Speaker 1: Now this is Australia Urban Eye with Tony McManus. Every
Speaker 1: couple of weeks we catch up with the wonderful, the
Speaker 1: always engaging, the thoroughly entertaining George Donique. And oh it's
Speaker 1: a little little cliche, a little bit good morning George.
Speaker 2: You haven't done that dance by the lay.
Speaker 1: A few years ago at a beautiful Greek restaurant in kens.
Speaker 2: And how long did it take you to recover?
Speaker 1: About three and a half days from memory. And I
Speaker 1: guess what his name.
Speaker 2: Is, George?
Speaker 1: It's George George. And so George up there in far
Speaker 1: North Queensland has been running.
Speaker 2: I started my radio career at four c A at
Speaker 2: four a m.
Speaker 1: Ah, right, I did not know that?
Speaker 2: Yes? What well?
Speaker 1: Right when they were making the hoochie cooch up there
Speaker 1: the tobacco.
Speaker 2: Might they have always made the hoochie COOCHIEU.
Speaker 1: Haven't they done? Ever? The point about George and he's
Speaker 1: a beautiful place there in Cairnes. Every single night he
Speaker 1: walks around the restaurant smashing the dishes, throwing them out
Speaker 1: in the floor. It is incredible. Why would you wash them?
Speaker 1: He smashes it in the restaurants and then well.
Speaker 2: It even at tax time, and we need to end
Speaker 2: of the year. We need to just clarify how we
Speaker 2: get to work the books out, and do we just
Speaker 2: smashed the plates?
Speaker 1: Did you play Marvels at school?
Speaker 2: I was never quite good enough to remember. This is
Speaker 2: something that people don't really readily know. I went to
Speaker 2: school supposedly at five. In other words, I say that
Speaker 2: Mum took me to school at five to enroll me.
Speaker 2: Her English was not really as good as it should
Speaker 2: have been at the time. And when the head master said,
Speaker 2: this is Denithian, it's halfway through term one. Do you
Speaker 2: mind bringing George at the end of the term or
Speaker 2: the beginning of the next term? Mum nodded and went
Speaker 2: home and brought me back a year later, so she thought,
Speaker 2: you know, it meant a year, not the end of
Speaker 2: the term. So I went to school as a six
Speaker 2: year old and did not know a word of English.
Speaker 2: Did not know a word of English. It took me
Speaker 2: a long long time to be able to get to
Speaker 2: that stage where I was, I suppose fluent and able
Speaker 2: to mix in with all the other kids who thought
Speaker 2: I was this arrogant so and so and so and so,
Speaker 2: even at six, So It just goes to show you
Speaker 2: that people make assumptions and they have no idea.
Speaker 1: Well, that's my next point. I was given this. I
Speaker 1: was given this little thing. It's been around for a
Speaker 1: little while, simply called ice Breaker. It's a whole set
Speaker 1: of cards, about one hundred and fifty and it's got
Speaker 1: a question on each of the ice Breaking card that
Speaker 1: you having a dinner party. You would read one of
Speaker 1: these out, and I selected one for you to consider.
Speaker 1: You may not consider it straight away, but consider it.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about it maybe a bit later on when
Speaker 1: you collect your thought. What is a mistake that people
Speaker 1: often make about George di.
Speaker 2: Nickian where I come from?
Speaker 1: Ah, that was pretty easy, right, that's ruined that segment.
Speaker 2: Well, it's always break That's always been the problem they
Speaker 2: And when I was in Queensland, they thought I was
Speaker 2: a Queenslander. When I was in Adelaide, they thought I
Speaker 2: was a South Australian. When I landed in Melbourne, they
Speaker 2: thought I was from somewhere else. And it's taken me
Speaker 2: a lifetime basically to remind people that I'm a Sydney boy,
Speaker 2: born and bred, and I've traveled Australia and had the
Speaker 2: good fortune to learn more about this country, and I
Speaker 2: wish more of us did, because that way we'd be
Speaker 2: less parochial and more Australian.
Speaker 1: And that's a good point. Because we started the program
Speaker 1: this morning. I don't whether you were listening at twelve
Speaker 1: twelve thirty. We've got lots of phone calls because I
Speaker 1: just happened to say, guess what our politicians get a
Speaker 1: pay rise? And then yeah, and then phones went. Need
Speaker 1: to meltdown about who, how, why were and when? How
Speaker 1: does that work? And what I.
Speaker 2: Probably want to educate them.
Speaker 1: Well, you well, it's not me about education. It's about
Speaker 1: trying to understand the idea of the walls. Democracy is
Speaker 1: not fantastic. It's a really good system as opposed to
Speaker 1: other systems. It might be used in other places.
Speaker 2: Whether there are some parts of the world at the
Speaker 2: moment that are really feeling an enormous amount of volatility
Speaker 2: and pression, and we need to remind people that there's
Speaker 2: a proper and right way to not only look after
Speaker 2: each other, and that is to try and understand that
Speaker 2: in a community we all have to compromise and if
Speaker 2: we want to make a noise, there's a right time
Speaker 2: for it. That's the beginning of the election cycle. And
Speaker 2: on polling day you make your feelings felt. You don't
Speaker 2: become a football supporter. And that is that. By that,
Speaker 2: I mean you don't get stuck to the colors and
Speaker 2: you look at what's right and fair and what's good
Speaker 2: for everyone, not just yourself. And if you feel that
Speaker 2: strongly about it, don't that way, and no one should
Speaker 2: tell you any different. And the reason for that, the
Speaker 2: reason I'm so confident in that is our forefathers decided
Speaker 2: everything would be secret ballot. Yeah, so that way you
Speaker 2: don't have to, you know, you know, make a hue
Speaker 2: and cry about why I didn't pursue your line of thinking.
Speaker 2: You let me and as an adult, to go into
Speaker 2: that room, draw the curtain and make up my own mind.
Speaker 1: And you, George, there are some in this great audience
Speaker 1: that I have right across Australia who will say they're
Speaker 1: all no good, get rid of the whole lot. And
Speaker 1: then I will say, well who do you put in?
Speaker 1: And then they will say, oh, that's not important, just
Speaker 1: get rid of them all.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, that's all well and good, but at
Speaker 2: the end of the day we have to we have
Speaker 2: to support people we believe in. It's not always easy.
Speaker 2: There are so many forces that press on them. And
Speaker 2: the hardest thing about politics is remaining true to yourself.
Speaker 2: And one of the reasons why I've never entered politics because,
Speaker 2: as I've realized, you have to give too much away
Speaker 2: to actually get to where you want to go, and
Speaker 2: by the time you get that, you're not the person
Speaker 2: you began the journey by being. So you know, if
Speaker 2: you want to stay true to yourself, stay out of politics,
Speaker 2: because it's just too difficult. It's too it takes too
Speaker 2: much away from the real you. You have to keep
Speaker 2: giving up things. And when you landed that spot, who
Speaker 2: are you? Who are you really? What are you? What
Speaker 2: are you meant to be doing? So that's the challenge
Speaker 2: of MOE.
Speaker 1: We certainly don't want to be a cynical George store.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 1: I just want to briefly touch on some of the
Speaker 1: things that are happening overseas in extraordinary time happening.
Speaker 2: Well, I've been.
Speaker 1: You stayed there, We'll come back more with George Denikan
Speaker 1: all part of Australia over Nighty're on three ow the
Speaker 1: good people over there at five double A in Adelaide
Speaker 1: six pur in Perth and the ACE Radio Network. Good
Speaker 1: Morning Ross and Rouss with the breaking program coming up
Speaker 1: here on three aw ruandabout still on our twelve minutes
Speaker 1: there about straight after David Armstrong's news, you wouldn't have
Speaker 1: seen George Danikim with the as a great story. Page
Speaker 1: three of the Age this morning talks about a bootmaker.
Speaker 1: This is one of one of the great Melbourne Victorian stories.
Speaker 1: I reckon. This is a bloke who makes luxury shoes
Speaker 1: sold at an upmarket at Melbourne store. His name is
Speaker 1: how you get this right? A Wee day U cub.
Speaker 1: He's been a trust, He's been using his old PF
Speaker 1: sewing machine. It is Melbourne home for decades and decades
Speaker 1: and there still makes them his ninety six years Lebanese. Gorgeous,
Speaker 1: great picture of him doing what he's been doing for decades,
Speaker 1: making these beautiful shoes and they're still selling it six
Speaker 1: hundred dollars a pair.
Speaker 2: Well, my grandfather and my great grandfather and my father
Speaker 2: to for a little while made beautiful shoes for women
Speaker 2: and others. And I remember as a young boy watching
Speaker 2: them make stiletto's and understanding just how complicated and how
Speaker 2: important a task it was to make sure that they
Speaker 2: got it right so that the heel would support the
Speaker 2: woman and not have a fall over to it comfortable. Yeah, yeah, yeah, No,
Speaker 2: there's an art, there's a great talent. And if you
Speaker 2: find people like that, they spend their lives with great
Speaker 2: precision and with great joy making beautiful things. So what
Speaker 2: a gorgeous story.
Speaker 1: It's a wonderful story. Page three. And it reminds me
Speaker 1: so remember around Melbourne there would have been those wonderful
Speaker 1: and Sydney too, where you were growing up, there would
Speaker 1: have been beautiful tailors where gents, men and women would
Speaker 1: go in and have a suit made or a jacket
Speaker 1: maid that would last forever pretty much.
Speaker 2: And they do it with love, with love. The really
Speaker 2: good ones always did it with love. My father had
Speaker 2: all these suits made for him and they were beautiful
Speaker 2: suits and they've blasted, you know, when Dad passed, had
Speaker 2: a wardrobe full of beautiful suits that we gave to
Speaker 2: the various hop shops because it was it was right
Speaker 2: and fair and those clothes were still good, were beautifully
Speaker 2: woven and stitched together and looked masterful and looked you
Speaker 2: know still well, you know they were like retro just gorgeous. Yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah and.
Speaker 1: Natural And now like you, George, we just sneaked out
Speaker 1: to Henry Bucks. And that's as good as life gets.
Speaker 1: That's as good as life kids. Yeah, we'll get now.
Speaker 1: Just so just put this on the George's accoub would you.
Speaker 2: All right, that's how it works.
Speaker 1: Just on a very serious note before we leave you,
Speaker 1: there's lots of things happening, much of which many of
Speaker 1: us don't fully understand. In the Middle East, it feels
Speaker 1: tense or does the media sort of a drive it
Speaker 1: to some degree in terms of the tension around it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, unfortunately media today modern media, and it's all
Speaker 2: of it, whether it's social media or not. Not. We're
Speaker 2: no longer called it social media. It is media because
Speaker 2: it's seen around the world and it's send in real time. Yes,
Speaker 2: everyone has an angle. Everyone has a particular thing they
Speaker 2: want to pursue or push, and we've seen it and
Speaker 2: it's a great disruptor. And you know, some people have
Speaker 2: to scream a little bit harder than the others. Someone
Speaker 2: wants to be out there first with a report or something,
Speaker 2: and we get this distortion in the marketplace. Whether everyone
Speaker 2: sees it as a distortion or not. It's a huge challenge.
Speaker 2: That's why the legacy networks are doing the best they
Speaker 2: can to try and be as as strong and as
Speaker 2: accurate as they can be. But it's a real race
Speaker 2: to capture the hearts and minds of the marketplace. And
Speaker 2: people are changing their taste, their desires, there wants, and
Speaker 2: there are a lot of people who just want to
Speaker 2: hide from all the noise, so they don't want to read,
Speaker 2: they don't want to watch, they don't want to you know, listen.
Speaker 2: So that's another problem.
Speaker 1: That is a problem, and I know we're in the
Speaker 1: shared house. The tension is a do we need to
Speaker 1: be looking at that again?
Speaker 2: I know all those people, all those people said that
Speaker 2: to me for years and year views when we're doing
Speaker 2: the SBS World News, Why do you want to tell
Speaker 2: us all about those stories? Because they're important. But it's
Speaker 2: incumbent on all of us to understand that these are
Speaker 2: trying times and they've been around for years and years
Speaker 2: and years. These are troubled spots for a good reason,
Speaker 2: because the answers aren't readily available. But we have to
Speaker 2: hope that the key players, that is, the players who
Speaker 2: can make decisions that impact will do it and do
Speaker 2: it soon and keep our fingers crossed.
Speaker 1: We've got to get the correct pronunciation. Helen sends you
Speaker 1: text because your George, the correct pronunciation of N you
Speaker 1: c l e A r n U c l e
Speaker 1: A nuclear.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, it is definitely nuclear, not any other version
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: Nuclear.
Speaker 2: Are all in nuclear nuclear as a nuclear.
Speaker 1: Energy, nuclear energy. And Helen, I hope that knows.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Lenny.
Speaker 1: It's one of the ongoing discussions.
Speaker 2: It is an instant one.
Speaker 1: It's like how many times on the news yesterday did
Speaker 1: here it happened at seven am in the morning.
Speaker 2: Oh, please don't start no in the morning. And I
Speaker 2: want to pick up I know they mean I know
Speaker 2: they mean well. I know they mean well that we
Speaker 2: could fill a whole whole programing people do and say.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to fling the Wikis the r Wheaties
Speaker 1: carden right across the kitchen in the morning. George. It's
Speaker 1: always a pleasure. I wish we could do it a
Speaker 1: bit more often. But it's great to get you on
Speaker 1: the thank you, thank you for getting good on you
Speaker 1: mate by you too, But George, Dinicky and who we
Speaker 1: catch up with a time to time, all part of Australia.
Speaker 1: Overnight it's always a joy.