Under the Influence – book review

Posted on April 23, 2011 by admin

Australians, dare I suggest it, are a little obsessed with schools.
Thirteen years ago,when we first arrived in the land we now call home, I was quite non-plussed when the kindy mums I met asked me what schools I was considering for my little boy. I didn’t fully appreciate that my children’s school days, just like my own, would come and go so quickly.
However, the impact of school, and particularly the people we have the good fortune and ill fortune to encounter in these vital years, is real and lasting. For very good reason biographers consider school days to be pivotal to the “formative years”.
Jacqueline Lunn’s debut novel, Under the Influence, covers precisely this subject, and she weaves an absorbing tale of three women whose lives are profoundly altered by events that occurred during their years as boarders at a prestigious Sydney girls’ school.
Whenever I read a book from a new author, I take a little while to settle into the rhythm of their writing, and so it was with Lunn’s book. I was conscious that I was reading a first novel from a writer who comes from a family of gifted storytellers, and I sensed she had worked very hard to write well.
It did not take me long to be drawn into her story which describes life at the school, and in particular the effects on central characters Eve, Sarah and Meg, of the arrival at the institution of a glittering “day girl”, Rebecca Thornton.
We all remember the Rebeccas from our school days. The attractive, popular personality with as much depth as the epidermis of a caterpillar, but with a gift for stirring up trouble, and for “spotting losers who didn’t know they were losers yet”.
Rebecca targets Eve with a viciousness that is all too familiar of sociopaths who cover up their own shortcomings by belittling sensitive people. As disturbing as Rebecca’s nastiness, is the acquiescence of the other girls, who enthusiastically play along as Eve is cast into the role of the “contaminated one”.
We follow the women into their adult lives, and Lunn skilfully layers her story by shifting back to past events at school and at Meg’s farm, where life-changing events occur.
The book focuses in particular on the fortunes of the damaged Eve who has moved to London and has forged a successful career as a musician.
Meg’s untimely death in a car accident draws Eve back from a cold and clammy London, where she is unsurprisingly embroiled in another nasty relationship, to a small town in Australia for the funeral. Improbably, Meg is to be buried in a remote country town where she was about to commence work as the local doctor. It is in this unlikely setting that Eve and Sarah confront their secrets and work out how they will live the rest of their lives.
Jacqueline Lunn writes with humour and intelligence, and conveys a sense of Australia’s unique character. Her book is written as popular rather than literary fiction and clearly targets women readers.
In my opinion, Under the Influence, is better than a batch of more literary Australian novels that I have recently read, because she really knows how to tell a good story.
<,em>Under the Influence by Jacqueline Lunn, is published by Vintage Books. (2011)

Posted in Australian writing, Books, Schools | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Remembering the innocent and the brave

Posted on April 21, 2011 by admin

Tim Hetherington

From the comfort of my Brisbane bed I heard BBC break the story of the death of two photo journalists in Libya last night.
Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros were men of great courage who were telling the tragic stories of the trapped people of Misrata when they were killed by mortar shelling.
Hetherington has been widely recognised for his artistry in covering conflicts in troublespots like Afghanistan and Liberia. What touched me me most in the coverage since his death is that colleagues remembered the humanity and respect he showed to the people who featured in his stories.
Tim and Chris are just two among hundreds of journalists, photographers and filmmakers who have died or been injured in conflicts around the world in recent years, and we owe these brave people a debt of gratitude for risking their lives as they expose the reality and suffering of war.
Their deaths made me think once again of the brilliant photographers who died in South Africa (where I worked for many years) – complex, gifted men like Ken Oosterbroek and Kevin Carter.
Tonight I am preparing to enjoy a peaceful Easter weekend with my family in a relaxed corner of the world where mortar shelling is as remote a prospect to city residents as an alien invasion.
This weekend, directly after the Easter break comes Anzac Day, when Aussies remember Gallipoli and honor war veterans from various wars, at dawn services and parades.
I always feel uncomfortable about a day which seems to glorify war – even though the official explanation is that Anzac Day marks the forging of national identity, and acknowledges the sacrifices paid by brave young men on distant battlefields.
The unnecessary deaths and suffering caused by war – continuing right now in places like Libya, Afghanistan and the Ivory Coast to name but a few countries – is something I will try to think about in the coming days.

Picture credit: Michael von Bergen, accompanying Tim Hetherington (winner World Press Photo of the Year 2007) on a photo session in Huambo, Angola, 2002.

Posted in Australian politics, History, Media, North Africa, Photojournalism, War | Leave a comment

Gay words worth celebrating

Posted on September 5, 2010 by admin

Language is a funny thing, and that is because the meaning of words is constantly changing.kookaburra
Oscar Wilde, in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), wrote: “It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words….The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for. “
It’s apt that I should refer to Oscar Wilde because I’ve been thinking about the impact of language after a Melbourne teacher told his students to substitute the word “gay” in the well-know kookaburra song for the less ambiguous “fun”.
Gay rights groups predictably took umbrage as the headmaster tried to explain that the word substitution was made to minimise classroom disruption: “Seventy years ago when the song was written gay meant you are happy. Nowadays we know it’s got all sorts of different meanings,” he said.
He is right of course, because gay now means not just people who are homosexual but also broadly anything that can be identified in the schoolyard as stupid or “corny”.
He went on to explain that he had been trying to prevent classroom giggling.
I’m not sure why he bothered. If he had stopped any tittering on this score, doubtless the kids would have found another excuse for fidgeting or giggling, because that’s what children like to do.
I do sympathise a little with the hapless headmaster, because my second name could also be substituted by the word “Fun”.
I was born in the early 1960s, and my mother decided to call me “Colleen”, which means “girl” in Gaelic – and she was motivated by utter delight and surprise in producing me after previous efforts had resulted in (I thought as a child) loutish boys.
She was convinced that I would bring her much joy, and so she decided my second name should be “Gaye”.
As a child I was officially oblivious to the existence of lesbians, while at the same time I had noted quite intuitively that my English teacher obviously preferred women to men.
However, I did object to my second name, not because I was outraged by sexual innuendo, but because I thought it was just plain silly.
Why would my mother have thought of me as simply a happy girl?
Could I not have been a more complex character than that?
A Charlotte, a Catherine or an Elizabeth would have been much more interesting than plain “happy girl”.
Later when lesbians and gays became first something you talked about, and then after some time no big deal, I continued to dislike my second name because it seemed old-fashioned.
One of the best things about getting older is that one is not nearly so sensitive about things.
I am now very pleased that my mother blessed me with good karma by thinking of me in such a positive, loving way.
She always treated me as if I was the girl who would bring her much joy, and she never once said that I’d disappointed her. What more could you ask of your mother?
I think Oscar Wilde would have approved of Marion Sinclair’s simple word choice. So I say let’s ditch substitution and celebrate the authentic. In case you don’t know the chorus it goes:
Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree,
Merry merry king of the bush is he.
Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh, Kookaburra,
Gay your life must be!

Posted in Australian music, English literature, Media, language | Leave a comment

Birds vs politicians vs journalists

Posted on August 20, 2010 by admin

Brizzieblog has been quiet during the

Australian election campaign because I could think of nothing suitably funny or scathing to write about that had not already been done or said by Mark Latham.
It’s good to see that in spite of fears that journalism is a dying art, an awful lot of people have been paying attention to the media during this election campaign.
It seems like there have been three players in this election: the two political parties and the media.
We have heard a lot about media outlets organising political debates, about politicians becoming journalists and some journalists behaving a bit like politicians.
As an ex-journo myself, I never like it when reporters make themselves the story (they always over-dramatise), but let’s face it the more interesting stories have been about the behaviour of journalists.
Take Laurie Oakes, for instance. He inserted himself as a key factor in the election with questions to Julia Gillard about the agreement she is said to have broken on the night she deposed Kevin Rudd as Labor Party leader. The media seemed really interested in Laurie as a story, particularly when he followed up with more revelations about Cabinet leaks.
And as the election campaign wore on, journalism’s latest great find, Mark Latham, also became part of the story with his stalking of politicians and his attacks on Kevin and Laurie.
While the press gallery and political tragics were long acquainted with Laurie’s nickname, now the whole country knows of Jabba the Hutt. Not only do we now know that Laurie is also known as Jabba the Hutt, many of us discovered for the first time that such a character populated Star Wars movies.
I have spent the last 30 years knowing absolutely nothing about Star Wars, but my very proud track record has been ruined after I was forced to Google “Jabba the Hutt” to make sure I spelt it correctly. I now know what Jabba looks like, and I have learnt that the character’s role in Star Wars was primarily antagonistic.
It’s very easy to be a critic and run down politicians and journalists, but I’m not going to do that. I’m grateful for the entertainment of this past month because I’ve found the debate quite interesting rather than “depressing” which seems to be the more fashionable thing to say.
Whoever wins of loses, I am also thankful that on Monday morning we’ll all go back to work (or doing what we usually do), and there will be no army coup or claim that the election was rigged.
I am looking forward to a change of topic, and I’d like to change the subject now to say that with the imminent arrival of spring, it is lovely in Brisbane to welcome the return of geckos tut-tutting in our air conditioning unit (I must chase them out before they consume all the wiring). The geckos aren’t native to Australia (neither am I, just like our Prime Ministerial candidates) but other recent arrivals back to our home who are locals are the Tawny Frogmouth pair who breed in our garden.
This year we are very honoured that they have chosen to build a very untidy nest right under our noses – in a Tallowwood just a meter from our front deck. We are looking forward to watching them tend to their hatchlings with the utmost of devotion, as they do every season.
In case you don’t know what a Frogmouth is, here is a picture I’ve taken of the dad sitting on his new nest – do I detect a passing resemblance to Jabba the Hutt?

Posted in Australian politics, Media | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Moving forward joins going forward in taking us nowhere

Posted on July 17, 2010 by admin

I am so glad that Australia has the prospect of moving forward. I know that we stand an excellent chance of proceeding in a forwardly direction because our Prime Minister has promised that under her rule we will indeed not be going backwards but instead we will be moving forward.

Moving forward is much easier than moving backwards. Try walking or running backwards for any length of time. Reversing? Awful to do, especially with a stiff neck.

Now I am not criticising Julia Gillard for making a predictable speech when she announced the upcoming election. After all, she had to say something, and political speeches of this kind are usually written with one too many advisors throwing in their bob’s worth.

My concern is not about politics. That will take care of itself. But I am worried about the future of the English language. I am concerned that the ugly phrase “moving forward” could join its close relative “going forward” as among the most oft-repeated, meaningless expressions to grace our tongue since American management speak infiltrated everyday speech about a decade ago.

The wonderful columnist Lucky Kellaway made a brave case against the use of “going forward” a few years ago.

She wrote: ” When someone says ‘going forward’ it assaults the ears just as, when a colleague starts slurping French onion soup at a neighbouring desk, it assaults the nose. ”

Before hearing Lucy read this column (which she does for the BBC) I had barely registered how often people were using this needless term instead of simply saying, “In future”, or rather, just beginning to say what they wanted to say without this throat-clearing preface.

“Going forward” was bad enough. To now have to endure five weeks of “moving forward” is nigh intolerable. In the last election in Australia, we had the successful “Kevin 07″ brand slogan. “Moving forward” doesn’t even rhyme.

But I should try to look for the positives, I suppose.

Politicians love rallying cries, and “moving forward” is intended to follow in this great tradition. Perhaps Julia’s speech writers can mix it up with allusions to tried and tested exhortations, such as “Onwards!” (a more secular rendition of “Onward Christian Soldiers!”)

“Moving forward” could be the basis for an exciting new competition: guess how many times “moving forward” is repeated during the election campaign? The winner could get a themed prize, a bicycle, for instance, (clean, green and moves forward).

The campaign theme might eventually become a game show, where people have to move forward on a giant Monopoly board, or risk getting voted off if they draw a card that sends them back three spaces.

So perhaps my initial reaction to “moving forward” was a little harsh. With a little imagination, there are endless ways we can move forward – and still keep a sense of humour.

Read Lucy Kellaway’s views on “moving forward” at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7453584.stm

Posted in Australian politics, Media, language | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Lying tart or flying start?

Posted on July 9, 2010 by admin

There is an email going around showing a half-folded newspaper with a picture of our brand new Prime Minister and a headline reading “lying tart”. The next screen shot has the front page unfolded and we see the headline really says “flying start”.
It’s funny and a little mean. I could ponder the discourse of misogyny that is implicit in this email but I think it is more an interesting reflection on our omniscient media.
A relatively small but highly influential clique of journalists seem able to make and break politicians at will.
You can go from being hero to zero as fast as a sub-editor can type the headline “backflip”.
Backflip is such a terrible cliché. (Okay, so is “hero to zero”). In my day as a cadet reporter, if we had used an expression that had become as over-used as “backflip”, our ferocious news editor would have made us write the weather report for a month.
If you believe what you are told, then our politicians – especially Labour ones – spend more of their waking hours doing policy somersaults than they do kissing babies.
I’m probably not keeping up properly, but if I follow the pretty shallow debate that is taking place on asylum seekers, then Julia has not just done a backflip, but an impressive flick flack on this question in the last 48 hours. Whether or not the hapless boat arrivals are sent off to East Timor or PNG or back to where they came from (this brilliant policy idea from the other team), might have less to do with what is practical and fair and much more to do with where we are in the “news cycle”.
It is somewhat ironic that at a time of declining newspaper sales, splintered electronic audiences and the ascendancy of social media, we still see media that largely follow one another’s lead when it comes to telling us what is the news of the day.
The timing of the next election is probably more in the hands of badly paid journalists than under the control of the powerful people they report on.
Stay tuned for the next exposé of acrobatic feats.

Posted in Australian politics, Media | 1 Comment

Book hunt

Posted on July 7, 2010 by admin

The advent of electronic books and electronic readers has every book lover torn with conflicting emotions.

On the one hand is the tantalising promise of thousands of one’s favourite books being instantly available at the touch of a screen. These books will never suffer from yellowing, loose pages or worst of all, getting lost after you commit the folly of loaning a precious book to an absent-minded friend.

On the other hand, I can’t imagine not having the dilemma of figuring out how to fit new arrivals on my crowded bookshelves, or the pleasure of picking up and leafing through a treasured gift, old friends like a Folio edition of The Scarlet Pimpernel or re-reading a pungent little Penguin classic that I’ve owned for 20 years, titles like The Quiet American or Emma.

And I can’t imagine book club being quite the same when everyone arrives with their iPad with the book we’ve chosen preloaded, probably linked to erudite book reviews, so that everything we might want to discuss is already deconstructed in neat, convenient bytes.

If my bias is already obvious, it should be understandable given I am in the demographic of first generation Internet user (which is a nice way to say I’m in my 40s).

Reading and talking about books is such an obvious pleasure that it does not require further justification. If e-books make the written word more accessible to people, then I can offer no valid argument against this new media.

And yet I am glad I grew up in the age when the printed word was king. Just as in this century we are witnessing the disappearance of great newspapers and the decline of the best journalism, I worry that books and publishing are changing forever.

Apart from reading a book, there is also the great pleasure in hunting for a special book. Our book club of friends met the other night to talk about beautiful book, As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by writer and poet Laurie Lee. There were only five of us at book club, and we each took a different route in our search for this out-of-print classic.

In my case, I failed, as usual, to track down the book through the Brisbane City Council Library. My new iPad was equally useless – Free Books, iBooks and an assortment of other e-collections landed me at frustrating dead ends. Big Brother Google and First Cousin Amazon pointed me to really expensive booksellers who would have taken weeks to deliver it, probably from a Walmart-sized warehouse.

Mary Ryan’s and Borders did not have the book listed on their catalogues. I discovered there was a copy in the Griffith Uni library but my daughter was too busy to borrow the book for me. Eventually I drove into Brisbane (where you pay more to park than for your shopping), parked in a suspect car park where I risked getting towed away, and dashed into one of the best second hand bookshops in Brisbane, Archives Fine Books. The gods of literature were smiling on me: I was rewarded for my persistence by spotting the slim, yellowed paperback misfiled on the shelf above “L”.

The people at Archives really love books, and they shared in the pleasure of my discovery by informing me that this book had only arrived day or two before. I am always amazed they know things like that because they profess to having one million books in their Charlotte Street treasure trove. I paid $10 for the book.

Among our group, one of the stalwarts, Cathy, happened to have the book on her book shelf while Stacey had the luxury of choosing between two different editions at Bent Books, both going for $5. She emailed us this good news, but maddeningly the second copy was sold before the rest of us could get there. Another of our group, Diana, who can’t come to meetings at the moment, lent her precious copy to Shelly, who returned it to Diana because she had promised it to Stacey. So Shelly made a special trip to Novel Lines in Paddington, and the bookshop owner promised to get the book out of storage and deliver it to her. After an anxious wait of a week or so, Shelly finally got her copy of the book.

But the best find was Jennifer’s. She had a particularly successful Google search and found a copy online from a second-hand bookshop in Cooma, New South Wales. She paid $9 plus postage and received a beautiful, hard cover edition, original dust cover intact.

And the joy of the hunt was only the beginning. This wonderful book, published in 1969 by the author of Cider with Rosie, is near perfect writing. Lee paints a picture of a desperately poor but stunning country, of uncompromisingly realistic people facing the inevitability of war. Every page is a marvellous account of Lee’s solo walk around Spain – of what it is like to own nothing and yet be the luckiest, most adventurous person alive.

I hope we don’t lose priceless $10 paperbacks in our new e-book age. In case we do, you should get a copy of Laurie Lee’s wonderful book.

Posted in Books, English literature | 1 Comment

How do we stop Google brother? Should we stop Google brother?

Posted on February 5, 2010 by admin
I love Google, I love Gmail calendar and Google docs and I have a love-hate relationship with Gmail. Best search ever but very confusing to keep track of multiple emails.
But I have a hate relationship with Google’s big brother spy machine. When my father was critically ill last year I got all sorts of Google ads in my Gmail advising me of funeral services.
Google seems to know I’m in the PR business (very clever, Google), so I get lots of plugs for other PR firms (not that clever, Google).
It’s not just Google, though. Facebook knows my age and has been trying to sell me cures for hot flushes! I’m insulted, of  course, and am thinking of changing my age to born in 1921 to see what Google throws at me … walkers, adult diapers?
As an experiment, I just sent myself two emails.
The first read:
Hello
I am writing about existentialism. What does the world need right now?
Are we a figment of our imagination?
I think we are.
Let’s see what Google thinks.

Google didn’t know what to make of that and so advertised some Disney solution! I’m not joking.
So I sent myself another email:
Wet carpets are caused by too much moisture and they are a pain.
how do I fix wet carpets?

Google sent me and ad which read:
(name of company deleted – I don’t do plugs.com)… – “Moisture meters for timber, plaster concrete and building materials”.
Google, it was wet carpet, not timber, plaster, or concrete … still, a nice try.
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