The Australian Bite

A shed, an opera & a tame impala

5 August 2010

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This week on the Bite, we drop in on the Dubbo Men’s shed, where men from all walks of life get together for a yarn and a cup of tea.  We meet some teenagers who are writing and staging their very own operas.  And we travel to Cape Grim in Tasmania, where samples of air are collected and sent all around the world.

Men’s shed a healing place

Sawing, hammering, welding and carving are playing a part in healing wounds that have existed in rural communities for generations. Since 2002 the Men’s Shed program has set up more than 400 sheds across the country where blokes can get together over an angle grinder and have a good chat. But there’s a very special one in Dubbo, in Western New South Wales, that’s bringing together indigenous and non-indigenous men. Amy Volkovsky dropped in for a visit.

More on this story at the ABC Rural website

Teen Opera brings out the drama

Opera is normally associated with expensive tickets, overdressed patrons and songs sung in European languages. So when you give a group of teenagers 15 hours and a bunch of pens and paper, the last thing you’d expect is for them to write and compose their own opera. About 80 teenagers in regional Victoria were given exactly that task, staging their own modern classic. And as Will Ockenden found out, a bit of teenage angst goes a long way when writing an opera.

See more photos at the ABC Central Victoria website

Sampling the air at Cape Grim

When the world’s scientists and politicians sit down to talk about how the earth’s atmosphere is changing, much of their data comes from Tasmania. Scientists at Cape Grim on Tasmania’s windy northwest coast have been collecting and analysing air for more than thirty years, and they supply data for scientists working all around the world. There is even an archive in Victoria that’s full of flasks of Cape Grim air. Sam Cleland oversees the Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station, and he took reporter Eliza Wood on a tour.

More on this story – including lots of pictures – at the ABC Rural website

Music (not in podcast)

Tame Impala isa three piece psychedelic rock band from Perth, Western Australia. From their new album Innerspeaker, this is the single, Solitude is Bliss

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