I’m sitting here in my blog suit, trying to wake up.

Last night our dear friends and neighbours came over to dinner. We rarely see them these days because they work in Melbourne. (That’s another thing about living in country Victoria: employment needs to be transportable or you’ll probably have to make a long journey to reach it.)

It was great to catch up with them, hear about life in the Big Smoke and find out what we’re missing. They told us about a wonderful show they’ve just seen at the Palais Theatre in St. Kilda.

They’d seen Morning of the Earth which features great live performances by Brian Cadd, Mike Rudd, G. Wayne Thomas, Tim Gaze (ex Tamam Shud), Old Man River and Lior. They said it was brilliant.

Along with ‘Crystal Voyager’ and ‘Endless Summer’, ‘Morning of the Earth’ is one of the greatest surf films of all time. The trouble is I can’t recall seeing it.

I remember seeing ‘Crystal Voyager’ at the Sydney Opera House and ‘Endless Summer’ at… somewhere else… but I can’t remember ‘Morning of the Earth’.

They say that if you remember the ’70s you weren’t there and while I remember most of that decade – particularly when the punk movement shook everyone up – I have to admit that my memory has a few blank spots. I can’t believe I’ve forgotten seeing ‘Morning of the Earth’ though, so enamoured was I of all things surf in 1972. (How I longed for straight blond hair and a hide that tanned.)

Remember GTK, shot in glorious monochrome in the late ’60s and early ’70s? It was where schoolkids, and others with limited social lives, were first exposed to Daddy Cool, Max Merritt and the Meteors, Wendy Saddington, Madder Lake, Bakery, Tamam Shud, Pirana, Tully… I could go on. 

If I had to choose one GTK episode that stands out, it’s where a pre-elocution Mick Jagger, sitting in the back of a car in a hotel car park, greets off-camera reporter Jeune Pritchard with: “Allo Jeune, ’ow are ya love, orright? See you after, orright?”  For years after that I desperately wanted to be Jeune Pritchard.

But getting back to our friends who came to dinner last night: their combined ages are at least 20 years younger than the combined ages of my partner and me. Despite that, we never feel our age when we’re with them; in fact they make us feel younger and they keep us in touch with what’s happening… even if it does date back to 1972.

They also do a wonderful line in host gifts. The chocolates they gave us last night looked like small works of art. They were almost too beautiful to eat… but not quite.