The content on this webpage contains paid/affiliate links. When you click on any of our affiliate link, we/I may get a small compensation at no cost to you. See our affiliate disclosure for more info -----------------------
Last updated on March 5th, 2018 at 01:44 pm
Melbourne ABC broadcaster and former Bulletin columnist Virginia Trioli will soon move to Sydney to take over the ABC radio morning job from Sally Loane. The ABC didn’t handle this well, leaking news of the switch and embarrassing both Trioli (disclosure: a friend) and Loane (disclosure: friendly). But we in Sydney can help:
For Trioli, who is known around the Melbourne studios as “the princess”, the ABC’s strategy was to move her north for a month to indoctrinate her in Sydney culture, learn pronunciation of suburb names and meet the right people.
Sydney readers: please assist Virginia by providing correct suburb pronunciation and other vital local details! Who should she meet? With what crucial cultural nuances must Virginia become acquainted? How might she avoid being labelled Sideshow Trioli? Be part of the ABC indoctrination process!
Well, for one, Ms. Trioli must acquaint herself with some of the regionalisms of the Sydney area. After all, words that may be perfectly appropriate in Melbourne may take on subtler shades of meaning in Sydney, engendering confusion.
As an example: a short switchblade would not be called a “knife” in the Sydney area. That word is reserved for the larger sheath knife.
Posted by Joe Geoghegan on 2005 08 18 at 01:40 PM • permalink
I remember an embarrassing moment when a new newsreader in Detroit pronounced the town Lake Orion the way everybody in the would would pronounce it. One once but many times, before a host stepped in. “There’s no way you’d know this, but it’s oh’ ree en.’’
The theatrical fault is that it breaks the omniscience frame, fatal in the news biz.
Soap opera news fans ask themselves who this idiot is and tune out.
God knows how tricky it is if you have to sound Australian too.
The theatrical fault is that it breaks the omniscience frame, fatal in the news biz. I would actually pay to be able to do that to news networks, live on the air.
“Excuse me, Wolf Blitzer, but a shotgun does not fire ‘bullets’.”
Posted by Aaron – Freewill on 2005 08 18 at 06:35 PM • permalink
- Firstly, you must live in an inner suburb. No names, but Inner West is trendy for ABC types. Oh, all right, Haberfield, or perhaps Birchgrove if you can, and want to rub shoulders with the more wealthy, including some movie stars. Pyrmont (peer-mont) is really handy to Ultimo and suits well paid childless city types. Walsh Bay wharf apartments have bits of “heritage” protruding from the walls here and there, and are mega trendy waterfronts. Balmain (bal-main, not frenchified bal-man) is nice but you might run into P.P. MacGuiness, who can be difficult to avoid on a narrow footpath.
In order to avoid the harsh truths of cultural invasion, and to help maintain the bleeding heart attitude towards alleged asylum seekers, avoid the south-west. Maxine McKew pointed out quite clearly on The Fine Line (SBS TV) that these attitudes are best kept at a distance from the western suburbs. They flourish in those more sequestered domiciles where one can mix with one’s peers more comfortably.
Far be it from the opinionators to actually take in to their own home somebody foreign who knocks on the door at no notice and demands accommodation. But advocating the same to the nation as a whole is part of the ABC culture, and must be continued with missionary zeal untainted by personal suffering.
Multiculturalism can be corralled into the niches of your life where they are actually useful, such as having a really good deli or restaurant somewhere nearby, or being able to invoke compassion on cue when it suits the script.
Meeting the right people will be a snap for somebody in your line of work, and on the pay that goes with it. But you know that already. Should be no problem preserving the left/arts flavour.
- Incidentally (in other words, off topic), did anyone notice this in The Age Diary today (Fri)p18:
“In fact, student politics has go so fractious that even the lefties are getting in on the act”. The statement follows a catalogue of young Liberal student silliness, and I can’t work out if Age Diary is being ironic or not.
She needs to avoid the mistakes Steve Price made when he first moved to Sydney. He learnt fast, so there is hope for Virginia.
First, don’t talk about Melbourne or AFL. Nobody in Sydney is interested. Then, establish your RL team favourite ASAP and promote them vigorously, pouring plenty of scorn on the others. For a newcomer, it’s important not to choose losers, so avoid the Roosters or the Sharks.
For an ABC appointment, it’s important to realise that Sydney ends at Leichhardt. Ignore the North Shore (toffy-nosed Howard supporters) and the Eastern Suburbs (Porsche-driving snobs) and concentrate on the inner-city luvvies. Beyond these borders is just a miasma of the great unwashed who if they listen to AM radio at all, aren’t going to get beyond Alan Jones or John Laws.
So for your audience, Virginia, it helps to be gay, or at least bi. If you’re black as well, that would be a bonus. You of course hate John Howard and everything he stands for; emapthise with asylum seekers, as long as you don’t have to meet any; and display your commitment to multiculturism by eating regularly in trendy Thai restaurants on Darling Street (that’s Balmain, dear)where you won’t ever meet a Thai.
You will have a task to shed all the doctors’ wives who used to listen to Sally, but I’m confident you can meet the challenge Virginia. Good luck!
Thinking further about your indocrination err, induction, here are some useful dos and don’ts:
Don’t bother to visit Canterbury, Lakemba, Bankstown, Wiley Park or neighbouring suburbs – too Moslem and very upsetting for midddle-class Anglos. Likewise avoid Cabramatta – not fahionable (or safe) unless you are going on one of those escorted eating tours.
Don’t bother with Morris Iemma, a lightweight newskin who probably won’t survive the next election. Also don’t make the mistake of comparing Iemma, favourably or unfavourably, with Steve Bracks (your listeners: Steve who?).
Don’t bother with John Brogden and the State Libs. Another lightweight who can be safely ignored until after the election.
Instead, do take Clover Moore seriously (even if no-one else does). Your inner-city listeners love Clover because she looks like a butch dyke and is an inner city luvvy herself. So what if she hates Xmas decorations, isn’t she planning to convert the town hall into a mosque?
Virginia, I’m copying this memo to Russell at the Winter Palace on Harris Street(your office in Ultimo, dear), so he can incorporate these points in your orientation program. Good luck!
Excellent solution above from Jafa the cabbie.(#4)
Get him to take HRH Trioli on a tour of the more picturesque areas of Sydney, particularly Lakemba, Cabramatta, Maquarie Fields, and of special cultural significance, “The Block” in Redfern.
If she doesn’t run screaming for the aiport after that lot, drop her off at the drug injecting room in Kings Cross with a roll of $50 bills as protection against the junkies and beggars.
If she is still adamant about remaining in cockroach country, put her on a night train to Cambelltown, that will guarantee she will never be heard of again.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2005 08 18 at 09:27 PM • permalink
I do remember once being briefly interviewed on VT’s show, back in the Jeff Kennett days. As I waited my turn in the ABC studio, a Kennett government minister was being interviewed before me. VT was being fairly reasonable, but from where I sat, I was also in a position to hear the production staff, who were loudly heaping the most obscene and puerile scorn on the minister every time he opened his mouth (audible only to themselves, or so they thought). It was all I ever needed to know about the ABC.
Trioli (disclosure: a friend)
Yikes, that relationship must have seen some strain – especially in October 2004.
Posted by Mr Hackenbacker on 2005 08 18 at 09:50 PM • permalink
What is this obsession the ABC has with “personalities”? There’s some justification with what assorted airhead chatterboxes and vacuous clothes-horses get paid by commercial networks (but not to me, I couldn’t give a fuck if they were CGIs)- they at least generate ratings and an audience which can be converted to advertising revenue. The ABC doesn’t have to cultivate an audience or ratings, and is actively contemptous of both, so why are six-figure sums paid to people who should be under Commonwealth Public Service conditions and pay scales. For an organisation that’s forever crying poor, they have a phenomenal number of employees on remuneration that would equal that of many company directors and cabinet ministers. Who the fuck listens to ABC AM radio anyway? They could have Mr Squiggle running the show, and it would probably boost the audience.
Right, Sydney listeners, this is what you’ve got to look forward to: A love affair with herself that approaches Olivier-Leigh levels; an oh-so-predictable, infantile, leftie-luvvy take on everything that makes for the most boring radio this side of reading the news for the blind; and worst of all, an annoying Mr Ed-like neigh at her own pathetic attempts at humour. Give her six months.
- BTW- Sally Loane is a daft bint as well- I used to play rugby with her then doctor husband, who was clever enough to eventually sober up and give her the arse.
The ABC is a sheltered workshop for these post-feminist flibbertygibbets who can’t even score a gig swearing at floor crew a la Normie Robson.
Trioli’s critics maintain she is smug, inner-city and know-it-all. She agrees she has astonishing self-confidence. “Yes I do,” she told an interviewer. “I was a classically self-confident child who did debating, drama.” She also studied ballet for 10 years and went to a state school.
The answer to the question of ‘who should she meet’ would be the web spike thruster himself, Chris Sheil.
f it aver comes up in discussion does she pronounce Albany as Al-bany or All-bany?
I wouldn’t be taking any advice from WA. Not only do they mangle Albany but they make a dog’s breakfast of Derby and Rokeby (as in Rokeby Rd, Subi), the latter being pronounced as ‘Rock-a-bee’. Sheesh.
Posted by walterplinge on 2005 08 19 at 05:02 AM • permalink
- #13 Mr Magoo:
At the ABC, they used to call each other comrade … not too sure about that salutation in 2005 but it might still be heard.
#18 Habib:
At least Sally used to discuss and promote rugby on her program, I suppose courtesy of ex hubby Mark, rugby is rarely discussed on other Sydney stations.Sally’s regulars included Karl Kruszelnicki and Stephen Mayne (Tim’s ex-friend) … I found Sally’s Sydney mid morning patter relaxing and informative. I occasionally listened to her on the wireless in the car, she was ideal for me when travelling around Sydney before midday. You can only listen to so much politics on the wireless during the day, and Sally didn’t have a monopoly on that from 9am to 12 midday. That’s why I tuned in when I could.
With all the pro-unionist air time the ABC likes to hand out to the fear-peddlers at the ACTU over the proposed IR changes, I reckon they should scrutinise their own methods when they dropped the guillotine on Sal who, apparently, was rather successful at her job – if ratings are to be used as a guide. She might have a case for an unfair dismissal and……bugger! I forgot, it doesn’t count when you’re swinging the axe, stamping out counter-revolutionary activities, for the general good of the collective. Sorry, promise not to do it again.
Posted by pick-your-pun on 2005 08 19 at 11:12 AM • permalink
…and another thing, I managed to catch a bit of Sideshow Trioli self indulgence this arvo when she replayed that Reith interview “one last time” (if only!). I’d forgotten that, during that interview, she hardly opened her mouth other than to press Reith on what was either a fib or a bit of pointless meandering around what was so plainly obvious; that the 2 photos did not show kids being tossed over the side. And she got a Walkley for that? A question that didn’t seem to occur to her should have been “what the hell were those kids doing in the water in the first place? What’s that you say, their parents scuttled their boat to force the Navy to rescue them and, while they may have not actually hurled them over the side, they did sink the boat from beneath their feet? Oh, anyhow onto the weather…”
Posted by pick-your-pun on 2005 08 19 at 11:25 AM • permalink
- #31 paco maaaate …
Must’ve been a real slow day for news when this appeared in the newspapers and on the telly too. Not everyone calls each other mate or cobber around here … what did they propose to call the sheilas?
Sir, mister, madam, or using someone’s first name seems to be the standard greeting in business in Australia and plenty of other places around the world.
Stevo mate
I think Virginia should become acquainted with the SMH … the SMH prints crap and the ABC broadcasts crap … some people think the source of the ABC news and editorial is in fact the SMH … why employ journalists when you can listen to the SMH being read out on 2RPH … now back to watching Funniest Home videos on Channel 9 with my young daughter … now that show isn’t crap according to the daughter … I haven’t yet asked her to listen to the ABC.
- Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 08 20 at 05:14 PM • permalink
1. I recommend Leichhardt, (aka Dyke-heart) to live in, because you need to be close enough to work to walk if you have to. Either that or wait in traffic/for a bus/for a train like Godot. Plus, being Little Italy, there’s great coffee and pasta at hand. Not mention a really great aquatic centre. If you have a dog there’s Café Bones.
2. Barrack for the underdog South Sydney Rabbitohs Thugby League team – even if you hate sport – because every other celebrity (Russell Crowe, Andrew Denton etc.) supports them too. Not only because bunnies are fluffy and cute, but because the have a large number of players of indigenous Australian ancestry. It’s a win-win PC no-brainer. Not the raping and pillaging Bulldogs with their Muslim supporters though, that definitely will upset your audience.
3. Remember NSW pollies and public officials, even though they can’t lie straight in bed, will sue –usually successfully – for defamation at the drop of hat. And everybody has been primed to hate you already.
4. There are no street signs at major roads, or if there are, they’ve been vandalised. The streets are full of dog crap, litter, spit and insane cyclists. On the plus side the House of Pie is open 24/7 for hot one, Clovelly is great for snorkeling (as the signs says though, do not going swimming for at least two days after heavy rain) and you can always hope on a freeway and be in the Blue Mountains in just over an hour. But you’ll need your RTA e-tag for that.
I see that Derryn Hinch has got into the act, pleading with Virginia not to move to Sydney,because she’ll make a hash of it like he did. Well, there was no way Derryn was ever goin to succeed: he’s just too Melbourne parochial.
He also mentioned Steve Price’s boo-boos, including confusing Freddy Fittler with Andrew Johns. You can’t get much worse than that.
Page 1 of 1 pages
Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.
Members:
Login | Register | Member List
“YOUR ABC” NOT IN MY NAME.