Hi there, I know it has been a while and the end of 2020 is almost in sight. Being busy with life, the busyness of life and doing what can be done to avoid COVID has taken priority over writing.
If you have been busy navigating life in the zone, here’s a few things you may have missed about life in the GreyZone, COVID free.
DITY- Men…Doing It to Yourself
Extreme Art Making
Flying in the Sky with Deborah
“Women of my age tend to drink”
Culture in the GreyZone: Do we need to mention Xanadu is 40, Psycho at 60: Hitchcock’s shocking game-changer.
DITY- Men…Doing It to Yourself
In a world’s first study of long-term impacts from ladder falls, researchers from the Queensland University of Technology and Queensland Health, found that ladder falls are one of the most common injuries presented at the emergency department. Injuries could range from the expected broken bones n damaged egos to serious brain trauma and could even result in death.
And it should be no surprise that the researchers found men over the age of 50 made up more than half of ladder-related fall cases. Former music host and guru, Ian Molly Meldrum sustained serious head injuries when he fell from a ladder. Peter Starkie the founding member of the 1970’s chart topping Australian group Skyhooks died age 72, after falling off a ladder in Melbourne.
And you will be shocked to learn that most of these injuries did not occur on worksites. A researcher Dr Rob Eley, at University of Queensland’s faculty of medicine, noted the accidents did not happen where strict occupational health and safety codes are in place, “but in the home”. Eley found that almost all of the injuries that occurred could have been avoided.
“Often, they were the result of inattention – people climbing back up a ladder to fix one last thing or grab a tool; or reaching too far, then falling.”
As Australia’s population ages, and more men enter into retirement age, these types of home improvement injuries are on the rise, Dr Helen Ackland, a researcher at the National Trauma Research Institute found in her research.
“We’ve had 80- and 90-year-olds up ladders … they’re used to doing things at home themselves, so they continue doing it past the age where they probably should be delegating to someone else.” I think I may know someone who fits that description, just this last weeknd three times I had to tell him to get off the ladder.
And the tips from the researchers included that while regulation could help, “How about not falling to begin with?”
Eley notes that alcohol has been a factor in some injuries. “The message that I say to people is be very careful when you’re using a ladder, even more careful of using a ladder with a power tool, and certainly don’t use power tools on a ladder after you’ve been drinking.”
The study from Queensland University of Technology and Queensland Health, was published in the journal Plos One.
Product Safety Australia has launched a national education campaign ‘Ladder safety matters’ to encourage older Australian men to stop and think before they use a ladder. Find out more here.
Extreme Art Making
As long as you are as fit as 60-year-old, Simon Beck, who walks for hours creating amazing snow art. The art works created by just using his feet, walking to precise co-ordinates.
Cartographer Simon Beck has been a snow artist for over a decade, using snow fields the size of sports fields as his canvas, to carve his own epic geometric designs and designs in the untouched powder. The circles and tumbling triangles unfold slowly with each step. The meticulous moves he’s made reveal themselves into the entire design when viewed from above.
Up close I guess he looks like a lost man wandering about, rather than an artist hard at work.
Beck’s design begins with careful planning, mapping out a design on paper using one millimetre as the scale for one step on the ground. A day’s work can be 12 hours of trudging through the snow, where Beck uses his snowshoes, a ski pole, and other tools to get through the long task of walking to realise his design from the sketch. His incredible artwork relies on the co-operation from nature to provide the right conditions and from the nearby skiers to not plough through his creation.
As someone who is spatially challenged, I found the designs brought to life an unbelievable sight to consider they start on a piece of paper, and using only a compass, and by counting paces he produces mathematical and geometric inspired works of art.
Visit Simon Beck to see his amazing designs
Flying in the Sky with Deborah
Entering the grey zone in 2020, was the 40th anniversary of a land mark high court decision which saw Deborah Lawrie become first female pilot of a major Australian airline.
Lawrie became a pioneer for women’s rights after taking Ansett all the way to the High Court in 1980 to protest against its decision to deny her the right to fly because of her gender.
It was her tenacity and determination to become a commercial pilot that has made Deborah Lawrie a trail blazer in 1980.
While some smaller regional airlines had female pilots, no major Australian airline had ever employed a woman pilot and it required years of rejections and a battle in the Sex Discrimination Commission before Ansett finally took her on.
In an interview with the ABC she said “(Reg) Ansett ran the company and he was very anti-women. His main reason was that he considered they wouldn’t be safe,”
Indeed, in previous cases it was argued that her earrings could be a safety hazard if they got caught on the side of the aircraft in the event of an emergency evacuation.
Deborah Lawrie set numerous milestones in 2020, including being inaugurated into the Australian aviation industry’s Hall of Fame, marking 50 years of flying and being the World’s oldest female commercial pilot still flying for a major commercial airline. Well into the grey zone, at 66 Lawrie was an A320Training Captain for Tiger Airways until Tiger became a victim of the COVID shutdown.
“Women of my age tend to drink”
The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) has released new guidelines to reduce health risks from drinking alcohol.
Perhaps coincidentally released in the year of a pandemic where there was a rise in consumption at home and just in time for the season to be jolly, the new guidelines replace the 2009 version. This revision recommended a reduction in both the daily and weekly intake.
Research from 2019 for Edith Cowan University may provide an insight in attitudes to alcohol as we move towards a return to normal. In conjunction with Danish researchers, the investigation into drinking behaviour as a social construct found alcohol use to be “a deeply gendered behaviour.”
Research found that older women may drink as an assertion of control that takes precedence over the health impacts of booze. While some women reported reducing their drinking due to health concerns, others neutralised alcohol‐related health risks through compensatory behaviours including exercise.
A quote from one of the participants into their attitudes to drinking stated “Women of my age tend to drink”.
That’s a good enough reason for me, it sure replaces “if you lived with my husband/partner- you would drink too!”
Culture in the GreyZone
It was 20 years ago 50 years ago today…
By the time Paul McCartney sued his fellow Beatles, and their parent company Apple Corp, in London’s High Court of Justice on December 31, 1970 to dissolve the icoic band, their relationship had already gone south.
The attempts to recreate the magic of their early years through the White Album, Abbey Road and Let it Be had come to nothing, except containing some of their most enduring songs.
Their music and influence remain embedded in the fabric of pop culture. This year of 2020 marks the passage of time from this tumultuous period of Beatles history, when several milestones themselves are worthy of being acknowledged in the grey zone.
- The Beatles broke up 50 years ago, officially in December 1970 but in practice the magic had ended in April 1970;
- 50 years have passed since John Lennon’s solo album was released in December to the UK and US markets.
- It is 40 years since Lennon’s murder on December 8, 1980
- In 2020, John Lennon would have turned 80.
Do we need to mention Xanadu is 40?
Being an Australian, I must mark the passing of Xanadu, the movie, into the grey zone. The movie which turned 40, starred our iconic Olivia Newton-John fresh from her breakthrough in Grease. The 1980 movie, must have seemed like a good idea/career move at the time but was a messy attempt to combine a classic musical with the roller-disco craze.
The movie was such a flop that Universal cancelled press screenings of Xanadu, it was alleged to have co-inspired the Golden Raspberry Awards, which are given for “failure in cinematic achievements,” and Variety called it “a stupendously bad film whose only salvage is the music”; the musical spawning 5 hits:
- “Magic” Olivia Newton-John
- “Xanadu” Olivia Newton-John/ELO
- “All Over the World” – Electric Light Orchestra (No. 13 Pop, No. 45 AC)
- “I’m Alive” – Electric Light Orchestra (No. 16 Pop, No. 48 AC, certified gold)
- “Suddenly” – Olivia Newton-John/Cliff Richard
Psycho at 60: Hitchcock’s shocking game-changer
Psycho was unleashed on unsuspecting cinema goers in 1960 by the master film maker- Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock was himself 61 at the time, was well into the Grey Zone. He was innovating with how the audience followed the action through the predatory and salacious gaze of Norman Bates.
He made a new rule that’s now commonplace in cinemas. In those days, people entered a theatre whenever they wanted, even if it was long after the movie’s starting time, and would stick around to see what they had missed.
Hitchcock didn’t want late-comers wondering where Janet Leigh was, so dictated that no one would be seated after the film started. The film’s newspaper ads pleaded with the audience to play along, saying, “Please do not give away the ending. It’s the only one we have!”
Knowing absolutely nothing about the movie going in, audiences were left unprepared for the combined shock of losing the main character and having it happen in the most traumatic way possible, the music a mind-bending crescendo of screeching violins, violas, and cellos with the sickening schik-schik of a knife penetrating skin.
But it’s not a slasher movie – Hitchcock’s genius lies in what he doesn’t show. At no point do we see the knife actually “slash” or penetrate the skin, yet still it makes audiences flinch.
Hitchcock’s deal on “Psycho” was also a game – changer. The unprecedented deal was in exchange for his autonomy at Paramount, he deferred a salary, instead receiving 60% of the negative ownership, the gamble earning Hitchcock roughly $40m in today’s money.
Till next time
I trust this post pleasantly distracted you from the every day. Thanks for reading and best wishes for your safe journies through the grey zone, till we meet again next time.
the greyzone 