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Words on Wednesday Episodes
The History of Criminal Law with Arlie Loughnan
14, April 2025
On 3 December 2014, Professor Arlie Loughnan was a guest on Arts Wednesday, talking about her area, criminal law. It is a wide-ranging discussion of the history of our criminal legal system, where it began and how it developed and Arlie compares it to other systems where the criteria are quite different. […]
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Elise Edmunds talks about a burial ground
10, April 2025
On 24 July 2019, Elise Edmunds, Senior Curator at the State Library of NSW, was a guest on Arts Wednesday. The topic of conversation was Dead Central, an exhibition she had curated at the library. The colony had outgrown the old burial ground where the Town Hall sits today and Governor Phillip created a new […]
Anna Musson talks about etiquette in our busy world
06, April 2025
Anna Musson is the maiven of etiquette, wherever it is needed – privately or in business. Surprisingly, this conversation attracted a lot of feedback: surprisingly, because it was so unexpected. Most of the queries came from mothers of sons as Anna talks about workplace etiquette, from applying for a job to the job interview (including […]
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Events that shaped Sydney with Laila Ellmoos
04, April 2025
Laila Ellmoos is an historian with the City of Sydney and for many years presented 6-part series on aspects of Sydney history. In a new history series, titled, Events That Shaped Sydney, she looks at several topics: the assassination attempt on the life of Prince Alfred, son of Queen Victoria during a royal visit in […]
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The Evolution of Humans with Fran Dory
29, March 2025
We humans share something like 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees. This means at some point we had a common ancestor, but once our paths diverged, how did our early ancestors become us? Fran Dory, Manager of Exhibitions at the Australian Museum talks with Sylvia about this mysterious common ancestor and how we became human. […]
The story of a Truffle farm with Barbara Hill
21, March 2025
Barbara Hill established Macenmist, a Truffle Farm out of Bredbo, New South Wales just north of the Snowy Mountains back in the 1990s with her husband. When she bought the property some 30 years ago, it was underdeveloped, but today it is a thriving establishment that produces Black Perigord Truffles. But how did that happen […]
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Warfare today with Dr. Keith Suter
17, March 2025
In today’s world with global conflicts rising, Sylvia looks at warfare, what it is, what it was, and what its likely to be. Dr. Keith Suter is global futurist and media commentator in national and foreign affairs and he sits down with Sylvia to talk about wars of the past and present, and what warfare […]
Chocolate with chocolatier Jin Sun Kim
08, December 2022
Jin Sun Kim came to Australia from her native Korea to become a pastry chef. Along the way she fell in love with chocolate and is now a chocolatier at her business Kakawa in Darlinghurst. Learn about where chocolate comes from, how it is made and what makes it good – and bad! […]
Eat Your History Part 6: Curry with Jacqui Newling
08, December 2022
The first recorded curry meal served in the colony was at a dinner party given bt Governor Macquarie. It was the food of the upper classes and, as we have learned with other foodstuffs, it doesn’t come on to the tables of average households until it is cheap and plentiful. Commercial curry powders came to […]
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Eat Your History Part 5: Jelly with Jacqui Newling
23, November 2022
Jelly arrived in the colony long after it was fashionable on tables in England. It was very much a rich man’s dish because of the time it took to make. Learn about these techniques and how jelly later becomes a staple in all Australian homes. […]
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Eat Your History Part 4: Oysters
26, October 2022
Jacqui Newling returns with Part 4 on oysters. In the early days, oysters were used as mortar. However, we quickly started harvesting them for eating and by the 1860s had seriously depleted this resource. Thus began oyster farming. […]
Eat Your History Part 3: Tea with Jacqui Newling
12, October 2022
In this episode Jacqui looks at tea. Convicts and poor settlers had drunk tea back in England, but it was not considered a staple and was not included in convicts’ rations. As more idea from China came into the colony, the poor drank cheap green tea while the wealthy drank black tea with milk and […]
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Eat Your History Part 2: Sugar with Jacqui Newling
28, September 2022
When the convicts and first settlers arrived, sugar was not a staple. It was still a very expensive commodity, only on the tables of the wealthy. Learn how sugar became more plentiful, cheaper and part of everyone’s life. […]
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Eat Your History Part 1: Bread with Jacqui Newling
14, September 2022
We return to a series from 2016 with Jacqui Newling called Eat Your History. Jacqui is colonial gastronomer at Sydney Living Museums and in this series, she takes us through the history of basic food staples in the early colony. First episode is our most basic: bread. […]
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Dancing with the Enemy with Diane Armstrong
23, June 2022
Diane’s latest book is set in Jersey, one of the Channel Islands occupied by the Nazis during World War II and alternates in time between those dark days and the present. Diane talks about the inspiration for the novel and her research, including her trips to Jersey. […]
The Musical – More than entertainment! Part 1 with Sue Jowell
22, June 2022
Sue Jowell joins us for a new series entitled The Musical – More Than Entertainment. In Part 1, she introduces the background and early history of the musical from the 18th century, through vaudeville and Gilbert and Sullivan of the 19th century. We conclude with where Sue’s heart belongs: the silver screen and the first […]
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From the Quantum to the Cosmos Part 6: Facing Cosmic Mysteries wit Professor Geraint Lewis
08, June 2022
In this final episode of From the Quantum to the Cosmos, Geraint talks about facing cosmic mysteries: what don’t we understand? Well basically a lot – like 70% of the stuff of our universe: dark matter and dark energy, for a start! Once some great scientist discovers the Theory of Everything, that chasm between quantum […]
The Archibald 2022 with Anna Groden
08, June 2022
Anna Groden from ANG Art and I made our annual pilgrimage to the Archibald finalists at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and recorded our impressions in this conversation. As always, I tend to be the cynic while Anna brings the measured approach, tempered as always, with her great knowledge. Were we blown away? […]
The Jane Austen Remedy with Dr Ruth Wilson
25, May 2022
When Dr Ruth Wilson turned 70, she kept dreaming that she had lost her voice. In a determined effort to find it – and indeed herself – she left her Sydney life for a cottage in the Southern Highlands. To heal her ailing soul, she decided to reread the 6 novels of Jane Austen Her […]
