WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.620 My name's Robert Fideon and it's my great pleasure to be able to introduce Bruce Petty today. 2 00:00:05.820 --> 00:00:14.020 It's often said that for people of a certain age, what were you doing when John Kennedy, 3 00:00:14.620 --> 00:00:16.660 when you heard that John Kennedy had died? 4 00:00:16.920 --> 00:00:24.160 And the answer for Bruce Petty was drawing cartoons in a daily newspaper, the Daily Mirror in Sydney. 5 00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:30.560 Bruce can also answer, the new question is, what were you doing when you heard that Michael Jackson died? 6 00:00:30.740 --> 00:00:34.620 And Bruce can also answer, drawing cartoons for a daily newspaper. 7 00:00:36.380 --> 00:00:47.820 The length and strength of Bruce's commitment to political commentary of the most amusing and incisive kind 8 00:00:47.820 --> 00:00:51.400 over the last half century is extraordinary. 9 00:00:52.420 --> 00:00:54.140 And I've got some... 10 00:00:54.160 --> 00:00:58.460 Somewhere in my belongings, a 20-something page chronology which I could bore you with, 11 00:00:58.580 --> 00:01:06.280 but he has done so many things over such a long time and he's kept coming back to the same basic questions. 12 00:01:06.420 --> 00:01:08.420 Why is the world as it is? 13 00:01:09.080 --> 00:01:09.880 Isn't it odd? 14 00:01:10.360 --> 00:01:13.520 Couldn't we do it a little bit differently and make it fairer? 15 00:01:14.640 --> 00:01:18.240 In the Art Gallery Museum at Flinders University, where I work, 16 00:01:18.960 --> 00:01:23.880 there are a few cartoons from the 1960s, when Bruce was at the... 17 00:01:24.160 --> 00:01:25.640 Australia, which he gave to the museum. 18 00:01:25.740 --> 00:01:26.980 He's probably forgotten that he's given. 19 00:01:27.300 --> 00:01:29.920 Bruce has given a lot of things away over the years. 20 00:01:30.060 --> 00:01:31.800 He's an extraordinarily generous man. 21 00:01:32.300 --> 00:01:36.240 And the fascinating things about these originals is they're quite large. 22 00:01:37.840 --> 00:01:42.200 And they're full of squiggles and complications, of course, as you'd expect. 23 00:01:42.700 --> 00:01:43.980 And then there is... 24 00:01:43.980 --> 00:01:47.720 And then the bits where he's obviously changed his mind. 25 00:01:47.760 --> 00:01:52.960 He's cut a piece of paper out of the corner, put it over there and drawn it a bit differently. 26 00:01:53.620 --> 00:01:54.140 Really. 27 00:01:54.160 --> 00:01:58.940 that his cartoons are not gags, they are a process of thought. 28 00:01:59.680 --> 00:02:00.840 They draw you through them. 29 00:02:01.180 --> 00:02:06.500 And so from a daily cartoon, which you probably only digest in a second or two, 30 00:02:06.720 --> 00:02:13.200 through to his many film efforts, including the Oscar-winning Leisure, 31 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:19.920 through to his book-length things, if you've got a week or so, maybe two weeks, 32 00:02:19.920 --> 00:02:25.340 there are very few things you could do as valuable as having a good hard look at his book, 33 00:02:25.420 --> 00:02:28.360 The Absurd Machine, which came out about nearly a decade ago. 34 00:02:28.760 --> 00:02:30.220 It's a fascinating thing. 35 00:02:30.280 --> 00:02:36.480 Unfortunately, Penguin marketed it as a graphic novel and people thought, 36 00:02:37.220 --> 00:02:38.360 this is a bit hard. 37 00:02:38.680 --> 00:02:39.940 Not enough people read it. 38 00:02:40.100 --> 00:02:46.000 But what's in there is a meditation on what humans are like, what Australians are like, 39 00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:47.520 and how we might do things better. 40 00:02:47.760 --> 00:02:49.420 And so Bruce is going to... 41 00:02:49.920 --> 00:02:53.000 Do a bit more of that for you in the next few minutes. 42 00:02:53.080 --> 00:02:53.600 Bruce Petty. 43 00:02:58.120 --> 00:03:00.080 Thanks very much, Robert. 44 00:03:01.600 --> 00:03:03.320 And I am going to draw. 45 00:03:04.380 --> 00:03:06.600 Unfortunately, I can't cut bits out on this event. 46 00:03:06.700 --> 00:03:10.780 It's got to have to go with what I do, which is the worst for a cartoonist. 47 00:03:10.780 --> 00:03:13.040 We like three goes at everything if we can. 48 00:03:13.700 --> 00:03:18.660 But I was going to talk about ideas, if I can. 49 00:03:19.200 --> 00:03:19.900 And it... 50 00:03:19.920 --> 00:03:23.900 And a caricature of ideas, which means that you don't have to believe anything 51 00:03:23.900 --> 00:03:25.540 once you say caricature. 52 00:03:25.860 --> 00:03:29.120 It's just a hint of what the subject matter is. 53 00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:35.880 And I'll even, I think, in the process, show you what caricature is. 54 00:03:35.940 --> 00:03:38.260 In fact, the first thing I'll do is something like that. 55 00:03:38.700 --> 00:03:42.620 I'll start with what I think is sort of reality. 56 00:03:42.860 --> 00:03:45.100 In other words, what we learnt at art school. 57 00:03:45.260 --> 00:03:49.220 And any of you that have done the humanity, 58 00:03:49.920 --> 00:03:51.460 anything in arts school, 59 00:03:51.680 --> 00:03:53.580 you'll have got this bit of information, 60 00:03:53.760 --> 00:03:56.080 which I think is quite interesting. 61 00:03:57.280 --> 00:03:58.280 And it's this. 62 00:03:58.840 --> 00:04:02.060 If you're going to do a body, a head, 63 00:04:02.300 --> 00:04:04.680 you'd probably start with an oval. 64 00:04:04.900 --> 00:04:07.580 Because most people's faces are roughly like that. 65 00:04:10.080 --> 00:04:12.500 And if you want to get where the rest of it is, 66 00:04:12.600 --> 00:04:14.160 that's really just a third. 67 00:04:14.440 --> 00:04:17.480 So you've got to come down six times to get to the feet. 68 00:04:17.620 --> 00:04:19.380 So then you know where the feet are. 69 00:04:19.500 --> 00:04:19.680 There. 70 00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:20.620 Down here somewhere. 71 00:04:21.080 --> 00:04:24.900 This is really very quick version. 72 00:04:25.280 --> 00:04:27.260 You stop the hands about here. 73 00:04:27.360 --> 00:04:28.540 You get all this information. 74 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:32.760 And you know that halfway down the face there 75 00:04:32.760 --> 00:04:34.600 is where the eyes are. 76 00:04:34.680 --> 00:04:35.700 So you put the eyes in. 77 00:04:35.760 --> 00:04:37.600 Halfway down there is where the nose stops. 78 00:04:37.860 --> 00:04:40.000 Halfway down there is put a mouth in. 79 00:04:40.220 --> 00:04:41.620 So anyone can do this. 80 00:04:41.740 --> 00:04:43.800 Once you've got the formula. 81 00:04:45.120 --> 00:04:47.440 And that's quite an interesting thing. 82 00:04:47.500 --> 00:04:49.100 It usually works for most people. 83 00:04:49.180 --> 00:04:49.900 Men are weird. 84 00:04:49.920 --> 00:04:50.120 Women. 85 00:04:50.660 --> 00:04:55.660 Now when you ask people who haven't got the formula 86 00:04:55.660 --> 00:04:57.620 and ask them, you know, 87 00:04:58.160 --> 00:05:00.880 we get quite smug about this 88 00:05:00.880 --> 00:05:02.160 because they usually do this. 89 00:05:02.200 --> 00:05:05.000 They get the oval right eventually. 90 00:05:06.660 --> 00:05:08.740 And then they put the eyes up here. 91 00:05:08.940 --> 00:05:09.360 You see? 92 00:05:10.280 --> 00:05:12.820 Because they mistake head for face. 93 00:05:12.960 --> 00:05:15.900 And face starts at the eyes and goes down the mouth. 94 00:05:15.980 --> 00:05:17.140 They've got a feeling it's wrong. 95 00:05:17.900 --> 00:05:19.700 But you've still got to work. 96 00:05:19.920 --> 00:05:21.360 And then from there, come down here, the nose. 97 00:05:21.540 --> 00:05:22.780 You're not sure where it ends. 98 00:05:22.940 --> 00:05:26.060 So you usually do it a much too big. 99 00:05:27.360 --> 00:05:29.900 Body, well, you can't remember the formula. 100 00:05:30.040 --> 00:05:31.340 So you do the body all right. 101 00:05:31.380 --> 00:05:34.000 But just do little legs on the bottom 102 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:37.380 because you just haven't got enough information basically. 103 00:05:37.780 --> 00:05:38.800 Put a mouth in. 104 00:05:38.860 --> 00:05:41.260 Try and get the mouth sensitive. 105 00:05:41.340 --> 00:05:44.280 Put a bit of shading in in case that'll help. 106 00:05:46.880 --> 00:05:48.460 And little hands here. 107 00:05:48.520 --> 00:05:49.560 They're not long enough. 108 00:05:49.920 --> 00:05:55.400 In fact, the whole thing is a kind of parody of what we're like. 109 00:05:55.940 --> 00:05:58.480 I mean, this one isn't great, but it's better than that. 110 00:05:58.720 --> 00:06:03.980 Now, the interesting thing is when you ask children to do a human, 111 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:05.500 they do this. 112 00:06:05.820 --> 00:06:07.740 They say, that's the face. 113 00:06:08.560 --> 00:06:09.400 There's the eyes. 114 00:06:10.880 --> 00:06:11.780 And the mouth. 115 00:06:11.860 --> 00:06:12.940 Don't worry about the nose. 116 00:06:13.020 --> 00:06:14.040 That doesn't do anything. 117 00:06:14.220 --> 00:06:15.140 Just do that. 118 00:06:16.160 --> 00:06:17.400 Put a bit of hair on. 119 00:06:17.520 --> 00:06:19.520 And then the hands come out of here. 120 00:06:21.640 --> 00:06:23.980 Because they're not interested in bodies. 121 00:06:24.200 --> 00:06:26.320 That's going to happen later. 122 00:06:27.220 --> 00:06:29.300 Put legs straight out the bottom there. 123 00:06:31.080 --> 00:06:34.760 The point being that out of those three, 124 00:06:35.760 --> 00:06:38.200 this is the one that's sort of interesting, 125 00:06:38.300 --> 00:06:39.900 but this is the one that's really interesting 126 00:06:39.900 --> 00:06:41.660 because it's funny. 127 00:06:42.100 --> 00:06:44.620 And yet we recognise it as a person. 128 00:06:44.800 --> 00:06:46.860 And this is the caricature thing. 129 00:06:47.080 --> 00:06:49.200 We really, you know, 130 00:06:49.200 --> 00:06:51.740 not only in drawing, but in all sorts of information, 131 00:06:51.980 --> 00:06:55.480 much prefer to have an approximation, 132 00:06:56.300 --> 00:06:58.460 a funny version of what's going on, 133 00:06:58.500 --> 00:06:59.380 rather than the real one, 134 00:06:59.480 --> 00:07:02.080 which is a big plus for cartoonists 135 00:07:02.080 --> 00:07:03.800 and very hard for, you know, 136 00:07:03.820 --> 00:07:05.260 people who are trying to tell the truth, 137 00:07:05.320 --> 00:07:06.440 like Robert. 138 00:07:08.280 --> 00:07:09.200 Or journalists. 139 00:07:10.760 --> 00:07:11.680 Or journalists. 140 00:07:12.940 --> 00:07:15.320 The other thing is, I should add on that, 141 00:07:15.400 --> 00:07:17.020 once you've got this idea 142 00:07:17.020 --> 00:07:19.020 that you can do anything on a, 143 00:07:20.020 --> 00:07:21.700 on a drawing, you can do, 144 00:07:22.180 --> 00:07:24.480 we do this for people's think, 145 00:07:24.560 --> 00:07:26.480 I do a face roughly like this. 146 00:07:27.100 --> 00:07:28.840 It's just approximations. 147 00:07:28.900 --> 00:07:31.620 It's really a version of what the children do in a way. 148 00:07:31.780 --> 00:07:33.500 But you can also do minds. 149 00:07:33.520 --> 00:07:35.660 So you do a mind sticking over the top. 150 00:07:35.980 --> 00:07:41.140 That's another, a bit of, a bit of an extension of what, 151 00:07:42.120 --> 00:07:43.700 of what the human is. 152 00:07:43.840 --> 00:07:45.100 Put the mind in. 153 00:07:45.540 --> 00:07:47.380 And it's even more interesting. 154 00:07:48.160 --> 00:07:49.180 And then you can do, you know, you can do, you know, 155 00:07:49.180 --> 00:07:51.140 you can do what I think's quite interesting. 156 00:07:51.340 --> 00:07:53.480 There's all these sort of different sort of minds. 157 00:07:53.640 --> 00:07:55.660 There's different people with different minds. 158 00:07:55.860 --> 00:07:57.380 This is a sort of cheerful person. 159 00:07:58.520 --> 00:08:01.240 And this person's got a very broad mind. 160 00:08:04.340 --> 00:08:08.720 And not only that, but this person here is an intellectual. 161 00:08:09.020 --> 00:08:13.260 You can see the, you can see the, you can see the, 162 00:08:13.260 --> 00:08:17.740 and he's got a very narrow mind, you see. 163 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:18.440 . 164 00:08:18.440 --> 00:08:21.700 And so it goes on. 165 00:08:21.900 --> 00:08:26.420 And, and we've all got some version of this. 166 00:08:26.500 --> 00:08:31.060 If we had time and you told me I'd love to draw what each 167 00:08:31.060 --> 00:08:33.000 of you has over the top of your head. 168 00:08:33.060 --> 00:08:36.840 Like this person might think in steps like this. 169 00:08:37.880 --> 00:08:39.760 And then, and then a big blinding flash 170 00:08:39.760 --> 00:08:42.080 of information there at the end. 171 00:08:42.760 --> 00:08:46.060 This person might, might think in a sort of, 172 00:08:46.060 --> 00:08:48.120 all over the place, that sort of person. 173 00:08:48.440 --> 00:08:48.720 . 174 00:08:49.320 --> 00:08:53.700 You might identify yourself in some, here somewhere. 175 00:08:53.840 --> 00:08:55.500 This is an explosive person. 176 00:08:55.580 --> 00:08:57.300 This is a blows up at the top. 177 00:08:58.040 --> 00:08:58.520 . 178 00:08:58.520 --> 00:09:02.760 And this person here, this is like, 179 00:09:02.800 --> 00:09:04.620 this I think might be the critics. 180 00:09:04.700 --> 00:09:06.080 I don't know if there's any critics here. 181 00:09:06.180 --> 00:09:11.440 But they, critics go off here and then round and round like this. 182 00:09:12.740 --> 00:09:13.220 . 183 00:09:13.740 --> 00:09:14.520 Round and round. 184 00:09:15.280 --> 00:09:17.520 And they go around and then they disappear. 185 00:09:17.780 --> 00:09:18.260 . 186 00:09:18.260 --> 00:09:18.700 . 187 00:09:18.700 --> 00:09:24.620 A sort of a, a sort of a black, a black hole of incoherence 188 00:09:24.620 --> 00:09:25.740 or whatever it is. 189 00:09:25.980 --> 00:09:26.380 . 190 00:09:27.120 --> 00:09:30.360 Now the interesting thing is that, that, that's all of us. 191 00:09:30.380 --> 00:09:32.840 You know, that's a rough spectrum of, 192 00:09:33.440 --> 00:09:35.980 of the human way of thinking. 193 00:09:36.360 --> 00:09:40.780 And when you, when you're going to do, when you're going 194 00:09:40.780 --> 00:09:43.120 to govern this set of people, or if these people are 195 00:09:43.120 --> 00:09:45.620 in government, or they're being represented, well, 196 00:09:45.700 --> 00:09:48.240 the ideal is this, 197 00:10:18.220 --> 00:10:19.340 might be a lobby. 198 00:10:19.540 --> 00:10:22.900 This would be a lobby in a government lobby group. 199 00:10:22.980 --> 00:10:24.400 That pushes you around a bit. 200 00:10:24.500 --> 00:10:28.540 Then if you go to politics, the party will... 201 00:10:28.540 --> 00:10:31.220 This is the whip, you know, the party whip 202 00:10:31.220 --> 00:10:35.580 that gets everybody in the party to vote the same way. 203 00:10:35.940 --> 00:10:38.320 And all these pressures come on people, 204 00:10:38.480 --> 00:10:39.760 you know, what the press say, 205 00:10:40.580 --> 00:10:42.640 all these things push what your families say 206 00:10:42.640 --> 00:10:43.940 until you finish up. 207 00:10:45.700 --> 00:10:48.060 You turn this thing into something like this. 208 00:10:48.220 --> 00:10:53.200 The final bit of legislation is something like that, 209 00:10:53.240 --> 00:10:56.480 which you, you know, you could divide it up if you can, 210 00:10:56.580 --> 00:10:57.380 but it's tricky. 211 00:10:59.240 --> 00:11:04.300 The point is, it's just that government is quite difficult. 212 00:11:04.520 --> 00:11:05.960 That's all that says, I think. 213 00:11:07.720 --> 00:11:08.280 LAUGHTER 214 00:11:13.180 --> 00:11:14.900 Just talking about government, 215 00:11:15.080 --> 00:11:16.240 the main sort of... 216 00:11:16.240 --> 00:11:18.200 One of the big devices in government... 217 00:11:18.220 --> 00:11:21.800 And, in fact, any decision-making is the debate. 218 00:11:22.740 --> 00:11:24.060 And the ABC does debates. 219 00:11:24.300 --> 00:11:25.640 A lot of people do debates. 220 00:11:25.900 --> 00:11:31.640 And the main thing you do is you get a sort of table here 221 00:11:31.640 --> 00:11:35.280 and you put a person on each side 222 00:11:35.280 --> 00:11:38.100 and they both think differently. 223 00:11:40.060 --> 00:11:42.980 There's two people and they've got microphones 224 00:11:42.980 --> 00:11:46.100 and they're going to debate a certain issue. 225 00:11:46.320 --> 00:11:46.960 And... 226 00:11:46.960 --> 00:11:47.380 And... 227 00:11:48.300 --> 00:11:49.840 It's what happens in Parliament. 228 00:11:49.980 --> 00:11:54.420 It's what happens artificially in discussions. 229 00:11:55.100 --> 00:11:57.360 And what happens, it seems to me, 230 00:11:57.440 --> 00:12:00.460 is this person says something like this 231 00:12:01.460 --> 00:12:05.300 and this person replies with something equal and opposite 232 00:12:05.300 --> 00:12:07.200 because that's what they do. 233 00:12:07.360 --> 00:12:09.300 That's what you learn to do. 234 00:12:09.560 --> 00:12:11.860 And they've got notes here and so on. 235 00:12:12.420 --> 00:12:14.020 And then this person says, 236 00:12:14.080 --> 00:12:16.740 well, don't forget this is the basis of everything. 237 00:12:17.020 --> 00:12:18.140 They put that under there. 238 00:12:18.220 --> 00:12:20.400 This guy says, oh, no, wait a minute. 239 00:12:21.340 --> 00:12:24.580 That's the latest bit of information we've got. 240 00:12:24.640 --> 00:12:28.580 This person says, well, that bit, 241 00:12:28.660 --> 00:12:32.120 you've got to record that bit in this debate. 242 00:12:32.380 --> 00:12:34.580 And he says, no, I can beat that with that. 243 00:12:34.760 --> 00:12:38.560 And so you finish up with a kind of a brick wall here. 244 00:12:40.520 --> 00:12:42.700 Especially between the two people. 245 00:12:43.100 --> 00:12:47.720 And you sort of sense when you're watching these things 246 00:12:47.720 --> 00:12:49.340 that something's going wrong here. 247 00:12:49.520 --> 00:12:50.120 They're both... 248 00:12:50.120 --> 00:12:51.660 It's not going anywhere. 249 00:12:51.920 --> 00:12:53.220 And when they get that far, 250 00:12:53.300 --> 00:12:57.640 they start throwing stuff over the top, you see. 251 00:12:58.200 --> 00:13:00.240 And it gets even worse 252 00:13:00.240 --> 00:13:03.920 because some of the stuff goes clean out of the building, you know, 253 00:13:03.960 --> 00:13:06.140 and off the screen completely. 254 00:13:07.020 --> 00:13:09.700 It's not simple to get symmetry, 255 00:13:09.820 --> 00:13:13.060 which is what the ABC desperately wants to do. 256 00:13:13.360 --> 00:13:17.400 And the rest of us, we like the idea that... 257 00:13:17.720 --> 00:13:20.140 Two points are going to be put absolutely fairly. 258 00:13:21.420 --> 00:13:23.840 And that seems to be what happens. 259 00:13:24.020 --> 00:13:25.580 Now, this is slightly... 260 00:13:29.000 --> 00:13:30.980 This is slightly trickier, I think. 261 00:13:31.040 --> 00:13:31.840 It's a bad idea. 262 00:13:31.960 --> 00:13:35.260 This is bad ideas because that's what this festival's about. 263 00:13:35.520 --> 00:13:41.700 And I think these are two propositions that are worth looking at. 264 00:13:42.280 --> 00:13:46.440 Some great ideas began very long ago. 265 00:13:46.560 --> 00:13:47.700 And this is the start... 266 00:13:47.720 --> 00:13:51.100 This is the sky as it is today. 267 00:13:51.240 --> 00:13:54.040 But it was the same around about 12th century. 268 00:13:54.320 --> 00:13:55.960 It was much the same star. 269 00:13:56.400 --> 00:13:58.820 And then the moon goes across there. 270 00:13:58.940 --> 00:14:00.660 And the sun goes across here. 271 00:14:00.880 --> 00:14:03.580 And the whole settlement goes across. 272 00:14:03.600 --> 00:14:06.560 Then the planet Mars will disappear through here. 273 00:14:06.800 --> 00:14:08.680 So these are all plotted. 274 00:14:08.760 --> 00:14:11.700 And this person here makes a chart. 275 00:14:12.940 --> 00:14:16.920 It's a person in a very old funny hat 276 00:14:16.920 --> 00:14:17.700 and an old gift. 277 00:14:17.700 --> 00:14:21.220 And he makes a chart and puts it all down, which they did. 278 00:14:21.820 --> 00:14:23.700 And once you've got that in, 279 00:14:23.780 --> 00:14:26.720 you can sail around the world with this thing. 280 00:14:26.880 --> 00:14:28.280 And they did. 281 00:14:28.940 --> 00:14:32.920 Once you've got the chart and you've got a telescope of some sort, 282 00:14:33.060 --> 00:14:38.560 you can find yourself anywhere on the planet. 283 00:14:39.640 --> 00:14:43.600 And the interesting thing is the same stars here, 284 00:14:43.680 --> 00:14:47.540 this person looked at the same star. 285 00:14:48.400 --> 00:14:50.280 And this is Copernicus, you see. 286 00:14:50.980 --> 00:14:55.820 And he's got even better gear now because it's a bit later. 287 00:14:55.860 --> 00:14:56.980 I'm not quite sure when. 288 00:14:57.220 --> 00:14:59.180 But he's looking at the same stars. 289 00:14:59.240 --> 00:15:02.380 And he says, no, look, what's happening? 290 00:15:02.400 --> 00:15:03.680 If you're looking at those stars, 291 00:15:03.820 --> 00:15:07.680 and if you happen to be standing on something that's going round, 292 00:15:07.900 --> 00:15:10.400 this is you here, and it's rotating. 293 00:15:11.280 --> 00:15:15.760 And it's rotating round this thing, which is the sun. 294 00:15:16.300 --> 00:15:17.540 And there's a whole lot of... 295 00:15:17.700 --> 00:15:19.620 The planet's going round here like this. 296 00:15:20.440 --> 00:15:22.720 And the moon's going round you. 297 00:15:23.480 --> 00:15:25.420 And you're looking at all this stuff. 298 00:15:26.400 --> 00:15:28.280 That's what was actually happening. 299 00:15:28.420 --> 00:15:29.680 And you're getting this picture. 300 00:15:30.520 --> 00:15:31.540 And that was... 301 00:15:31.540 --> 00:15:36.640 I mean, I think that's an amazing bit of analysis. 302 00:15:37.460 --> 00:15:41.780 And it seems to me it's pretty typical of what all our puzzles are. 303 00:15:42.020 --> 00:15:44.040 We're all looking at something, you know, 304 00:15:44.080 --> 00:15:46.120 a bit of human behaviour or whatever it is. 305 00:15:46.740 --> 00:15:47.260 And... 306 00:15:47.260 --> 00:15:48.540 And we record it. 307 00:15:48.580 --> 00:15:49.540 And it's useful. 308 00:15:50.040 --> 00:15:52.900 But we're not quite sure what's happening. 309 00:15:53.920 --> 00:15:54.940 Copernicus is this... 310 00:15:54.940 --> 00:15:55.620 Well, this is... 311 00:15:55.620 --> 00:15:59.680 It's still quite a hard concept to look in the sky at, you know, 312 00:15:59.700 --> 00:16:02.020 when you can see stars, if you can, in the city. 313 00:16:03.160 --> 00:16:06.880 And realise that, actually, we're on one of these planet things. 314 00:16:06.980 --> 00:16:07.520 It's moving. 315 00:16:07.800 --> 00:16:10.340 And planets are going through here. 316 00:16:10.420 --> 00:16:11.980 The odd meteor goes across. 317 00:16:12.180 --> 00:16:14.380 And we see the sun go up. 318 00:16:14.380 --> 00:16:16.000 And actually, we're going round it. 319 00:16:16.240 --> 00:16:17.100 Really hard. 320 00:16:17.100 --> 00:16:19.200 Hard to get your head into that mode. 321 00:16:19.340 --> 00:16:23.580 And the idea that he could do it in the 14th, 15th century, 322 00:16:24.720 --> 00:16:25.480 16th, was it, 323 00:16:26.240 --> 00:16:29.960 is really a stunning bit of idea stuff. 324 00:16:30.180 --> 00:16:33.960 And it's the kind of ideas one would hope we could get onto 325 00:16:33.960 --> 00:16:35.940 in a festival like this. 326 00:16:36.840 --> 00:16:39.020 But there's another version of that. 327 00:16:39.140 --> 00:16:40.760 And this is a sort of... 328 00:16:41.340 --> 00:16:43.400 This is a current version of that, 329 00:16:43.440 --> 00:16:44.740 would be this person here. 330 00:16:44.860 --> 00:16:45.340 It's us. 331 00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:46.720 It's us. 332 00:16:46.720 --> 00:16:51.900 And we're looking at the back pages of the Financial Review. 333 00:16:52.840 --> 00:16:56.000 And it's full of this information. 334 00:16:56.120 --> 00:16:56.800 There's graphs. 335 00:16:56.920 --> 00:16:59.720 And there's lists, stock exchange lists. 336 00:16:59.940 --> 00:17:06.160 And there's graphs of where the Reuters is going 337 00:17:06.160 --> 00:17:09.860 and all the different funding bodies. 338 00:17:10.540 --> 00:17:12.980 I've got all their messages on this. 339 00:17:13.080 --> 00:17:14.940 And it's good information. 340 00:17:14.940 --> 00:17:16.400 And if you can understand it, 341 00:17:16.400 --> 00:17:18.080 you can make a lot of money out of it. 342 00:17:19.120 --> 00:17:21.680 If you said, 343 00:17:21.800 --> 00:17:22.900 well, maybe it's not... 344 00:17:22.900 --> 00:17:26.000 Maybe as well as being like that and accurate and useful, 345 00:17:26.140 --> 00:17:30.880 maybe if it's a sort of money thing there 346 00:17:30.880 --> 00:17:32.900 and there's controls on it 347 00:17:32.900 --> 00:17:34.440 and somebody's controlling that. 348 00:17:35.020 --> 00:17:39.240 This is a person in control of quite a lot of money. 349 00:17:40.120 --> 00:17:42.420 And they're attached by this bit of elastic 350 00:17:42.420 --> 00:17:46.220 to a sort of risk thing there. 351 00:17:46.400 --> 00:17:49.540 If you connect with that thing and it goes around you, 352 00:17:49.680 --> 00:17:52.860 you can make quite a lot of profit. 353 00:17:52.980 --> 00:17:56.740 And if we're over here on this bank rate elastic here 354 00:17:58.440 --> 00:18:00.500 and Woolworths is going round us 355 00:18:00.500 --> 00:18:04.960 with their prices varying all the time 356 00:18:04.960 --> 00:18:06.900 and house prices going like this 357 00:18:06.900 --> 00:18:09.800 and we're looking at all these things, 358 00:18:11.360 --> 00:18:12.980 the image will be that. 359 00:18:13.120 --> 00:18:14.360 That'll be the information. 360 00:18:14.500 --> 00:18:16.280 But actually what we're doing is, 361 00:18:16.400 --> 00:18:18.020 there's this huge spiral up here 362 00:18:18.020 --> 00:18:21.220 and then back down here and into a hole at the bottom, 363 00:18:21.360 --> 00:18:24.840 which is better information. 364 00:18:25.040 --> 00:18:26.940 It's Copernicus-type information, 365 00:18:27.100 --> 00:18:29.540 which they don't tell us because it's too tricky. 366 00:18:29.980 --> 00:18:35.180 And so we've got a long way to go with ideas. 367 00:18:35.500 --> 00:18:37.920 It seems to me you can caricature this 368 00:18:37.920 --> 00:18:40.920 and it's a poorly version of what money does. 369 00:18:41.220 --> 00:18:43.200 But it's not completely... 370 00:18:43.200 --> 00:18:45.700 It does strike a chord when you... 371 00:18:45.700 --> 00:18:48.260 when you were particularly conscious 372 00:18:48.260 --> 00:18:51.680 of the last few months in this country. 373 00:18:52.880 --> 00:18:55.280 Now, one of the big things, I reckon... 374 00:18:56.360 --> 00:18:58.960 We were talking about consciousness and stuff 375 00:18:58.960 --> 00:19:00.180 the other day on a panel 376 00:19:00.180 --> 00:19:03.460 and getting confused, of course. 377 00:19:04.060 --> 00:19:06.800 But one of the big things about consciousness 378 00:19:06.800 --> 00:19:09.020 is the notion of language, 379 00:19:09.120 --> 00:19:12.940 which also seems to me to be an amazing... 380 00:19:12.940 --> 00:19:14.600 When you think about it, 381 00:19:14.600 --> 00:19:19.360 an amazing bit of human endeavour. 382 00:19:19.820 --> 00:19:21.880 I wonder if this pen works. I'll try it. 383 00:19:22.840 --> 00:19:24.260 Take this, for instance. 384 00:19:25.980 --> 00:19:28.740 Hang on, I'm going to get another pen. 385 00:19:29.820 --> 00:19:34.720 This is the human, very early on, primitive human. 386 00:19:36.640 --> 00:19:38.020 And he's now... 387 00:19:38.020 --> 00:19:39.900 He's got a sort of voice thing 388 00:19:39.900 --> 00:19:43.140 because I'm going to start with actual words, noises. 389 00:19:44.020 --> 00:19:44.580 Noises. 390 00:19:44.600 --> 00:19:48.600 And that's a diagram, as you'll recognise, of the lungs. 391 00:19:51.600 --> 00:19:53.600 And this is the vocal cords. 392 00:19:53.680 --> 00:19:55.160 You'll recognise them straight away. 393 00:19:55.600 --> 00:19:58.360 And you just pump these things a bit 394 00:19:58.360 --> 00:20:00.680 and out comes the sort of noises. 395 00:20:01.780 --> 00:20:02.780 There's a person. 396 00:20:02.920 --> 00:20:06.160 This is very early on, so he's a bit hairy. 397 00:20:07.820 --> 00:20:09.040 And like that. 398 00:20:10.120 --> 00:20:11.300 It could be a woman. 399 00:20:11.500 --> 00:20:12.360 So it... 400 00:20:13.240 --> 00:20:14.140 I don't... 401 00:20:14.600 --> 00:20:15.920