I really enjoyed going to the Anywhere Festival in 2021 and seeing a terrific show.
It had been a while since we had gone to see a show in the Valley. I once again realised how lucky i was to live in Australia while developments happened elsewhere.
Weekend Notes are a growing online magazine with a wealth of contributors based out of several cities across the United Kingdom, Australia and New York. Articles are leisure related and can include a wide variety of subjects from rainforest hikes to cultural festivals, from what hot new play is on at your underground theatre to a ultra trendy eatery. Writers are paid for their work based partly on how many views their articles get so please feel free to stop by and show some love.
-Lloyd Marken
The Valley. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
The Valley. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Leaving Element Collective after the show. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
While the British people solemly remembered all that they had lost I paradoxically on the other side of the world I found myself returning to the Brisbane Powerhouse for the first time since March 13, 2020 when I had attended the Brisbane Comedy Festival as the first restrictions were announced in Australia. No more than 500 people at a venue starting Monday the 16th of february.
Now here I was back on the 25th of March, 2021 at the Brisbane Powerhouse.
I was fortunate enough to be on assignment with Scenestr once again on the Thursday the 11th of March.
Since the pandemic hit Brisbane I had been to three films and one stand-up show.
Now I was going to the theatre again to see Triple X, which had its season cut short a year ago due to COVID.
It was a privilege to be there to see the show’s return that had been promised by Queensland Theatre and delivered against some unprecedented odds.
At the end of the show the lead performer and writer Glace Chase appeared to be becoming emotional.
The show itself was wonderful, detailing a love story rife with laughs and pain and yearning.
What was interesting for me having not been to the theatre in a while was the measures.
We had to sign in on a Qld Government App at the venue. The menu was slightly altered to mostly packed foods and drinks.
And yet…
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
The fantastic threatre and set design.Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Karen and I at ‘Triple X’. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
After the show and making plans to head off. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Opening night for ‘Triple X’ in 2021. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Looking out over the lobby before going into the show there was a sizeable crowd and nobody was wearing a mask because the current health advice was not to.
Then when we went into the venue it was a packed house with everybody seated together with no spare seats in between.
Again completely in keeping with the health advice but being aware of what was being experienced elsewhere in this world made our current circumstances seem a little surreal.
Produced by Eyeball Media Enterprises Scenestr is an online national magazine with local offices around Australia. Having started in 1993 they’ve excelled at moving into the digital realm but they remain at heart from the streets. They still publish magazines in print for Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland every month.
Great Britain’s leader also pushed for more funding of Covax, a multilateral vaccine supply scheme led by several international agencies including the World Health Organisation. The world leaders issued a joint statement afterwards agreeing to “intensify co-operation.” This included more sharing of information about new variants, accelerating vaccine development and dispersal and 7.5 billion US dollars spent in aid fo Covax.
They committed to accelerating global vaccine development and deployment, including improving the sharing of information about the discovery of new variants, and cited 7.5 billion US dollars (£5.3 billion) of support coming from the G7 for the body behind Covax.
I had to say I couldn’t agree more, in the race to vaccinate more lives would be saved if we could clamp this thing down across the world to avoid new variants. Whether this would be possible logisitically was a big questions. And politically with cases numbers still very high in Europe, North America and South America. If these same nations were first in the queue for delively of vacinnes there was going to be huge politcal and even moral obligations to see that they do everything in the power to avoid a second winter next year proving as deadly as this current one had been.
February 21
Sunday and the first COVID vaccines were given in my country.
They included the Austalian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Australia’s Chief Medical Officer and Australia’s Chief Nurse but first up was 84 year old Jane Malysiak.
Born in Poland, as a child she had grown up in war torn Europe. She later immigrated to Australia and ran a corner shop in Sydney with her husband.
In true Australian fashion when it came time to pose for the camera, Malysiak proved a little unorthodox. The Prime Minister by her side asked for her to shoot a V for vacinne sigh with her hands echoing Churchill’s V for Victory gesture during the dark days of World War II. Which she did but with the back of her hand facing camera which is a gesture that can mean something else.
There is a little part of me that likes to think the elderley nurisng home resident knew exactly what she was doing when she made the gesture and wanted to see how people would react. Either way it proved delightful and memorable on her part.
There were other nurisng home residents in the group to receive the first vaccines in Australia but also Corporal Boyd Chatillon, a team leader of Quarantine Compliance Monitoring program in Sydney hotels and Alysha Eyre and Jon Buttenshaw from Australia Border Force.
Starting Monday there would 16 vaccination hubs across Australia to dispense jabs to frontline health care workers, quarantine staff and border forces.
Three of those sixteen hubs would be in Queensland at the Cairns Hospital, Gold Coast University Hospital and the Princess Alexandra Hospital.
There would be 240 centres set up to deliver to aged care in Australia too.
The plan was for the roll-out to increase as local production of Aztra-Zeneca ramped up in late March.
200 million doses had been dispensed around the world already. Now Australia would be dispensing the vaccine to its populace too.
On the 21st of February, 2021 the World Health Organisation reported there had been 110,758,037 confirmed cases globally with a daily increase of 378,953.
There had been 2,461,184 deaths worldwide with a daily increase of 9,457.
In Australia there had been 28,920 confirmed cases with a daily increase of two. There had been 909 deaths.
In Canada there had been 840,586 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 3,089. There had been 21,576 deaths with a daily increase of 78.
In the United Kingdom there had been 4,114,371 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 10,376. There had been 120,365 deaths with a daily increase of 445.
In India there had been 10,991,651 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 14,264. There had been 156,302 deaths with a daily increase of 90.
In the United States of America there had been 27,702,074 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 73,240. There had been 491,894 deaths with a daily increase of 2,543.
We awoke Monday morning, checked out of our hotel, drove out of the basement and made our way to Newcastle.
Long term readers will recall, Karen and I stayed near RAAF Williamtown three years ago on a trip to Newcastle but did not go to Fighter World which was literally down the road. I was hoping to make amends for that on this trip. Driving out of Sydney on a monday morning was interesting. It seemed like we were perpetually in a school zone of 40kms per hour for the whole city.
Eventually we got out on the open road and made it to our destination.
We fuelled up at the same servo we had years earlier near the airport.
Many years ago a friend of mine from high school served at RAAF Williamtown. He told me there was a great cafe at Fighter World and so that is where we were lucky enough to have breakfast and he was right – it was excellent! As we ate jets flew past low level outside.
About to start the long drive home. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
The Cafe at Fighter World. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Upon arriving at Fighter World we had noted huge crowds.
I wondered if it had something to do with the RAAF’s Centenary this year.
When we got to the front of the line we were handed a brochure and told to go in. I asked where we paid and the door greeter informed me that we had arrived on the annual open day. Admission was free.
Many years ago I went to the RAF Museum at Hendon in England which was just a smorgasboard of all kinds of aircraft types. There is nothing in Australia that can compare to Hendon but there is something a little special about taking in history that you feel belongs to you.
Like I said a friend of mine actually served in the RAAF, in my home city the F-111s flew overhead from nearby RAAF Amberley at Riverfire and did their famous Dump and Burn. Afterburners igniting jet fuel dumped to light up the night sky before the fireworks display. There was nothing like it in the world and here was the aircraft that did it – for me to see up close for the first time.
Early jet aircraft like the Meteors, Vampires, Sabres through to Mirage IIIs and then a bomber in the F-111 known affectionately as The Pig for its ability to fly low level.
For a while there we always seemed a little behind the curve, Meteors first flying in the closing days of World War II were sent to Korea by the RAAF and quickly found themselves outmatched by the cutting edge MiG-15 and switched to the ground attack role.
RAAF Sabres missed that war but served in the Malayan Emergency and were sent to Ubon, Thailand to fly air patrols during the Vietnam War at a time when the F-4 Phantom was a generation ahead of that aircraft. We leased some Phantoms in the early 1970s but had procured instead the French made Mirage IIIs which proved versatile if not terribly sophisticated.
Working through the teething problems of acquiring the F-111 in the early 1970s and acquring the F/A-18 Hornet in the late 1980s changed everything.
The Aardvark was a medium range bomber and state of the art – there was nothing like it in the rest of South East Asia.
The Hornet would go on to fly Combat Air Patrols over Diego Garcia during the war in Afghanistan and drop bombs in anger in Iraq.
Though a little outdated during the peak of their service in the RAAF, these early jet aircraft were still game changers and beautiful planes to see up close that served our nation valiantly over the years.
The first aircraft to break the sound barrier in Australia was a Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation built Avon Sabre A94-101 flown into a dive by RAAF test pilot Flight Lieutenant William Scott on the 21st of August, 1953 near Avalon Airfield, Geelong, Victoria.
Karen and I arrived on the look out deck of the museum just in time to see what appeared to be Hawk Jet Trainers fly past us low level. A real treat.
Fighter World was a real delight. We got glider planes for Karen’s nephews to play with and a whole raft of posters too that Karen picked up. On our way out an older couple had their posters fly loose across the driveway leading me and the husband to race off after them. They seemed in pretty good nick.
Not for the first time did I marvel at our RAAF personnel who served our nation. Plenty flew humanitiaran missions as well as in war time. Plenty lost their lives or had their health affected to keep those birds up in the air flying. There is a rich history preserved by the staff and volunteers at Fighter World that I was grateful to get to see.
Weekend Notes are a growing online magazine with a wealth of contributors based out of several cities across the United Kingdom, Australia and New York. Articles are leisure related and can include a wide variety of subjects from rainforest hikes to cultural festivals, from what hot new play is on at your underground theatre to a ultra trendy eatery. Writers are paid for their work based partly on how many views their articles get so please feel free to stop by and show some love.
It was well past midday now so Karen and I started off again for Brisbane and home.
I didn’t want to stop at the same old places so on the way back I took a turn off the highway and ended up at a place called South Valla Beach. We parked and looked out over the ocean. A woman nearby in a car looked at me with distrust and befuddlement.
As if she was thinking, “What the hell are you doing here? Nobody comes around here to our place.”
Next we went to a cafe that was shut and parked around the back where there was a pharmacy.
I asked the pharmacist if we could please use his bathroom and he said yes. After we did they closed the shop.
Must have just got in.
As the drive carried on I got white line fever but Karen got thirsty. Husband and wives may know where this conversation led. There are a few twists and turns in such a conversation but in the end I parked outside a servo far off the highway as the sun was setting.
I did however get to see the beautiful area around the town of Grafton. It would be nice to go there sometime properly.
But the darkness didn’t last as long this time, the road didn’t curve and slant as dramatically as it did outside Sydney.
Familar landmarks that let you know you are close to home do make you rest easy for some reason. That’s how I felt as I crossed the border back into the state of Queensland.
My second holiday in twelve months came to a close with 213,556 kilometres on the odometer.
A new record 902 kilometres driven in one day.
That was a 1,785 kilometre trip all up, a jam packed weekend, a wonderful wedding with friends.
I feel very grateful and fortunate to have attended my friend’s wedding, to have enjoyed a night out in Sydney and a day at Fighter World.
Some have not been so lucky.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Dassault Mirage III at Fighter World. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
The look out deck for watching planes go by. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
The RAAF paid a price in Korea but they served ACopyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Up close with the PC-9. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Karen’s Grandfather is never far from thoughts when I spot a B-24 Liberator. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
On the 15th of February the World Health Organisation reported there had been 108,610,574 confirmed cases globally with a daily increase of 343,411.
There had been 2,403,419 deaths worldwide with a daily increase of 10,076.
In Australia there had been 28,898 confirmed cases with a daily increase of six. There had been 909 deaths.
In Canada there had been 823,353 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 3,047. There had been 21,228 deaths with a daily increase of 66.
In the United Kingdom there had been 4,045,589 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 8,751. There had been 117,166 deaths with a daily increase of 258. February 12th Great Britain had reached more than 4 million cases with 4,011,961 reported.
In India there had been 10,916,589 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 11,649. There had been 155,732 deaths with a daily increase of 90.
In the United States of America there had been 27,309,503 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 87,896. There had been 480,464 deaths with a daily increase of 3,317.
The highest number of reported daily deaths occurred the day before on February 14th with 5,512 recorded. 5,182 had been the previous record set on the 6th of February.
This thing was not over but we had a really wonderful weekend.
Karen and I set out on a very warm summer’s Saturday to the Queensland Maritime Museum (QMM).
The QMM was set up in 1971 at an old dry dock.
I remember going to it around the time of Expo ’88 as a kid. The showpiece of the museum was an old anti-submarine warfare frigate named HMAS Diamantina. You can imagine how exciting it was for an eight year old to walk across the planks, the bottom of the dry dock metres below. Climb down step ladders and walk along railings in the guts of an actual naval warship.
HMAS Diamantina had not long been retired at that point having served decades before coming the martime musem in the early 1980s.
Ella’s Pink Lady. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
HMAS Diamantina. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
The underground pumps of the dry dock. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
HMAS Diamantina. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
4.5 inch guns that shelled Pacific Islands in the closing days of World War II. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Bofors anti-aicraft guns. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
HMAS DIamantina. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Years later as a young university student studying a journalist subject across the river at QUT I went across and looked for someone to interview.
I found a volunteer who had served in World War II with Z Special Force and had previously been a coal stoker on corvettes in the navy.
He had lied about his age to join, he had also been working in a munitions factory before his service.
He was in his early 80s then, having spent his life working many jobs and beating cancer, with the sprightly energy of a toddler he danced on his feet.
His life and stories were fascinating but he never talked about the combat he may have seen.
If I can find the old assignment I will post it here with his name. For now of him I took back in 2003.
There was another R.A.N. veteran who volunteered at QMM at that time who had served in the Korean War. He told me of a stop over at Okinawa during their voyage north. He told me how the trees had still not grown to a proper height years after the battles on that island.
These were the kind of people who kept the Queensland Maritime Museum running and still do.
In 1974 Brisbane was flooded and so was the museum situated on the banks of our river.
In 2011 Brisbane was flooded again, volunteers came down and repositioned the ropes to ensure that is the water in the dry dock rose HMAS Diamantina was not damaged by crashing into its own dock.
Expo ’88 came and went replaced by Southbank. The city and the area changed but HMAS Diamantina and its museum remained.
After 16 year old Jessica Watson sailed around the globe, her 10 metre long ship became part of the collection at QMM.
Floods, recessions and the Global FInancial Crisis all came and went but when COVID hit all of sudden the huge workforce of volunteer of over 60s could not do their work and attendance was also affected.
The financial situation of the museum radically changed and quickly.
You could also donate money to helping them keep open which I did and when they opened their doors in late January I went to buy tickets but they were sold out.
So um I bought them the following weekend and we went.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Personal effect from the 19th Century QGSY Lucidna. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Scale model of QGSY Lucinda. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
A painting from the collection at QMM. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
The museum was a little different then I remembered with some new interesting stuff and slightly younger volunteers. We could walk the deck but to COVID restrictions we could not go below decks on HMAS Diamantina. I also got to see Ella’s Pink Lady up close.
I took a lot of photos and put a lot of thought of where they were placed in the narrative of the review. The review was featured on the Facebook site of the Queensland Maritime Museum.
Weekend Notes are a growing online magazine with a wealth of contributors based out of several cities across the United Kingdom, Australia and New York. Articles are leisure related and can include a wide variety of subjects from rainforest hikes to cultural festivals, from what hot new play is on at your underground theatre to a ultra trendy eatery. Writers are paid for their work based partly on how many views their articles get so please feel free to stop by and show some love.
I wish the Queensland Maritime Museum all the best, it is a wonderful Museum that should be ensured for generations to enjoy.
-Lloyd Marken
My city. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Karen and i onboard HMAS Diamantina. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
I was very fortunate to be back on assignment for Scenestr magazine, this time my first live event since COVID shut down the Brisbane Comedy Festival in March.
It was at The Sideshow in Brisbane’s West End. West End has its own character and history as a southside boy from the suburbs I am fairly ignorant of.
It’s down from the city’s South Bank precinct which I am more familiar with which is a giant cultural and restaurant hub with museums, art gallery and markets.
West End is the cheaper hippier end of this.
I remember going to see show with David Hasselholf years ago and seeing young people eating on a window sill out of saucepans in an apartment above a set of shops and just being delighted by it.
Places like West End are in danger of losing such culture with increased urban development but it was alive and well on sunday night December 6.
We entered what looked like a regular cafe, went up some stairs, got served at some makeshift bar and sat on pretty simple chairs. Nobody was wearing masks, we just didn’t do that in Queensland.
There were 13 active cases in the state.
The venue had the setting of being in someone’s large living room for a get together on a sunday arvo for a few laughs.
It was good to have a laugh.
The comedians were diverse in their styles and backgrounds and led by MC Steph Tisdell who got the crowd supporting them fully and open to the experimentation of the event.
Produced by Eyeball Media Enterprises Scenestr is an online national magazine with local offices around Australia. Having started in 1993 they’ve excelled at moving into the digital realm but they remain at heart from the streets. They still publish magazines in print for Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland every month.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Christmas Decorations. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
This War of the World piece is a mainstay of West End.Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Afterwards Karen and I wandered the streets of West End looking for a place to eat and also making our way back to where we parked in South Bank. Yeah we kind of had to let it across the suburbs to get to The Sideshow.
With some delight we saw some Christmas decorations and entered a Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant we had seen packed only two hours later completely empty.
As someone who has always enjoyed quiet places Karen and I settled in for some fried rice.
There was a garden inside with a pond and we had the whole place to ourselves as West End started to quiet down for the night.
Karen waiting for our dinner. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
The West End Garden Restaurant staff were so good to us, the food was fantastic and the whole place was just wonderful. Karen and I really enjoyed our night out.
Numbers were climbing around the word, I was worried about people who lived there. It was almost surreal what was happening in Australia. It felt like we being kept out of some sick game although I’m sure Victorians would agree they had had their fill.
On the 6th of December the World Health Organisation reported there had been 66,184,789 cases globally with a daily increase of 652,608.
1 million 5 hundred 2 twenty 6 six thousand and 6 hundred and 6 sixty 2 two deaths.
1,526,662 deaths globally from COVID.
With a daily increase of 10,767.
In Australia there had been 27,956 confirmed cases with a daily increase of seven. There had been 908 deaths.
In Canada there had been 402,569 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 6,299. There had been 12,496 deaths with a daily increase of 89.
In the United Kingdom there had been 1,705,975 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 15,539. There had been 61,014 deaths with a daily increase of 397.
In India there had been 9,644,222 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 36,011. There had been 140,182 deaths with a daily increase of 482.
In the United States of America the day before, the 5th of December had been a day of big numbers. A new record for daily increase in confirmed cases – 218,671. The highest number of daily recorded deaths since March and April – 2,844.
On the 6th of December there had been 14,191,298 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 213,127. There had been 276,503 deaths with a daily increase of 2,426.
On Sunday the 29th of November, 2020 I was lucky enough to attend a preview screening of the HBO documentary The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend A Broken Heart? at New Farm cinemas and I got to take Karen with me.
Just another milestone that things were pretty in our neck of the woods while case numbers continued to rise astronomically abroad.
I enjoyed the documentary, it rang very poignant for me given Barry Gibb’s advancing years. I can tell you there were quite a few people of Barry’s and my parent’s age in the audience. I even floated the idea of taking my Mum but she had to decline. Maybe in the audience there were people who had known the Bee Gees from their days in Redcliffe. They certainly laughed and nodded at points like they were flicking through the pages of a photo album. Your culture remains your’s for life – it takes hold you of for life.
I grew up in a household of The Beatles and The Bee Gees. I heard The Rolling Stones and David Bowie but they weren’t in the house. I’m prety sure at one point there was a copy of every Bee Gees album on at least LP, tape or CD.
Produced by Eyeball Media Enterprises Scenestr is an online national magazine with local offices around Australia. Having started in 1993 they’ve excelled at moving into the digital realm but they remain at heart from the streets. They still publish magazines in print for Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland every month.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Me posing with Rocky poster. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Karen and I. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
It sent me down a bit of rabbit-hole of Youtube clips.
I would urge you to listen to a live acoustic performance they did of one of their lesser singles Blue Island from one of their strongest later albums from the early 1990s. The thing is, it’s not a bad song but something magical happens when the harmonies those brothers had together sing it. It is something special.
There is an interview Maurice Gibb had in the wake of doing rehab for alcoholism, (I thought he got clean well before Andy Gibb’s death not after) and Barry Gibb talking about his brothers, his wife – his family to Piers Morgan.
I would urge you to listen to a live acoustic performance they did of one of their lesser singles Blue Island from one of their strongest later albums from the early 1990s. The thing is, it’s not a bad song but something magical happens when the harmonies those brothers had together sing it. It is something special.
There are personal favourites here like The Nights on Broadway (I had no idea they were that broke when they recorded that album), and younger hits like You Win Again which is soooo 80s, their last hit single This Is Where I Came In which I will defend to the death is proof they were still crushing it in 2001, their first big hit as they left Australia in the 60s – Spicks and Specks which is a personal favourite and maybe lesser known to Americans and even Brits I think.
Songs like Alone and Immortality from 1997 which resonates even more now. Absent are the disco hits which I loved as a kid but have listened to a lot more than these gems and I suspect you have too.
Anyway enjoy.
On the 29th of November the World Health Organisation reported there had been 61,990,265 confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally with a daily increase of 604,549.
There had been 1,451,964 deaths globally with a daily increase of 9,520.
In Australia there had been 27,885 confirmed cases with a daily increase of eleven. There had been 907 deaths.
In Canada there had been 359,064 confirmed cases with daily increase of 5,967. There had been 11,895 with a daily increase of 95.
In the United Kingdom there had been 1,605,176 confirmed cases with a daily increase 15,871. There had been 58,030 deaths with a daily increase of 479.
In India there had been 9,392,919 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 41,810. There had been 136,696 Indian deaths with a daily increase of 496.
In the United States of America there had been 12,939,666 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with a daily increase of 175,669. There had been 262,736 deaths with a daily increase of 1,276.
Copyright Lloyd Marken. The view of Oakey airfield.
At the gym on Friday night I saw on the TV that India became the second country to pass 9 million COVID-19 cases. The only one since the U.S.
Per chance I was about to catch up with my brother from another mother the next day who had family in India.
It was a scary time but we intended to have a nice day out in each other’s company.
November 21
We were driving out west to the small town of Oakey.
Famous for the race horse Bernborough and where I had recently been reminded my grandmother had been born.
As a result I wore a hat that my grandfather had worn in travels when I was a boy. The hat fitted his head better but I wanted to wear it and pose at the statue of Bernborough like he had in a photograph many years ago.
I’ve never met a man who didn’t work harder. As we drove along he passed along information of everywhere we went. A ride share worker who had previously driven cabs and worked his way up in trucking to drive semis interstate. He knew when we were coming up to the well known Fernvale Bakery in Ipswich, he told us of businesses off the main track he’d gone to as we started to get out in the country. He quietly advised and offered stories of so many places.
We did stop at the bakery in Fernvale although I went for the sweets rather than their famous and beloved pies. We will have to return and partake properly.
Around people I truly love I relaxed a little and even started to sing songs like Don McLean’s American Pie and Cold Chisel’s Flame Trees. I am not a singer so spare a thought for the poor people in that car who had to conjure their best poker faces as they realised, “Oh man Lloyd’s really going for it!”.
It was a beautiful sunny day, the Museum is housed in a hangar that is located on the perimeter of the fencing of the defence base. You do not need to enter the base to enter the museum as a result. Very cleverly located.
Tivomagic parked outside the Australian Army Flying Museum. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Sopwith Camel. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
CH-47 Chinook. Most recently used by the Australian Army during the horrendous bushfires last summer. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Kiowa faces off with Huey. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
The Bougainville Finger. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
CH-47 Chinook. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
If I was mugging for the camera, certainly Karen was not. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Sioux helicopters made famous in the film and TV series MASH that was set during the Korean War. This is indicative of the ones that served Australian forces in Vietnam. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
The AS350 Squirrel which served in the Australian Army, Royal Australian Navy and Royal Australian Air Force. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
HUEY! Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
“Get out of that Fokker you Fokker.” Copyright Lloyd Marken.
If I see anti-aircraft weaponry, I take a picture of it. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
SR-70 Blackhawk. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Me in cargo/passenger compartment. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Maintained by local volunteers it is a wonderful display of aircraft and stories from Australian Military Aviation.
Weekend Notes are a growing online magazine with a wealth of contributors based out of several cities across the United Kingdom, Australia and New York. Articles are leisure related and can include a wide variety of subjects from rainforest hikes to cultural festivals, from what hot new play is on at your underground theatre to a ultra trendy eatery. Writers are paid for their work based partly on how many views their articles get so please feel free to stop by and show some love.
We had a late lunch at the Oakey RSL Club.
Oakey ANZAC Memorial. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Oakey ANZAC Memorial. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Bernborugh. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Oakey RSL Club. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
A tale from a pandemic past. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Having driven north from Ipswich through Fernvale, past Wivenhoe Dam and through Esk I decided on the way back we would drive through Toowoomba.
I was hoping we would find the University of Southern Queensland campus where there is a beautiful Japanese peace garden but we actually googled just a public garden in Toowoomba and ended up there. A callback to simpler times when sometimes you just turned down a road and found you were where you wanted to be.
The Japanese Garden are well known and are quite beautiful and peaceful in these troubled times.
At one point we went over a bridge and looked down at ducks in a pond. In the late afternoon I exclaimed with excitement when I saw a creature underneath the water and realised it was not a fish. I grabbed everybody’s attention and the words escaped me on instinct “Look a platypus!”
A platypus sighting at that time of day with those amount of people would have been very special indeed but alas what became abundantly clear in the next couple of seconds was we were looking at turtle.
Oh well, still pretty special.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Flame Trees on the Toowoomba campus. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
LOOK IT’S A PLATYPUS! Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
As we drove out of Toowoomba my sister-in-law spoke of working as a speech pathologist in the town years ago making long commutes for the job. My wife had also worked around as a speechie.
In the late spring of Australia, the jacarandas were in full bloom in Toowoomba and so much more beautiful there.
It was only a 2 hour drive out of Brisbane but it had been years since I had come to Toowoomba and I had no memories of Oakey. Seeing this part of the world buoyed my spirits in the way only getting out and about can. I understood I was becoming older and now came to understand weekend trips as a child where we were packed out and driven out to dams and beaches that held no interest for me then.
As much as I appreciated my freedom which earlier in the year had not been possible and was not currently for so many around the world.
What I appreciated more was the company I kept.
It was a good day out.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
November 22
On the 22nd of November the World Health Organisation reported there had been 57,939,958 confirmed cases globally with a daily increase of 625,981.
There had been 1,380,494 deaths globally with a daily increase of 9,831.
In Australia there had been 27,807 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 18. There had been 907 Australian deaths.
In Canada there had been 320,719 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 4,968. There had been 11,334 deaths with a daily increase of 69.
In the United Kingdom there had been 1,493,387 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 19,875. There had been 54,626 deaths with a daily increase of 340.
In India there had been 9,095,806 with a daily increase of 45,209. There had been 133,227 deaths with a daily increase of 501.
In the United States of America there had been 11,789,012 confirmed cases with a daily increase of 191,033.
America surpassed a quarter of million deaths due to COVID-19 on the 21st of November, 2020.
250,607 with a daily increase of 2,036.
On the 22nd of November there had been 252,460 deaths with a daily increase of 1,853.
Back on April 21 I bought a hoodie from the United States of America. There was a lot of handwringing about the getting the right size as I never order clothes online. In June the hoodie arrived and it fit but it was too tight. On the 20th of August I got a new one that fit just at the tail wind of winter in my home town, sunny tropical Queensland. That said I got some good weeks out of it and really love my hoodie. I hadn’t got a new jumper or coat in about 19 years.
Skinny Hoodie. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Copyright Lloyd Marken.
With my new hoodie and less my beard. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
The new hoodie. Copyright Lloyd Marken.
Proceeds from the sale of the hoodie went towards After School All Stars which were delivering meals to kids in low socio-economic areas during the lockdown of schools in America.
The same day I was due to go to a preview screening of the new movie Tenet for Scenestr magazine.
Tenet was the first blockbuster to be getting released in cinemas since COVID had shut down cinemas earlier in the year. Warner Bros. was betting big that people would return to the cinemas but if they did, the blockbuster would have the run of the movie going public.
Attending a preview screening of a blockbuster is always a thrill for me. The preview screening was in a VMax screening at Indooroopilly Shopping Centre. There were only other critics present at the screening, familiar faces. People seemed fairly relaxed. At the screening of Waves there was some sense of hopefulness and rustiness at what was for some of us the first screening we had been to in a while. Here things were more relaxed but there was security at this one given the high profile nature of the film. There was a media embargo to enforce.
My review was published the following week on Wednesday the 26th of August with the film premiering the next day.
Produced by Eyeball Media Enterprises Scenestr is an online national magazine with local offices around Australia. Having started in 1993 they’ve excelled at moving into the digital realm but they remain at heart from the streets. They still publish magazines in print for Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland every month.
I would argue that while Tenet is billed as a blockbuster, it is not a crowdpleaser and in a particularly dispiriting year I think something like Wonder Woman 1984 would have played much better but COVID remains the all too important factor. Its actually a relief to know that people would rather prize their lives over seeing a movie where they deem the risk too much. In Queensland we felt relatively safe with a small number of cases.
Yet on the same day that I went to see Tenet, a supervisor in her 70s at the Brisbane Youth Detention Centre in Wacol tested positive for COVID-19. She had been working shifts until she started to have symptoms. She was now admitted to hospital. Her diagnosis led the centre to go into shutdown with testing of 127 youths and over 500 staff at the centre. There were eight active cases in Queensland at the time.
Back to the Drawing Board Productions 