAN 2021

oo boy! I think it’s safe to say that everyone is glad to see the end of 2020. This year will be absolutely chockers with good reading material, as many publishers pushed back their 2020 schedules in order to avoid the strictures of lockdown and temporary bookshop closures thanks to COVID-19. Here are just a tiny number of books in the offing that I’m particularly excited about. First up is Alice Pung’s One Hundred Days, about a teenager whose accidental pregnancy creates friction between her and her overprotective mother. Pung has written memoir, essays, YA fiction and edited various anthologies – this will be her first novel. Irma Gold, too, has written short stories, essays and picture books, and The Breaking will be her debut novel. It’s inspired by her travels to Thailand, where she volunteered on projects working with Asian elephants rescued from the tourism industry. I’m also keen to read another fictional first: a historical drama set in Paris called Tussaud, by Belinda Lyons-Lee. Yes, as in Madame Tussaud of wax‑sculpture fame. In non-fiction, essay collection Cop This Lot: Writers on Growing Up Class-conscious in Australia, edited by Tobias McCorkell, sounds like essential reading in terms of its exploration of the nation’s relationship with social class. TO

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Public Service Announcement

by Lorin Clarke @lorinimus

There is no time limit on reading books. You might feel you need to read books quickly. You may know of someone else who reads a hundred books a year. Good for them! Maybe they don’t read them quite as carefully as you do. There’s no time limit! Take your time. Also? If you have children in your life: read to them. Always. Make that time stretch out. There is no time limit on that one. Even when they grow out of being read to, you’ll still look over at your niece or grandkid or whatever and go: look at them all curled up in that couch sulkily reading a vampire novel – I taught them that! There is no time limit on daydreaming. Sitting for a bit and not getting up. Remembering something lovely or picturing something you’re looking forward to. There’s no time limit on waiting to have your say. Listening isn’t just about waiting for a gap to speak.

Usually, what you have to say can be improved by taking the time to listen. There is no rush to get to the top of the ladder. There is no top of the ladder. People who live to be a hundred still feel they haven’t reached it. You know how in films and TV shows where couples aren’t realistic because the credits roll on the happy bit just before the real problems start? Life is totally like that. At the end of your life, there isn’t a reckoning. There’s no scorecard. So actually? Tootling along is quite a good result. Reaching big goals, even little goals, is an awesome feeling. But actually so is sitting in the shade watching a duck on a pond, so let’s not drive ourselves too crazy trying to pursue things constantly, because it doesn’t define us any more than looking at a duck does. There’s no time limit on friendship. Friends can fade in and out. You can rediscover each other or lose touch for a bit while your lives drift apart. Even when a friend is gone from your life – overseas or lost forever – they’re still your friend. That friendship is still with you, whether you like it or not: in-jokes returning at odd moments, a quiet smile the only evidence to the outside world. There’s no limit on “finding someone” either. Single people are forever being told it will “happen when you least expect it”, which is, frankly, murderously unhelpful. But maybe what that means is that finding someone quickly isn’t the same as finding someone properly. Or gradually building an ecosystem of friends and loved ones that makes you feel the support and comfort and love you need to enjoy life properly – a throwing your head back and laughing kind of life. There’s plenty of time to build that. So make way for the laughing and the reading and the idiosyncratic friendships and the daydreaming. Public Service Announcement: nobody’s going to steal all your memories just yet, so you might as well take the time to make some good ones.

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.

did a creative writing course once and the professor presented us with a time limit. She instructed us to find a pen each and a piece of paper. She then set the timer and told us that in 30 seconds, a memory thief was going to come in and steal all our memories. “Write down the ones you want to keep,” she said. It’s a brilliant writing exercise, although she insisted it was one you can only do once, because the nature of the panic that hits you when you know you only have 30 seconds is so integral to what makes it work. You need to know that you are running out of time, because your conscious thought processes abandon you and you scramble to something deeper. I thought of it again this week because when I looked around I realised something: we’re all in such a hurry. Particularly after the year we’ve just had, particularly with all the stressors and pressures of contemporary life: we are all in such a hurry. People who live in the country say this is one of the main reasons they don’t live in the city, but really, now it’s everywhere: the instinct to hurry. Public Service Announcement: on some of the most important things, there is no time limit.

15 JAN 2021

No Limits on Minutes

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Tastes Like Home edited by Anastasia Safioleas

FOOD PHOTO BY SIMON BAJADA. PORTRAIT BY ANDREA CASTELLUCCI

Tastes Like Home Duncan Welgemoed

Peri-Peri Chicken Ingredients Serves 4

15 red bird’s eye chillies 10 green bird’s eye chillies 5 tablespoons chopped garlic 1 teaspoon sea salt flakes ½ teaspoon chopped fresh bay leaves ½ tablespoon smoked paprika 100ml extra virgin olive oil 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar 100ml lemon juice

160g sea salt flakes 55g brown sugar 55ml apple cider vinegar 1 bunch of thyme 10 fresh bay leaves 2 lemons 2 garlic bulbs, halved

Equipment Barbecue 60g applewood smoking chips, soaked in water overnight

Method To make the peri-peri sauce, preheat the oven to 180°C. Place all the chillies on a baking tray and roast them for 10 minutes. Cool and roughly chop the chillies. Place the chillies, garlic, salt, bay leaves, paprika, olive oil, vinegar and lemon juice in a saucepan and simmer for 2-3 minutes. Allow the mixture to cool, then blend it to a purée in a blender or food processor. Store in a lidded container at room temperature; it will keep for about a month. Shake well before using. To make the brine, put all the ingredients and 1 litre of water in a large pot and bring to the boil, then take off the heat. Once cool, add the chicken and leave overnight in the fridge. When you are ready to cook, take the chicken out of the brine and give it a wash in cold water. Place the chicken in a bowl and add half the peri-peri sauce, spreading it over evenly, and marinate in the fridge for 3 hours. Light your braai (barbecue). When the coals are ashed, throw the chicken on the grill. Place the lid on the braai and cook for 10-15 minutes on each side or until the chicken is thoroughly cooked through, occasionally taking off the lid to baste with excess marinade. For the last 5 minutes, toss the smoking chips on the embers and shut the lid. Serve the chicken with extra peri-peri sauce, lemon wedges and the soft bread rolls.

Duncan says…

kay, gather round kids. Time for some real talk. Peri-peri chicken is the most important dish in my life because Mozambican/Portuguese food was central to my upbringing in Johannesburg and it was one of the first dishes I learned to cook. No dish signifies the cultural melting pot of that city better than peri-peri chicken. It’s eaten throughout Joburg: from the local pub to barbecues at home. It’s a pretty clear indication of the South African palate: heaps of spice, acid, salt and the smoky goodness that only fire brings. The first time I really discovered the joy of it was at the Radium Beerhall in Orange Grove on Africa’s busiest road, Louis Botha Avenue, when I was about seven years old. One of the oldest bar-andgrill houses in the country, the Radium served as a spit-and-sawdust kind of pub in the daytime and in the evening would become a progressive jazz and blues club featuring the very best Black musicians. During apartheid, the Radium was one of the few safe places for Black artists to perform. The owner Manny was an old family friend, and my father and he always argued over which peri‑peri recipe was the best. Being massively biased, this recipe is my father’s, the most important man in my life (apart from my two boys). His recipe is better than pretty much all other recipes for this dish. It completely destroys that sacrilegious overcooked and overpriced franchised chicken that I can’t name. So in honour of my father, Manny, the Radium, my beautiful city of Johannesburg and the chefs who cook this dish day in and day out, I give you Africola’s world famous peri-peri chicken! Always serve with extra peri-peri sauce on the side, a bowlful of freshly cut lemons, soft white rolls and a big glass of cold beer. AFRICOLA BY DUNCAN WELGEMOED IS OUT NOW.

15 JAN 2021

Peri-Peri Sauce

Brine

1 whole chicken, spatchcocked Lemon wedges 4 soft, floured bread rolls

Puzzles By Lingo! by Lauren Gawne lingthusiasm.com BONZA

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

S N

Sudoku

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

5 8 6 1 7 7

CLUES 5 letters Adores Also‑ran Clamour Face shield Large-maned cats

by websudoku.com

3 6 5 8

2 3

7 letters Account Anxious Resentful 8 letters

Memento

8 5 7 2 1 3

Puzzle by websudoku.com

Solutions CROSSWORD DOWN 1 Supposed 2 Chorister 3 Edit 5 Magical 6 Hereditary 7 Shawl 8 Sitcom 9 Finely 14 Marvellous 17 Seaworthy 18 Set piece 20 Logical 21 Cringe 22 Scorch 24 Titan 26 Wren

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

6 letters Cocktail fruits Precious white metal Shoe lining Sore, wound Thin fragment

8 4

ACROSS 1 Sachet 4 Emphasis 10 Promising 11 React 12 Obit 13 Peccadillo 15 Estuary 16 Latest 19 Travel 21 Carnage 23 Cattle grid 25 Coop 27 Retro 28 Cigarette 29 Honestly 30 Enzyme

Word Builder

This bonza word is a classic bit of Australian and New Zealand slang. Its origin is not clear, but a whole collection of similarly shaped words has been used in this corner of the world to describe something particularly good, including bottler, bosker, snodger and bouncer. Not only did we see an early bunch of different words, there was also a lot of variation in how bonza was spelled, including bonzo, bonzer and bonsor. In earlier uses it was used as a noun, as in “He’s a bonzer”, but it’s now more commonly used as an adjective, as in “He’s a bonza bloke”. The first written reference is from a regional NSW newspaper in 1901, when a “bonser” frost made the news.

20 QUESTIONS PAGE 9 1 Arthur Miller 2 Your smartphone 3 Prince Albert II of Monaco in March 2020 4 Virat Kohli 5 Thoth 6 Saxe-Coburg-Gotha 7 Mercy James 8 Onion, carrot and celery 9 Australian Rules 10 Ulnar nerve 11 18 12 Ingrid Bergman 13 Nyngan, NSW 14 Santa’s Little Helper 15 West Coast Fever 16 Sir Macfarlane Burnet 17 False. He’s won three 18 Annie Chapman 19 David John Moore Cornwell 20 The hash symbol

Crossword

by Chris Black

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

Quick Clues ACROSS

9 10

13 14 16

17 18

DOWN

22 24

25 26 28

Cryptic Clues

Solutions

drop-offs? (5)

26 Architect’s flier (4)

15 JAN 2021

WORD BUILDER

burn (6)

24 Phoebe emerges from this train making regular

5 Loves Loser Noise Visor Lions 6 Olives Silver Insole Lesion Sliver 7 Version Nervous Envious 8 Souvenir 9 Revulsion

(3,5)

20 Expected soldier in pub (7) 21 Shrink put jewellery in chinaware case (6) 22 Small business closes after economic crash and

SUDOKU

6 9 2 1 8 7 5 4 3

1 Expected to steer, so sped up (8) 2 Cher covers ‘Wild Riots’ singer (9) 3 Rework Sheeran and King film (4) 5 Mystical claim: plastic contains silver (7) 6 Unusual, yet red hair found in the family (10) 7 Covering quiet deterioration of law (5) 8 Cheers for one relaxed stoic before final exam (6) 9 Fly around Chinese hub with precision (6) 14 Outstanding overall sum transferred (10) 17 Upset as they row when able to sail (9) 18 Director’s chair carefully arranged part of film?

3 4 1 5 6 2 9 8 7

1 Tasche (translation: bag) (6) 4 Import incorrect usage of “He’s a simp” (8) 10 Swearing has potential (9) 11 Trace elements undergo chemical change (5) 12 Mosquito bites harbour death sentences (4) 13 I called cop about misdemeanour (10) 15 Republican left Treasury to swim in river mouth (7) 16 Articulate study group is up to date (6) 19 Model and French composer take a trip (6) 21 Care about horse destruction (7) 23 Tom treated dirt with gel used to stop animals (6,4) 25 Queen left barrel maker in cage (4) 27 Out-of-date beer returned unopened (5) 28 I get 11-across confused for a Camel, perhaps? (9) 29 Ethically dubious, on the sly (8) 30 Alien enemy captured unknown catalyst (6)

7 8 5 4 3 9 2 6 1

DOWN

4 5 3 6 9 1 8 7 2

ACROSS

Puzzle by websudoku.com

2 7 9 3 4 8 1 5 6

1 Presumed (8) 2 Singer (9) 3 Revise (4) 5 Supernatural (7) 6 Genetic (10) 7 Wrap (5) 8 Television genre (6) 9 In a skilled manner (6) 14 Fantastic (10) 17 Good enough to sail (9) 18 Elaborately arranged section (3,5) 20 Sound (7) 21 Shrink in fear (6) 22 Burn (6) 24 Hyperion, for one (5) 26 Small bird (4)

8 1 6 7 2 5 3 9 4

5 2 7 8 1 4 6 3 9

1 6 8 9 7 3 4 2 5

9 3 4 2 5 6 7 1 8

1 Small bag (6) 4 Stress (8) 10 Pledging (9) 11 Change, chemically (5) 12 Death notice (4) 13 Minor sin (10) 15 River mouth (7) 16 Most recent (6) 19 Go places (6) 21 Havoc (7) 23 Stock control measure (6,4) 25 Poultry cage (4) 27 Imitative of the past (5) 28 Smoking device (9) 29 Truthfully (8) 30 Biochemical substance (6)

Click 1968

words by Michael Epis photo by Getty

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU

Brigitte Bardot, Serge Gainsbourg

hey don’t make video clips like this anymore – Brigitte Bardot and Serge Gainsbourg duetting on ‘Comic Strip’ from her psychedelically trippy TV special that they produced, Brigitte Bardot Show, from 1968. It also featured her in thigh-high leather boots astride a motorbike performing his ‘Harley Davidson’, toting a machine‑gun while wearing a beret on his immortal ‘Bonnie and Clyde’, and

draped in little more than the tricolor singing ‘La Marseillaise’, which of course Gainsbourg did not write – but he did buy the original manuscript, after his reggae version enraged right-wing nationalists for insulting the French Republic. Gainsbourg and Bardot were in the midst of a brief but fierce affair, which ignited years after they first met on the set of Voulez‑Vous Danser Avec Moi? (1959). The story goes that even though she

was married they went on a date, during which he fell to pieces in the presence of her beauty. She rang him the next day with a request: write me the most beautiful love song imaginable. Who could say no? Bardot, who had already recorded several of his songs, got what she asked for: Gainsbourg came up with three songs, including ‘Je T’Aime Moi Non Plus’. They recorded it, but Bardot got cold feet, thinking that her husband, industrialist and photographer Gunter Sachs, would not be impressed. Instead, Gainsbourg soon after recorded the song with his new love, the love of his life Jane Birkin, and it was the first non-English song to top the English charts, thanks to her breathy panting that sounds very, shall we say, oh lá lá. In 1986 Bardot relented, and belatedly released her version; you can see why she spared her husband his blushes. Gainsbourg, who was the son of Russian Jews who fled the Bolshevik regime, who had to wear the yellow star during his teens in occupied France, who was forever haunted by the spectre of his selfconfessed ugliness, was arguably the greatest cultural figure in France from the 50s through the 80s, performing in 50-odd films and TV shows, writing 500-plus songs and dozens of soundtracks, directing four films, penning a novel and just being a headlinemaking machine. So it was that despite his numerous outrages, when he drank and smoked himself to death in 1991, aged 62, President François Mitterrand said at his funeral: “We have lost our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire.”

17 APR 2020