Conversations

Iconic Australian musician, actor, youth advocate and charity ambassador Angry Anderson has died at the age of 79.
Angry spent 50 years in the music industry with his legendary rock band, Rose Tattoo, and the band was due to return to the stage this month for another Australian tour.
But Angry was much more than a raging rock n' roll animal.
He was an incurable romantic, despite his violent childhood in Melbourne. 
He was a loyal, devoted father of four, and Angry was always a friend to the little guy.
You can read more about Angry Anderson's remarkable life at the ABC News website.
Originally broadcast in January 2007.
Angry's youngest son, Liam Anderson, died in 2018.
This episode of Conversations explores Australian music, celebrity deaths, cardiac arrest, Obituaries, fatherhood, childhood abuse, pub rock, Countdown, musical controversies, Sharpies, modern fatherhood, substance abuse, television, Australian television, Kylie Minogue, Neighbours, Ray Martin, politics, Australian icons, Australian legends, Australian kitsch, RIP Angry Anderson.
To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Alison Hoddinot was one of the first Australian women to study at Oxford University, but one of her lecturers, J.R.R Tolkein, refused to take on a woman PhD student. 
Alison was born in Tasmania in 1931.
As a young woman she won a scholarship to study at Oxford University.
But when she arrived, none of the male professors including J.R.R Tolkien, would take on a woman PhD student.
Back in Tasmania Alison became great friends with the poet Gwen Harwood.
The two shared recipes, letters, and the challenges of combining work and motherhood.
During their friendship Gwen shocked the nation when she used acrostic sonnets to pull a wild hoax on The Bulletin magazine in 1961.
First broadcast in 2018
Further information
In 2022 Alison Hoddinot passed away after a short illness
Women, Oxford and Novels of Crime and Gwen Harwood: Idle Talk - Letters 1960-1964 are published by Brandl and Schlesinger
Read more about Gwen and Alison's friendship and their letters

Elizabeth Chong didn't cook her first meal until she was a newlywed. Six decades later, the owner of a cooking school specialising in Chinese cuisine, she had taught more than 37,000 people how to cook.
Chef, author and teacher Elizabeth Chong was born in China's Guangdong Province in 1931.
When her heavily pregnant mother was expelled from Victoria under the White Australia Policy in the 1920s, the whole family returned to China.
Years later her family returned and a young Elizabeth was free to roam the closed Queen Victoria Market on Sundays with her siblings.
With fresh, fragrant and plentiful Chinese food at home, Elizabeth didn’t cook her first meal until she was married.
Since then, she's made it her mission to raise the profile of Chinese cuisine, something she's done by teaching more than 37,000 people how to cook.
In 2024, Elizabeth retired from teaching people how to cook, in her early 90s.
This episode of Conversations was produced by Alice Moldovan. Executive Producer was Carmel Rooney.
It explores refugees, refugee Australians, multiculturalism, monoculture, migration, immigration, Chinese history in Australia, Chinese cooking, Chinese food, families, dim sim, recipes, family recipes, Australian Chinese food, life advice, life advice from our elders, family dynamics, family separation, marriage, divorce, Masterchef, Australian cooks, famous Australian chefs, Australian cuisine.
To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Bryan Brown has played more than 80 roles on stage and screen. Raised in working-class Sydney, his talent, hard work, and unmistakable presence have been his ticket to the world.
In our week of stories from our elders, we begin with the life of Bryan Brown.
Now aged 79, Bryan has had more film and television acting roles than he’s had birthdays, and is an instantly recognisable figure on screens around the world.
From Breaker Morant and Newsfront to Two Hands and Sweet Country, a huge number of classic Australian films feature Bryan, a testament to his talent, popularity and work ethic. 
Bryan also spent years in Hollywood, starring most notably in Cocktail and Gorillas In The Mist, before ultimately choosing Sydney over a life in America.
In the 1980s, working on the American-made series The Thorn Birds utterly changed Bryan’s life. He and British co-star Rachel Ward fell in love and married soon after, forming a romantic and creative partnership that has endured ever since.
More recently, Brian has found a new career writing crime novels, including The Drowning and The Hidden.
This episode of Conversations was produced by Michelle Ransom-Hughes. Executive Producer was Carmel Rooney.
It explores acting, Australian cinema, classic movies, Australiana, Australian kitsch, film history, fatherhood, love, rags to riches, Hollywood, anxiety, mental health, amateur theatre, theatre, Red Dog, men's mental health, love, farming.
To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Mel Huang Buntine on how computers started entering our homes, and the beige box of a machine that changed her own life.
Personal computers are so ubiquitous now, it's hard to imagine a time when computers were inaccessible to everyday people.
For decades, computers were the size of rooms, and they were used for specialist tasks like processing large data sets for researchers, or sending men to the moon.
But by the 1980s computers had become smaller and more affordable, and people started bringing them into their homes.
From this point on, how everyday people interacted with technology changed forever.
Mel Huang Buntine is a designer and technologist who was gifted her first computer as a tween in 1990s Melbourne.
Mel lived in a multigenerational home with her mother, her grandparents and her great-grandmother, all of whom had escaped the Cambodian genocide as refugees.
They couldn't understand why Mel was obsessed with this machine, but it completely opened up Mel's world and changed her life.
Now with anxiety growing around AI, surveillance and mega tech companies, Mel is trying to get people to understand the history of computers and how they work.
She hopes this will give back to people a sense of agency over machines, rather than feeling powerless to the opacity of algorithms and large language models.
Radical Computing is exhibiting at the National Communication Museum in Melbourne from 19 September 2026, until 21February 2027.
This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.
It explores technology, artificial intelligence, Facebook, Instagram, social media, coding, making a website, HTML, CSS, PS5, playstation, games console, computer games, desktop games, Apple iOs 27, Mac, Macbook, Mac versus PC, IBM, Commodore 64, Steam Frame, iPhone, smartphone, dumb phone, Steve Jobs, Jack Tramiel, computer race, home appliances, toy market, super computers, science and technology, future of computers, techno optimist, tech subculture, Demoscene, hackers, jailbreak phone, crack software, pirated software, Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, ChatGPT, Claude, Anthropic, Zuckerberg.
To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.