The popular author and broadcaster is using some long service leave to travel around Australia, promoting his latest book, Best Wishes.
He couldn't miss hometown Canberra, where his father had a newsagency in Petrie Plaza
He couldn't miss hometown Canberra, where his father had a newsagency in Petrie Plaza
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00:00 Yeah
00:02 Yeah
00:10 This is my dad's news agency where I used to work all the time and sometimes would deliver the papers from here at dawn in
00:20 Canberra can you have some sympathy for me, please?
00:22 And it was so cold and I remember being stopped by the police on the bridge
00:27 So that because you know, it's 4 in the morning and Canberra winter and the windscreen was entirely sort of covered in ice
00:34 And I'd sort of managed to chisel out a little porthole and the police officer said the porthole wasn't big enough
00:40 But then you deliver the papers, but the other thing I used to do
00:44 This brings back great memories of selling, you know
00:47 I had one of those little newspaper stands in David Jones and I was a big fan of
00:51 Well, I'm still I'm a big fan of Elvis
00:54 So it was the most eccentric newsstand in the world because it had the Daily Mirror the Sun
00:58 Woman's Day new idea woman's weekly and Elvis Presley monthly and I always made sure I had two copies of Elvis Presley monthly
01:05 Which I never sold
01:07 You know how people say Ikea this is actually my book actually
01:11 All the stuff about Ikea being so sort of clever and maddening in that they make you go through the whole store
01:18 To buy the one cushion you want my father knew all about that in 1972
01:23 So he put the Daily Mirror and the Daily Sun which the only things people wanted right up the back of the shop
01:28 So they'd go through all the Hallmark cards and all the Yugoslav magazines all the frankly obscene
01:34 70s pornography to get to the Sun and Mirror
01:37 My other memory
01:41 My other memory is the typical order was always the same the typical order in the 70s
01:47 People would buy a pack of Winnie Blues a copy of the Daily Mirror or sometimes the Sun
01:53 And and some Vincent's or Beck's powders and you got that was such a regular
01:58 I mean the tail is a terrible story isn't it about these well not very good newspaper
02:02 Drug that killed people that ruined your kidneys and of course then the cancer sticks
02:09 But you got so good at that order that you didn't have to add it up. You just say $2.60 on your way
02:15 You
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