ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
Devoting many of his Monday nights to the highbrow delight that is the ABC’s Q&A programme, a local network engineer had his world turned upside down last night by the nation’s most popular prime-time show.
Sam Dunkeld told The Advocate that he was preparing his prepackaged lasagne dinner in the kitchen while he listened to Nine News playing in the living room – because it’s ‘entertaining and fast-paced’ compared to the ABC and lesser networks.
“I enjoy that they have stories like dogs saving babies from hot cars and stuff. Swiming cats and the such. But they also have serious ones like ISIS and wars,” he said.
“But I always make sure to watch Q&A because it makes me feel like I’m keeping up with what’s happening socially and politically. It’s pretty boring sometimes, like the Star Wars prequels, but I always power through,”
“But I forgot to change over last night and I ended up watching Imparja all night. It changed my life.”
What the husky 26-year-old kicked the back door of his mind open, like when a 16-year-old first discovers there more to Bob Dylan than out of tune signing and disjointed lyrics.
From the first moment Scott Cam, host of The Block, welcomed him to the broadcast – he was hooked.
Through this was the first episode he’d ever seen of the working man’s Four Corners, Dunkeld said he’d never watch Q&A again.
“I could just turn my brain off and be entertained,” he said.
“Whereas when I watch anything on the ABC, it’s like being back at school again. Some nights I just want to switch off and have a laugh or two. Scott Cam looks like the kind of person who’d buy you a pot of Carlton and want nothing in return,”
“He’s like Tony Jones but for blokes who don’t own sandals.”
More to come.
