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