Monday, September 29

I'm waiting for a parcel from Temu and each morning I check the website to see where it is.  Today I am told it is on its way from Melbourne to 'it's next destination' which I assume is Launceston (or, in fact, Burnie which is the state distribution depot for Australia Post.  I'm not one for deep contemplation of the logistics of parcel delivery but I have to be somewhat in awe of the magnitude of the problem faced by the people whose job it is to get a Temu parcel from some warehouse in China to one of a million tiny outposts in Australia.  Longford is bad enough but what about Humpty Doo or Dunk Island?

I get fidgety if my parcel doesn't arrive in five days and I can only feel sorry for those other poor souls who might have to wait seven or even ten.

PICK A COLOUR                                                                                  MAY 19, 2023

Ever since she could remember Adriana knew that, when she left school, she would go to work in television.  There was no other obvious choice.  Both her mother and father, and her grandparents before that, had been employed by important TV stations and she knew that she had even been named after some obscure TV presenter from ages ago.  The television sets in her house, and she wasn’t really sure how many there were, were only turned off at night.  The rest of the time they beamed their messages to anyone who happened to be watching.

Adriana was proud of her parents.  Her Dad had worked with some of the greats in the business: John Burgess, Georgie Gardner, and Darryl Summers, and her mother would tell her bedtime stories of how David Koch had come in drunk one morning and Tracy Grimshaw had dropped her false teeth on a tiled floor just before her live show was to be broadcast.

When Nan and Pop came over on Christmas Day, they talked about another generation: names like Bob and Dolly Dyer, Jack Davey and Bert Newton.  Adriana listened to the tales, her eyes wide, dreaming of her future in this world of glamour.

A week after her 16^th birthday, Adriana enrolled in a Media Studies course at her local TAFE and she persevered even though she couldn’t see the relevance of some of the topics in the syllabus.  There was a Unit on Print Media and stuff on Radio, all of which would be of no use to her in the future, but she did her best, expecting that there would be stiff competition for places with any of the major stations.  She needn’t have worried: her Mum and Dad called in some favours and she was offered a cadetship at one of the big channels based in Sydney.

After some initial orientation, she was attached to a Production Unit whose main role was in Quiz Shows.  It was exciting at first but, eventually, the pressure of being involved in the production of five episodes in one day became tedious, and Adriana started to wonder whether she had chosen the right career.  The regular ‘production meetings’ were also a bore and Adriana knew that her life was not turning out as she had hoped. Where was the glamour she had hoped for: where was the excitement?

One day, she arrived at the Production Meeting and was surprised to see that there was a new face sitting among the executives.  The Production Manager introduced the new person and said,

“As you may know, ratings have been dropping for several months now.  Our audience is dwindling.  We know they’re not watching the opposition because their figures are just as bad and we think they are watching more on Catch-up and You Tube.  Our focus groups are telling us that our afternoon shows are old hat. It’s not enough now to just copy shows that are popular in the USA and UK.  Their productions are better anyway.  We need something distinctly Australian, something that will help us hold our head high among our international colleagues”.

“After a great deal of discussion at the Board meetings, it has been decided that our new show will be called Pick a Colour.  Catchy, isn’t it?  It’s going to have distinctly Australian prizes like meat trays and Woolworths vouchers and we’ll attract Mr and Mrs Average Australian to become audience members or contestants”.

“Wayne here will be the compere.  We’ve had an Andrew and a Grant and a Larry so we think it’s time we had a more up-market name.  Some of the board thought we should try a woman but that’s a bit drastic.  Let’s try this format first and, if it works as we expect it will, we might use a woman as a fill-in over the summer period when most people are at the beach.  Anyway, women traditionally play the support role in these shows and we’re not in the business of taking chances”.

“We have a name for the show: Pick a Colour, and we have a compere, Wayne.  It’s over to you now to work out the details of this show.  Adriana, you’ll be the Production Assistant.  Your namesake, of course, was on TV back in those glory days when Quiz Shows were king and everybody watched Pick a Box and talked about it in the canteens and staff rooms the next day. This new show should reflect those days. Don’t make it too intellectual; it’s not Mastermind and remember, our audience is used to the likes of Tony Barber and Eddie Maguire.  Don’t expect too much of them.  The future of this channel and the livelihood of everyone who works here is in your hands.  Good luck!”