Sadly, Monday Drive was forced to report on the demise of Randwick’s revered Tree Of Knowledge, located at the intersection of Wansey Road and High Street, this week. Local tree lover and fresh-minted activist John Bellamy phoned in to tell us about the horror of watching it come down. Clearly resident action to stop any more of our heritage trees being destroyed was a consideration when the Tree was suddenly targeted by chainsaws, immediately after the federal election, during the school holidays, on a Sunday night. Randwick City councillors Kathy Neilson and Tony Bowen, and NSW Greens MP Mehreen Faruqi (also a recent guest on the show), stood alongside residents as work to cut down the tree began about 6.30pm. Council had been under the impression that the trees were safe till November. Not so. As far as we know, no attempt was made to remove the daunting amount of wildlife living in the tree before it was hacked down.

Given the community’s commitment to protesting these assaults on our beloved tree canopy, it was good to welcome the French BBR Festival Director, Vincent Herlandez, who rocked into the studio as we played tracks from Serge Gainsbourg and Carla Bruni, to share the history of the French Love of Protest and talk about how it compares with the Aussie tradition of She’ll Be Right, Mate! There’s nothing right about taking down heritage trees that have taken 150 years to grow, and it seems that people in the Eastern Suburbs will continue to mass, en masse, on the streets, a la Francaise, for as long as this continues.

On the bright side, more or less, we had Professor Watson from the Warrumbungle National Park in central western NSW as our third guest this week, telling us about the negative effects of excessive artificial illumination, and the beauty of turning the lights down. It was a joy to hear that light pollution, which not only disrupts the nocturnal habits of wildlife, but seriously messes with the human body clock, could easily become a thing of the past, if lighting technology, and human habit, change fast enough.

Meanwhile our resident new romantic cineaste, Riley Lavelle Long, got down and got grumpy when he told us he thought the hit film, Hunt For the Wilderpeople, has been overrated. I can’t be the only one who didn’t agree!

If you missed the show don’t forget you can listen anytime via the Monday Drive program page on this website. Listen up next week!