2021 – Are we there yet?

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 40^th 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.

December 18, 2020 0

Life in the Grey Zone

While we’ve been masking, isolating and sanitising our way to dodge around the virus that has targeted us in the grey zone, there have been many other good and interesting events happening in the world.

Here’s a few of the notable happenings in the grey zone that you may have missed over the last few months.

Tea drinkers unite and live longer.

“The black tea drinkers are getting older,” the head of Unilever recently told investors, “They are consuming less,” he said and will soon “start to fall over”.

According to Unilever cups of tea are falling out of vogue with young people. As a result, the firm is struggling to grow its black tea brands in western markets like the UK and the US.

Unilever’s chief financial officer, Graeme Pitkethly, said that although young people do drink tea, it tends to be “quite high-end, expensive products”. Pitkethly was quoted as saying “I drink five or six cups of builder’s tea a day, but unfortunately we are dying at a faster rate than generation Z and millennials are consuming it.”

The consumer goods giant has said that Generation Z and millennial consumers much prefer herbal teas and coffees instead. Over the last two years, demand for black tea has fallen while demand has risen for herbal and cold tea infusions.

Researchers reported young people’s tastes have changed with black teas being seen as too strong, needing sugar or honey to sweeten the tea in turn losing out to herbal teas which were more appealing with floral aromas and they are perceived as healthier.

A legitimate reason perhaps; unlike theories of the rise of Instagram which means that beverages need to make a big impact so that people want to take a photo of their Starbucks Frappe topped with cream.

Like any seasoned tea drinker firmly in the greyzone, the health benefits of tea are easy to find. Researchers at the University of California and Brown University found tea improved eyesight; those who drank at least one cup were 74 per cent less likely to develop glaucoma. Totally practical and appropriate reason to savour a good cuppa.

Leave me comment to let me know if you like a nice cup of tea and how you like your tea.

Grey hair- it’s not because I’m old!

Scientists at Harvard University have shown how stress can speed up the greying process. Biologists found that stress causes nerves involved in the fight-or-flight response to pump out a hormone which wipes out the stem cells used to make hair pigments.

Stress can be considered a form of accelerated ageing. The discovery has raised hopes for treatments that can slow down or even halt normal age-related greying. A breakthrough if you don’t find greying hair appealing!

Perhaps another reason to slow down, de-stress and perhaps forego or delay children who are surely the largest contributor to premature aging.

It’s time to destress – now where’s that nice cup of black tea?

Making news in the zone

Class is always in style

Dame Judi Dench has become British Vogue’s oldest cover star, securing her first front page for the style magazine at the age of 85.

Dench began her acting career in 1959 on television. Over a 60-plus year career she earned her national treasure status, playing roles such as M in the James Bond franchise and as Queen Elizabeth in Shakespeare in Love, for which she won an Oscar in 1999, aged 64.

Commenting on the couture she wore for the photo shoot, she says, of one outfit. “The cloak I was made to wear! Like five foxes fucking on my back!” she said. “A battered, mangy old cat… A great big orange bruiser. What’s that about?”

Who knew gardening was an extreme sport?

Brian May has complained of “relentless pain” after he was taken to hospital following a gardening injury that tore muscles in his buttocks.

Writing on Instagram, the Queen guitarist said: “I managed to rip my gluteus maximus to shreds in a moment of overenthusiastic gardening. So suddenly I find myself in a hospital getting scanned to find out exactly how much I’ve actually damaged myself. Turns out I did a thorough job and I won’t be able to walk for a while or sleep, without a lot of assistance, because the pain is relentless.”

One tough hood.

George Hood, a 62-year-old former US Marine, broke the world planking record with a time of 8hr 15min 15sec, adding an extra 14 minutes to the previous record. Hood had lost his 1hr 20 sec record in 2016 to Mao Weidong, a police officer from China, who set a new record with a time of 8hr 1min.

Eight hours is a long time spent with your face hovering 20cm away from the floor of a gym. Hood reportedly trained for up to seven hours a day to set the new record.

Planking performed by a grey veteran is a safe and healthy core body exercise. Not a dangerous death inducing activity, brought to infamy by young Instagramers who planked to fame at cliff edges in search of the perfect photo opportunity.

Playing on

Playing football as a professional had remained a distant dream for Eez Eldin Bahder for decades. At the age of 75, he registered with the Egyptian Football Association as its oldest player yet. The father of four and grandfather of six, started playing football in the streets of Cairo at the age of six. Though he carried on playing as an amateur, he abandoned his dream of becoming a professional striker pursuing his work as a civil engineer.

October 6, a club which plays in Egypt’s third division had signed the 75-year-old Bahder who scored a penalty on his debut to secure a 1-1 draw. The grandfather needs to play just 90 more minutes for his team to be officially recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records. Should he play the second match he will beat the current holder Isaak Hayik, who played keeper for Israel’s Ironi Or Yehuda, aged 73.

Culture Zone.

This year, 2020, marks an era when cultural icons of our younger years moved into the grey zone.

Mad Max. The low-budget film of a dystopian future was released in Australia in 1979 but this year celebrated the 40th anniversary of its US release where Australian accents were dubbed with American accents and the title changed to the Road Warrior.
MASH the movie. While eclipsed by the TV series which ended in 1983, the original movie turned 50 this year. The movie starring Elliott Gould, Donald Sutherland and Sally Kellerman is still recognised in the top 100 comedy films of all time as judged by the BBC. I do prefer the TV version with Alan Alda, Wayne Rogers and Loretta Swit.
Friday the 13th: The maligned slasher movie which evolved into a franchise well into the 2000’s, this year turned 40. A hockey mask would never again be seen as a piece of innocent safety equipment.
The Female Eunuch. Germaine Greer’s feminist masterpiece 40 years on, came to be regarded as a funny, angry, clever and hopeful attempt to change women’s lives.
Let it Be. The single and the album were released in 1970. The song gave the Beatles their seventh consecutive year charting a number 1 hit, sharing the all-time record, at the time, with Elvis Presley. The album marked the final Beatles album, recorded as the fab four before they disintegrated and moved into their solo careers.

Hopefully this provided a welcome break from the virus targetting the greyzone.

So…till next time.

June 8, 2020 0

January in the grey zone

Time can fly by in the grey zone, here is a quick wrap of what happened during January in the……..

Whatever gets you through….

A disturbing report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) highlighted that many older Australians are using illegal drugs. People aged 50 and over had increasing numbers using illicit substances like cannabis and pharmaceutical drugs being used for non-medical purposes. As reported in the Sydney Morning Herald, an “ageing cohort” of drug users had not given up substances in the same numbers as the generations that preceded and followed them.

For those aged in their fifties, the proportion of recent illicit drug users increased from 6.7 per cent to 11.7 per cent. Males in this age cohort were more likely to use illicit drugs, with the proportion of 50-something men reporting recent use increasing from 8.1 per cent to 15 per cent. For those aged 60 and over, the increase was from 4 per cent to 7.9 per cent.

The report said women were most likely to suffer drug-induced deaths in their mid-to-late 40s, with benzodiazepine the most common substance implicated in adult female drug deaths. For men aged 55 years and over, opiate-based painkillers were the most common substance present in toxicology reports.

Bad habits grow

The same report also showed the proportion of older people who drank at dangerous levels – consuming 11 or more standard drinks on a single occasion in the past 12 months – had “significantly increased” in the three years to 2016, from 9.1 per cent to 11.9 per cent for those in their fifties and from 4.7 per cent to 6.1 per cent for those in their sixties.

People in their sixties were the most likely to exceed the National Health and Medical Research Council guidelines by drinking more than four standard drinks a day at least five days a week, with 7 per cent doing so in 2016.

This working life

Turning back the clock; Age based dismissal reversed

A 74 year old handyman won his unfair dismissal claim against a motel group. The group alleged that due to the handyman’s age he didn’t have the required physical capability to perform his job despite having worked with the group for over two years. The group was reported as saying the 74 year old should be “enjoying his retirement.”

The Fair Work Commission (FWC) found the reason for the employee’s dismissal, which was made without any medical advice or assessment, “unsound, fanciful and capricious”

The Commissioner found the handyman was found to be “legally entitled to work and clearly capable of performing the work” and ordered that he be reinstated.

Appropriate work or work appropriate

While the government is urging workers in the greyzone to retrain and learn new skills to maintain employability, expert research is arguing that workplaces also need to learn how to adapt work to suit people in the 50+ range and proposing retraining as the only solution is reinforcing stereotypes and discriminatory barriers. Some employers are finding older workers are better suited to certain work particularly.

Dept of Employment shows that jobs for people in mid-40 to mid-50 with strong growth prospects exists across the welfare, construction, medical and education sectors particularly in white collar jobs.

Health and welfare. If we don’t grow up it will kill us

In 2019 it was found that Middle aged men are more likely to die than young people on NSW roads.

The last 12 months 352 people were killed, 115 aged between 30 & 59, a 10% increase from 2018 and emerging trend. Research from the Centre for Road Safety found that men admitted to taking more risks on the road when they were driving alone, particularly speeding and had an overinflated view of their ability.

Bernard Carlon, Executive Director of the Centre for Road Safety, is calling for drivers to make road safety a priority this year. “Our research tells us that men admit to taking more risks when they drive alone – especially speeding,” he said.

To all the middle aged men, as the sergeant would say on Hill Street Blues:

In the winner’s zone

The Golden Globes winners against nominees show exemplifies the journey through the grey zone.

Best Actress winner was Renee Zellweger, 50.

In the best supporting actress category, it was Laura Dern 52, with other zone nominees Kathy Bates 71 and Annette Bening 61.

In the best support actor category, it was full of zone nominees. The award won by Brad Pitt 56 from nominees Tom Hanks 63, Anthony Hopkins 82, Al Pacino 79 and Joe Pesci 76.

Closer to home

Dr James Muecke, 56, was awarded Australian of the Year for the surgeon’s work preventing blindness. In 2000 he co-founded Vision Myanmar at the South Australian Institute of Ophthalmology and later co-founded Sight For All, a social impact organisation aiming to create a world where everyone can see. More recently Dr Muecke’s work has specifically focused on preventing the leading cause of blindness in adults — type 2 diabetes.

Senior Australian of the Year was obstetrics specialist John Newnham. The 67 year old Professor Newnham is one of the world’s leading authorities in the prevention of pre-term birth and his initiatives have been credited for reducing pre-term births in WA by eight per cent.

Escapades From the grey zone to the Antarctica zone.

Australian explorer Geoff Wilson has cracked the record for the longest unsupported journey across the Antarctic, covering 5306 kilometres of icy terrain with nothing more than his own body, a wind kite and a sled full of food. Dr Wilson, 49, skied into the Russia’s Novolazarevskaya Station early on Saturday 4 January, Antarctic time, 58 days after he set out, beating the previous record by 206 kilometres.

“I was thrilled to be alive, overjoyed to be done and waves of relief washed over me as I stood almost stunned in a colourful isolated Russian outpost, the wind screaming through it. almost stunned in a colourful isolated Russian outpost, the wind screaming through it,” Dr Wilson wrote on his blog, The Longest Journey.

February 8, 2020 0

January: Grey Zone inhabitants making the news

Whilst the world seems full of younger people making all the moves here’s a short list of some grey zone inhabitants who made the news in January.

Politics

obama turnbull — Prime Minister Turnbull and President Obama had a Whitehouse chat on PM Turnbull’s worldwind January visits, including a trip to the Australian troops in Afghanistan before heading home to a tax storm and moving into the Lodge with Lucy, the first PM since 2013 (about 3 prime ministers ago) to live in the lodge.

obama speaking — President Obama delivered his last State of the Union address ahead of the campaigns for party nominations where for the presidential elections later this year. Where there will be lots of grey and a lot of orange if the The Donald is successful.

Sport

A pair of grey zone cricketing brothers (Mike and David Hussey) captained their teams to the final of the T20 BBL05 with the senior Mike Hussey taking the honours over David.

lfc — A bunch of greying and greyed Liverpool Legends took on an Australian ALL Stars (practically all grey) 11 and showed that the legs may be slower but the silky skills and soccer (football) brains were still sharp.

Society

: Craig Foster (Foz) had some unwanted attention after the Legends, ALL stars game. Needing to defend himself against some perverts suggesting inappropriate attention to a child that led the teams onto the field. Which happened to be him as a father giving his daughter a hug as the teams lined up.

: Lee Lin Chin was the face of Operation Boomerang, the Lamb Council’s Australia Day ad campaign. Eliciting outrage from Vegans and controversy of the appropriation of Aboriginal Culture on a sensitive day for the Aboriginal Society.

Entertainment

: Samuel L Jackson gave a standout movie performance, as major Marquis Warren, in Tarantino’s Hateful 8 amongst an ensemble cast. Jackson obviously loving his appearance in another Tarantino movie just seems to get better with age.

Missing from screens for sometime Kurt Russell as Jon Ruth gives a menacing performance in Hateful8,dragging Jennifer Jason Leigh to the gallows of Justice and his reward.

Icons who unfortunately exited the grey zone

The iconic genre busting and music scene transforming David Bowie. From Space Oddity to Blackstar 40 years later. The thin white duke not only re-defined music but even financial markets when he issued Bowie Bonds in 1977 a financial securities investment to buy back the rights to many of his earlier works from his former manager.

: Alan Rickman who bought superb acting across a range of roles but best remembered for menacing performances including the iconic Professor Severus Snape in Harry Potter and as Die Hard’s Hans Gruber – one of only 2 roles he agreed was a villian, the rest being interesting characters.

March 1, 2016 0