Long Distance Call

Geraldine's taking a well-deserved break.

She's loaded the audio book "Middlemarch" on her smart phone and packed her suitcase with winter woolies.

Eliza has just finished "Olive Kitteridge" and is watching "Normal People" on Stan.

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Middlemarch – George Eliot

Middlemarch & Me – The New Yorker

Olive Kitteridge -

Dying for a drink:

Geraldine's learning to live with ambiguity. As the COVID-19 situation in Australia worsens, the next six to twelve months remain unclear. We're all being asked to delay our plans and live in limbo.

That's taking some getting used to.

It's making Geraldine realise that our lives aren't quite as settled as they may seem.

Meanwhile, Eliza's re-training her brain to read long essays in one sitting.

And she's struggling to find time for yoga.

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American Carnage – The Monthly – Don Watson

The Man Inside and the Inside Man – The Monthly – Mahmood Fazal

Ali and Cavett: The Tale of the Tapes HBO

Harvey Milk

Victoria has gone back into lockdown. The rest of Australia worries about following suit.

Geraldine and Eliza anxiously look forward to the next six months.

Also this week: Fintan O'Toole on the fatal delusions of Boris Johnson.

Eliza reminisces about Indonesia.

And flopping about on holiday.

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Fintan O'Toole - The Fatal Delusions of Boris Johnson

John Curtin's War - John Edwards

Geraldine's working too hard and she's trying to understand why.

Partly it's because there's just so much to read at the moment. She's running to keep up.

Eliza wonders if her Mum's work patterns are linked to Australia's emergence from the COVID-19 lockdown? But Geraldine thinks it's a result of "normal life" returning to the northern hemisphere.

Also this week, Eliza worries about Lebanon and its future.

And reading Olive Kitteridge.

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The Coal Curse - Judith Brett - Quarterly Essay

Australia In The World - DFAT Secretary Frances Adamson

Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout

Belgravia - TV series

Fauda - season 3

Big news this week: Eliza and her family will stay in Australia permanently. They won't return to Lebanon.

Eliza's thrilled to be home and looking forward to resuming her journalism work.

Her husband Adam has been offered a new job at the ABC TV current affairs program "4 Corners".

The decision to leave Lebanon was bittersweet. Eliza and her family loved Beirut and particularly miss their nanny, Sunny, who remains in the city.

Also this week, Geraldine interviews Elizabeth Gilbert.

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Martin Patience on the Ethiopian woman being dropped at the embassy

Geraldine Doogue interviews Elizabeth Gilbert

City of Girls – Elizabeth Gilbert

Richard Fidler interviews Philippe Sands on ABC Conversations

2020 is so challenging that Eliza is looking for advice from unconventional sources.

This week, she rewatched the adventures of Olive & Mabel the labradors. In episode 3, the dogs emerge from a fetid pond and "let the unpleasantness sink in". It seems like a good mantra for life.

Also this week, how should white people respond to the Black Lives Matter protests?

Eliza prepares to give herself a history lesson before the November election in America.

And Geraldine looks for plants which thrive in dappled light.

Join the conversation at the Facebook page "Long Distance Callers" or email at [email protected]

Thanks for listening!

Fordham’s Bryan Massingale: White Catholics need to sit with the discomfort of systemic racism

Paul Keating’s Redfern Speech

Olive & Mabel - Letting the unpleasantness sink in

Michelle Grattan & Pat Turner – The Conversation

Derry Girls - Netflix

The Fire is Upon Us – Nicholas Buccola

Robert Caro – The Years of Lyndon Johnson

Retired General Jim Mattis has launched a scathing criticism of his old boss, labelling Donald Trump a divisive President and a threat to the Constitution.

Geraldine and Eliza wonder if General Mattis' letter will act as a call to arms amongst Republicans who have been privately wary of the President's behaviour, but until now unwilling to criticise him publicly.

Also this week, Eliza is enthralled in the German TV series "Das Boot".

Geraldine wonders how long it takes for a war-torn country to properly confront its past.

And the women talk shopping in the age of COVID-19.

Thanks for listening! Get in touch via the Facebook page "Long Distance Callers" or email [email protected]

General Mattis condemns President Trump – The Atlantic

Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign

Das Boot – SBS on Demand

The Firekeepers of Kakadu

Rio Tinto feels more heat on cave blast

Eliza is missing her home in Beirut while loving life in Australia.

It's a strange case of geographical scizophrenia.

Meanwhile, Geraldine wonders how much adventure and pressure we should inject back into life as we emerge from lockdown.

Eliza's engrossed in the new 'Wind of Change' podcast and Geraldine has finished the 'Sergio' documentary on Netflix.

Thanks for listening!

Join the conversation at the facebook page "Long Distance Callers" or email at [email protected]

Rolling Stone on Wind of Change

It's Only Breathing: Fenella Souter in the Good Weekend

Amateur vision from 1990 from outside (and inside) Khiam prison

Wind of Change podcast: Crooked Media

Sergio: Netflix

The Bureau: SBS

Mrs America (Cate Blanchett)

As we emerge from lockdown, are we facing a pandemic of anxiety?

The COVID-19 crisis has forced us into new patterns of social interaction. We've been told that the best way to protect ourselves from coronavirus is staying indoors and away from people.

Journalist and author Judith Hoare argues that social distancing feeds off fear.

She conducted extensive research about anxiety for her book called "The Woman Who Cracked the Anxiety Code: The Extraordinary Life of Claire Weekes."

The Australian doctor's work on anxiety was released in the 1960s without fanfare but has come to be seen as cutting edge.

Judith Hoare thinks society has learnt a habit of fear and we need to learn to manage anxiety as we resume our normal lives.

On this special episode of the Lockdown Chronicles, Geraldine interviews Judith Hoare.

Geraldine and Eliza dive into the debate about Ronan Farrow's journalistic ethics this week.

The New York Times has launched an attack on Farrow, arguing that he doesn't like to let inconvenient truths get in the way of a ripping yarn.

The celebrity journalist won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on Harvey Weinstein along with New York Times journalist Jodi Kantor & Meghan Twohey.

Eliza thinks Farrow could have done more to acknowledge his colleagues and the team of people involved in bringing down a predator like Weinstein. She acknowledges that Farrow's ego is a problem. But that doesn't discredit his work.

Geraldine is inherently sceptical of journalists who fly too close to the sun. She thought the New York Times expose was a cautionary tale for less experienced journalists embarking on big investigations.

Also this week, Geraldine finishes her first novel in a while.

Ireland and the "terrible beauty" that was the Easter Rising.

And the future of the office.

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In this election, it’s the remote against the exposed: Bret Stephens New York Times

We will miss the office if it dies: Lucy Kellaway (FT)

Actress – Anne Enright

The New Yorker reviews “Actress”

Easter, 1916 W.B Yeates

Geraldine Doogue: Reflections on an Easter Rising

She Said - Jodi Kantor & Meghan Twohey

Is Ronan Farrow Too Good To Be True? Ben Smith NYT