31 Questions S2E06 aired on C31 Melbourne & Geelong on the 31st day of August. And there is it on glorious YouTube.
I spent 4 days in Sydney last week. It was the first time in seven years I’d been somewhere that wasn’t Melbourne or Adelaide. And it was fantastic.
I stayed in the seaside suburb of Sans Souci on the shores of Botany Bay (to my knowledge, the only bay named after a spaceship from Star Trek) with the lovely Barb Badham:
She’s mother to my good friend and mentor Van Badham. Here’s a photo of her aged 14, which I discovered in a drawer that wasn’t locked in any serious kind of way:
I forgot that I actually like Sydney. Last time I was there it was for New Year’s Eve 2006 when my Grandma treated the family to watch the fireworks on Sydney Harbour. An unforgettable experience. Back then, I returned to Adelaide via Melbourne. On that trip, I had a much better time in Sydney than Melbourne. To quote my 19-year-old self from my own diary:
7 January 2007
“I think I prefer Sydney to Melbourne. Watching this promotional video in the Rialto Tower really gave me the impression Melbourne is an arrogant city. It’s really just a bigger, more disorganised Adelaide.”
It probably didn’t help I was travelling with my good friend John Timoney and by the time we got to Melbourne, we were well and truly sick of each other. While I’ve got my diaries out, here’s how I felt about Melbourne when I was there again 18 months later:
12 July 2008
“Melbourne is great. I can see myself living here more than I could last time.”
Quite a turn around! And since then, the only news I ever hear about Sydney is to do with traffic congestion, high cost of living and racist electorates in the western suburbs. But I always have a great time when I’m there (I don’t drive and I stay away from the western suburbs).
Highlights of this Sydney trip include meeting Mark Humphries from ABC2’s “The Roast” at Pizza Hut. We talked comedy and TV and such for 5 hours straight. Didn’t even take a photo with him. But he’s pretty good in this:
I also caught the train to the Petersham TAFE to be interviewed by Sean Campbell for his “The Sean Campbell Show” on XRLENT Radio. Good guy. We talked about 31 Questions, TVS, RMITV, radio and Adelaide. Here’s the video of our chat:
On Thursday, after one and a half cancellations, I finally caught up with my old radio pal Matty B at the Queen Victoria Building (or MB at the QVB). Hadn’t seen him in 3 years. Again no photo, but we did do this once:
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And now for the strangest experience of my trip…
On Thursday night, to coincide with the broadcast of S2E04 on TVS, I journeyed to Ultimo (a couple of streets back from the headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation), home to the infamous “Ultimo Bachelor Pad” – the self proclaimed (and probably rightly so) biggest 31 Questions fans in, if not Sydney, then the world.
Now, they are some REAL fans…
To illustrate:
Dear God. We must be doing something right with 31 Questions?
Thanks again to Mike, James, Zoe, Nathan, Mel and (via Skype from Europe) Daniel for a magnificent dinner and cake, as well as their ridiculous amount of support they continue to give to me and the rest of the 31 Questions team. Fans in other cities, you’ve got your work cut out for you if you plan on topping that.
I’m now safely back in Melbourne. And it’s back to the hyper-reality that is my life.
Kind regards,
David M. Green
PS. 31 Questions debuts on Face Television New Zealand this Thursday 9.30PM.
