Bondi Local | Chris Zinn

Bondi Local | Chris Zinn

Remo met Chris back in the late 80s, and at one time was his Bondi landlord!

Melanie talked to modern day Chris at the south end of the beach.

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I just want to say Melanie, what a thrill it is to being here, because one of the reasons I am in Bondi is [due to your] your husband. I sublet his flat down on Beach Road about 25 years ago. If one imagined, all this time later, I’d still be in Bondi, with his dearly beloved, it might not have been so obvious. On the other hand, maybe it was set in the stars. So a thank you to him via you.

So he touched you in many ways …

Maybe not so much him, but Bondi did. In 25 years I’ve never left Bondi. And I know I’m not alone in that. There are many people who come here and become lotus-eaters and never leave. And you know especially getting on now and think of retiring. Do you retire overseas or the country or whatever. But actually I think, you know, seeing the older people who do very well here … I think this is a great place to retire.

It’s so funny, I was just thinking this the other day. As we slow down it’s great to have so much life around you.

I know. It keeps you young. There’s a youthful thing about the beach and that’s because it’s rejuvenating. On so many levels. And I think that’s why one of the reasons we are all here is that there’s an elixir of youth around beaches and water. But at Bondi, given the passing parade of humans as well, celebrating that in all of their garb, and lack of garb. It brings it home.

And look how young it’s kept us. I mean, look at us!

Yeah well, the sun has had a deleterious effect on some people around here, it has to be said. It makes them look much older. But I just think it’s the life here.

And people ask you about Bondi and say hasn’t it changed. To me it hasn’t changed coz to me it’s the life of the physical geography. So it really is the headlands and the trees that are left. It’s the tide. It’s what gets washed up and what gets swept away. It’s all of that, and none of that actually changes. It’s the prospect of a Southern facing beach and the clouds. Everything happens at Bondi; everything … and that’s one of the things that makes it so fascinating.

Can we get a little bit of your background … 25 years ago you arrived in Bondi. What were you doing and where were you before that?

So I was born in Britain, and there has been some figures on that just this week. Of the number of people born in the British Isles who live in Australia, something like 47% of them live in Bondi. So this place has more people from the British Isles than anywhere else. And it doesn’t surprise me, because all British people (a bit of a generalisation) want to live by the sea.

I always thought it was a thrill to live by the sea. I did Geography at university and I did journalism. I wanted to work around the world before returning to London, which [for me] then [meant] Fleet Street. But a couple of years in Asia, then arriving broke and unwell in Western Australia but feeling at home there meant I never did get back.

For journalism, Sydney was the place to be, so I shifted over here. [As a place to live] I experimented with Elizabeth Bay and Paddington, and a short spell in Petersham, but Bondi was the place I always came to and came back to, and I’m still here.

I worked in radio and TV and newspapers and print, as freelance and staff. Then recently I worked at Choice, the consumer organisation. Now I’m independent of that. I work in the marketplace of consumer empowerment. Some of the listeners might have heard of the term “disruption” and all these exciting technical things that are happening. To me disruption really is a symptom of the consumer empowerment revolution that’s happening because of the digital devices such as the one you’re holding now. And that is exciting, or frightening if you’re the one being disrupted. But us as consumers have amazing power we never had before: how to get together, power to know the price of things in Timbuktu compared to what they are here, power to buy things over the phone or sell things. So we have incredible power.

The irony is that business realises this and they’re doing whatever they can to either divert or subvert the power that’s flowing to us.  Not many consumers actually realise it, so that’s why I think the interesting role is to say, actually guys, lets do this, let’s get on with the revolution! Let’s make the most of it because otherwise we can be distracted by glittery free things online as opposed to realising where the real power lies.

I think a lot of people find it hard to change too. We know it’s better not to be with a certain bank or a certain power company. It takes effort and thought to make the change.

And time. Everyone says they’re busy, and they all are in different ways. What you choose to buy or not to buy has an enormous impact on making the kind of world you think it should be. And I would say that that’s on so many levels. “Maybe my kids don’t need that, maybe I don’t need to work so hard, maybe my kids need me. Maybe I don’t need a new car because it is, well, the steel and the impact on global warming.” For other people it’s about animal welfare and free-range eggs. Or it’s about Bangladeshi garment workers. You know, it’s about so many things.

As individuals we can do this. It’s nice=, but it’s fairly powerless.  But get together with people and do this and you make a big difference and that’s what I get excited about.

I think you got me to change our power company.

Yeah hopefully it saved you little bit of money and got you to look a bit more closely at that and you realised that by switching other things you can actually save you time, worry and money.

So 25 years in Bondi. You’ve, in the meantime, married and had two kids. Do you think the boys are as locked on to Bondi as you? Do you think they’ll carry it forward?

I’m looking down at the beach right now and remembering a sunny summer evening like this, about 10 years ago.  One of them would have been six and one of them four. And they were in their little red swimmers and they were running away coz they used to love coming down to the beach at sunset. And I suddenly saw these little boys with the blond hair, and I thought: “God, they’re Australian, they’re Australian!”

What does your English family think of that?

They think it’s great. What does it matter what they think?I think it’s great! They absolutely are [Australian]. One of them is in the original Bondi surf lifesaving club and is rowing. The other is just going down there today to take part in SRC training. So they’re both pretty good beach guys.  So they really like Bondi too. I think they’re rusted on.

I do have to mention my wife Jacqui! What’s remarkable is that I have a twin sister called Jacqui and wife called Jacqui. To meet someone called Jacqui and have that happen was surprising given one’s mixed feeling that twins tend to have about each other.

So, a bit more on your Bondi life. Where do you eat and drink?

My favourite is coffee at the Porch. Three mornings a week with friends we go and we run around and box and throw bloody heavy balls at each other and stupid things like that. I call it the “Frisky 40s and 50s at 5:45″. We feel frisky at that time, and after that, I’ll tell you, a cup of coffee at the Porch is one of my great thrills in life. And I highly recommend it. Just the position, the coffee, the passing parade, and all that; it’s great.

I know many of your other guests will wax lyrical about places they love to go. I’d be hard pressed to nominate any. I mean there are places I’ve gone to over the years that I’ve liked and they’ve come and gone. But there’s not somewhere that I consistently go to. There’s a Japanese up on Bondi Road that the kids really like so all we go there. There’s another Thai place on Bondi Road, and we go there. I think it’s very good.

To me the greatest thing is actually a picnic. To be out here and use the barbecue; the setting is so fantastic.

There are some great shishi restaurants in Bondi. You can have Mexican and all sorts of things. That’s great, but you know what, to sit out here [at the south end of Bondi Beach], that takes beating.

How often would you come out here for a picnic?

Not often enough because it drags you off. I would hope perhaps once every three weeks. And that’s year round. I don’t observe any differentiating of seasons. Summer, autumn, winter, they’re all the same to me.

And I do swim year round. Even quickly a little bit in winter. But actually the winter days are lovely. And beautiful for picnics too.

Three weeks seems quite often, as a picnic takes a bit of organising …

Yes it does, but I’m not talking about having a very formal picnic. I’m talking about eating outdoors.

So not Martha Stewart …

No. It is sharing food outdoors. Now they’ve curtailed you from sharing drinks outdoors at the north end.

Are they very tough on that?

Well, they’ve deterred large groups of Brazilians that used to congregate there.

What are you reading and/or watching at the moment?

Okay, so reading; I get a lot of books from the library. I’m reading a book about dog behaviour to get my dog to behave better. I’m reading a book about the Ardennes campaign at the end of World War II because I’m fascinated by that war: the many values and stories from then, plus my parents met as a result.

I read a lot about popular economics and consumer economics. I don’t read novels. It’s terrible. I read a lot of different things all the same time.

And what I’m watching? You know what, the idea of binge watching a TV series is anathema to me. I’m sure many of your guests celebrate this phenomenon. Again, to be outside … it’s so great so …

But you can’t be outside 24 hours a day …

No but, well I’ll tell you what I like to watch. On SBS, 24 Hours in Emergency, which is this most amazing observational doco series about emergency in a hospital in the UK. It’s just the humanity, and the stories. A knockout. I watch documentaries, occasionally Four Corners.  I watch films and mainly older films. I’m fascinated by 40s and 50s cinema.  And I’m just reviewing a lot of ones that I first saw years ago and just being amazed. I mean The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, John Houston’s film with Humphrey Bogart and Walter Houston, I saw that again a couple of weeks ago, and it’s just breathless.

Do you have a motto for life?

Yes I do and it’s: “Why not?” It really is that simple thing. And actually if somebody says something, or an opportunity arises, I always tend to think, not why should I, but why wouldn’t I? I am doing many more things than perhaps I should, or I could but, you know what, I never regret that because there’s always some learning attached to it.  Sometimes there’s, hopefully, a good experience. I’m very curious. So I just say, give something a go. Don’t lose your shirt on it, but you never know where it might take you.

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Check out Determined Consumer HERE.

Full interview on SoundCloud below or HERE