I’m back in Canberra… and all this talk about a Canberra light rail system is back as well. Great. Time for us to stop messing around and just set up the whole thing. I seem to recall that we were meant to have one of these systems in time for the Sydney Olympics, which are [...]
Nostalgia seems to be getting more and more impatient. Take television, for example. Hey Hey, It’s Saturday, Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place have recently been revived, only a decade after their cancellations, for a “new generation”. Two months ago, the gang from Seinfeld, perhaps the most celebrated sitcom of the nineties, had a much-hyped reunion on the series Curb Your Enthusiasm (starring Seinfeld’s co-creator, Larry David). For once, the overused phrase “They haven’t changed a bit” would have almost made sense. They had aged just 11 years since their final episode.
The Ayatollah Khomeini was dead. In the West, perhaps nobody was more despised than Iran’s political and spiritual leader. But in Iran, two million black-clad mourners turned out to say goodbye. They jostled to touch his shroud, struggling so hard that – in an almost comical moment of mass hysteria – his corpse fell from its coffin.
I was going to start today with some pithy one-liner about Naomi Campbell or someone equally ridiculous, or even a highly amusing anecdote about a rabbi, a priest and a guy with one leg. But then it occurred to me how dangerous that could be.
In my latest attempt to return to my childhood, I recently found myself listening to one of my favourite groups of the time: Bucks Fizz. Remember them? Now THAT was a pop group!
This opinion piece received plenty of media coverage. When Prime Minister John Howard was asked about it on ABC Radio, he said that he was flattered to be compared to Kylie Minogue. Even the editorial blurb (written by The Australian, not the author) suggested it was a compliment. It wasn’t meant to be.
What does Cathy Freeman have in common with Neil Armstrong? Like the moon landing, all Australians who were old enough will remember where they were when Freeman won her Olympic gold medal. Sure, it was just over a month ago, but I’ll bet that, even in 20 years time, we’ll all remember.
A few weeks into 2000 and the fuss is over. Whether the 20th century ended last year or this one (and if you could care less, you really must get out more), we are free of all those lists of the greatest, best — whatever — of the past decade, century or millennium. Finally, we can live our lives without thinking of 10 ways to go about it.
OVERRATED: The Most Overhyped Things