Welcome to Autumn – I’m glad to see Summer 2020 behind us as it’s not been an auspicious start to the year. I was very saddened to hear about Shark Fin House restaurant, where I had a number of family yum chas last year, closing down and Secret Kitchen in Doncaster is struggling as people avoid going to Chinese restaurants. Mr Rosanna and I have made a point of continuing to buy food at Diamond Chinese Restaurant in Heidelberg and Dragon House Restaurant in Rosanna these past few weeks and I will also be booking yum cha at the original Shark Fin Inn in Chinatown or locally when we can.
There’s a saying about seeing the world with love not fear and if you allow fear to rule your world, then you’re already living in a prison of your own making. While we can plan for the worst, I still want to approach life expecting the best. It doesn’t help that the media tends to focus on the most negative and extreme news events and as someone who has studied and worked in the industry for many years, I am trying to teach my children how to critically think in terms of what’s presented to them and to know much more good news happens, that doesn’t get reported, in every day life.
That being said, I have been out and about at public events spending last Sunday night reliving my teenage years at the sold out Rick Astley and a-ha music concert at Margaret Court Arena. I have to say that Rick Astley was more than a one hit wonder in the Stock Aitken Waterman group of musicians – the man can sing and his voice was more brassy than I remembered sounding a bit like Sam Smith mixed with Elton John at one stage. He was also very funny – the perfect warm up to the main event and his rendition of INXS’s New Sensation went down a treat with the home crowd, along with his very cool female backing singers.
And while a-ha’s Take on me is their most famous song, the Norwegian band did not disappoint – they played all their hits from their Hunting High and Low album and put on an amazing show. I had also forgotten they were as big as Billie Eilish back in the day, like her writing No Time to Die – they wrote The Living Daylights James Bond theme song at the time, which they performed along with all their other super cool 80s rock music (those keyboards!).
My group of friends weren’t the only a-ha fans there on the night. I was surprised to look up and see writer Marieke Hardy sitting next to us with her man, completely ensconced in the music and mouthing all the words to their songs. There was a lot of screaming, singing and dancing to be had – the eighties have a lot to answer for!
