{"id":9329,"date":"2025-11-24T21:49:24","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T11:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bardonnews.com.au\/index.php\/2025\/11\/24\/the-november-23-show\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T14:35:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T04:35:20","slug":"the-november-23-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bardonnews.com.au\/index.php\/2025\/11\/24\/the-november-23-show\/","title":{"rendered":"The November 23 Show"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Some Sundays start softly, with stories that linger long after the radio is off. A caller in the studio explaining how a single layer of carbon \u2014 graphene \u2014 might help roads last longer than the people who drive them. A woman from Albany speaking quietly about scattering her father\u2019s ashes along the Rabbit-Proof Fence, fulfilling a promise to a man who had worked that lonely line as a teenager. And a father in Wangaratta saying he\u2019s grateful Australia is finally giving kids a chance to grow up without the weight of social media on their backs. By the time the morning found its rhythm, you could feel how these scattered voices \u2014 thoughtful, tender, practical, hopeful \u2014 were all part of the same gentle Sunday mood.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pete Flying Over Lake Eyre<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Pete called from the cockpit, still carrying the exhilaration of another flight over Lake Eyre. He has watched the lake shift week by week, and this season has been unlike any he\u2019s seen. \u201cThe colours are just incredible,\u201d he said \u2014 deep red in Madigan Gulf where Cooper Creek\u2019s fresh water mixed with salt, a green streak in Jackboot Bay, and the surreal blue-green layer in Belt Bay, framed with bright white salt crust. Earlier in the year it was 70 to 75 percent full. Now it\u2019s maybe half, yet still astonishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cool weather lingered longer than usual. \u201cOnly had mid-40s once this year,\u201d he said. And with a November cyclone forming near Darwin \u2014 the first in fifty years \u2014 he laughed gently, \u201cWe don\u2019t do averages in Australia. Just droughts, flooding rains and the odd bushfire.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo Credit: NASA\/STS-35<\/a>\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Ed Watching Dawn at Carrickalinga<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ed was looking out over Carrickalinga Bay from a lonely phone box on the Fleurieu Peninsula. \u201cJust wonderful to be alive,\u201d he said, describing the soft orange light behind him. Yesterday brought one of those perfect farmer\u2019s rains \u2014 \u201cjust drizzled all day\u201d \u2014 and it lifted the whole region after a dry stretch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He spent the afternoon in the shed with the cricket on and the rain pattering on the roof. \u201cI\u2019m retired,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I\u2019m busier now than when I was working.\u201d There was a cosy contentment in the way he said it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cheryl and the Life Saved at 38,000 Feet<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Cheryl wrote in with a story that married skill, timing and a touch of fate. A decade ago, she was a Qantas hostie on a Brisbane\u2013Los Angeles flight when a woman collapsed just before breakfast service. Cheryl had refreshed her CPR not long before. The trainer\u2019s words stuck with her: \u201cDon\u2019t worry about breaking ribs \u2014 just save a life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I had carpet burns on my knees to prove it,\u201d she said. The woman had only a one-percent chance of survival. It turned out to be a pulmonary embolism followed by cardiac arrest. She lived, and they\u2019ve remained in touch. On 13 March 2026, that woman will turn 100. \u201cDo that CPR training,\u201d Cheryl urged. \u201cIt matters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Margaret and the Chilean Sheep-Eating Plant<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Margaret from Armstrong near Great Western has been tending three unusual South American plants for twenty years. One of them \u2014 a two-metre-high Chilean sheep-eating plant \u2014 finally flowered. \u201cWe called it the alien,\u201d she said. Its spear shot straight up like a giant asparagus, its long leaves lined with rows of backward-facing spines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She later learned why shepherds in Chile fear it: sheep can become trapped, die, and nourish the plant. \u201cWe\u2019ve got orphan lambs,\u201d she said, half laughing, half worried. \u201cThis may not end well.\u201d Macca told her not to let it go to seed. She promised, \u201cDon\u2019t panic, Ian. I\u2019ll be very sensible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Val Singing at the Enmore Theatre<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Val from Woonona had a voice that carried its own music. She\u2019s nearly 90 and had just sung at the Enmore Theatre with Astrid Jorgensen\u2019s Pub Choir \u2014 \u201ctwo thousand one hundred people!\u201d She has sung all her life, following her mother and sister into choirs.

Astrid organised the crowd into three parts, and while Val is a soprano, she stayed in the mezzo section because \u201cthere were too many people to climb over.\u201d She still sings with the U3A choir and had attended a moving concert earlier in the week with the Sydney Male Choir and the Arcadians Lamplighters. One of the Lamplighters was 93. \u201cIt brings tears to your eyes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colin and Lily Driving the Monaro<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Colin was driving his 1969 HT Monaro to a car show in Geelong with his daughter Lily beside him. The old Holden burbled beneath them as they talked about its rising value. \u201cEighty to one-fifty, even unrestored,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s stylish,\u201d he added. \u201cNot comfortable \u2014 but stylish.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He joked about passing Teslas \u2014 \u201cThey look like wheelie bins.\u201d Lily will inherit the Monaro one day, and you could hear how much that meant to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Debbie and the Illegal Tobacco Crisis<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Debbie Smith, an independent grocer, called with a sobering report. Tobacco sales in mainstream supermarkets have crashed from around ten percent to as low as two. For independents, the collapse has been catastrophic \u2014 some stores dropping from $20,000 a week to $1,700 as illegal tobacco floods the market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She described criminal syndicates, vanishing tax revenue, menthol cigarettes arriving by the container load, and enforcement tied up in health regulations that require multiple agencies to act together. \u201cWe\u2019ve lost billions that should be funding hospitals,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd smoking rates are going up, not down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris Weighing Caravans Across NSW<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Chris had just finished weighing 37 caravans in Wentworth and Balranald with Transport NSW. \u201cThe heaviest was four-hundred-and-fifty kilos overweight,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People pack caravans like houses \u2014 washing machines, extra gear, the comforts of home. \u201cIf you want all the comforts of home,\u201d he said, \u201cmaybe stay home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019ll be in Mudgee next for another round of free checks. His main message was simple: \u201cTake your time. You\u2019re on holiday. The trucks are working.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matthew on Graphene and the Roads of the Future<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Sitting in the studio, tech commentator Matthew Dickerson explained graphene \u2014 a single layer of carbon atoms arranged like a honeycomb, discovered experimentally in 2004 with sticky tape and graphite. \u201cTwo hundred times stronger than steel,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mixed into bitumen, it strengthens the binder so roads last longer \u2014 two and a half times longer in some trials. \u201cThe rocks become the weak part,\u201d he said. They talked AI, potholes, overloaded roads, and the impossible task of maintaining 877,000 kilometres of Australian road with a growing population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n