The Sydney Morning Herald
LIFE 23
GARDENING
Sage advice for herb
growers — Page 26
daughter will clam up just as her grandpa
Illustration: Simon Letch
gets on the phone.
‘‘Technology means it’s easy to keep in
touch these days,’’ Kay says, ‘‘but that
misses the fact that people overseas have
lives. In reality it’s actually pretty difficult
and tough co-ordinating. Then there has
got to be infrastructure within that
country and we also assume a continuous
supply of electricity.’’
Assume nothing when it comes to inter-
national communication. Even electricity.
For many in the Third World, even
running water comes at premium. But the
grass roots, it seems, is getting smarter.
When Zimbabwean president Robert
Mugabe recently began confiscating radios,
broadcast journalist Gerry Jackson
switched up a gear – relocating his inde-
pendent shortwave station Radio Africa to
London and streaming news live.
When his webcasts were blocked by
Chinese-built jammers, Jackson was forced
to switch down a gear to SMS. To his
surprise, he found that battery-operated
mobile phones were more reliable than the
mains-powered PCs. He now texts the news
to thousands of people each day.
‘‘The challenge is to precis the
complexity of Zimbabwe’s news into 160
characters,’’ Jackson says. ‘‘But that’s what I
do every day.’’
It’s the story of the little radio station
that isn’t. And proof that even in the
world’s poorest countries, technology is
bringing people together.
But hard news is one thing. Love is
another. And when it comes to married
couples and partners there is no doubt that
face-to-face is best. So how to maintain
that intimacy when one of you is on the
other side of the globe?
Steve Howard, of the department of
information systems at the University of
Melbourne, says his research among
commuter couples shows that they do not
necessarily want video technology that allows
them to see the subtleties on their partner’s
face. What they do need is technology ‘‘lite’’,
such as mobile phone text messaging, that is
both easily accessible and transportable.
‘‘We know an awful lot about each other
so the technology doesn’t need to carry that,
we can reconstruct it in our heads,’’ he says.
‘Technology means
it’s easy to keep in
touch these days, but
that misses the fact
that people overseas
have lives.’
IT expert Judy Kay
‘‘There is a lot of intimacy created in text
message which is why people treat them as
a gift. They create memories and remi-
niscences in space and time.’’
The challenge, Howard says, is in match-
ing technologies across different continents.
Where mobile phones are widely used, in
the likes of Africa and the Philippines, the
focus is now on developing ways to allow
them to talk to PCs in wealthier countries,
say Australia and the US.
‘‘The trick is to see the asymmetry as a
feature rather than a bug,’’ he says, ‘‘and to
understand that we can still create intimacy
OCTOBER 13-14, 2007
TRENDS
The curse of the
red-headed man — Page 27
even where people are holding very differ-
ent things in their hands.’’
Which, of course, means nothing if your
partner is out of range in the middle of
the Suriname’s Amazon jungle or if your
ex-partner has gone to ground further
south in Brazil.
A Canadian friend, Mike, recently tried to
track down the Brazilian wife he hadn’t
seen for 15 years. He has since repartnered
and moved to Australia. But in the eyes of
the law – and his new girlfriend – he is still
married.
With no phone number, let alone an email
address, Mike began by searching the online
telephone directory for his wife. He got two
hits. Neither were connected.
Frustrated, he hunted around for online
marriage records. He found nothing to
suggest he had even been married. Then he
stumbled across an online detective agency
which promised access to international
births, deaths and marriages records – all
for the grand sum of $US39.99.
‘‘At that point I was willing to give
anything a go,’’ Mike says. ‘‘But in hindsight
I was clutching at straws.’’
$40 poorer and a whole lot wiser, he now
believes no such records exist online. The
only option is to pull the records yourself.
‘‘You could hire a law firm there, but it
would be all too hard and all too expens-
ive,’’ he says. ‘‘You’d be better to fly there
and have a holiday and do it yourself.’’
All of which points to one thing: If you
believe technology is your friend, think again.
Zimbabwe gets its best news via text. My
friend is married but not to the woman he
lives with. And I’m living with a man whom
I’ve barely spoken to for months.
To the former Prime Minister of
Suriname, if you are reading this online,
please sir, tell Andrew to phone home.
BIGQUESTIONS
PAT SHEIL
Is midnight the beginning of the
day or the end of the day?
Well, yes! And no ...
Bill Arnett, Hackett, ACT
Midnight is just the name given to the
point at which one day ends and the
next begins, so it’s either or both – take
your pick. But as a matter of interest,
I recall from my army days in World
War II that for the military clock it was
a non-time – when necessary, an event
was set down for either 23:59 or 00:01,
never 24:00 or 00:00.
Walter Pike, Kiama
Is there any rhyme or reason for
attributing gender to inanimate
objects in French?
It’s hardly inanimate but ‘‘le vagin’’ for
vagina always amazes me.
Bev Redwin, Hunters Hill
Has the The Mikado ever been
performed in Japanese?
I don’t know if The Mikado has ever
been performed in Japanese, but I do
know it was banned there many years
ago. Apparently Sullivan had almost
completed the musical score but was
having difficulty with the music for the
entrance of the Mikado, who was at
that time considered by his
countrymen to be the Son of Heaven
and therefore a divine being. According
to an article I read, Sullivan was in a
cafe one day with a friend who had
spent some time in Japan and told him
about this problem. His friend hummed
a tune that he thought would be
perfect. Sullivan was delighted with the
melody and used it to finish his
contribution to the operetta. When he
was told it had been banned in Japan
he was upset — until he was informed
that the tune was an extremely
naughty song that was frequently sung
in geisha houses. His friend obviously
had a fiendish sense of humour.
During the war I saw a performance
of The Mikado put on by Tait at the old
Theatre Royal some time after the
Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbour.
The role of the Mikado was originally
given to one of Australia’s leading G&S
performers, Ivan Menzies, but he
refused to have anything to do with it
because of the Japanese participation
in the war. The role was eventually
played by an announcer from radio
station 2SM, Tommy Jay.
Moirya Eagar, Canberra
Yes. A Japanese-language adaptation
was produced in 2001 in the town of
Chichibu by a company called the
Tokyo Theatre Company. It has been
performed in various places around
Japan and in August 2006 it was
performed at the International Gilbert
and Sullivan Festival in England.
Sally Edsall, Arncliffe
ANYANSWERS?
䊳 How much weight does the Earth
gain each year from meteorites, the
solar wind and everything else that
bumps into us?
䊳Can you sneeze with your
eyes open?
䊳Can a policeman pull
himself over?
Readers’ responses
By noon Tuesday, email
bigquestions@smh.com.au or write to Big
Questions, Spectrum, SMH, GPO Box 506,
Sydney 2001. Limit questions to a short
sentence and answers to 100 words, and state
your name and suburb/town.
smh.com.au
To read more answers to Big Questions,
go to smh.com.au/entertainment.
SPE 023