Welcome to Something to Talk About the Stella Podcast. I'm Sarah Lamarquin, your host and Stella's editor in chief. Every week I sit down with some of the biggest names in the country because when Australia's celebrities are ready to talk, they come to Something to Talk About. It's Amanda Keller's
job to share snippets of her private life. For the past nineteen years, she's co hosted a breakfast radio show where she has laid bare many family details at times, as she's the first to admit a little too many. But there was something that Amanda kept secret for a long time, and then late last year on her podcast, Amanda revealed that her husband of thirty four years, Harley, had been living with Parkinson's for the past six years.
As a confessed oversharer, this was one thing Amanda couldn't share until she was ready.
And I'm really proud of how we are, well not always how I try and navigate it with him, how we are doing this as a team, and the fact that we are a team. That's what we said, you said on our anniversary, we said, aren't we lucky that despite all the rest of it, that the nut of love is still there.
On today's episode, Amanda joins me to talk about Harley, their two adult sons, Jack and Liam, whether or not she'll ever consider a role on television again, and why she's forgiven Tom Gleeson, the man many believe robbed her of a well deserved gold LOGI five years ago, Amanda Keller, welcome to something to talk about.
I'm thrilled to be here. Hello. I wanted to.
Open our conversation by asking about something that is really quite poignant. You revealed last year that your husband Harley, had been diagnosed with Parkinson's around six years earlier. Do you mind if I start by not at all how you're all doing, How you're doing, of course, how Harlee's doing, in your two sons.
I've bought a tissue just in case, because every time I talk about it, sometimes I'm fine, and sometimes it gets a bit overwhelming. Look, Harley's quite remarkable. He's so pragmatic with this. He just gets on with it. And I've gone through a phase of being angry because I'd say things like, oh, come on, stand upright, or your voice. You know, I knew what was it he'd been diagnosed. I knew what was going on, but I found it
hard to accept it all. And I just feel now I'm very much on the path of acceptance, or that radical acceptance as we speak about. Some days that's a phrase that I'm trying to live and other days I do feel it. But we're both on the same page now. I think for a while I was kind of fighting it. And as I said, Harley is quite remarkable in his approach to this, and because of that, the boys just get on with it. To our sons, it's hard for them because they don't live at home anymore. And I
see Harley every day. And was my son's twenty first birthday, and I got very emotional talking on air about how it felt to be going to that without him, and how he is normally the archivist of our lives and he would have done the audio visuals and he would have done a speech and all of this. I just felt wrong that I was going without him. And then not long into the evening, my friend said, Harley's here, and as a surprise, he'd organized with a friend and
a driver to get him there. And I still feel very emotional about it because I thought he I know how hard it was for him to do that, but how amazing that he did, How amazing that he did, And in that moment, I think the love I had for him and for our family. I just thought, he's still him, and he is still him, and the other physical things are going on around it, but the heart of him is still him, and the brain of him
is still him, and it was a great reminder. So some other people were shock because I hadn't seen him for a while, but I was just so proud that he was vanity free. He thought, it's too important for me to be here, and the rest of it just didn't matter.
Did your son Jack whose twenty first birthday did he know?
No, none of us was coming.
None of us knew, and so it was a wonderful rush for all of us to have him there. So Harley sayd for about an hour, was there for the speeches, and friends come up to say hello to him, and then he went home and then you know, the dancing and the rest of it continued. But it was so important, and I'm so grateful that he appreciate the importance. And also the fact he didn't tell me he was coming kind of gave me a night off because I would have tried to.
That's my problem is I try.
And micromanage everything and make everything all right for everybody, and this isn't going to be all right for everybody. So I'm exhausting myself. So the fact that I could turn up without having to think about how he was going to get there made my night so much easier too.
What an amazing twenty four birthday gift you absolutely and for him to say, how could I not be here?
That will stay with Jack forever.
I think every time there's a diagnosis in a family, whatever it is, everyone is often on a really steep learning curve, especially if it is something that you might not necessarily have even thought very much about or known very much about. Has it been, to put it mildly, an incredibly steep learning curve for.
You, interestingly only through living through it. Harley's a big science head, so he knew the science, he knew the story, but he chose not to be doctor Google and some friends at the beginning were saying, hey, here's some remedies I've seen, and it was showing people at the very tail end, and so he thought, I don't want those images in my head, so neither us I've remained quite pollannerish on this in that I haven't deep dived on
a medical story. I'm living it as it happens. And part of that is choosing to be naive, almost like taking the easy way out, because if you're going to I don't know what preparedness does for you, apart from panic you so probably to my detriment, because maybe I should have been more prepared, but I'm learning as we go, and neither of us need to know more than that as we go.
Absolutely, Gosh, can I just object to the words easy way out?
There's no easy way out?
But I know what I'm like, and I'd be prone to overthinking and panic and trying to fix things so out of my control. And I saw a great woman. I see this fantastic woman. She's a kinesiologist, but she's a fabulous therapist. And she said to me very early on, you're in a boat beside Harley. You can't paddle his boat, and you take his agency away by trying to. Because we'd had a similar conversation when my son left home and I still want to cry about that too. She said,
you have to let his boat go. And I said, can I be in the back of the boat, and she said, you can be in the back of the boat, but it's his, it's his shining light that's navigating it. And it's kind of similar with Harley in a way that I know I'm trying to I'm trying to make everything right for everybody, and A, you can't because you'll exhaust yourself, but B that's not what's right for everybody.
So it is that radical acceptance thing of I'm in a boat alongside and she said to me, maybe all you have to do is to love him, and psychologically that makes so much sense, and that's harder to live by sometimes, but that's there the thoughts I have in my head of trying to be alongside him and not be in his face and just let him deal it with the grace that he is.
I think you've just given voice to and experience. So many people would relate to Amanda, because that's I think. While we use the word helpless, isn't it when somebody we know is dealing with something that we can't make better for them, and it is part of what is so difficult, so difficult these situations in life that are beyond our control.
I feel am I being selfish in not trying to in today and not fixing it for him? Is it okay just to be? And of course it is, and he'd prefer that. So taking a step back for all of us is something I'm trying to do.
Can I ask you a little bit? Are you and Harley being married for a very long time?
Thirty four years? Yesterday?
Oh? Congratulations? Thirty four years? And that is an amazing innings And every relationship, every long term relationship, every marriage has its chapters, seasons eras as Taylor Swift, we'll probably call it. I'm sure we'll hear a song about that thirty four years from now. I imagine the different things that you and Harley have been through, like a lot of couples that you have children, you know, struggles with creating
a family. You know, they're struggling with infertility. Then you've got young children, You've got periods where you're both dealing with chaos at work or great times at work, extreme busyness. I want to ask you a little bit. As you mentioned, your boys aren't living at home now, you know, the empty nest, this particular situation, what you have navigated this past six years together with his diagnosis. Is that something
that has forged the partnership even more? And as the second part of that question, do you think it's something that you could have survived thirty four years ago, thirty years ago.
Twenty four years ago.
I found a card the other day as a postcard of two older people asleeping deck chairs with their mouths might open on a cruise. And it must have been very early in our relationship. I remember it used to be on our window sill and before we got married, and I said, here is mister and missus Harley Oliver, forty years from now at the old People's Home. I'll love you forever beyond two thousand, because we met it beyond two thousand, and I suddenly thought, we're at thirty
four years. You click your fingers and you're there. And I take great pride. I don't want to be too weepy, but I take great pride in what we've navigated. And I do think in a way a friend of mine, I use the word there's a certain exquisite nature to the love when it's like this, an exquisite in the way it can be painful to life. You've got to lose tooth and you're pressing. It's an exquisite pain, but
an exquisite love. And I'm really proud of how we are, well not always how I try and navigate it with him, how we are doing this as a team, and the fact that we are a team. And so we said, yes said in our anniversary we said, aren't we lucky that despite all the rest of it, the nut of love.
Is still there?
And it probably have been times when you're too busy to actually think about that, whereas we've really had to choose that, and I know it is a choice and I don't always express it. I can be impatient and cranky and all those things with it, but the nut of it is, I'm very conscious that we are leaning in to who we are now and leaning into all that this experienced through us, which isn't all terrible.
There's an absolute.
Tightness between us now and I'm sort of experiencing all of it.
Speaking of exquisite love, which was a beautiful phrase that you just used exquisite pain to mentioned your sons. So of course, Jack, as we just talked about, turned twenty one recently and Liam is twenty three just last week, so the empty nest syndrome. I don't know what we're calling it in twenty twenty four. You may have a much more modern take on it. How are you and Harley feeling about that side of things? You know?
I think the preparing for it and the imagining of it is worse than the reality of it. Liam left to go to new University in Newcastle four years ago, and I found that hard, really hard. And then Jack he went to live on campus but in Sydney, and I thought I'd never get used to it. But Jack's a party animal, and so meeting up at four in the morning and him getting home at two kind of had a slight clash to it. So to my shock, I found that it was okay. I found that it
was okay. They're both now in Sydney. They don't, as I said, they don't live at home, but I see a lot more of Liam than I used to, and Jack makes a real effort to and talk most days, so I feel okay with it in a way I never pictured. The boys went to a school where they had an experience in year nine where they go away for a whole term half a year.
Pretty much.
I think it was they have an outdoors education for six months.
It's a long time.
It's a long time, and it's when they're in year nine. So how old are you in year nine? Thirteen forteen.
So my oldest son's in year nine, he's about to turn fifteen years.
And I found that's so challenging because it's the first time I had to put myself second to what was good for them. And they were allowed to make phone. There's no email, they had to write letters home, and whether they having a good time or a bad time,
you weren't in charge. And I thought it was quite profound because the whole point of it was that as helicopter parents, suddenly the kids could prove themselves with each other and start to look for camaraderie in each other and strength that wasn't to do with your parents' perception of you. I found it quite profound the experience that they had. But I found that really hard. And that's one because they leave. There is so little when they go,
so I found that hard. And then the dreading. I thought it'd be those emotions again when they actually left home, but by the time they did, I was kind of ready for it. And now I'm so used to it, and now I can just go to bed early. I don't have to think about it anyone. You know, Harley's okay, I'm okay the end. So it's shockingly it's okay.
My boys are turning thirteen and fifteen, so.
You can't imagine when they're that age. You can't imagine a moment where they're not in your care.
Absolutely, when you said six months, I know though I was six months, because even a night feels like somehow.
And I always embarrassed him because I cry every time I tell this story. But at one point we were climbing up you have to the parents go and do hikes with the kids a couple of times during that and they're really hard going hikes. And at one point Lim said, I'll help you get to the top here, and I had a flash to his very first day of school.
We're at the top of the stairs.
He said, I don't think I can do it, and I said, come on, I'll help you out, and I suddenly it was in a blink of an eye, which swapped and he was my guide.
And that's the whole point of that whole experience.
And I had it in that sentence, just amazing, trying.
To teary through all of that.
Obviously, it's at that moment where they over take you in height.
Isn't that weird too?
That is weird because we express love for a small boy, your children not being weird, but you know, cuddles and kisses, and suddenly when they're men, it's a very different physical dynamic. But the first time he's in a restaurant, I thought, oh the wayters come behind me and it was Liam and I was so shocked that it was my thirteen year old who was taller than me.
I got such a shock. And then that just keeps going, going and going.
I listened recently to a voice message that one of my sons had left, and I picked it up, and if you ever had anything like this? He said, Oh hi Mom, And I'm listening thinking who is this man? It wasn't that boy's voice. So my younger boy, who's still twelve, sounds very different. That's another moment in terms of and.
I've always tried to be gracious and accept all those moments. But also I lost my mom twenty years ago, and I want to say to her because I just left home, didn't look back, and I thought, did she feel like this?
And how I want to say? G I'm sorry.
I was so ungracious, you know, And because I thought my life began when I left home, I thought, how dare my son's lives be beginning after me?
How can that be?
So I try and remind myself to be gracious, and if they don't return with text or something, I think, gee, you know we went overseason, never kept in touch.
Yeah, it's so funny, isn't it looking back at those moments and seeing it through that lens when you talk about, you know, telling embarrassing stories. A lot of people parents are now navigating the oversharing on social media. Conversation for you, Amanda, you've worked in FM radio for a long time. Obviously you're one half of Jonesy and Amanda the Breakfast Show in Sydney, but you've worked for really all of their lives.
Were there moments in the pre social media era when they were growing up where there were stories you're telling me because everyone knows how that FM, particularly radio, for their moments where you got pushback from them during that time.
It's so interesting because that's exactly what it is. You mind your own life for moments to talk about that might that other people are going through as well. When the kids were little, you could say anything because they didn't know and didn't care. But I did become aware that you have to give some thought to other people hearing these stories. And there's one in particular where and here I am telling it again. But Jack's older now,
and who cares. I hope he doesn't. But I was going through a school bag and there was a one hundred sandwiches just squashed in the bottom. Week after we could just smashed them all in the bottom, and I took them all out and put them on the table and I took a photo and I said I should put this on social media. He said, oh, please, don't.
And I hate myself that I didn't. But I spoke about it on air the next day and Harley said he was driving Jack to school and Jack just put his head against the back of the seat and closed his eyes. And when I heard that, I just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed, and I thought he deserves to grow up in a house where he is safe from public scrutiny in any way. I just felt so terrible. So I knew he wanted. He was learning guitar. I knew he wanted this little I think it was a ukulele.
No one bought him put on his bed. But the best thing of all of this was not trying to buy his acceptance, which was stupid. What happened was when he came home from school. I just said, I'm so sorry, Please forgive me. I have no right to speak about you in a way that doesn't make you comfortable. And he said, that's okay, I don't mind, before he went upstairs, and so I guiltily brought him a present, so he'd said it.
Was okay before he saw I'd bribed him.
But that was such a valuable lesson to me. And now I will say, do you mind if I talk about this? To mind if I say this before I talk about stuff about them?
And how did the ukulele go?
I realized that it was not necessary in the end, because the good conversation, which of course is what all of us learn, isn't it, as parents, the best moment. So when you can go I'm really sorry, I stuffed up.
I'm stuffed up.
I'm such an important thing, that's it. I mean not to be cliched about it. But that's such a gift, isn't it for a parent to give a child, I think.
And for them also to forgive you as rather than I just would have held a grudge. I was as such a grudge holders if my mother ever admitted any moment of weakness or guilt, I would have just been surly about it, which he said, Oh, that's okay, and that was the.
End of it. Coming up, Amanda opens up about her new podcast and her multiple work husbands. Amanda, you are now also hosting a podcast Double a Chattery with your best friend Anita McGregor, where you talk about quote smart, dumb, topical things. I love this because I don't know what your observations are as somebody that's obviously been a consumer of media like all of us your whole life, and
then worked in the media for a long time. Is that these conversations about the serious and the trivial, the light and the shade, as they used to call it, still call it a newspaper world, is something that almost every woman I know does in their own conversation. You can be talking about really heavy, intense things, and then a few minutes later it might be you know about something that happened on the Sex and the City reboot, or some gossip about Jennifer Lopez.
Because that's life, isn't it, And that's how it is. Well, Anita and I. She's a forensic psychologist, which means that she's a psychologist that works within I guess, the legal or policing system. So she sees sex offenders, people who've transgressed in a variety of ways, who are in front of the courts, and she's a psychologist who sees them, and she's also working at a university teaching this the court. She runs a department, so she brings a very interesting
spin to things. And she and I have gone on weekend walks for about fourteen years. We walk my dog, and that's exactly as you're saying, Sarah, what our conversations are. We'll say something incredible, she'll say something amazingly profound, like oh my god, I hadn't thought of that, and then we'll talk about picking your nose or something ridiculous. So we thought, other women like us are talking about this stuff.
And I thought, having worked in the media for a long time and worked on FM radio, talk about certain topics and for a certain period of time. It'd be nice to see to have a longer chat about topics that Jones isn't necessarily interested in, but also that a forensic psychologist brings a different skew to, for example, recently the Bond Diijunction stabbings. As someone who sees who works with perpetrators of domestic violence and violence of all kinds
her very kind. She's a very kind hearted person. Who said, no one should be defined by their worst act. And I said, well, what if your worst act is an act of incredible violence against someone? She said, well, the courts will determine that. She said, my job is to work out why they're doing it and how they how to stop them doing it. So she has huge compassion, and she said, if we're just going to throw money at the victims, we're just going to be pulling people
out downstream. Yes, we need to fund help for the victims, but we also, she said, it's very unpopular thinking we have to fund the perpetrators. We have to fund research way up here. We have to look at who they are, what they're doing. Why we have to spend our tax dollars looking at the men? And she said, not everyone's happy to hear that, but that was her experience, and I thought, how great that we had this podcast to talk about what her skew of this was when she
works with those people every day. So that's just one example of stuff. But also being of a certain age we are, we've done other topics on getting rid of your parents' stuff. I think we're the first generation to not take our parents' stuff. And when we all left home, we had to take Auntie Mabel's dining room table and this and that. Now people are living, are buying their own furniture, lighter, cheaper furniture,
They're moving around more. They don't want grandma's old dining table or the corner table that just sits there and doesn't really get used. There's no obligation to take it. And parents are downsizing and no one wants their stuff. So we kind of look at a variety of age related things as well.
I mean, those two are very different and fascinating topics. So you find my imagine you've already done this, but working in radio for so long, but do you find that you're both sending yourself little notes in the middle of the night, writing something down. Something happens that you observe it and you think, oh, that's the thought, because I imagine it was something like that that triggered that conversation.
Well, that's right.
I think it was an article I might have seen in Washington Post or something. But often an I'll be walking along and as I bend down to pick up a dog pool, we'll have discussed something. I say, take a note on your phone, and she'll send me a note that'll make no sense apart from us to us. That's this cryptic sentence. We both understand what we're talking about.
You do you ever have moments where you don't, because I often send myself notes if i'm you know, like in the car and I like send a voice to text or whatever on earth that's called I clearly didn't work on beyond two thousand and a man, because I'm still struggling with what's that thing called where you're putting words in a thing. And then I'll get home it'll be something like and I'll think, what was I trying
to say? Because all I've had an idea for a shoot or an interview or something, and then I'm like, I have no idea what that jumble of letters I do that.
Too, And I texted Anita just last week and said, you know how I wrote that thing to you? Do you remember what that means? Because yes, it left my head long ago.
Working with Anita on this podcast on air. In radio and TV, you have worked alongside a lot of men, so mention Brendan Jones On Jonesy and Amanda Andrew Denton, who's been a longtime collaborator on television, radio on the Living Room. Of course, I've worked with a couple of people that are very much in the stellar ecosystem, including
doctor Chris Brown and Barry Dubois. Is it nice to work alongside a woman because I don't pretend to know you very well, Amanna, but you are somebody that seems like what we call terrible phrase, you know, a girl's girl, and yet professionally you have found yourself in environments like a lot of us, where you are working with a lot of men.
That's true, wasn't it.
I hadn't even really thought about that, And it's interesting. With the radio, I've always been grateful never had never having to do that, he said. She said, kind of radio or it's two girls topic and it's two boys topics. We bring things to the table that we just think are interesting.
But it is different.
I think to work with Anita because she and I find things different different we find things interesting from a different perspective, for the deep dive. FM radio doesn't always allow the deep dive, which is what I enjoy about it, and she and I have similar interest in the things we read the things we glean, though she'll come at it from a different perspective, so that's different to FM.
But you're right.
I often have been that had been the ring leader, like in the living room. It's kind of the ring leader of a crazy circus with those guys, and I loved that role. But with Jonesy, I think we both
approach it the same way. It's funny that I was talking to someone the other day and saying why I think the show works is that he might say something that will infuriate me, and I'll say, I mean, we're very good friends, but he'll say something I say, oh god, it's like such a nineteen eighties man, and yet I'll
know that half our audience agree with him. So it's good for me to also work with someone who's different to me or different from me, as my mother would say, so that the soup in between the two of us hopefully covers more people than just me saying here's what I think our show should be about and him saying here's what I think it should be about. It's an interesting mix of all those things.
Absolutely, and also in this time where everyone's very antagonistic and the political debate and the tone, partly because of social media, but just there, it does seem to be a lot of anger around a lot of what we call quote unquote cancel culture is sometimes there's people raging against each other and not giving each other the benefit
of the doubt. The conversation you were talking about earlier that you and Anita had on the podcast about complicated and often unpopular conversations about how do we stop perpetrators of violence against twom and how do we come up with solutions? And sometimes that is a lot more complex than just saying, oh, I can't deal with this all men o. The problem. It's actually, as you said and Anita covered, investing money in really complicated solutions because that's how things get better.
It's the same with our discourse.
Isn't it. If we don't allow that suit between.
Us and That's what's interesting about Anita because she has no media background. She's not even aware that there should be discourse, that we should have a different opinion, that we should be all that early FM radio stuff. That was you have to have different opinions, you have to pick a topic that you both got to feel differently about that she said, As I said earlier, I don't do that kind of radio, but particularly with Anita, she's happy.
We're happy just to laugh and agree with everything we say. I read this interesting book. I just loved it, and we did it one of the podcasts on a book called Doppelganger, and it's by Naomi Klein, who is a fabulous writer. And she said that she often used to be mistaken for Naomi Wolf, who is the beauty myth and a very early feminist. And she said, Naomi Wolf now has become an anti vaxxer, has become a right wing,
fully right wing kind of supporter. And she said, by looking at their too divergent path, she said, is this where society is now? And she looked at why she thinks there's been this big schism, if that's the word where it? Why is there no middle ground? And I took a lot out of that book because I thought, I, so as a broadcaster, it's very easy to define yourself as not being something.
I'm not an anti vaxer.
Therefore, I don't want to hear you if you're an anti vaxer, rather than tell me what your fears are and it's rationally discussed, and so I kind of took a lot from that as to maybe lead to lean
in a bit more. I know, when we had the lulary Statement from the Heart and the referendum vote on air, I thought, I don't actually want to interview people who are voting no, and yet probably wish I should have, because hearing people and being able to talk about this stuff makes us all better rather than makes us less. So I took a lot from that book.
Actually, Yeah, she's so right, isn't she? And I hadn't thought about that schism of the two miomis and the radicalization that come from intolerance as well, because if we shout each other down and we deny people platforms, then we're probably only in bolding.
Them, emboldening them. And that's what she said happened. She said, there's a lot of valid She was very pro vaxed. But she said, there's a lot of valid questions. People were asking why do I my kids have to remask in school why it is a vaccine okay for pregnant women.
But the minute any.
Questions were asked, the pro vaccine people just shut them down. And so it was the anti vax movement who saw a vacuum and for the worst of reasons, thought here's a vulnerable opportunity and hijacked it. Really rather than so if we had all very rationally discussed all as adults, it may have been a different result. It was that big soup in the middle that allowed everyone to radicalize.
And it's also, isn't it about those of us in the media have a bit of gumption and accepting that people might troll you for having a platform for complicated conversations. I refer back to that podcast that you and Anita had about maybe we do need to actually look at some substantial funding for perpetrators and how we stop these problems as well as supporting victims. Is that giving someone a platform or airing their views is not the same as endorsing those fears.
That's so true. I think my secret fear was if they sound rational. I won't know how to argue it. So it was my fear that I wouldn't be smart or canny enough that I'm not lease sales, I wouldn't have enough information to be able to counter what I don't agree with. But maybe just allowing them to say it you're right. It's not a complicit acceptance. It's just saying here's your opinion.
And I think also what you've just nailed there to Amanda, is that that's part of it is that we now look at as a sport. And I'm saying this for.
All of us.
School is it's hard work.
To engage and listen and have your worldview challenge.
It really is.
But look at what's at stake when you look at Trump's America. Look at what's at stake if we blindly follow.
And after the break, how Amanda really feels about Tom Gleeson after that Gold Logi drama five years ago. So we've talked about radio and the podcast, So talk a little bit about TV. You as we talked about the living Room, you also were co hosting Dancing with the
Stars for a few years there. Your profile on TV was so huge, Amanda that you were nominated for a Gold LOGI in twenty eighteen, missed out that year to Grant Daniel You're Dancing with the Stars co host, and then the following year, twenty nineteen, which of course was the Tom Gleeson year. I mean Tom had played a role obviously in campaigning for Grant Daniel the year prior, just to bring our listeners up to speed who might not follow logis as much as those of us in
the industry. And then of course in twenty nineteen, a lot of people were really hoping that it would be your year, and Tom actually was campaigning for himself to sort of make a little bit of a point and a joke. But you missed out on the Gold LOGI that year. Five years later, What are your thoughts about that? Whole time?
Tom and I have very much made out peace. He reached out not long after that, and to be honest, I wasn't ready to talk to him too early on, and I.
Wasn't bruised by him.
I've always respected Tom and I knew he was being comedic, but the rules had changed in that people didn't campaign that way, and I find the Logi's really hard. You have to spook yourself, and that's what everyone's skill set. It's really uncomfortable, and he saw great comedic opportunities in there.
But the hard thing for me was that the way it was played in the press was it was Tom versus me, and suddenly it went from what it became again this year, which was lovely, was aren't we all lucky to be nominated?
And it didn't feel fun. That's what I feel.
I don't feel ripped off in any way that I didn't win, but I feel ripped off that I couldn't enjoy the experience because every interview I did this at eh Dom's Coming for You, and I thought, I'm going to be the butt of a joke that I don't even I'm not really part of here. So I felt that, yes, I was at the butt of a joke, and that just made the experience not feel fun. Whereas I have no problem, and to be honest, I'm not one of those people who thinks I should have a Gold LOGI
not by any means. I'm quite sanguine about the fact I don't have one and I didn't need to win one to be nominated. And that sounds tripe, but it's so true. To be nominated was such an honor, and I'm okay with that, but I wish I'd been able to enjoy the experience more.
You're not on television at the moment. Do you see a role You've just said you're really not too bothered about it, but just from a forecast perspective and in terms of what your career goals are for the next five, ten, fifteen years, another LOGI in your future, which is really also another way of asking another high profile role on television in your.
Future, I'd like to think. So.
I've got some TV things in the works for the last second half of this year. But as much as I was sad to see The Living Room go, and I really love that show, and I think that had legs in it to keep going. Having said that, that schedule was getting so hard for me that I don't mind the calmer life I'm having now with the breakfast radio getting at four o'clock, talking for three hours, all the rest of it that comes with that. But I don't know if I do a big, long stint on
TV again. I like the idea of doing a project here and there. I think that would probably suit me better. But I hope to do more television. I love television and it's a very different skill set I think to radio, So i'd very much like to and I'm offered things all the time, but I just am choosing what and where and how, and with things with Harley too. Harley's always supportive going to what you need to do, but
I want to make sure it's the right thing. If I'm not going to be at home or I've got longer hours, how do we make this work for all of us now? So yes, I think I am choosing starting to choose some things, and i'd really love to think that big things were around the corner TV wise, I'm certainly not finished with it yet.
Well that that is really good to hear, and I really mean that. And then I personally do hope there will be a LOGI and I know we're not making it Tom, but if there is another LOGI nomination, I'm.
Having a couple of words.
One of the things that also about the TOM thing, he made a joke about how crap the logis were and how ridiculous they were, and I thought that was a shame because it took away they are our awards the travel industry has the rewards. The building industry have the rewards. Whether you think they're tried or not, these are our awards and yes they can be easily manipulated if you want to, but I think that everyone then we had COVID.
Remember COVID. I don't know if you've heard it, and.
I'll remind you afterwards. But it's come back with joy for the industry again. Everyone stayed home and watch television. The industry employed people, gave people a laugh, It entertained people during a really tough time and I think we really need to be championing the Australian television industry. So I'm glad we've come back from making fun of it to embracing it again.
Absolutely, and I think you're so right. It's that absence makes the heart grow fonder. And when we didn't have the Lokis for two years, I think everyone from the naysayers through to the people that just love to mock it, we're like, oh, I really missed.
I think so, and it was a kind of return. There was kindness supporting it when it came back.
It's very true. I mentioned doctor Chris Brown because he has now obviously moved to seven Network. He's been a guest on Something to Talk About as well. He'll be doing Dancing with the Stars this year. Any advice for him? Are you proud to have seen the sequence being handed on?
The sequence on.
That show is always a great show, and Chris is such a great host. I will back Chris in any thing. He is a rare beast in that he's so dark, humored, but he's so sharp and funny, so that I think Julia Morris has said this too. He's the brain of a scientist zipped up in that physical person. But the true Chris is warmer, funnier, darker, kinder than you imagine.
I've been with him walking late at night through the streets of King's Cross after a party or something, and homeless people will come up to him and ask about their cats. And I've never seen anyone who will give more people, more time to more people than Chris does. He will always stop, he will always talk. He really is an animal lover and a nerded heart, and I'm always impressed by that.
He is a murdered heart.
He is a murdered heart.
Don't ask him about his frequent fly card for Spotlight. He also loves a fancy dress party.
Oh okay, all right, Well I must say I did not ask him about that when he was a guest on something to talk about. You're saying not to, but I don't know. Now I really want to ask.
I think maybe I should.
I also mentioned Barry Dunboi, who's a homes columnist with Stella. You two have been also really good friends, and obviously when we profiled him once for Stella, he was talking to you a few times on the phone. He was just navigating a cancer diagnosis. It's amazing because a lot of people think this industry, well, it can be ruthless.
They're not wrong, and it can be shallow. But these are really substantial friendships that you have formed and are happening in the way that all good friendships do, seeing each other through the highs and the lows.
And all of us and Miguel too. When I first started working there, I thought, God, how do I deal with Miguel. He was unlike any other character I'd ever met. He's ended up being one of my closest friends. So the four of us just went bang, which is such a shame. I think that TV didn't see the rarity of that chemistry.
Well it did for ten years.
I mean, I'm not planning ten years on a television show is an extraordinary thing. I'm in no way complaining that that show wrapped up, But it's so rare to have that reality of friendship in amongst all the rest of it. And also that Barry is so open and brave about what he's going through. He helps so many people. He really wears his heart on his sleeve, and in a way, one hand, he's completely invincible. On the other hand,
he's so vulnerable when he talks about it. So, yes, he and I the minute I met him, I've sort of we soniged each other's I know you, We felt we knew each other. So this show has given me three of the greatest friends of my life.
You hosted Beyond two thousand before we got to two thousand. Remember when we used to say the year two thousand.
Spaceships incredible jet packs exactly?
This is my final question.
Where's your jetpack? Don't you want to know?
I want to know where is it? Like I'm doing my own housework. Why don't I have a robot? Why are we still driving cars instead of little self contained spaceships?
You know, it's a very good question, Sarah.
I saw something recently that said, you know, with all these advancements in AI, why is AI doing the writing and the poetry and the creative work and we're doing the laundry in the housework. What's happened that we are doing the manual labor while AI is doing the lofty, wonderful creative stuff the humans should be doing.
But it's funny.
Yes, we didn't see a lot of the technology coming, or if we did, there were such small increments like the Internet.
Things like that.
Jones will often have a go at me saying you never saw the Internet coming. But it was a series of computers that I remember. The first one, I think was there was a coffee pot in a university lab and they put a camera on it because they wanted to see if it was empty. It was downstairs, the couldn't be bother going there if it was empty. That was the very first kind of interactive camera system. And suddenly everyone's got one on their phone, constantly filming themselves,
constantly doing all of this, often to our detriment. I think interesting is that we embraced all the technology. None of us said, should we get an ethicist on to talk about where this is going. But I know what I like about the fact we don't have flying cars and all that is that we're still human and humans are never going to be good enough to fly a car and deal with road rage in the air. I know that self driving cars exist, I still can't imagine that.
So I think that despite all of that, we are still humans and that's a relief.
We just as humans. We just need to have a word to AI, don't we yes to make sure that the AI generated technology is doing the menial labor. Yeah, we're doing the fun things.
Absolutely, We've got to ask about.
We do the fun things like having you in the podcast studio today. I'm glad it was me to talk to you today.
And not AI. When you come back.
In beyond two thy fifty, Amanda or I maybe replaced, so might generated robot. So there we go.
I'll be three D printed by them.
Thank you so much for coming into the studio today. I'm glad we finally.
Made this happen.
Be too.
I loved it, Sarah, Thank you.
And you can hear more from Amanda on the Double a Chattery podcast that's available on the Iheartapp or wherever you get your podcasts, and also Jonesy and Amanda, which can be heard weekdays from six am on Sydney's one oh one point seven WSFM. And if you've enjoyed this episode, make sure you're following us because we'll be back with another exclusive guest on Something to Talk About next week