We have a debrief in the pool. We've found it's the best place to wash off the day.
And it had been a funny day. Nothing bad. For me, it started in one office, a couple of big meetings before making my way across town to the other site. After half an hour at the other site, I packed up and when back to the other office - it was too noisy and there I was getting too many interruptions.
The second-best thing to happen, after the nightly swim was getting caught in the rain on the way back to the other site. I'd left my work thongs and umbrella in my room - great use they were there.
The rain is different up here during the wet. Heavy, sheets of rain that bombard you, flatten you while crossing the streets. Rain that brings streams flowing across the streets in minutes, only to disappear the second the sun comes out. It also significantly cools the area until the sun comes out. It's probably why I'm tolerating the heat so much better now than I did a year ago, when I thought the weather was going to kill me.
Thankfully the main drags of Darwin have verandahs and other permanent awnings to keep both the sun and rain at bay. You only have to face the weather when you're crossing the streets.
My respite from the noise lasted about an hour, when my team returned to the other office where I'd decamped.
Regardless, after work, we went and had a swim and after the chatter about work, we talked about the singer from last night.
We're both music lovers.
"His choice of Australian Crawl songs was a bit left of centre," said my colleague.
"You'd expect him to play Reckless."
"That's my favourite song," I told them.
"It's one of mine too."
"I thought "Oh, no, not you again" was quite an inspired choice."
"It took me a while to work out who it was."
Being a youth of the eighties, there are many of us who have an encyclopedic knowledge of Australian 80s music.
"So, what would you have him play if you wanted him to play another song of theirs?"
"Easy," I told them. "Unpublished Critics."
This is one of those quintessential Australian Crawl songs which many people know, but which nobody knows the lyrics, or the title for that matter.
"You'd know it."
"I don't think I do."
"It's one of those songs which nobody can quite understand the lyrics."
"It's Australian Crawl. Nobody knows what James Reyne is singing about. He's unintelligible."
"Unless he's doing a cover version of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights - then you can understand every word."
It's true - look it up on Youtube.
I'll continue to love Unpublished Critics. I wonder what 13-year-old me would be writing down as I stopped and started the tape deck, trying to write down the lyrics. Kids today don't know what they're missing. All they have to do is look yup the lyrics.
Despite the dodgy vocal stylings of this so very Australian band, I'm going to say that this is my second favourite song of Australian Crawl. It reminds me of summer and driving along the beach. It reminds me of Adidas Romes and Farrah Fawcett flicks. It reminds me of how good Australian music can be.
It also provides the perfect song to encapsulate Darwin. It shows the mood here. It's the chorus that does it.
"I.... just want to get away...."
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