source : the age
By Various
SPOTLIGHT / Stats of the nation
The ABS has made number-crunching far more digestible on its social media accounts.
We take our hats off to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), which has taken the very dry business of numbers and turned it into a highly engaging Instagram account (@absstats) with 49,000 followers; Leigh Sales is, apparently, a fan.
That content recently included the fact that 5122 plumbers in Australia have Italian ancestry (in honour of Mario Day on March 10; Mario, a plumber, is the title character of Nintendo’s bestselling video-game franchise) and a “Could Australia have a Taylor and Travis power couple?” post that revealed the potential for 820 footballers and 210 singers to hook up (there have been a lot of Swiftian stats of late).
It’s quirky, relevant and very accessible and the work of a team of just four. “We’ve been on Instagram since 2011, so have spent many years experimenting with different styles of content to find out what works and what doesn’t,” says social-media manager Heather Lansdowne. “We’ve found that more light-hearted content tends to generate much more engagement.
“We research opportunities, such as sporting events, national days or movie premieres,” she adds, “then brainstorm ways to link these to ABS data.” About 60 per cent of the account’s followers are women, 42 per cent are aged between 25 and 34, and Sydney has slightly more adherents than Melbourne (26 per cent versus 21 per cent). Bar charts, it seems, have never been such fun.
In Jones’ latest novel, an Australian student based at Cambridge loses a manuscript – with possibly fatal consequences.
Deborah Cooke
READ / Parallel lives
It’s 1992 and Australian student Helen Ross is somewhat reluctantly writing her thesis at Cambridge University on writer Joseph Conrad (of Heart of Darkness fame) and is haunted by the loss of a manuscript she has left on a train. You know who else lost a manuscript? The very same Joseph Conrad, at a train-station café in Berlin at the end of the 19th century. In One Another (Text; $35), author Gail Jones deftly weaves the story of the unlikely pair together so they don’t feel so unlikely at all. Jones didn’t need to prove anything but, in her 10th novel, she leaves us in no doubt that she remains at the top of her form. If you like literature, history, biography and a good story, this one’s for you. Melanie Kembrey
LISTEN / Shock of the new
Jon Caramanica – The New York Times music critic and Popcast podcast host.
My teenagers, through hogging the car stereo and their enjoyment of long showers to the accompaniment of a very loud soundtrack, have exposed me to the likes of Boy Genius, Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo and Teenage Dads. Now I even play some of these artists when they’re not around (shhh!), allowing my high-rotation listens to take a breather. If you’d like to broaden your musical horizons (and don’t have any teens on hand), you could drop in on The New York Times’s Popcast podcast. Hosted by Jon Caramanica, it provides a frenetic, genre-hopping critique of today’s music. Caramanica and guests not only explore artists who are making waves right now (heard of Jelly Roll? Me, neither, but his Save Me has 215 million views on YouTube) but also analyse why. A podcast that could give your Spotify algorithm the shock of its life. Paul Connolly
SHOP / Come into my parlour . . .
A swish way to swat: the Finnish-designed “Fly Fly”.
The “Fly Fly” swatter ($50), a whimsical creation by Finnish designer Tarmo Likki, ingeniously mimics its airborne adversaries. Crafted from sustainably sourced Finnish birchwood and fine leather, it’s as chic as it is useful. Designed to last for generations, it will dispatch flies with flair. Frances Mocnik
UPGRADE / Hear! Hear!
Sennheiser’s noise-cancelling, wireless earbuds are a mighty rival to the Apple AirPods.
For years now, Apple’s Airpods have reigned supreme as the king of wireless earbuds. Challengers have come pretty close, but we may have a winner in Sennheiser’s “Momentum True Wireless 4″ earbuds ($500), which not only offer a superior sound quality to Apple’s ubiquitous white buds but are, arguably, a superior product in every sense of the word. Their adaptive noise cancellation is next-level, as is the extended battery life, which is easily double that of some of its rivals. In other words, they look great (they’re available in copper graphite, black graphite and white silver) and sound even better. David Swan
WEAR / Puff piece
The Unreal Fur x Miimi & Jiinda reversible jackets: a two-for-one bargain.
Bomber jackets and “Mob wife” coats may be the talk of TikTok but, for practicality, you still can’t go past a puffer. Banish cries of “Normcore!” with a style that celebrates Indigenous design. Unreal Fur has teamed with Gumbaynggirr label Miimi & Jiinda on a range of unisex jackets that are fully reversible so you can switch between print and plain (“Baarlu” jacket, $489). The only decision now? Whether to go long or short. Melissa Singer
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