‘Have you been to this theatre before?’ The man was a stranger, but he had a friendly manner, and it was another 20 minutes before the band would start playing.
‘No, does it show?’
He laughed and we fell into conversation about live music – his wife, like me, had come armed with ear plugs – and what had brought us to the south coast. They were former Sydneysiders who had settled in the area a year ago, wanting to embrace a different lifestyle as well as be closer to a 40-hectare bush property they owned farther down the coast.
‘We have friends in the district who used to live in Sydney,’ I said. ‘We’re just down for the weekend.’
‘And will you be making the move, too?’
There is a strong validation theme running through the sea and tree changers we encounter. While the stranger in the seat next to me wasn’t pushy, some of our now out-of-town friends don’t mince words. It’s one thing to celebrate the virtues of regional life we less fortunate folks enjoy, but suggesting that Sydney Harbour is a bog and that city dwellers don’t make eye contact in public places, is unfair. I could point out that the Harbour is clean enough for me to swim in and that a promenade thronging with strangers is hardly conducive to an exchange of nods. I could also remind the critics of how often they return to the city for cultural events and specialist health services.
Sure, Sydney traffic sucks, but if I want to do something spontaneously – like sign up for a comedy festival at short notice – I don’t have to think about accommodation or finding a house sitter first. The big city has threshold, something Shangri La by The Sea will never possess. It’s what justifies the provision of international airports, teaching hospitals, myriad arts events and outdoor swimming pools that stay open all year round. It supports chain stores that sell parmesan skins – Grana, no less – a staple of our diet. That store is thinly distributed outside Sydney and not at all on the south coast.
Perhaps saying ‘not going to happen ever’ to my theatre acquaintance was a tad blunt, but it’s true. I love the alternating pulse and quietude of the city, the fact that I can embrace its charms and attractions or disappear into a cone of anonymity when I want to. Detractors may argue that the ease of self isolation is a fundamental problem of where I live, but – according to one set of friends who decamped to a small country town – the alternative is pressure to join mates at the pub every night because there’s nothing else to do after 8pm.
Not so anonymous and far from retiring was Barry Humphries. Shortly before he died, the comedian who invented Dame Edna Everage was interviewed for an episode of the Australian version of Who do you think you are? part of the international franchise and an adaptation of the original British series of the same name. At the end of the segment Humphries declared, truthfully if arrogantly, that he was by far the most interesting person in his family tree. He was not without controversy, his trans-phobic comments prompting Hannah Gadsby to tweet that ‘Barry Humphries loves those who hold power, hates vulnerable minorities and has completely lost the ability to read the room. That’s not a comedian, that’s an irrelevant, inhumane dick biscuit of the highest order.’ My late mother-in-law, a broadminded and tolerant Londoner, referred to him as ‘that awful woman’ every time Dame Edna made an appearance on TV and, indeed, his performances as a boring suburban housewife were borderline cringeworthy at times. But whatever one thought of Humphries, he made people laugh. And despite having had a close relationship with the British Royal Family, he wasn’t averse to taking the piss. On the eve of King Charles’ coronation, this clip says it all.
Someplace in Sydney 