It was a vintage New York kind of night. We had tickets to see the fabulous Miss Peggy Lee who was still singing and swinging at the age of 72 albeit from the confines of a wheelchair. Our ex-pat Aussie contingent included Peggy’s greatest fan Stephen MacLean, who wrote the film ‘Starstruck’ and the original …
Such a relief to emerge from that long period of deluging rain and get out in the sunshine again on this auspicious Day Out Of Time. Leaving the Red Overtone Moon year behind we take time out to pause for a day to see what might happen. As the Sun rose with Sirius I began …
A bunch of us asked ourselves if we could concoct our own restaurant quality degustation and our questioning led us to the Thermomix. Trust the Germans to come up with an electrical kitchen appliance that makes at least 30 others redundant! The Thermomix is a gadget invented back in the 60s that performs a mind …
Caught K.I.J.E. at the Old Fitz last night and what a pleasant surprise it was too. Being ‘Cheap Tuesday’, the tiny garage theatre space was packed to the rafters so my buddies and I had to take the front row seats which was all well and good until the cast started to let loose with …
Rylstone is a gorgeous little heritage town about three and a half hours North-West of Sydney and on the second Saturday of every month it now plays host to an Artisan and Produce market. A gaggle of us popped in the other week to check it out and bumped into the tres talented Brett Nutting …
Just down off Nullo Mountain on the western edge of the Wollemi National Park where I was lucky enough to tag along with a survey party recording indigenous sites. Uncle John Shipp led the team of six up through thick bush to escarpments ringing with the songs of lyrebirds. Up in these panoramic places we …
Maggie Alderston has been writing of a group of dashing dames she dubs “foldies” – fabulous oldies. And no-one that I know fits the bill as succinctly as Marion von Adlerstein. MVA mentored me in her role as Travel Director at Vogue Australia, dispatching me to such far flung destinations as the Arctic and Antarctica. …
OMGS! We’ve finally arrived in our own home town! And it was our fearless scout leaders at Club Kooky who got us there. It might’ve taken them 16 years to work their way up from those sweaty underground venues in deepest darkest Darlo to the exalted heights of the Sydney Opera House but last night …
Sometimes it pays to have a day off. Yesterday, for instance, I had the most wonderful birthday by firstly following the advice of corporate anthropologist Genevieve Bell and getting unplugged. I decided not to turn the computer on at all. Instead I went adventuring. I dropped the car in for a service, removed my excellent …
Big thanks to Margot Gordon for introducing me to the magnificent Ali Hughes who performed with her fab jazz ensemble last night at The Basement. The gig was a one-off fundraiser to help get the band to the Big Apple for The New York International Fringe Festival in August and they performed the show that …
Met up with some lovely ladies at the TEDxSydney last Saturday including the ever vivacious Rachel Vincent and Anna Donohoe who joined us with her ‘Y’ foam cube for a yummy lunch. The second annual talk-fest is a free platform for “ideas worth spreading”, like Corporate Anthropologist Genevieve Bell’s. She was promulgating that wise old …
Not in my backyard, actor tells coalminers Cosima Marriner May 29, 2011 Click here to read SMH article
After stints at Aria and Bennelong and one with Heston Blumenthal at The Fat Duck outside London, Tomislav Martinovic has scooped what has to be one of Sydney’s best venues for his own “food laboratory”. Located on the prow of number 13 Kirketon Road, Darlinghurst overlooking the city with the Harbor Bridge in the distance …
It began as two tiny words pinned to the wall of one of the old army huts that housed NIDA back in the golden days. We were in our second year of the acting course and were instructed to put forward ideas for short plays that we would then “self-devise”. While many students including myself …
When an impoverished, God-fearing family of eight takes up residence with a chronic gambler, his boozy wife and their three offspring, the stage is set for a fair dinkum Aussie epic. And the long awaited screen adaptation of Tim Winton’s cherished 1991 novel ‘Cloudstreet’ delivers. The ”major mini-series” premiered last Sunday night and while some …
This week sees the DVD release of the brilliant home-grown protest film ‘Gasland’ through Palace Films. Nominated for a 2011 Best Documentary Oscar, the film follows filmmaker and theatre director Josh Fox as he investigates the explosion of the coal seam gas industry in the United States. Hydrolic Fracturing (or fracking) is the means by …
I saw David Suzuki give his most recent lecture at the Sydney Opera House last October and was impressed by his simple message about our basic human needs – not for endless economic growth but for clean air, clean water and clean earth. Whatever we do to these elements, like dumping toxic waste into waterways, …
It really is a wonder that there are any birds left in Papua New Guinea given the passion that the locals lads have for dressing up in their plumage. The extent of their fondness for feathers is revealed in an exhibition at the Australian Museum called ‘Rituals of Seduction’ in which a comprehensive collection of …
‘Balada Triste de Trompeta’ translates as ‘The Sad Ballad of the Trumpet’ but it’s being released in the English speaking world as ‘The Last Circus’, which is peculiar because the haunting ballad in question features prominently in Alex de la Iglesia’s demented movie about two crazed clowns battling it out for the love of a …
Brought the Brompton down to Melbourne on the plane and met up with Tom Bodycomb, the publisher of the new cycling magazine ‘Treadlie’ who was test riding a spunky new bike for the weekend. Tom escorted me from Federation Square to St Kilda via some of his favourite parks and laneways, reminiscing along the way …
In Melbourne this weekend with my gorgeous mother Anne who has a stall at the inaugural Australian Antique Dealer Show at the World Heritage Listed Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton Gardens. Mum has the most divine collection of antique jewellery, some of which she has brought down from her shop in Queen Street Woollahra Sydney …
Paid three consecutive visits to the new and very fabulous Museum of New and Old Art (MONA) in Hobart last weekend with Lisa George Michael Cruise Brando nee Bourne. She and the seven other women in our party were blown away by the place – so radical, so chic and so free! Arriving first by …
Helped Screen Australia launch their new report into understanding audiences in our rapidly changing multi screen world yesterday. The report contains a way of gauging the Total Audience Views across a production’s entire release cycle, something the authors claim has never been done before. The report provided lots of discussion points for panelists such as …
Went to see Wim Wenders extraordinary 3D dance film ‘Pina’ last night at the Sydney Opera House. It was the closing film of this year’s German Film Festival and Wenders flew in especially for a Q&A afterwards. He told us that he’d been trying to work out a way in which to bring the legendary …