Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 125- May/Jun 2025 i frankie Magazine

1. British actor (and your eccentric aunt’s style icon) Helena Bonham Carter is a distant relative of the founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale. We explore Florence and other historical cat ladies on page 59 (although, sadly, Helena didn’t make the cut). 2. At frankie HQ, we regularly partake in heated debates about biscuit rankings. Recently, my mind was blown when I realised that none of my colleagues had heard of the plain bikkie staple of my childhood, Arnott’s Yo-Yos. Turns out they’re only sold in South Australia and a small number of border towns. When will the division end?! 3. Struggling to fall asleep? The best thing you can do is get up. It sounds counterintuitive, but Emily Naismith presents a very persuasive argument on page 45. 4. If…

Hi. My name is Rhiana. You might remember me for my collection of Goosebumps books. Well, my ’90s nostalgia doesn’t stop there – I also have about 140 VHS tapes. For the youths out there, VHS tapes were the home-video-viewing option of choice in the late 20th century, until DVDs took over in the mid-2000s. I have videos of various shapes, sizes and genres: cinematic classics like Top Gun, E.T., The Princess Bride and Titanic; obscure horrors like Cemetery High and Street Trash; Disney favourites like Mary Poppins and The Little Mermaid; and even the odd sexploitation flick, like Mondo Topless and Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens. Some of my favourite tapes are the ones I watched all the time as a kid, on my very own ultra-high-tech TV…

Natalie Popovski is a nosy parker. Make no mistake – if you invite her over, she will go digging through your cupboards and corners, kitchen benchtops and bedside tables.No space is safe. “For me, the mundane is sacred,” she says, sheepishly. “I love to explore those little corners of the home environment that, at first glance, seem insignificant but actually reveal quite a bit about a person. The brands we buy and the ornaments we collect and place close to us say so much about our nature, our rituals and what we believe in.” Her fascination with the ordinary saw her inviting herself into strangers’ homes and convincing them to let her paint their nooks and crannies. Soon, she’d built a series of what she calls her “indirect portraits” –…

“I’ve always been a cat lady,” says Australian performer Anna Go-Go, whose new book, Cat Lady Manifesto , debunks the offensive stereotypes that have been imposed on cat-loving women – her included – for hundreds of years. “I started noticing, by the time I turned 40, that the stuff people were saying to my face was becoming a lot more hostile and judgmental. It was the stuff that I expose in the book, like, ‘You’ll die alone with cats eating your face,’ and, ‘I know you hate children, and cats aren’t the same,’ and, ‘You don’t want to be a crazy cat lady.’” Anna brushed off these critiques until, a few years later, she contracted long COVID and realised that these perceptions could have dangerous implications for her health. “I…

Having run a trivia business for several years alongside playing guitar in The Creases, Aimon Clark wanted to put his energy into something new when the band broke up. “I’ve always really loved trivia and music, and it’s been a dream to host a quiz show,” he says. “No one was ever going to give me a TV show, so I knew the easiest way to do it was to just do it myself, live.” It was an unexpected move for someone afraid of public speaking. “It was such a big fear in my life, so I kind of threw myself in the deep end,” he says. “But I’d been to a trivia night and thought, ‘I could do better’.” And as Kevin Costner learnt in the 1989 film Field…

How did you end up moving to Sweden? We moved to Sweden at the end of 2020, after a (long-pursued) job opportunity came up for my husband, Joshua. We were originally slated to move earlier that year, but the pandemic meant we were stuck in Australia for a little longer while we waited out lockdowns and visa hiccups. It was possibly the strangest time to pack up our lives and move to a new country, but after planning for so long, it was wonderful to finally arrive in Malmö! Tell us a bit about Malmö – what does it look and feel like?I describe Malmö as a Goldilocks city: not too big, not too small – it’s just right! It’s a wonderful mix of medieval and modern, with cobblestoned streets…

Eirian Chapman’s mum had always made her own clothes. But it wasn’t until she offered up her old sewing machine in 2017 that Eirian – an illustrator based in regional Victoria – decided to learn the craft for herself. “I really like fashion and clothes, and I do have a bit of an expensive taste. I thought, ‘I can’t really afford to have all the designer gear that I want, so maybe I’ll try and make my own stuff.’ So I just read the manual to the sewing machine and looked at YouTube, and then taught myself.” Now, Eirian’s favourite hobby is making her own duds and transforming old pieces into something new. Here, she gathers up some top tips for the upcycling-curious. DON’T FEAR THE SEWING MACHINE Learning a…

Where is Love Shack located? G’day! We are located at 26 Hargraves Street in Castlemaine, Central Victoria. How did it all start? We started brewing beer in a small shed out the back of the historic Theatre Royal in Castlemaine. Shortly afterwards, we signed a lease for a much bigger premise literally right next door where we grew our brewing operation and ventured into the world of hospitality by opening our very own pub. What kind of stuff goes on there? We’re open seven days a week from 11am so it’s easy to come in and get a feel for the vibe! We love people to come in and try all the beers we make on site, alongside some of our rotating cocktails and wines. We also have weekly food…

These lovely pics were snapped in partnership with UNIQLO and their new collaboration with Marimekko. Discover the nature-inspired range from May 1st in-store at UNIQLO and at uniqlo.com/au Julia Busuttil Nishimura is one of our fave cooks, not to mention a true style icon. We were so happy to take some snaps in her beautiful home to showcase the bold, tonal prints of the UNIQLO x Marimekko Autumn/Winter Collection, which is inspired by the tradition of autumn foraging with friends and family. Comfortable clothes, comfort food… tell us there’s a better combination for the cooler seasons? Hi Julia! Tell us about what you do. I’m a cook, author and presenter. My food is influenced by my Maltese heritage, the ebb and flow of the seasons, and by my time spent…

How did you get interested in art? Growing up on the Sunshine Coast without local galleries or museums, I found inspiration in books, magazines, television and movies. My bedroom was a creative sanctuary, adorned with skateboarding posters, hip-hop music, Japanese animation and manga. This environment nurtured my artistic passion and imagination. How do your works explore the digital realm and its impacts on society? The relationship between the real and the digital is a recurring theme in my work, where I delve into the ways our lives unfold in front of screens. In this hyperconnected world, validation is measured in ‘likes’, identities are curated through filters and existence itself feels shaped by algorithms. I explore the tension between authenticity and performance, presence and absence, and the self and its digital…

MAYVER'S - PURE GOODNESS EVERYTHING SPREAD This nut butter has ‘everything’ in it. Which is excellent news, because one of my favourite earrings has been MIA for months, I’ve got secondhand stress from the ‘missing cat’ poster in my street and my sense of self-confidence has vanished ever since I was the last member of my extended family to guess the newspaper’s nine-letter-word puzzle three weeks ago. Weirdly, I just checked the ingredients and there are only peanuts, cashews, almonds, brazil nuts, sunflower seeds, pepitas, flax, chia seeds, sesame seeds and hemp seeds listed. Did they forget to list the physical and personal deficits of me and the people in my street? Ohhh, what? The good people at Mayver’s can’t help me with that. Odd. The inclusion of ‘everything’ in…

Are you part of the 3am club? It’s when you wake up in the middle of the night but instead of going straight back to sleep, your brain decides it’s a great time to go through every thought you’ve ever had. It’s fun! It involves lying in bed for hours knowing you’re going to be a moody, tired wreck the next day, but not actually being able to do anything about it. Why do people fall into this never-ending sleeplessness trap? Sleep psychologist Dr Frank Cahill says it’s generally because they start trying to fall back to sleep. “This is what we call sleep effort,” he says. “Sleep effort is when you become aware of your wakefulness and your brain goes, ‘This is not good,’ and then you start thinking…

When I was 19, I suddenly noticed hard lumps on my neck. I had a mild cough and was feeling a bit under the weather, but didn’t think too much of it. After a series of inconclusive biopsies and scans, it took three months for me to get diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma. Because I was so young, doctors hadn’t put an urgency to my diagnosis. They thought my cough was pneumonia, and delayed an excision biopsy because “the chance of cancer is so low for someone your age”. When I eventually got the diagnosis, it was Stage 4 cancer, spread through my neck, chest and lungs. One of the biggest emotions I actually felt at that moment was relief, because an official diagnosis means you can finally have a plan.…

Not even Matilda understood she was a genius possessing magical telekinesis powers until Miss Honey hyped her up. Yes, Matilda – the fictional protagonist of Roald Dahl’s children’s novel of the same name. I think her story teaches us an important lesson: positive reinforcement is kind of magic, so give us a bit of praise, ffs . To elaborate, not just dogs enjoy pats on the back – I do as well. I think collectively, we need to give each other compliments more, especially at work, because being kind costs nothing and improves productivity – at least for me. Yes, it all sounds a bit needy, but when we nail something or put in a lot of effort for little personal reward, it’s nice to be told so – particularly…

A quick scroll through any social media platform these days will likely expose you to an array of ‘podcast’ videos. Whether it’s a group of friends ranting about nothing in particular or someone trying to launch a show about their niche interest, we’ve undoubtedly reached podcast saturation point. Many of these videos’ comment sections are filled with people writing, “We need to make microphones more expensive,” and, “I guess anyone can have a podcast these days!!” Whether these comments are valid or not, they tap into a truth I’ve only come to learn since I started working for one of Australia’s most successful podcasting companies, Shameless Media: making a podcast might seem relatively straightforward, but making a great podcast that cuts through the noise and cultivates a dedicated listenership is…

TEGAN IVERSEN @teganiversen What groceries are in your illustration? I tried to include the most common items I pick up in a shop: some ’nanas, yoghurt, tomatoes, lemons, garlic, cans of tuna, corn thins, the list goes on. I seem to grab a can of chickpeas or beans every single time I hit the shops – I must think we go through them way quicker than we actually do, as there’s always an array of cans in the cupboard! We love hitting Preston market for a good shop, and love getting fruit and veg there, as well as a tasty shanklish and Vietnamese iced coffee for a treat. Oh, and a hot jam donut – yum! When you’re eating out, what do you order? I’m a big hot chip lover,…