171026 citynews

Doszpot says goodbye with a grim warning

IAN MEIKLE

Ardern won fair and square, so there!

MICHAEL MOORE

On a flight of fancy to a disbelieving world

CHRIS COLEMAN

Garden colour all year long

CEDRIC BRYANT

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Writer so wrong on local football league

AFL writer Patrick Smith’s analysis of the impact Ainslie transgender footballer Hannah Mouncey would have on the AFLW slightly misses the mark.

The AFL blocked the 196-centimetre-tall, 100-kilogram player from the national AFLW draft due to “physical disparity”.

Smith, writing in “The Australian” underrates the local league: “Those who argue if Mouncey was going to make football a one-sided affair in the AFLW then she would decimate the local Canberra league.... The Canberra league is far more relaxed. It is not quite social football”. Smith has seemingly overlooked the five Canberran players in the Giant’s squad alone and the four locals who played for premiership club Adelaide.

“I’m working on getting my diploma of mental health... I’ve struggled with that a little bit since I was a bit younger,” he says.

A SHORTLISTING for a prestigious Walkley award has capped off a stellar year for journalist Chris Uhlmann . In late August the former ABC political editor landed the plum gig as Channel Nine’s Canberra bureau chief replacing the retiring Laurie Oakes

A month earlier Uhlmann’s report on Donald Trump’s appearance at the G20 summit in Hamburg went viral, drawing over a million views. The piece, for the ABC “Insiders” program, gives the journalist the opportunity to win a second Walkley after first being recognised in 2008.

Ian De Landelles and Mary Porter are now sadly all too familiar with. The retired political adviser and the former MLA are part-owners of the thoroughbred Fell Swoop which ran in the world’s richest turf race, the inaugural $10 million Everest Stakes at Randwick. Unfortunately the horse was injured during the race and earned the dubious claim of being the first to run last in the Everest.

CANBERRA

Molan’s career has flourished since moving to Sydney TV in 2010 and now includes an Australian Commercial Radio Award for the Best Newcomer at 2GB.

CANBERRA-born sports journalist Erin Molan is tipped to anchor a renovated NRL “Footy Show” in 2018. The 30-something personality, who began her career at the local WIN TV network, was among the first names floated to replace the “axed” Paul “Fatty” Vautin who has anchored the Channel Nine league staple for almost a quarter of a century.

FORMER Raiders star Josh Dugan has vowed to dedicate the next phase of his colourful career “to saving others”. The pledge comes after the South Tuggeranong junior publicly thanked his partner, Jordan Danielle Dugan told the “Sydney Morning Herald’s” Danny Weidler, that she “has kept me sane and saved me in many ways. When I was younger I didn’t have anyone, that was my downfall in Canberra”.

The State-of-Origin star says he’s turned his life around, especially outside footy.

WHILE Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie seeks to hobble the lobbying industry in Canberra, one group seeking access to policy makers was given the red carpet.

Australian screen legends Bryan Brown, Sigrid Thornton, Leah Purcell and Gillian Armstrong were among a delegation that came to the capital to lobby politicians to get behind the Australian TV and film industry.

The high-profile Make it Australian campaigners are fighting for change in several areas including reform of local content rules and restoration of funding for public broadcasters and Screen Australia.

THERE’S an old saying in the Sport Of Kings about changing fortunes. “Going from Old Gold chocolates to boiled lollies” is an adage former Canberra political couple,

Libs have been accused of making local music festivals unsafe after successfully halting a pill-testing trial planned for November’s Spilt Milk event.

Acting Health Minister and Greens Leader Shane Rattenbury slammed shadow A-G Jeremy Hanson after the groundbreaking trial was stopped on legal grounds.

Rattenbury says festivals “will now be more dangerous than if the pill testing trial went ahead”.

An unofficial pill-testing service, provided by harm-reduction activists, remains a faint possibility at up-coming local music festivals.

Please, miss… robots sit in class for sick kids

By Kathryn Vukovljak

THE use of telepresence robots that can help children with serious illness stay connected to their classroom are one step closer to becoming a reality for Australian schools, says Megan Gilmour, chair of MissingSchool.

Megan says that MissingSchool has been awarded an “Inspire” grant of up to $600,000 over three years from the St George Foundation for an ACT-first pilot scheme that will bring telepres ence robots to schools, allowing a real-time, two-way connection for kids who may not be well enough to attend school but could participate in class.

“Our theory is that you can only fix absence by presence, and how can somebody be present if they’re not able to be in the classroom?” she says.

“The robots remind everyone that the person is there and wanting to be connected. It’s a palpable physical presence, it moves, it’s not a little iPad sitting on a desk which can also be forgotten.”

Megan says her son Darcy, now 17, was 10 when he was diagnosed with three rare blood disorders and missed almost two years of school because of a bone-marrow transplant.

Nell and Gina Meyers, whose children had also received treatment in Sydney for serious illnesses.

She started MissingSchool in 2012 with two other Canberra mums, Cathy

“Through our experiences, we all knew first-hand what it was like to go through supporting a child with a

serious illness and that kids need the connection to community and their friendships, which we’re all hardwired for,” she says.

“This isolation can create a lifelong effect on productivity, as well as social

with serious conditions and observed many things being done right.

“The St George Foundation funded MissingSchool’s 2015 research, which revealed a gap in education provision and prompted the first Common-

wealth-funded research into the issue for kids who are facing the hardest challenge of their lives,” she says.

“It’s tough for parents, too, who are supporting their sick child while facing challenges economically, emotionally, being separated from their other children, being away from home and from their support networks. We know that all these things on their own are hard enough but we have them all happening at once.

“And you worry about school and them falling behind, and losing their connections to their friends.”

Megan says it’s her goal to help combine the best of the lessons she saw while on the Fellowship into a systemic solution here that can work for these kids.

“I want families who are experiencing this situation to be able to access this as a matter of course,” she says.

“Medical science is saving and prolonging the lives of sick kids and we must act now to give them real-time inclusion in their classes and connection with their friends and teachers, to have hope and build positive futures.

“This grant will help MissingSchool roll out up to 75 robots over three years to demonstrate cost-effective and innovative ways to include these children in their regular schools.”

Visit missingschool.org.au for more information.

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WHEN IT MATTERS

Steve says goodbye with a grim warning

By Ian Meikle

LIBERAL Steve Doszpot rose for his final formal speech – “a speech that I wish I didn’t have to give” – to the ACT Legislative Assembly this week to plead for more understanding, awareness and funding for the early diagnosis of liver cancer.

He said it could save many lives in the full knowledge it won’t be his. He revealed he has inoperable liver cancer.

The optimism of the “businessas-usual” revelation of his cancer diagnosis in February has been overtaken by a pragmatic resignation to the terminal nature of his disease. He tires these days and the unremitting burden of three shadow portfolios –urban services, seniors and ICT – were becoming too much.

In thanking his medical team, he said he faced “the reality of a grim prognosis with just a glimmer of hope”.

In a candid interview with “CityNews”, Doszpot, 69, talked about his commitment to hope beyond cure and the role his faith (“not very fashionable these days”) was having in assisting a positive attitude to his situation.

He will formally retire from nine years in the Assembly in early December. During that time he represented three electorates – Brindabella, Mo -

longlo and, most recently, Kurrajong.

“It was obviously not part of my plans, but as one of my favourite lyricists, John Lennon, wrote: ‘Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans’,” he said.

In his valedictory speech he pledged to keep up his advocacy for so long as he could, “not only for the thousands of cancer sufferers in our community but also for their families, who are so important as hard-working carers providing love, support and hope”.

Drawing from the advice of his Sydney specialist Associate Prof Simone

Strasser, of Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, he said primary liver cancer was the most rapidly rising cause of cancer death in Australia with rates almost doubling in the last two decades.

“There needs to be an increased awareness of the causes of liver disease, the role of early interventions and the role of screening programs in at-risk individuals,” he said.

“Treatments for liver cancer are dependent on the stage of cancer at diagnosis. Early diagnosis can lead to curative treatment and improved survival rates but current diagnostic

tests are crude, and there is an urgent need to develop new diagnostic tools to diagnose liver cancer early.

“The proportion of people developing liver cancer from non-viral causes is increasing, with the commonest causes relating to lifestyle factors including excessive alcohol consumption or the presence of fatty liver disease related to obesity or, as in my case, type 2 diabetes.

“In summary, research funding to identify the drivers of liver cancer, to understand the biology and develop new diagnostic and treatment strategies is critical.”

In thanking his Assembly colleagues from both sides of the chamber and his family, particularly Maureen, his wife of 46 years, he said his mother, Anna Doszpot, in her eighties took part in his election campaigns until her death in 2015.

“She insisted on helping on election day and I have to confess her instruction to potential voters in her thick Hungarian accent: ‘You have to vote for my son – he is a good boy’ did worry me – but luckily people seemed to like her and take her advice!”

So what will he miss when he leaves politics?

“I’ll miss community involvement. I like meeting people. I’ll miss not having the ability to influence legislation and I’ll miss not being able to complete some of the tasks,” he said, ruefully

pointing to the dangerous dogs issue that he has fought hard to bring into public view over recent months.

Conversely, what won’t he miss, “CityNews” asked?

“Being in Opposition,” he said. “I was shattered by the result of last October’s election result.”

Over the past nine years, Steve Doszpot’s annual, trivia-quiz, charity nights have raised about $230,000 for 10 local charities and individuals. Steve wrote all the questions himself and anyone unfamiliar with his lifelong passions for soccer (“football, Ian!”) and Beatles music were in for a long night.

In closing his emotional Assembly speech, he said: “My father was always reminding me as a young man that I, as the eldest child, would need to somehow thank Australia for the generosity shown to our family of refugees 60 years ago. My father passed away 16 years prior to my election to this Assembly but I have always remembered his words, and one of my remaining tasks is to thank our Prime Minister, on behalf of our family.

“This refugee family arrived in Australia in 1957 – Istvan Doszpot, his wife Anna, his mother-in-law Borbala Cziegler and his then three children Istvan, Anna and Gustav with two more siblings, William and Mary born in Australia. They found peace, freedom and acceptance in Australia.”

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Teen with world at her feet

SIXTEEN-year-old St Clare’s College student Keely Small has the world at her feet.

In March, at the AIS, Keely ran a 2.01.46 to become the world’s top-ranked, female, 800-metres runner under the age of 18 years. It has allowed her to look beyond the junior ranks and into major competitions such as next year’s Commonwealth Games.

Her exceptional rise in the sport has taken many by surprise, including Keely.

“The Commonwealth Games weren’t on my radar a couple of months ago, now I really want to strive to get on the team,” she says.

If nothing else, her performance has provided self belief: “I think my 2.01 time, being up there with the top athletes and being able to win that race, really showed me that I can get out there and be competitive in the senior ranks.”

She is not just competitive, but is putting significant pressure on more seasoned athletes such as Brittany McGowan.

There are plenty of sacrifices to be made when you’re in year 10 and life is becoming more social, but Keely says her focus is very much on achieving, whether at school or on the track.

“I can’t go out to some parties, but I’ve never really been interested too much in that. I get a lot of joy out of doing my sport and when I come away with a good result it’s all worth it in the end,” she says.

What about balancing school and running given it is all happening so quickly?

“It is difficult, but I just have to find the balance. Luckily, my school helps me out a lot.”

If only all teenagers were this focused.

Keely was involved in a number of sports growing up, including swimming, but after being talent spotted at a fun run in Canberra by local coach Paul Torley, who encouraged her to come along to training, she hasn’t looked back. In fact, she has been in front most of the time, yet it’s all been a learning experience.

At the Commonwealth Youth Games in the Bahamas this year she collapsed on the final stretch suffering from fatigue and dehydration. She ended the day on a drip. It’s all part of the journey.

Keely continually checks herself to make sure she doesn’t overdo it in

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training with the goal of competing in the Commonwealth Games emerging on the horizon.

“I am definitely pushing myself, but I know that I am more capable. I feel like I can put in a lot more effort. However, I don’t want to overdo it because I don’t want to break,” she says.

By “break” she is talking about injuries.

Injuries have resulted in many a promising running career ending with a shuddering halt.

Her father Newton is often trackside to offer guidance if required. She is in pretty good hands, though. Her coach,

in the male-dominated group, is the AIS senior physiologist, Philo Saunders, who is also a runner.

“My training group is great, my coach Philo, is brilliant and the whole training group is really good,” says Keely.

This young woman is impressive in so many ways. I came away from our conversation feeling as though I was talking to a future leader, someone not confined to track and field.

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ONE MAN’S CANBERRA

On a flight of fancy to a disbelieving world

AS the news story to the right of my column confirms, 2CC did pretty well at the recent Australian Commercial Radio Awards, where of eight finalists from the station, four were declared to be the best in their categories.

My colleagues from the station’s breakfast show, Tim Shaw and Eddie Williams, won for Best Current Affairs Presenter and Producer respectively. The 2CC Raiders Call Team were given some well-deserved recognition for their work bringing every Raiders game to life on air. And I was the fourth winner, picking up the gong in the Best Talk Presenter category.

However you look at it, it’s a decent result for a small radio station and great recognition for the whole team because the contribution of everyone in a small team counts.

Add in a few more awards picked up by broadcasters who feature in the programs we take from our network partners, it’s even more impressive. As a final comment on the subject, it makes it easy to go to work in the morning knowing the people you work with are held in such high regard.

The awards were held in Melbourne and while settling in for my flight home I had a thought that gave me the giggles.

I started thinking about how I would explain what I do and the weekend in general to someone from Australia at around the turn of the last century...

(This is where on radio I’d hit the soundeffects button for a harp glissando.)

“Yes, I won an award last night for best talk presenter on radio and now I’m about to fly home to Canberra.”

“Radio? Fly? Canberra?”

“Ah, yes, radio. I sit in a soundproof room, where I interview people who are generally in another building, and I talk to people who call in on the phone, so that other people can listen to the conversations.”

“And how do they listen?”

“On their radio.”

“These people who listen aren’t actually there with you?”

“Well, they’re not in the same place as me...”

“So you’re actually talking to yourself?”

While settling in for my flight home I had a thought that gave me the giggles; how to explain what I do to someone from Australia at around the turn of the last century...

“Well, they’re there, but they’re somewhere else...”

“And they gave you an award for that?”

“To be fair, it is my job.”

“So they pay you money for it, too? That’s a good one!” (Cue several minutes of laughter.)

“Now, about this flying? You do that yourself, too?”

“Well, there are a couple of hundred other passengers.”

“So it’s like a train that goes into the sky?”

“Actually it’s a lot more convenient than a train, and faster, because there aren’t any direct train services between Canberra and Melbourne. They never built the line.”

“I was getting to that. Canberra. What is it, and where’s that?”

“It’s the place we built to be the capital city when Melbourne and Sydney couldn’t decide which of them should have been the seat of government.”

“Uh-huh. So let me see if I have this right. You have a shiny thing, that they gave you for talking to people who may or may not exist, in conversations that you don’t know if anyone’s listening to. And you’re taking it home by getting on some sort of device that flies. To a place that doesn’t exist? Nice meeting you, mate...”

Chris Coleman hosts “Canberra Live”, 3pm-6pm, weekdays on 2CC.

CHRIS COLEMAN

Top radio awards go to 2CC

AFTER a solid lift in ratings at the last listener survey, talk station 2CC has now taken home four big gongs from the recent 2017 Australian Commercial Radio Awards in Melbourne.

Breakfast host Tim Shaw was named Best Current Affairs Presenter (non-metro); his producer Eddie Williams was again awarded Best Talk Show Producer (non-metro) and drive presenter Chris Coleman was named Best Talk Presenter (provincial).

The 2CC Raiders Call Team (Phil Small, Chris O’Brien, Joe Prevedello and Scott Freeman) won for Best Sports Event Coverage (non-metro).

“Ray Hadley, heard on 2CC weekdays 9am to 11am, was named Best Talk Presenter (metro), and the Continuous Call Team, which is heard on 2CC each Saturday and Sunday was named Best Syndicated Program (non-metro),” said the station’s general manager Michael Jones.

“2CC’s sister station in Canberra, 2CA was also a winner receiving the award for Best Music Special for its ‘30 years of Whispering Jack’ program, produced and presented by George Mihalos.”

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POLITICS / NZ election

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WRONG! Wrong! Wrong! In blasting Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s NZ government as “losers take power”, the Murdoch media got it wrong on at least three levels.

Firstly, Ardern and her Labour coalition won government while the real losers are the elected members of the NZ National Party.

Secondly, Ardern gathered the numbers to be elected as a “first amongst equals” in a manner consistent with Westminster tradition.

Thirdly, by pulling together the group of what the Sydney “Daily Telegraph” called “the minnows”, NZ Labour has won government. Hardly the stuff of losers.

Look at the flipside; the inability of the tired, decade-old conservative National Party of former prime minister Bill English to win the trust of a majority of MPs. If the “losers” brand is to be applied, it is to the National Party which has wound up on opposition benches with just over 44 per cent of the vote compared to Labour’s 37 per cent.

The problem for “The Australian” and other Murdoch papers is they believe their own rhetoric and play a key role in attempting to have populist presidential elections in Westminster systems.

Westminster elections are not presidential. That is not our system. Voters elect a local representative and hand over the responsibility to them, as elected members of parliament, to appoint the prime minister.

The only government the Murdoch media sees as “good government” is conservative with majority control. Under the headline “Let NZ be a warning”, the “Daily Telegraph” ran an editorial encouraging Australians to: “Give thought to their votes in any election, because votes carelessly cast can deliver unexpected –and possibly negative – outcomes”.

The experience across Australian jurisdictions is that majority governments dominated by Labor or Liberal have not necessarily been more stable than minority governments. Minority governments have invariably been more accountable.

Ardern will have the support of Winston Peters’ New Zealand First Party and the Greens, commanding 63 of the 124 seats – a majority of just two.

Conservative governments internationally

Jacinda Ardern has demonstrated extraordinary leadership during the election campaign followed by successful negotiations to form government.

have delivered greater and greater inequity. In contrast, Ardern has promised “an economy that works and delivers for all New Zealanders”. She has good reason. The 2017 Oxfam report identified just eight billionaires have the wealth of the poorest 3.6 billion people in the world and, in Australia, the wealth of the top one per cent is equivalent to the bottom 70 per cent.

More pertinent, Oxfam also identified multinationals as fuelling the inequality crisis. As one of the huge multinational conglomerates, it ought not to be surprising that Rupert Murdoch’s empire would find ways to rail against anything but a government that looks after itself and the ultra-wealthy rather than ordinary people.

Ardern’s belief is that “capitalism must regain its human face”. Ironically, this is supported by one-time National Party treasurer, Winston Peters, who identified “the importance of policies that restrain the operation of free markets”.

The rapid rise to power of the youngest leader in NZ since the 1800s is extraordinary. Ardern became head of the electorally dismissed NZ Labour Party only a month and a half before the September election. She has demonstrated extraordinary leadership during the election campaign followed by successful negotiations to form government. This bodes well for NZ’s third woman as Prime Minister * The clearest message from the NZ elections is awareness that the vice-grip of the two major parties in both our countries is being loosened as electors see the importance and effectiveness of broader representation.

* The other two are Jenny Shipley (1997–99) and Helen Clark (1999–2008).

NEWS / Woodcraft Guild open day BRIEFLY

By Kathryn Vukovljak

More room for ‘magic’ of wood Emergency Service gets

THE Woodcraft Guild ACT has doubled the size of its facilities in Kambah, with newly constructed workshops, a revamped forge and extra space for saws, woodturning and a meeting room, says its president Graham Reynolds.

“The enjoyment of traditional hobbies, do-it-yourself and making something with your own hands is becoming more popular, and it’s even better when you can do it in a community environment where you can meet other hobbyists, learn and improve your skills,” says Graham.

“More people now are wanting to realise that subliminal passion that’s been sitting there to do something more hands on.”

The Guild is hosting its annual family open day on November 5 with demonstra tions all day, says Graham, including come-and-try woodturning, carving and pyrography.

“People can come and see what we do here, check out the workshops and decide whether they want to engage with us,” he says.

Graham says the Guild provides a shared workshop, tools and machinery for around 300 members to learn or improve their woodworking skills,

“We run 10-11 special-interest groups in different aspects of woodcraft, so members, who are of all ages and skill levels, can make anything they want,” he says.

“It’s not a single craft organisation – it has a range of people doing a wide range of woodcraft.

“Women are a big part of the group, too, we have women who have been involved for the last 30 years, it’s part of our DNA. It’s never been an organisation that was all blokes and it wasn’t set up as such.

“We’re family orientated as well, we like kids to come along and get involved and we welcome school groups, too.”

Graham says the expansion of the Guild’s facilities was financed and built mainly by Woodcraft Guild members, aided by a $15,000 grant from the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development’s “Stronger Communities” program.

It includes a benchwork and hand-tool area, a separate woodturning room with

LETTERS

lathes, dedicated dust reduction, a ma chine room and a meeting space.

“The Guild is unique because it has everything at your fingertips, whether you want to make a wooden pen or a wardrobe, and we welcome anyone who is interested in woodworking,” he says.

“Wood is magic stuff – creating things out of a tree, turning it into something beautiful, it’s a transformative exercise.

Whether it’s a turning piece, furniture, an instrument or a box, it’s enjoyable and we’ve got some really talented people here.

“If members don’t know what they want or need, we can offer advice and close supervision where needed – it’s a place to spend time with like-minded people and everybody learns from everyone else.”

Professional international woodturner and author Richard Raffan says he enjoys spending time at the Guild and is always happy to pass on his knowledge.

“This is an unusual bunch of people, and they can pass on what they know in a

fairly articulate fashion,” he says.

“There are a lot of public servants here, too, people who have been running departments and they’ve had this passion lurking there for years and years. This helps them realise their passion, and realise I can do this, it isn’t too hard. And it isn’t – like anything, you build the skill over years.

“One of the things we hear often is that people take up woodworking in their sixties when they retire, and say they wish they had started in their twenties so they could have made their own furniture, rather than making it for the grandchildren.

“It would be nice to see more young people coming through.”

Woodcraft Guild ACT Open Day, Lions Youth Haven, Kambah Pool Road, Kambah, 10am-4pm, Sunday, November 5. Snags from the barbecue and drinks will be available. Visit woodcraftguild.org.au for more information.

Time to take on the telcos, Michael!

COLUMNIST Michael Moore (CN, October 12) rightly decries big business e.g. Big Tobacco “buying” desired political outcomes.

However, is he willing to say the same thing about large telcos pushing wireless technologies, WiFi, 5G etcetera as part of their corporate agenda? There is a considerable body of evidence on the adverse health effects of electromagnetic radiation and wireless technologies.

In 2011, the World Health Organization/International Agency for Research on Cancer classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B).

The evidence has only become stronger since then about a range of biological and health effects, not just cancer. Yet much of the research suggesting no problem is funded by the telco industry. Time to sound the alarm on invasive levels of electromagnetic fields and their implications

for public health. These fields are considerably stronger than even a decade ago.

C’mon, Michael, we are now bathed in this stuff.

Murray May, Cook

Old boys keep rolling along

COLUMNIST Chris Coleman’s 30th anniversary school reunion “Remember the daze of the old schoolyard” (CN, October 12) prompts me to write about my experience at Fort Street Boys High, a boys-only school in Sydney. I left high school in 1953 having passed the Leaving Certificate. On our traditional “Rag Day” at the end of 1953, our entire 5th year was expelled by the new school principal for “unseemly behaviour”. We were allowed back some days later to sit our exams. Since 1953 we have continued to celebrate

GEORGEINA Whelan, pictured, is the ACT’s new chief officer of the ACT State Emergency Service. Brigadier Whelan came to the job with 30 years’ experience in the Australian Army, most recently as the chief of staff for the Australian Defence Force Headquarters. She succeeds Conrad Barr, who transferred to another executive position within the ACT government.

toys, books, DVDs, kitchenware, linen, manchester, bric-a-brac and more. All proceeds go to Towards a Better World, a local charity funding projects that promote sustainability and self-reliance in poor communities.

Fiesta for snappers

Fete with cake

CHRISTMAS cakes will feature at the St Ninian’s fete plus the promise of a sausage sizzle, morning teas, garden and flower stalls, craft, jewellery, a white elephant stall, clothing, children’s activities and lots of entertainment. It’s at the Lyneham church, corner of Mouat and Brigalow Streets, 9am-1pm, Saturday, November 4.

Charity garage sale

THERE’S a charity garage sale at 5 O’Grady Place, Wanniassa, 8am-noon, on Saturday, November 4 that’s offering bargains in a wide range of clothing for babies, children and adults. There are household items,

THE Canberra Photographic Collectors Society’s Spring Photographic Fiesta, a market offering antique and collectable cameras, useable film, digital cameras, photographic accessories and books, will be held at the Canberra Irish Club, 6 Parkinson Street, Weston, 10.30am-1.30pm, on Sunday, November 5. Admission is free. Anyone with a photographic item to sell is welcome to put it on the club table. A small commission is charged if sold.

Pelvic-floor workshop

WOMEN of any age are invited to a free pelvic-floor workshop presented by a physiotherapist from ACT Health at Tuggeranong Community Health, Greenway, 1pm-4pm, on Tuesday, November 7. The workshop will provide information, education and self-help strategies for women experiencing continence problems or wishing to prevent them. Bookings to 6207 9977.

How’s your Spine

Belconnen Chiropractic can help with the following services:

• Chiropractic

• Osteopathy

• Functional neurology

• Therapeutic massage

• Remedial massage

• Sports rehabilitation

Our professional staff have been helping Canberrans for over 37 years. We treat many types of conditions especially head, neck, back and sporting pains and injuries.

feeling?

Remember that every bad back was once good!

You’re in great hands with Belconnen Chiropractic:

our “milestone” anniversaries as they’ve rolled around. Members of the “Infamous Class of ’53” still keep in touch and meet in Sydney twice every year for lunch. Attendances average around 15-20 (not always the same “miscreants”). Some travel from interstate, including two from Canberra, and an occasional one from the US.

Currently, talk usually covers individuals’ 80th birthday celebrations, the onset of Alzheimer’s, the problems of ageing, staying alive and much reminiscing about teachers of the day and memorable school-time experiences.

Next year, 2018, we will be celebrating another milestone anniversary: our 65th school reunion. We hope Chris and his schoolmates will continue to get together and enjoy all of their future reunions. Who knows – they might even break our record?

Max McGregor, Curtin

Dr Mark Tapper

Chiropractor, Osteopath, Sports-Chiro, Neuro-Chiro

Dr Shaun Kim Chiropractor

Dr Charlotte McClure Chiropractor

Michael Greenwood Massage Therapist

Anna Clarke Massage Therapist

At the annual Australia India Address, Barton

At the Master Builders’ Annual Dinner, Yarralumla

At the opening of ‘HyperReal’, National Gallery

sundayROAST

Stay in touch with the names making news on Sundays from 10am as 2CC and “CityNews” present Canberra’s only local weekend news and current affairs program.

It’s a revolving panel show that brings to the microphone great “CityNews” commentators and 2CC personalities.

Be part of the conversation and call 6255 1206 between 10am and noon. At the opening of 65

AUSTRALIA’s most prestigious annual thoroughbred horse race, the Melbourne Cup, will “stop the nation” yet again at 3pm on Tuesday, November 7.

Each year the stakes get higher, with the first Melbourne Cup winner receiving a gold watch in 1861, which has since increased to $6,200,000 in 2016.

The 3200-metre race started, and continues, on the Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne.

Canberrans who can’t make the trip can still enjoy the race, the fashion, entertainment and food at locations in the ACT. Here are some of the best...

destination

THERE’s no better day than Melbourne Cup Day to enjoy 65 Northbourne’s new refreshed look, says general manager Toby Sargent.

65 Northbourne, which was formerly Benchmark Wine Bar, recently underwent renovations, turning a Canberra icon into what Toby describes as a beautiful and open space with a new lease on life.

“We kept the beautiful copper features of the bar, opened the place right up, added an espresso machine and extended the opening hours,” he says.

As for the food, Toby says 65 Northbourne has a wonderful team made of a classically trained French chef, a Danish sous-chef, an Australian chef and a pastry chef.

“And, all our food is made in-house, our desserts, bread, everything. We use some of Canberra’s best local produce to support the

SIREN Bar in Gungahlin has been “the” after-race destination for seven years now, says owner Daniel Gaul.

As a sponsor at the Canberra Racing Club, Siren Bar has an on-going strong af filiation with the club, which Daniel says makes it “the” place to be on race day.

During the day, Siren Bar will celebrate with “fashions on the deck”, giveaways and affordable Melbourne Cup sweeps, from $5 to $50.

“We will have racing from around Australia, including the Melbourne Cup, on all the TVs,” Daniel says.

“Food-wise we have seafood and cold meat platters, which are all fresh and

“And, we’re offering any bookings of 10 or more a complimentary sparkling

After the “race that stops the nation”, Daniel says Siren Bar is the closest venue to the Canberra Racing Club making it the ideal destination.

The local live band, Hard Cover, will be rocking until 11pm and then Siren Bar will kick on until midnight.

community,” he says.

“We also have the best and most expansive wine list in all of Canberra, which includes wines from all over the world but also the best of what the local region produces.”

On Melbourne Cup Day, 65 Northbourne will be hosting a four-course meal, which starts with canapes and French champagne on arrival.

“The meals will showcase Canberra’s beautiful and local produce,” Toby says.

“We will also have sweeps, prizes for the best-dressed male, female and couple, and live coverage.”

65 Northbourne, 65 Northbourne Avenue, Civic, below the Novotel Hotel. Call 6262 6522, email enquiries@65northbourne.com.au or visit benchmarkwinebar.com.au

Siren Bar, corner of Anthony Rolfe Avenue and Gozzard Street, Gungahlin. Call 6162 0377 or visit sirenbar.com.au

Baked Atlantic Salmon with creamy dill mustard

Selection of salads Roast vegetables

Roast Pork Belly with chilli orange pineapple salsa

Asian style vegetables noodles

Roasted beef striploin with pepper red wine jus

Sri Lankan style Lamb curry

DESSERTS

Fresh seasonal fruit platters Cakes and tarts

Selection of Australian cheeses Tea and

CURTIN’S Statesman Hotel, one of Canberra’s most iconic hotels, will host a Melbourne Cup luncheon on November 7, featuring swing singer Tony Haley as part of its afternoon of race-day entertainment.

“The Statesman Hotel is a suburban icon of a bygone era when politicians met for drinks and the ladies lounge was well populated, when chefs with big hats served seafood buffets and the couples danced to the Los Hermanos Quartet,” says Michelle Hood, manager of The Statesman Hotel.

“Nowadays The Statesman Hotel Terrace Lounge is a venue where you can enjoy an a la carte meal from the H2O Bistro, a bottle of wine from Henry Parkes Terrace Bar and be entertained by the music of Tony Haley on a Thursday evening.”

Melbourne Cup luncheon tickets include all-you-can-eat buffet, two drink vouchers and a gift bag. On the buffet menu is a range of hot and cold dishes including roasted pork belly with chilli orange salsa and fresh oysters, king prawns and baked Atlantic salmon with creamy dill mustard sauce.

Punters are also invited to dress to impress and enter the “Best Dressed” race wear competition.

“Of course, the adjoining public bar is available for all your TAB needs –a point to note coming up to Melbourne Cup Day,” Michelle says.

The Statesman Hotel, 14 Theodore Street, Curtin. Call 6281 1777 or visit statesmanhotel.com.au

“We have a delicious luncheon and free entertainment at Belconnen, as well as cup day lunch specials at City Labor Club, Ginninderra Labor Club and Weston Creek Labor Club start-

lucky door prizes, given away during the day.”

Extra TAB facilities will be provided at each Labor Club and the main race will be shown live

great atmosphere on Melbourne Cup Day across

silks and always ensuring our patrons have a memorable experience,” Matt says.

Canberra Labor Club, visit laborclub.com.au

• Early childhood and developmental delays

• Rehabilitation after injury/surgery

• Neuromuscular conditions

• Orthopaedics and lower limb alignment

• Infants with stiffness or movement problems

• Flexible delivery at our clinic, school, childcare, your home or at a hydrotherapy pool. We offer professional help with:

• Sport specific training (e.g bike riding)

• We listen to your concerns and goals, to create a treatment plan for your child.

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THE EXPERTS OF MACQUARIE Making strides in the name of

MACQUARIE, a residential suburb in the Belconnen district of Canberra, was gazetted on June 22, 1967, in recognition of Maj-Gen Lachlan Macquarie, a former governor of NSW. The suburb’s streets are named after contemporaries of Macquarie.

Macquarie is located in the inner-north Canberra district of Belconnen. It is bordered to the north by Belconnen Way, Bindubi Street to the east, Redfern Street to the south and Coulter Drive to the west.

Helping kids reach their potential

IF something is not quite right with a child physically and socially, early intervention with physiotherapy makes a huge difference, says local physiotherapist

Shannon Orefice.

She opened Leaps & Bounds Paediatric Physiotherapy in Macquarie early last year and is dedicated to help the children, from the ages of 0 to 18, reach their full potential.

With more than 12 years’ experience in the industry Shannon can help a child whether they need short bursts of physiotherapy or long-term support.

“We pride ourselves on communicating with families, childcare educators, other members of your health care team, and school teachers,” she says.

Leaps & Bounds Paediatric Physiotherapy, 1 Macquarie Place, Macquarie. Call 0452 005437, email info@leapsandboundsphysio.com or visit leapsandboundsphysio.com

Canberra’s own taste of Turkey

THE Turkish Pide House, Canberra’s first Turkish restaurant, has been in the family since it opened about 30 years ago, says owner Steve Kazanc.

“You can taste the traditional Turkish culture in the food,” Steve says. “But there’s also a mixture of homestyle cooking, Mediterranean cooking and modern cooking.”

Its new modern extension to the menu adds the extra option of food items such as steak and seafood.

Turkish Pide House’s main chef, Steve’s

mum, “the mummy”, was born in Turkey and came to Australia in 1995.

“She loves cooking, she doesn’t know how to let go of the spoon and the knife,” Steve says.

And, if people are looking for a place to host a function, Steve says the family-friendly restaurant has the perfect cushion-seating area out the back.

Turkish Pide House, 2 Lawry Place, Jamison Centre. Call 6251 3325 or visit turkishpidehousebelconnen.com.au

Bank helps first-home buyers

THE bank that gives back to the community, Bendigo Bank, is giving back to first-home buyers with its special promotion on interest rates, says mobile relationship manager Jacob Krog.

First home buyers will also be eligible to go in a draw to win a $500 Flight Centre gift card.

“We can help guide first-home buyers through the process of buying their new home,” Jacob says.

“We will help with everything and show the difference between buying a house, or a unit, or an apartment.”

With the benefit of the special promotion combined with Bendigo Bank’s 13 years of experience in lending, Jacob says there’s no better bank to help.

“We have the experience to guide buyers through all the steps and tell them about the

pitfalls to look out for,” he says.

“And, the customers’ money will go back into the community because we’re a community bank.”

Jacob can come to any interested customer, or he says, people are more than welcome to come into the branch and meet the customer-focused, Macquarie branch team.

Bendigo Bank, Shop D05, Jamison Plaza, Bowman Street, Macquarie. Call Jacob on 0418 329087 or email jacob.krog@bendigoadelaide.com.au

advertising feature

Governor Macquarie

Oliver brings fitness to the people

WITH a passion to help each client achieve their personal goals, the owner of Gym To You, Oliver Wiederkehr is bringing fitness to the people.

Oliver, who has always enjoyed helping people achieve their goals in health and fitness, has created a flexible gym where clients have the option to come into the permanent Macquarie gym or have the gym come to them.

“Whether it’s at home, work or the local park, a Gym To You trainer will meet you at your most convenient location,” says Oliver.

“In the outdoor sessions there’s the convenience and the enjoyment of being in the fresh air and it also increases a person’s accountability because there’s no excuse to not come into the gym. We are bringing the gym to them.”

Gym To You has an accredited exercise physiologist, Callum Smith, who specialises in helping clients who have come back from injury.

Gym To You, 27 Wiseman Street, Macquarie. Call 0450 923446, email enquiries@gymtoyou.net or visit gymtoyou.net

Dentists who love their work

LOCATED in the Jamison Centre, Jamison Dental Care’s small family business understands how important teeth are to a person’s health, appearance and self-confidence.

The Jamison Dental Care team say they genuinely love dentistry, interacting with patients and making a difference to the way they feel.

And, because of this, the friendly team can organise financial plans, special appointments and treatment options to be individually customised for their clients.

Jamison Dental Care offers services such as preventative dentistry, aesthetic dentistry, restorative dentistry, orthodontics, children’s dentistry, root canal, dentures, extractions and post operative instructions.

Whether it’s to improve a smile or provide a treatment Jamison Dental Care provides safe, comfortable and ethical dentistry.

Jamison Dental Care, Unit 6/3 Jamison Centre, Bowman Street, Macquarie. Call 6251 5443, email admin@ jamisondental.info or visit as13837.dposite.com

Hi home. Bye home.

$500 Flight Centre gift card first home buyers*.

Be one of the first 80 first home buyers to take out a Connect Home Loan Package, and we’ll give you a $500 Flight Centre gift card* Unpack in your first home, then pack for your next holiday.

•

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‘Venue staff can play a key role in providing a safer and enjoyable experience.’

Gambling harms health, wellbeing and relationships

GAMBLING affects people more than financially, which is why Gambling Harm Awareness Week, from October 30 to November 3, will encourage venues to help prevent and reduce gambling harm in the community.

During the week, it will raise awareness that gambling harm doesn’t just affect a person financially, it also affects the health, wellbeing and relationships of the person gambling, as well as their friends, family and community.

Canberra isn’t immune to these effects either with 15,000 people in the ACT experiencing harm from gambling and a further 43,000 people in the community having a close family member who has experienced gambling harm.

“Approaches to minimising gambling harm have previously focused on the negative impacts of gambling on the relatively small number of people identified as problem gamblers,” says Gambling and Racing Commission CEO David Snowden.

“However, recent research indicates that many other people are also impacted by gambling harm. These harms often affect their families and friends as well.”

Gambling harm is not limited to problem gamblers, with gamblers at a low or moderate risk of problem gambling accounting for more than two thirds of all gambling harm.

This year the ACT Gambling and Racing Commission is focusing on raising awareness of gambling harm amongst commu nity organisations and supporting gambling venues to strengthen their capacity to recognise and respond when their customers experience gambling harm.

On Monday, October 30, Minister Gordon Ramsay will launch a Gambling Harm Venue Support Kit.

The kits will be supplied to venues providing them with resources to support gambling venue staff in this important role.

“The kit will raise awareness amongst gambling venue staff of the indicators of gambling harm and support the process within venues to encourage appropriate responses to customers experiencing harm,” says Mr Snowden.

“Venue staff can play a key role in providing a safer and enjoyable experience for all their customers.

“The kit also contains material to raise awareness of gambling harm, strategies to prevent or reduce harm and links to further

information and help for gamblingvenue customers.

“The Gambling and Racing Commission is committed to working with venues to ensure that Canberrans experiencing harm are provided with the assistance they need and that our community expects from gambling providers

Gambling and Racing Commission is hosting a briefing breakfast for leaders in the community sector in Canberra.

Guest speakers include Associate Prof Matthew Browne from CQ University, Canberra mum Kate Seselja and Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation CEO Louise Glanville.

The event will inform community leaders about the range and extent of harms and seek their input and engagement with raising literacy about gambling harm in the broader ACT community.

Information and help is available to anyone experiencing gambling harm, or who wants to know more about the harmful impacts that gambling can have.

15,000 people in the ACT experience harm from gambling and a further 43,000 people in the community have a close family member who has experienced gambling harm.

help make Canberra a safer and healthier place to live for all Canberrans. The Gambling and Racing Commission gamblingandracing.act.gov.au/

Gambling harm is any negative impact from gambling. It’s not just about losing money. Gambling can also harm your:

Most people who experience gambling harm are NOT problem gamblers. If you gamble more than $40 a week or more than once per week, you have a higher risk of gambling harm.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Girls will be boys will be girls in ‘filthy’ play

stage and screen, as well as giving birth to a son, now a very audible two-year-old.

Directed by Caroline Stacey with a team of creatives, “Boys Will Be the trading floor and a “woman

normally crushes them, until Priya, an ambitious new junior, catches her eye.

So far it sounds awfully like “The Devil Wears Prada”, but there the resemblance ends.

Astrid is like Meryl Streep’s character in being boss within the male arena, but Bubnic points out to me one key difference – her play is intended to be played by an all-female cast playing girls and boys alike.

That’s an old Brechtian technique, designed to put the audience on alert that they’re watching people play out a scenario.

Bubnic compounds the effect by setting it in a cabaret milieu, complete with songs made famous by ‘50s and ‘60s go-getters such as Peggy Lee, Nina Simone and Etta James, but sung by Astrid herself. That, and the politically incorrect-

Pulvers’ film “Star Sand”... seen in cinemas across Japan as well as at the 27th Fajr Festival in Tehran, where it won the Crystal Simorgh Prize for Best Script.

By Helen Musa PLAYWRIGHT, novelist,

essayist, broadcaster and linguistic polymath, Roger Pulvers still calls Canberra home, and he’ll be here next week with the Australian premiere of his first feature film to prove it.

“Star Sand”, set in the Japanese region of Okinawa, is claimed by the Canberra International Film Festival as “ours”, joining Kim Beamish’s Merimbula-set doco “Oyster” in the line-up of full-length “local” films.

Director of the Canberra International Film Festival, Andrew Pike and contemporary programmer, Alice Taylor, are balancing retro with contemporary titles on a 50-50 basis this year, with the spotlight falling on director Jacques Tourneur, actress Googie Withers, the contemporary Cannes-winning comedy “The Square” and the Hungarian Golden Bear-winner “On Body and Soul”.

But Pike’s heart is in Asian film, as the name of his company Ronin Films indicates, and the inclusion of “Star Sand” is part of a drive to make “our” film festival unique.

The film has been seen in cinemas across Japan as well as at the 27th Fajr Festival in Tehran, where it won the Crystal Simorgh Prize for Best Script.

In the film, 16-year-old Hiromi is seen on the beach of an Okinawan island hunting for “star sand” (star-shaped shells) in 1945, when she finds a Japanese army deserter and an American soldier hiding in a cave. Jumping forward to 1958, a diary is found in the

cave along with the remains of three people, but it isn’t until 2016 that a female student in Tokyo uncovers the mystery.

The play is based on Pulvers’ best-selling novel of the same name. It was entirely shot in Japan, but it’s the culmination of an extraordinary career that centres on the formative eight years he spent in the ACT.

Born in the Bronx then trained in Japanese language and literature in Japan, Pulvers came to the ANU as a lecturer in Japanese during August 1972, moved into the Northbourne Flats and found a city in celebratory mode preparing for the election of Gough Whitlam as prime minister and thought, “this is amazing”.

Even now, living in Sydney after many years spent in Japan, he says: “I don’t feel at home in Sydney the way I do in Canberra.”

Plunging into the cultural whirlpool of the time, he immersed himself in Canberra’s theatre scene, joined legendary director Ralph Wilson in staging play after play, mounted the “Fill the Shell” movement to transform the ANU Arts Centre into a going concern and became an Australian citizen.

In 1979 Pulvers was offered a gig as playwright-in-residence at Playbox Theatre in Melbourne, took it, and threw himself into full-time playwriting. But the lure of Japan was too strong, so when celebrated film director Nagisa Oshima invited

him to become his assistant on the film “Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence” he headed north once more. It was a revelation. Pulvers slaved from 4.30am until late doing everything conceivable and travelling as far as Rarotonga, where the film, starring David Bowie, was shot.

“I watched very carefully and learnt the basics,” he says. He considers “Star Sand” a “little sister” to Oshima’s classic.

But 35 years elapsed before he made the movie, a plan repeatedly thwarted by the financial doldrums in Japan. Living with his family in Tokyo he immersed himself in the cultural world, publishing more than 50 books, winning prizes as a translator and writing a column for “The Japan Times” while dashing back to direct plays such as his production of Strindberg’s play “Dance of Death” for Bell Shakespeare, seen only in Canberra and Nagoya.

“Star Sand” posits the idea that the truly brave people are those who refuse to fight. It’s an evercontentious argument in Japan. He praises the Japanese production company that supported him and his cast with whom he would like to work on another film.

Roger Pulvers will talk about “Star Sand” at the Arc Cinema, 6pm, Sunday, October 29. Canberra International Film Festival, October 26-November 5. Bookings to ciff.com.au

Season of genre-busting drama

By arts editor Helen Musa

HAMLET’S favourite actors were famed for their expertise in “tragical-comical-historicalpastoral” plays, and if you throw in some music and dance, that pretty well sums up Canberra Theatre Centre’s 2018 “Collected Works” subscription season.

This is a season that spells out the theatre’s commitment to good acting and genre-busting plays.

First up in February is a tribute to theatrical royalty as Amanda Muggleton reprises her role as diva Maria Callas in Terrence McNally’s celebrated play “Master Class”. Former Canberra director and Olivier award-winner Adam Spreadbury-Maher returns from the King’s Head Theatre in London to direct.

On the tragical-historical front, Bell Shakespeare is to the fore with “Antony and Cleopatra” (billed contentiously as “the most famous couple that ever lived”), directed by Peter Evans and a second play, “Julius Caesar”, directed as a political thriller by Bell’s associate director James Evans in his first main-stage production for the company.

A pastoral motif abounds in the decor for the SA Theatre Company’s production of Kate Wallis’s Austen adaptation “Sense and Sensibility”, surely a crowd pleaser, between the Canberra International Music Bonachela’s full-length work “ab [intra]”

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and Opera Australia reprising John Bell’s English-language production of “Madame Butterfly”.

A first for the centre is a quirky collection of “Indie Works”, programming manager Gill Hugonnet’s personal selection of more outrageous shows, not least the hilarious “Oedipus Schmoedipus”, which gives women and the audience a role to play in death scenes from the great tragedies.

In a genuine coup, the theatre has secured the “rip-roaring, heartbreaking” play, “A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer” from London’s Complicité company in collaboration with writer Bryony Kimmings.

Great news for Canberra is that our very own Pigeonhole Theatre has been engaged for a production of Joanna Murray Smith’s play “Switzerland”, directed by Jordan Best and featuring two of our top actors, Karen Vickery and Lachlan Ruffy.

And after this year’s musicals, it’s time to jump on to the Deadwood Stagecoach for Hayes Theatre’s rare revival of “Calamity Jane”, starring Virginia Gay and featuring simply wonderful songs such as “Black Hills of Dakota,” and “Secret Love.”

The season winds up with the Wharf Revue’s brand of “excruciating jokes and acidic satire”.

Subscription bookings for “Collected Works 2018” to canberratheatrecentre.com.au or 6275 2700.

ARTS IN THE CITY

Guys, dolls, songs and lurve

“GUYS and Dolls” is coming to The Q in a new produc tion by the Queanbeyan Players. Based on stories by Damon Runyon, the plot sees gambler Sky Masterson falling in love with Salvos’ missionary Sarah Brown, while crap-player Nathan De troit keeps delaying marriage to his fiancé, Miss Adelaide. The songs are fabulous. Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, November 3-12. Bookings to 6285 6290 or theq.net.au

THE 2017 Jewish International Film Festival is in its 28th year and celebrates Jewish culture with films from 24 countries, including “Shalom Bollywood: the Untold Story of Indian Cinema” and “Jungle”, starring Daniel Radcliffe of “Harry Potter” fame, the survival story of Australian-based Israeli entrepreneur Yossi Ghinsberg. At Dendy Cinemas, November 2-12. Bookings to jiff.com.au

When Harry met… Alice

By Dougal Macdonald

“Home Again” (M)

IT grieves me to tell readers that the most appropriate short evaluation for this romantic, Hollywood-insider, little family movie is “vapid”.

Reese Witherspoon plays Alice, daughter of an Oscar-winning movie-director and his widow Lillian (the luminous Candice Bergen). With her two kids, Alice has fled New York from her marriage with Austen (Michael Sheen) to her family’s Hollywood home where she’s about to celebrate her 40th birthday with the girls at a booze-a-thon.

In the same bar are three young men feeling good about the success of their short film. Writer George (Jon Rudnitsky) and star Teddy (Nat Wolff) are wondering where to live after eviction from their motel. One look at Alice leaves director Harry (Pico Alexander) smitten beyond redemption.

Harry comes on to Alice. Lillian suggests that Alice invite the three to crash in the vacant guest house.

Alice’s sweet nature coupled with her inability to stand up and say “No!” when anybody asks her to do a menial favour, makes us yearn for her, having already demonstrated a measure of mettle by leaving Austen, now to stand up for herself. But no, writer/ director Hallie Meyers-Shyer isn’t ready to let that happen yet.

Instead, she brings Austen to LA yearning to see his three women. Austen’s arrival is the film’s first real tense moment. Alice and Harry come home from eating out and are heading for the bed they’ve been sharing for several nights.

Alice breaks free of her complaisant mould when she learns that the first client of her new interior decorating business has also engaged somebody else to do the same job. But even when Alice, Austen, their kids, the three young men and Lillian gather at the dinner table to celebrate the play that the older daughter has written for the school drama festival, it’s a sweet moment on which to roll closing credits but, like I said at the beginning – vapid.

Saturday, November 4. The featured artist will be Australian organist David Macfarlane, who will perform masterworks by J S Bach from 1.15pm to 2pm. Non-participants are welcome to watch. Bookings to wesleymc@ music.wesleycanberra.org.au or 6232 7248 or at the door.

THE ACT Churchill Fellows’ Association, the Canberra Recorder Orchestra and the Wayfarers Choir will perform a free concert at the High Court of Australia, 1.30pm, on Sunday, October 29. Registrations to hcourt.gov.au

“Home Again” offers nothing unkind. But its lack of bite, while doing it no harm, does it no favours. At all cinemas

“The Snowman” (MA)

THE advance promotion for the third film based on a novel by Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbø threatened to churn our stomachs with its grisly horror passages. True, the murder technique favoured by its serial killer uses a nifty development of what, until 1975, was the Spanish method of legal execution. But there are no grounds for calling “The Snowman” a horror story. It’s an intelligent, complex thriller, performed by a strongly skilled cast in a Norwegian winter environment.

In 2015, Norway is bidding to hold Winter Games. Industrialist Arve (JK Simmons) is a major sponsor of the bid. He’s also a bit of a creep with nubile young women. He’s just one of a number of characters with person-of-interest status in the investigation to which Chief Inspector Aasen (Adrian Dunbar) assigns detective Harry (Michael Fassbender) to catch a killer who signs his work by building a snowman outside the crime scene.

ARTSOUND FM’s big, annual fundraiser, the Spring Book and Music Fair will offer a choice of quality CDs, vinyl, DVDs and books. At the Manuka Arts Centre, 10am-4pm, over the weekend of November 4-5.

AUSTRAL Harmony is host-

MUSICA da Camera will present “Music from Mannheim”, conducted by Swiss cellist Christian Renggli and joined by wind players from the National Capital Orchestra. Young viola player Justin Julian will perform Karl Stamitz’s Viola Concerto in D major. At Holy Covenant Church, Cook, 2.30pm, on Saturday, November 4 and the

CANBERRA Youth Orchestra winds up its 50th anniversary celebrations with a performance led by trumpeter James Morrison. They’ll be playing jazz and Latin favourites and, under the baton of conductor Leonard Weiss, will also perform Gershwin’s “An American in Paris” and Copland’s “Appalachian Spring”. Llewellyn Hall, 7.30pm, Saturday, November 11. Bookings to ticketek.com.au

Harry’s investigation moves between Oslo and Bergen, providing some challenging and beautiful locations. His assistant Katrine (Rebecca Ferguson) is so beautiful. And independent, which is a familiar dramatic ploy for intensifying tension.

What I like about this film is the subtlety of its many complexities. My stomach did not churn whenever director Tomas Alfredson filled the screen with neatly-severed body parts – a head, a finger, each delivering its particular dramatic punch. All’s grist to “The Snowman’s” mill. Solid entertainment, with no visible need to deliver a message.

At all cinemas

WINE DINING / zaab, braddon

‘Lesser’ wines with warm memories

By Richard Calver

HUGH Johnson knows wine. He wrote the preface to the best secret Santa gift I have ever received: the book “1001 Wines You Must Try Before You Die”.

And, in that preface, he says: “The finest wines can go unappreciated and wines of much lesser status can create moments of sublime enjoyment.”

The tale of trying a wine or wines from the book can wait. This is, instead, a tale of two “lesser” wines that gave the sublime enjoyment Johnson speaks of: context is everything. The place, the company you keep and the situation, the ambience, delivers the most worthwhile of memories.

The first wine was served at the 2017 Savour Awards for the ACT run by the Restaurant and Catering Association. The awards were recently held at the Hyatt Hotel and I was kindly invited.

of the owners of Wild Duck, which won restaurant of the year.

The second was a wine plucked from the latest release by my wine club. It was chosen from the latest dozen sent. The context this time was a farewell. I have turned my back on trying to get intermittent rentals for my small cottage at Tathra and I was doing a final clean up before tenants move in for six months. I was being fed a farewell dinner by a lovely neighbour whose young children are six and four so a meal with them is an adventure, especially as the four-year-old is channelling fairies. Home-made pizzas were the fare de jour. And the Jackson’s Hill 2017 Pinot Grigio worked perfectly.

The wine that appealed was the Taylor Made American Oak Malbec, 2015. The wine is almost “chewy” with plum flavours, very fruit driven, although the tannins are firm. Malbec is usually associated with Argentina where it is the main grape variety grown. It is a meat lover’s wine. On the menu was superb smoked duck for entrée and slow-cooked beef cheeks for main.

The wine complemented the food and the conversation turned to gauchos, large grass-fed steaks and South America being firmly on my companion’s bucket list (Rio before Argentina, though). There was dancing but no tango, more of a tangle. It was a night where you just didn’t care that you missed your favourite TV show. We left with large smiles: but none wider than on the faces

A glass of this greenapple, fresh-flavoured, soft wine has enough acid to cut through pizza and was as light and airy as the dancing four-year-old fairy. In fact, the bottle went as an aperitif before we even sank our fangs into the still-baking crust! As the wind whipped up and jumpers were pulled on over flowing, floaty dresses (except for me, although I would donate to that charity Do It in a Dress) I knew that this would be a crystalline moment where the sharing laughter, the eager chat of happy children and smell of the ocean would stay with me in my mind’s eye for a long time.

Jackson’s Hill is in Orange, NSW and the region is planted to 40 per cent white and 60 per cent red wines. It produces grapes defined by its altitude, extending from 600 metres to over 1000 metres, and related cool-climate characteristics. The area produces wines of good quality. I reckon it would only take a glass of an Orange Pinot Gris or even bite into a green apple and the happy Tathra farewell will return.

“Every man’s memory is his private literature.” – Aldous Huxley

Intense taste of street food

You sit on low stools like you would on the street. It’s edgy but relaxed all in one go. And fun.

NO matter where you travel, street food is often the best food. Authentic. Down to earth. So delicious and a cultural experience.

Zaab brings Lao-Thai street food to us here in Canberra.

A dozen dishes feature in the street-food section of the menu. Zaab also celebrates curries, whips up food in the wok and offers a selection of “grilled and crispy”. The flavours are intense and delicious (some downright spicy). Just select and share away over good conversation.

Five of us headed into Zaab one night.

The betel leaf ($4 each) is fun to eat. Fold it up and pop it in your mouth. Easy and delicious. The larb bites, crunchy on the outside, are perfect packages of punchy flavours ($8). They’re addicting and perfect with an icy cold beer. The honeyroasted quails ($12) were succulent and not overly sweet. Just sticky and scrumptious.

The curry line-up includes chicken yellow, duck red and a beef massaman. We got stuck into the beef which was amazing. The slow-cooked beef was so tender and the hearty potatoes absorbed the special family curry blend beautifully ($23). We’d return just for this dish.

The Zaab Zone part of the menu is for those who like the heat turned on full blast with their food. Like the Crying Tiger ($16), medium-rare grilled beef with super spicy Thai herbs and dressing. Other Zaab Zone dishes include Glass noodle salad ($16), grilled King prawns with lemongrass dressing ($20) and a green paw paw salad, which you can order Thai style or Lao style ($12).

We didn’t have time for sweets but bet the mango panna cotta ($10) would be a creamy,

cool way to reduce the heat factor. Fifteen beers are up for grabs, from Laos, Thailand, Japan, China, Singapore, Indonesia and a few from Australia (from $7.50). Cocktails include the Mekong Jungle, Screaming Zaab and Watermelon Massacre (average $18). Nonalcoholic punches, juices and iced teas are also available.

Zaab’s décor is designed around eating on the street, with lots of raw materials and imported furniture

iron on the walls, heaps of bright beer signs (with Asian beers, including Tiger and Chang). Graffiti is another design feature and you sit on low stools like you would on the street. It’s edgy but relaxed all in one go. And fun.

The staff were great. Very knowledgeable and efficient. Happy to turn the blaring music down a notch or two so we could hear ourselves talk without screaming at

Zaab, Unit 2, 9 Lonsdale Street, Braddon. Call 6156 5638. Open 5pm to late, seven days.

Aged Composted Horse Manure

BULBS, tubers and corms provide beautiful colour not just in spring but throughout the year.

Even before the daffodils finish, tulips burst into flower with their bright, bold colours. As they die down, the Dutch irises bloom followed rapidly by Scilla peruviana, commonly called the Cuban lily, which originates from the Mediterranean, as do so many bulbs.

Its petals open around the outside of the flower with the central flowers opening over a period of a couple of weeks. The leaves are virtually evergreen and the bulb multiplies readily. There is a white variety, but that’s harder to find.

ANYONE looking for colour in pots, especially for hot balconies, think of succulents. Besides the variety of greens and grey foliage, the delicate but delightful flowers provide endless joy.

The Cactus and Succulent Society will have an extensive display and sale of plants at the Horticultural Society’s Spring Exhibition and Rose Show at the Wesley Church Centre, National Circuit, Forrest, over the weekend of November 11-12. The society will also hold a Succulent Day Free Event at the Arboretum’s Discovery Garden, 9.30am-2.30pm on Saturday, November 18.

WE are coming into lavender time, one of the world’s favourite plants.

The best lavender for drying, making potpourri or even lavender-scented soap is the English Lavandula “Munstead”, a dwarf variety found originally in the Surrey garden of inimitable English gardener, Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932). Or the taller L. “Hidcote” from Hidcote Manor in Somerset.

In Australia, the place to see lavender is Bridestowe, near Launceston in Tasmania. There they distill the purest of English lavender to supply the French perfume trade.

French lavenders can be identified by their top petals sticking up like rabbit’s ears. Plant Growers Australia is at the forefront of producing

new French lavenders. Their latest releases include Lavandula “Winter Lace”, L. “Lace” and L. “Violet Lace”. These are one of the first to flower in spring, complementing their L. ”Princess” lavender, which has been crowned the inaugural winner of the Australian Plant of the Year by the Nursery and Garden Industry.

WHILE on the subject of fragrance, this is the time of the year for the tantalising fragrance of citrus flowers. Now is an ideal time to plant citrus and, at this time, they are just coming into flower.

The strongest fragrance is just as the flowers open. Citrus originated in China, although oranges have been grown in the Mediterranean region for more than 2000 years. Oranges have been grown commercially in China for more than 3000 years. The plant hunter Meyer in 1911 noted more than 80 kinds of edible oranges grown in China. Citrus, particularly kumquats, are a traditional house-warming present and for the Chinese New Year.

CORNUS capitata is one of the most interesting evergreen dog woods that grow well in this area. It is indigenous to the Himalaya and introduced into Western gardens by the early plant hunters in 1822.

The RHS gave it the Award of Garden Merit in 1922 for its flowers and, unusually, again in 1974 for its fruit.

The sulphur-coloured bracts over several weeks gradually change to pale lime-green and then to a bronze-pink. The fruit is almost identical to pale red strawberries.

However, I don’t recommend de ciduous dogwoods for an exposed garden in new suburbs. They need protection from hot summer winds and should be planted among well-established trees and shrubs to ensure adequate protection from the elements.

Jottings…

mulch ensure the soil is thoroughly wet.

• Thinking of a low hedge as an alternative to Buxus or box, then go native with Westringia “Deep Purple”, growing to just one metre by one metre, although it can be kept small by regular clipping.

• Divide Scilla peruviana bulbs as soon as the leaves start to fade. It is dormant for a very short time.

• Very important: when spreading

• Don’t wait until the leaves of bulbs have died down and look a mess before digging them up. The leaves can be cut back six weeks after flowering.

• The Growing Friends of the Australian National Botanic Gardens are holding their spring plant sale in the Banks Building car park at the gardens, 8.30am-11am, on

PUZZLES PAGE

Joanne Madeline Moore

ARIES (Mar 21 – Apr 20)

Joint ventures and relationship improvements are on the table, but don’t spoil a potentially positive and productive week by being impulsive and putting your foot firmly in your mouth! Slow down and think before you speak, and consult with others before you make an important move. Saturday’s Full Moon highlights hiccups in your financial management. So when it comes to money matters, aim to be less impulsive and extravagant, and much more cautious and thrifty.

TAURUS (Apr 21 – May 20)

It’s the perfect week to clean, tidy, organise and redecorate your work space or home office, so it increases your creativity and boosts your productivity. Saturday’s Full Moon (in your sign) emphasises your practical side, as a project is finally completed (or a problem comes to a head). Do your best to handle current situations in a suitably sensible and stylish fashion. When it comes to a romance, friendship or business partnership, avoid getting stuck in a boring rut.

GEMINI (May 21 – June 21)

Don’t let your spontaneous enthusiasm (for an exciting new creative project or joint venture) overtake your ability to knuckle down and get the job done. If you promise more than you can deliver, then others will just end up feeling disappointed. With the help of Saturday’s Full Moon, use the power of your fertile imagination to get to the bottom of a problem that’s been bothering you. Plus listen to the wisdom of your inner voice. It will point you in the direction that’s right for you.

CANCER (June 22 – July 22)

Family and work matters are favoured, as Saturn stabilises relationships and boosts productivity. Someone may question your aspirations for the future though. Time to ask yourself: “Am I full of big dreams but short on practical details?” Sensitive Crabs are often over-emotional around the time of the Full Moon but this one’s in earthy Taurus, so you’ll feel more emotionally grounded than usual. That doesn’t mean there won’t be some disruptive surprises along the way!

LEO (July 23 – Aug 22)

This week Venus and Mars provide plenty of opportunities to make fortuitous connections and sharpen your communication skills, both in person and online. With the Full Moon illuminating your career zone, find ways to inspire others and shine more brightly on the job. You’re feeling positive about a current challenge and your sunny smile has the power to lift the mood of those around you. But sometimes there’s a fine line between being optimistic and unrealistic.

VIRGO (Aug 23 – Sept 22)

Attached Virgo – the Sun and Neptune activate your relationship zone, so do your best to add some romantic sizzle to the relationship. Single? The stars favour finding your soul mate online, as long as you are realistic. (Remember – the ‘perfect’ partner doesn’t exist! Everyone has weaknesses.) Then the Full Moon stimulates your adventure and study zones, so it’s time to travel and/or learn something new. But if you rush communication – then it could lead to mix-ups over money.

LIBRA (Sept 23 – Oct 23)

Expect a week of topsy-turvy extremes. Saturn helps stabilise a rocky relationship so that you start to feel more certain about the future. But then Uranus comes along and stirs things up all over again! So do your best to find some mutually agreeable middle ground. Saturday’s Full Moon stimulates your spending gene. But before you start splashing cash around – make sure you consult with your romantic or business partner, so you know you’re both on the same financial page.

SCORPIO (Oct 24 – Nov 21)

The planets encourage you to approach challenges with plenty of passion, intelligence and resilience. Be inspired by fellow Scorpio, painter Georgia O’Keeffe: “I’ve been terrified every moment of my life and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.” Saturday’s Full Moon shines a spotlight on your relationship skills. Don’t have any? You’d better get some fast, as you turn up your charm and sex appeal – and turn down your jealous and possessive streak.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22 – Dec 21)

You’re keen to be in charge but are you being the boss – or just plain bossy? Saturn and Venus encourage you to utilise your leadership skills in disciplined and diplomatic ways that result in cooperation rather than consternation! On Friday your creativity and compassion are sparked, as you connect with your inner muse or help a family member in need. Saturday looks lively, when the Full Moon and Uranus upset your plans for a peaceful and worry-free weekend.

CAPRICORN (Dec 22 – Jan 19)

With the help of diplomatic Venus and proactive Mars, strive to anticipate (and smooth over) work-place hassles before they actually happen. Friday’s Venus/ Saturn connection is fabulous for love, money, career and business. Saturday’s Full Moon favours romance, friendships, socialising, entertaining and networking as you mix and mingle. Attached Caps – strive to be extra romantic with your partner. Singles – if you’ve had your eye on someone special, prepare to pounce in style!

AQUARIUS (Jan 20 – Feb 18)

The Full Moon heralds a house move, home renovation, family fiasco, uninvited guests or some other kind of domestic drama. Whatever happens, strive to get the balance right between your public life and your private responsibilities. Then Venus and Uranus urge you to shake up a close relationship. Is that a good idea? It probably is, because you are not suited to a ‘normal’ partnership (whether of the romantic, platonic or business variety). For you ‘weird’ can be wonderful.

PISCES (Feb 19 – Mar 20)

The current stars favour romance, creativity and spirituality. But are your aspirations ambitious enough? There’s no room for false modesty or passive procrastination! It’s a terrific week to enjoy talking, texting, posting, promoting, socialising and circulating. The Full Moon also stimulates your thought processes and encourages you to come up with a cracking plan, and then stick to it. An unwelcome surprise (involving finances, taxes or loyalty) could unsettle you though.

Copyright Joanne Madeline Moore 2017

Across

4 Who was also known as Joseph Furphy, Tom ...? (7)

8 Quito is the capital of which S American republic? (7)

9 Who used the magic words “open sesame”? (3,4)

10 What is marine algae more commonly known as? (7)

11 Name the account books of final entry, containing all the accounts. (7)

12 What is anything published, broadcast, etc, in many instalments at regular intervals? (6)

14 Who was Huckleberry Finn’s mate, Tom ...? (6)

18 Name one of the world’s greatest tennis players, Roger ... (7)

21 What is an arithmetical mean called? (7)

22 What is the citadel of Moscow, formerly the chief office of the Soviet government? (7)

23 Name another term for a pharmacist. (7)

24 Which Australian bank is known as the central bank? (7)

Down

1 Which small carnivores of the mustelidae family have long slender bodies, and feed mainly on small rodents? (7)

2 Name a gold coin formerly in wide use in European countries. (5)

3 Which term describes appendixes to books? (7)

4 What is a little cot for an infant? (6)

5 What, in Scotland, is a landed proprietor? (5)

6 To act in a silly manner, is to act how. (7)

7 What, colloquially, do we call cartons of 24 drink cans, or small bottles? (5)

13 Which US composer teamed up with Lorenz Hart and later, Oscar Hammerstein, Richard ...? (7)

15 Name the units of electrical current. (7)

16 Who painted “Bailed Up”, etc, etc, Tom ...? (7)

17 What is an induced hypnotic state? (6)

18 Name a Hindu religious ascetic. (5)

19 What is another term for a sovereign? (5)

20 Which expression is descriptive of the lowest point? (5)

Worried, Dennis came to see me confused about having to pay $4876 on his business’ annual Business Activity Statement when it was making a loss.

“Dennis, you will recall that last year you had the choice of paying an instalment nominated by the Australian Taxation Office or using your actual figures in the calculation of GST,” I reminded him.

“At that time, we discussed whether you should take the instalment option and agreed that, as you had been having a turbulent time financially, it provided you with some certainty, so you took this option.

“You were then certain as to your GST liability in each quarterly BAS and now, at the end of the year, would either have a shortfall to pay or you would have overpaid and would, in fact, get a refund when the annual BAS was lodged.”

“I have now finalised your accounts and note that you have made a loss. But in preparing the annual BAS, I also calculated there was a shortfall of GST paid. I can understand you thinking that because you have made a loss that there should not be a GST shortfall.

“GST is calculated on purchases and sales at the rate of 10 per cent on most items. So, if there is GST on every sale and every purchase, then a loss for income tax purposes would likely result in your having paid enough GST in your BAS’s. “However, there are some large items in the accounts which do not have GST, for example salaries and superannuation and some other items that have an input tax credit of less than 10 per cent.

“I always do a quick mental check to see if the final GST figure is within the ballpark. For example, as your sales are $500,000 then GST on sales is $50,000 and as your total expenses are $650,000, you need to subtract salaries and super of $300,000 which gives you $350,000 of sales with input tax credits of $35,000. So a rough estimate of your GST is $15,000 payable.”

“I note that you have paid $10,000 in instalments, so I would expect you to have to pay about $5000 for GST in your annual BAS. The actual figure is $4876, which seems to be about right. So even though you have made a loss, you still have some GST to pay at the end of the year.”

Unconsoled, but resigned to paying the tax, Dennis agreed there was a lot to digest, but felt he had a better understanding of the BAS and instalment system.

If you feel you need a better understanding of how BAS and GST work, please contact the friendly team at Gail Freeman & Co Pty Ltd on 6295 2844.

Greg* owned his own business when he and his wife were involved in a road accident that wasn’t their fault. They suffered injuries which required Greg and his wife to give up their family business. Because they were injured in Victoria, they didn’t receive adequate compensation. If the accident had happened in the ACT, Greg and his wife would have been fully covered.

The ACT Government’s pilot citizens’ jury is currently considering how much compensation is fair for all Canberrans. Your rights will be decided over just a few weekends. As a result of this process, you may lose your right to proper compensation.