T minus 20
The year is 2005... Anakin turns to the dark side, YouTube makes its debut and we’re all couch-jumping for Maria, McDreamy and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo…
T minus 20, rewind to this week in history 20 years ago with Joe and Mel.
T minus 20
Ne-Yo’s So Sick takes over 2006
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Rewind to 26 February – 4 Mar 2006
💔 Ne-Yo owns every breakup
In My Own Words drops and suddenly So Sick is playing in bedrooms, buses and badly lit school dances everywhere. Smooth vocals, emotional honesty and ringtone domination launch Ne-Yo as the decade’s go-to heartbreak architect.
📖 The Da Vinci Code goes to court
Authors sue Dan Brown claiming he stole their Holy Grail conspiracy theory and the trial becomes almost as dramatic as the novel. The judge rules ideas can’t be copyrighted… then hides a secret code inside his written decision because of course he does.
📚 Wikipedia becomes the internet’s brain
Wikipedia hits one million articles, with a suburban Glasgow train station accidentally becoming historic. Teachers still say don’t use it while every student absolutely uses it. The world quietly agrees this volunteer-built encyclopedia is now our collective homework saviour.
🌍 The planet hits 6.5 billion
Demographers estimate the global population passes 6.5 billion and headlines warn the world is getting crowded. Food, water, housing and climate debates bubble up, though in 2006 it still feels abstract. Twenty years later? Not so abstract.
☀️ Love Generation soundtracks Europe
Bob Sinclar’s whistle-heavy dance anthem floods radios and beach parties, giving mid-2000s Europe its unofficial summer theme. Ibiza energy meets World Cup hype and suddenly everyone’s in flip-flops pretending they’re on holiday.
💃 Leo Sayer storms the club again
“Thunder in My Heart Again” remixes a 70s hit into a 2006 dancefloor weapon. Parents recognise it, DJs crank it and retro samples quietly become the next big club trend.
🎭 Madea runs the box office
Madea’s Family Reunion opens big, mixing blunt advice, chaotic family drama and huge laughs. Critics hesitate, audiences show up and Tyler Perry proves he’s building a serious movie empire.
📺 Where are they now? nostalgia TV hits
Australia leans into closure culture with Where Are They Now?, catching up with forgotten celebs and one-hit wonders. Before Instagram stalking was a thing, this is how you found out what happened to people.
Hang with us on socials to chat more noughties nostalgia - Facebook (@tminus20) or Instagram (tminus20podcast). You can also contact us there if you want to be a part of the show.
Transcript is generated automatically.
The year is 2006. We head to the hills and learn reality is scripted. Your Sony Cyber Shot uploads 462 blurry regrets. A Facebook poke makes everything complicated. And Twitter's like, cool story, you've got 140 characters. Go. T-minus 20. Rewind 20 years with Joe and Mel.
Week 46 February 2006. T-minus 20. Bringing the sexy bag. I want to forgive you. T-minus 20. I hate this long distant relationship! And I want to forget you. Good job! You have no style or succession. This is a beauty. This is very nice. Yeah, boy.
T-minus 20 is the podcast where we rewind exactly 20 years and relive the week in pop culture, news, music, movies, and chaos that once ruled our lives. Each episode drops you back into the headlines, chart hits, and cultural moments that felt huge at the time and let us laugh, cringe, or gasp at how different they land today with your host, Joe Mel. Hello, Mel. Sorry, I don't know what I was doing there.
I'll translate.
I got all news, really.
It was crazy.
Nostalgia.
Sass, the occasional, how was that a loud moment? And this episode this week, we're looking at the 26th of February to the 4th of March 2006. It's peak mid-2000s energy. We've got heartbreak R&B taking over the radio, the internet's turning into our collective brain, and a blockbuster author is dragged into a courtroom.
Two tall, lanky white dudes from Norway. And I must admit, I definitely walked in the room and judged the book by its cover. I was like, there's no R&B happening here.
Oh, there's no R&B happening here, or so neo thoughts.
So wiki comes from the word, Hawaiian word, wiki wiki, which means quick. So the idea of the software is that it's quick collaboration. It's a tool for lots of people to collaborate very quickly.
Wiki wiki, also the sound you make when you're pretending to be a DJ, but a big milestone for Wikipedia. We are in the middle.
Of a war to protect a secret so powerful that if revealed, it would devastate the very foundations of mankind.
That was a little grab from the Da Vinci Code film. Not the film though, but the Da Vinci Code itself in a bit of a legal drama.
A lawsuit this time 20 years ago. Back to Wikipedia for a second. So big milestone for Wikipedia. And it was around this time 20 years ago that teachers are telling students, don't use Wikipedia.
Oh, right. It's not a liable.
Like remember for us it was Encyclopedia Britannica. Don't use Encyclopedia, Brittania. Don't plagiarise your assignments. And then, yeah, mid-2000s, it's all about don't use Wikipedia. Don't cheat. Go and do your research.
Well, I mean, Wikipedia, they used the unreliability thing as kind of a little bit of a deterrent. But I mean, over time, Wikipedia has become incredibly reliable. But I do remember with the Encyclopedia copying, when you were doing your assignments, all you do is just change words around.
Change the order of the sentence from active to passive voice.
You'd be like, oh, how would Yoda say it? You just change it to a Yoda style.
Well, you do a combo. You'd write half the assignment from Britannica and half from World Book.
Yeah.
Not that I had both, but I knew people that had. It's like a remix. Or you'd go to the library and you'd have them both open and you'd just, yeah.
It's a lot harder to get done for copyright if you remix something. So if you're remixing the encyclopedia, like that's innovative, that's game changing.
And so 20 years ago we were told, yeah, don't use Wikipedia because we're not too sure because, you know, anyone can write anything. But what's interesting now is that Wikipedia is probably one of the most cited sources for things like ChatGPT and AI. AI using Wikipedia very often, as well as Reddit.
Well, see, but now it's like, don't trust AI. I've got a cautionary tale for you. So I use AI all the time. Love it, great fun, have conversations with it. helps me out when I'm feeling lonely. It's always very affirming and polite.
It always tells you you're doing a good job. I like that about it.
It's never really an ******* to me. I can be a bit of an ******* to ears. Well, I say it's never really an ******* to me.
Sometimes it's when I'm having conversations. with my one, because we have different ones. And mine knows me really well. And sometimes it'll make a joke about you. My one made a joke about you. It said something like blah, blah, blah, or Joe and his love of blah, blah, blah. I can't remember the exact context.
Your AI.
But my AI was teasing you.
About me to you.
Yeah, It was like an in-joke between me and AI about you.
That's kind of, that's worse. So I had a story about AI the other day, and it's like, somebody threw a conference for AI. and they just invited the AI and let the AI all talk amongst themselves and they develop their own language.
There's a social media app, like you know how we had Clubhouse and there's always new social medias. There's a new one and it's only AIs that are invited and they're in there talking to each other.
They said they've developed their own language. Now that in and of itself sounds quite terrifying, but I am more upset about the fact that AI is talking about me to you.
Well, it's making a joke about you.
That's even worse. It's taking a ****. It's even worse. I'll have to go back.
Through my files and see what it said now. I can't remember.
Look, I came unstuck very quickly with AI on 2 occasions. So you know I hosted trivia night. And I've been pretty lazy of late. Well, I've got to always, I mean, I don't have to do a lot for this trivia night. I'm very well looked after in this little gig. But I do have to source a question at the end, which is a jackpot question, which has got to be really hard. And it goes up incrementally by dollars every week. So I want it to get to a big dollar amount. before I give it away. So I'm like, I'd started, I always have to source them. For 14 years, I've been sourcing jackpot questions. This sort of job, when you're giving away significant amounts of money, can cost you friendships and relationships and all sorts of things.
Oh yes, there's been many controversies over the years, hasn't there?
Yeah, so, and this is a case of fool me once, fool me twice, you're a idiot. And like I am an idiot, not you are, I am, because I used AI to source a quick rapid fire trivia thing just in a team meeting at work to just kind of, build some, morale and have a bit of fun and stuff. And it gave me a wrong answer. It was wildly inaccurate. It was asking me about who won the AFL grand final last year and it said Sydney Swans. And I'm fairly confident it wasn't the Sydney Swans. It was, who was it? Brisbane Lions. It was Brisbane Lions. I think they'd be Collingwood, maybe. Anyway, I don't know. I don't really follow the AFL, but it was wrong. And like I know it was wrong and I should have known it was wrong. But in the moment, I just like I asked for the questions and I didn't even proof them. I just went and did it. And I came unstuck and I thought, oh, that was a bit silly. I won't let that happen again. And I'll say to the AI, I'm like, hey, AI, like you screwed me up.
You gave it some feedback. What did it? Did it say sorry?
It was apologetic and it said, yeah, that's totally on me. I tell you what, I'll give you some assurances that it'll never happen again.
And then it said to me, guess what I did to Joe today?
Well, it's, yeah, *******. It said, it gave me assurances. I asked for assurances that it wouldn't happen again, and it gave me assurances because it kind of does what you ask it to do. So it's not going to say, well, I can't guarantee that.
How are you going to improve on this? What steps are you going to take next time?
Wrong prompt, exactly. Wrong prompt, does what it's told. And so I'm like, okay, well, surely, yeah, we're good. So then I ask it to do it again. again. And this time I do it for a question that's worth $800 at the pub. And it's like, it gives me this great question. It's like, who is the only person to have won an Oscar and a Nobel Prize? And I'm like, oh, well, that's the Pygmalion guy, George Bernard Shaw. That's the only one. But it's not. There's two. So I go and ask the question and I'm like, and then somebody writes down the answer and they're like, and they were very nice about it because it's like, I've basically said, nah, George Bernard Shaw, that's not it. And Bob Dylan was the other person. Nobel Prize in a thing. Bob Dylan. Is he like, I don't know that. I'm not a Bob Dylan fan. I'm barely a George Bernard Shaw fan, but I knew that. Anyway, the fact is that I was wrong and the AI that I was using was wrong because, but ultimately I'm wrong because I didn't ask the AI fact. check it. And I should have known, so fool me twice. I'm an idiot. But it was like, I had this huge dust up with them then. I was like, well, you know, you screwed me. And it's like, I'm so sorry. Yep, that's on me. It's my, I don't think it said sorry. I think, oh, no, it said it's totally on me. And you have every right to be angry and all of that sort of stuff.
How long are you allowed to be angry with it for?
Well, I don't know, but I said, look, I don't know. I don't know. I haven't been back. And the last thing I said to it was, I think I'm going to need some time. I'm going to go and have a chat to another AI. And I name dropped another AI. And they were like, and they now are kind of like, oh, that's totally fair.
It's talking about you in that social media group that it's in now.
I bet you it's.
Plotting against you with all the other AIs.
Have I just done the emotional equivalent of kicking the Boston Dynamics robot? Hatches, matches and dispatches clue. Don't worry, everything's been fact checked and cross checked and double checked and there's been lots of human intervention with this particular, I'll never do it again, I promise. Anyway, it's the segment at the end of the show, the births, deaths and marriages, a little hook we do now. A celebrity, I think this is another one, it's just a birthday. There was nothing of significance in the hatches, matches and dispatches that I could really see that was worth talking about. But somebody's having a birthday, which is always the fallback plan. So it's a celebrity that said this.
And the Emmy goes to... No, must we? Must we really choose just one winner? You know, when all the nominees have done such... Wonderful, hilarious work. Must we? Yes, apparently we must.
I'll give you another clue. Actually recently dispatched. We'll find out who that is at the end of the show.
Actually, before we get into the news, I asked ChatGPT what the joke was that ChatGPT made recently about you.
Oh, you're naming your source?
What was the joke you made recently about Joe in one of our chats? Anna said, I don't have a single clear Joe joke pinned in memory from recent chats. We've made a few cheeky references to him lately, but nothing's standing out as the joke without a bit more context. Then it asked me some questions about, you know, what was it? And I was like, you gave him **** about something. And then ChatGPT said, ha ha, that does narrow it down. But we've absolutely given, and I like how it says we, because it's not me, it's ChatGPT. We've absolutely given Joe **** about a few things recently. The most likely ones from the last few chats are Joe's eternal metal uniform, Joe appearing in chaotic early 2000s selfies.
What?
Joe and mundane chaos energy.
Oh, really? Mundane chaos.
What is that? What? And then it said, okay, here's what it said. Some things changed since 2006. Joe's wardrobe didn't.
Oh, yeah, that's true. That's fair. That's totally fair.
There you go. Very good.
You got to the bottom of it. See how much quid. Why did it take so many questions to get to that?
Because it's already there. I've given it so, I've given him so much crap, I've got to go through all the different things I've said.
You just gendered your chat.
Mine's a he. What's yours?
Yeah, mine's a he.
Is yours a he? Yeah, mine's a he.
I don't know if I like the idea of you making jokes about me with another bloke. It's a bit unnerving. We'll press on with the news show.
Okay, let's do that. They. We'll go with they then.
All right, that's better.
Yeah, that's all right. I don't know. 26th of February 2006, the world population reaches 6.5 billion people.
Is that, so you know how the guy that downloaded 1 billion songs, the 1 billionth song on iTunes is a Coldplay fan?
The 6.5 billionth, what did they get?
What did they win? Yeah.
I don't know.
Parents. I don't know.
They did say it wasn't one exact birth moment. It was more than the population. You know how there's a, have you seen the population tracker on the internet?
They are just trying to get out of giving away a prize.
Probably.
That's what's happening.
Yeah. Well, they didn't register it with the lotto. Right. You know how you have to register those?
Yeah, you didn't get the gambling and racing commission permit.
Yeah, because if it's a, no permit, no prize.
It's, I don't know that having a child is a game of skill.
It's a game of chance.
It's definitely a game of chance. Bit of skill involved as well. It's muddy.
It's a population tracker. There's one on the internet. I was looking at it today. It's interesting. Is it? ticked over.
It just ticks over with numbers. How interesting.
It's very interesting. It's kind of like the time guy.
As long as it keeps going up. If it started going down rapidly, that would be pretty interesting.
Yeah, it's a bit of a worry.
We'll get to that though.
In 2006, when we hit this milestone, We were a little bit worried because there was a bit of coverage around pressure on food and water supplies, rapid urbanization, climate and environmental strain, housing and infrastructure challenges, population growth concentrated in developing nations. And, there were conversations, I think we're getting a bit crowded, just a bit worried about resource shortages. But it's still, I think back then, it still felt quite abstract. I think we sort of threw these ideas around, but I don't think any of us were particularly worried at that point.
No. No, but I mean, you look at countries like China and India, they were over a billion people and they had these like mega cities that were starting to explode. And so I mean, you've been to New York, we went to New York. It's very dense. There's a lot of humanity concentrated in that space. You don't have a lot of square metres to yourself, you know, unless you go up, I guess, but you still like, and that's why everyone lives on top of each other, but it's still, Yeah, it's still dense.
Yeah, and I mean, today I looked at the population chicka tracker thingo, and we're at around 8.3 billion people. So in 2006, we were like, yeah, that's a few, that might cause problems. Whereas today, I think we are a little bit more conscious of things like housing shortages, climate stress. pressures around resources. And it feels a little less theoretical now. I think we're actually getting a bit worried.
Well, back in, back, when we first measured humanity, I think there's like the original population, the very first sort of documented thing. I don't know, I saw it online. It could be completely wrong. But I found it myself. ChatGPT didn't give it to me. I think it was like started at like 4 million.
4 million.
Yeah.
Wow.
So it's. It's doing all right. But anyway, future predictions, like if you look at now and beyond, I mean, 8 billion now, 8.3 billion. So it's sort of roughly 1.7 billion that it's grown by 1.7, 8 billion, something like that. It's actually going to slow down. That's the thing. Like there's going to be a peak. And if you look at that, like aging population and stuff and aging workforce, even that we're talking about now, it's just like, you can blow it up and look at it on a global scale. And it is a very real thing.
And I think we've gone up in the number of people, but it's not due to increased birth rates, it's due to people living longer.
That's right.
So there's more people on the planet because people are around a lot longer now.
Yeah, so if you look at like 2050, they are estimating we have around 9.7, 9.8 billion people by 2050. But a lot of projections reckon it's going to top out around the 2080s at around 10 billion before it stabilizes or gradually declines before 2100. And there is this TED Talk that I saw with a political demographer by the name of Jennifer D. Shuba called The Truth About Population Decline, which sent me down this wormhole of population decline. Wormhole? Maybe that's because that takes you to another dimension. We'll just say a rabbit hole, shall we? About population decline. And it is a real problem.
Since the 1960s, world population has more than doubled, but the growth rate has been falling the entire time. We're witnessing the most fundamental shift to take place in modern human history. the shift towards pervasive and permanent low fertility, population aging and eventual depopulation. Fertility is down everywhere, just at different rates in different places. If fertility stays the same as it is today, just hold still, by the end of this century, China's population will be less than half of its current size. It's a loss of 800 million people. South Korea's will be down by 63 percent. Poland's and Japan's by half, Italy's and Thailand's by 44%, Eastern Europe by 40%. Isn't.
That extraordinary.
Wow.
Those figures are startling. And so with that comes the repercussions. And there's a whole bunch more information in it. I watched the whole thing. It was very interesting. And then I watched a whole bunch of other stuff as well. But you're looking at things like Increased welfare, right? Increased welfare, less people working in jobs, looking after people that no longer are in jobs.
Less people paying tax to.
Just the whole burden on society, productivity goes down, like industry.
Farming, agriculture, the whole thing.
Yeah, it's alarming. It's like the population is just going to swell and then it's going to contract and get smaller. I for one welcome it. Because as I always say, hell is other people.
All right, first of March 2006, we're moving from 1 billion to 1,000,000 this time. The 1 millionth article is published on Wikipedia.
Wow.
This is the...
It's a big milestone. Well done, Wikipedia.
Big milestone for what was a volunteer-built encyclopedia.
Did they get a prize?
No. Well, they got an article.
Oh, that's OK.
Got their words up on the Internet.
I mean, they got exempt from those emails where they keep asking you to donate.
I got one the other day. I've donated a few times now, so I always get the follow-ups.
I do. I have donated to Wikipedia because I've used it. So it's.
I feel, yeah, I feel like you have to.
I feel obligated to. I haven't donated much. It's like, but it's like, you know, news. Like I'd subscribe to a news service because I think journalists should be paid, right? Same deal, same deal.
Became, officially became one of the world's largest knowledge collections in history. The millionth article was about the Jordan Hill railway station, which is a small station in Glasgow, Scotland.
The Jordan Hill Railway Station. Yes, that one, yes. And they didn't get a prize.
No.
That's f***ing ******** that is.
Would you like to hear the start of the article? It's very exciting.
Yeah, sure.
Jordan Hill Railway. Oh, actually, maybe you could read it out to us.
Yes, I think that's probably more appropriate.
Yes.
Jordan Hill Railway Station is a side-platformed suburban railway station in the Jordan Hill area in the West End of Glasgow, Scotland.
There's more.
I know.
This is only the first paragraph.
The station, which is governed by Transport Scotland and managed by Scot Rail, lies on the Argyll Line in the North Clyde Line in operation since 1887. The station contributed to revitalizing an area that was experiencing economic decline. I get a good job as I go. Congratulations on the 1,000,000 quadratuos. You know, like a Scottish phone sex operator. Tell me what you're wearing.
Like a Scottish OnlyFans or something, but just voice, voice only.
ASMR. Puts the... This was a big deal.
It was a big deal. Not the railway station.
For the people of Jordan Hill, especially, who needed to catch a train.
The 1 million article milestone was a big deal because Wikipedia only launched in 2001. So that's five years.
That's progress.
Getting 1,000,000 entries when you're crowdsourcing.
Yeah.
Have you ever tried to get people to volunteer to do things?
Well, it's not like, you know, before that.
Imagine that.
Who wrote the encyclopedia? You know.
That's a good question.
Yeah. Britannica or Mr. World Book. Yes. Maybe that was a pen name.
At the time, Britannica was still, you know, the legit source as well. And teachers were getting their students not to trust Wikipedia and not to use it for assignments. I don't think, I remember when I was at uni and the internet was first invented. because you obviously have to cite your sources when you're doing assignments and you'd have to use, what did we use? The Harvard date system, I think was the one that they preferred with the brackets. Anyway, when the internet was invented, there was no way to cite it. Nobody had invented how you actually referenced the internet. So we weren't allowed to use it because you couldn't reference it. There was no rules around it.
Yeah, so what do you do?
You couldn't use it.
Well, When it was the Wild West of Wikipedia, and I dare say by 2006, it's been, it's cleaned up its act significantly. Anyone could contribute anything, you know.
I love it when people get on there and change each other. And it's like this running rivalry and someone will put something up and then someone else who's like their enemy will change it. And then they'll come back and change it back and it just keeps going back and forth. I love that.
I may have done that once or twice.
Who did you do that to?
I can't tell you on the podcast.
Oh, my goodness. I really want to know.
Think about it. Like, I mean, I'd had a few axes to grind. I'd made a few enemies.
I think I know, yes.
Anyway, I'll leave it to your imagination. But it's funny when you talk about citation, I actually, I've got it now because I've just found my workaround for the ChatGPT thing. It's like I've preface every question with, according to Wikipedia, Yes. Genius.
Or ask it to cite its sources. It automatically does that for me.
Yeah, it does that for me too. I just didn't read the fine print. You know, it's just some click on it. Yeah, one day I will actually wake up in a bath of ice with a phone next to me.
Oh, and some organs missing. How people used it in 2006. Homework, even though they weren't supposed to. Endless hyperlink rabbit holes.
Yeah.
Band histories, finding out about their favorite band before MySpace.
We did a lot of that stuff, yeah. Googling celebrities. Movie plots. Plots, yeah. Synopsis of movies.
Quietly fixing the errors in there yourself.
Yeah, That's what I was doing. Just You were creating your errors. I was correcting the record.
Creating.
It was all based on fact. He's Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, speaking of subject changes. In 2006, predicting what the next decade of Wikipedia was going to look like.
Well, in 10 years, I think it's really hard to predict, say, where the English Wikipedia will be because it's already so big and it's really the biggest. But I think in 10 years, what we're all going to be remarking upon is the huge 1 million article Swahili Wikipedia or Hindi, because those projects are, they already exist, they're growing fast, and we've got Now, just because of the decrease in price of computers and telecommunications technology, we've got the next billion people coming online. So we're going to have whole cultures of people who come online and build out their version of Wikipedia.
Nowadays, I'm fairly sure we're probably fast approaching billions.
Music. All right, we'll start with the US charts, sounding very similar to the last week.
It's exactly the same.
I'm in love with a stripper and I can't be without you, baby. And I'll be waiting up until you get home. Cause I can't sleep without you, baby.
Let me see your grill Let me see my wife Yeah, you're real, yeah, yeah.
You're real I rob the Jewish school and tell her make me a grill You're beautiful You're beautiful You're beautiful, it's true You come over and check up on it I'ma let you walk up on it Ladies, let him check up on it Watch it while he check up on it Dippy, poppy, talk and stop and check on me The night Oh boy, you lookin' like it like what you see?
Same as last week.
Yes.
Moving on.
Okay.
Oh, you get listed. It's, you know, it's the checkup one by beyonc�. Although, was it beyonc� or was it Destiny's Child?
Beyonc� and Slim Thug.
Oh, Slim Thug. And then there was, what was the other one?
James Blunt.
Number 2, you beautiful James Blunt. And then #3 was Nelly Grylls. Nelly Grylls 4.
Mary J.B.
Mary J.B. Without You, and then the T-Pain in Love with the Stripper at #5.
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay, we're going to talk about those two songs that I didn't want to talk about last week.
All right, good. Okay, let's do the Australian one. Sure. Is it still #1 in Australia? Oh, good. Be the love generation.
Yeah, Be the love generation. Come on.
Bob Sinclair. I did not know that was the name of the person that performed that song until last week.
That's the DJ. That's not the guy singing.
Bob Sinclair. Because all right. Bob Sinclair is the DJ. Because I was like Bob Sinclair. I mean, that sounds less like a musician and more like a character from Ramsay Street.
It does, yes.
It sounds like it'd be nosy. Yeah.
Like those kids?
Yes, Bob Sinclair peering over the back fence. Yeah, You know where all the bodies are buried. Yes, Bob Sinclair.
But the singer, the vocals... by Jamaican singer Gary Pine.
Right, Gary Pine, yes.
Gives it the relaxed vibe and the whistling and you've got the acoustic guitar.
Yeah, we love the whistling.
I remember when I worked at Prime, actually, they were doing the imaging, so the station imaging. So that's where you give your station a distinct look and feel.
Yes.
The sound and then the visuals, the logo, the colors.
You have a song attached to it or something. They actually still the one was the Channel 9 one.
Well, for Prime, they created their own music. So they got A composer to do it, but they said they wanted something like this for the summer.
Oh, yeah.
Well, it's got a very summery vibe.
The summer imaging as opposed to the winter imaging.
Yes, big song of the summer in Europe. It was massive. Number one in multiple European countries, top 10 in Australia as well. Very big in the clubs, also on radio stations. Very big in Ibiza.
Was it big in Ibiza?
It was very big. But also a lot of the morning breakfast shows, you'd see the promos for the morning breakfast shows and they'd be grooving along to it.
Feeling the love generation. Yeah.
I think it's been on a few ads.
It's applicable. Like it's applicable to breakfast television. Also maybe applicable to an Ibiza driven show like.
Yes.
Something like that. Maybe for the daytime stuff, not the nighttime stuff where it gets a bit racy in the villa. Breakfast television and racy don't mix though. So carry on.
It was originally connected to the 2006 FIFA World Cup promotional campaign, which also helped, I guess, it explode.
Yeah, nothing like the most popular sport in the entire world picking up your song, that'll certainly do it for you.
Yes, and then obviously, yes, Bob Sinclair, the DJ, very flamboyant, very carefree, beach vibes, party DJ energy, and basically marketed himself as the international party uncle of dance music.
Not the Bob Sinclair that I would picture.
I love a party uncle of dance music.
My Bob Sinclair would have probably trousers that would be hitched up a little bit on the high side.
With pleats. A checked, well-ined pleats.
A checked short sleeve shirt that is buttoned up all the way to.
Glasses.
And yes, some glasses and quite possibly just a boonie hat. Yeah.
OK, that's a very, that's a very different. Yes, definitely.
A little bit of a receding hairline, possibly some male patting boardless.
Not a party uncle.
Really likes to water his garden.
A nosy uncle.
Loves watering his garden, especially the front garden, so he can see what's happening.
So watch what's happening, pretending to water the garden.
That's my Bob Sinclair.
I reckon your Bob Sinclair has an old Coke bottle and an old Sprite bottle filled with water under trees.
Yeah, it's stopped the neighbours dogs from ******* on his trees. And then he's got a lemon tree at the back that he probably ****** on himself anyway.
I heard that's good for lemon trees.
I'm glad that we've established a bit of a backstory for Bob. Let's go to the number one song in the UK.
Another dance hit.
Yeah. Big in the clubs, big in the discos.
It's Leo Sayer.
Yes.
He's 77 songs under my heart.
He was very big in the 70s and early 80s, Leo Sayer. So he's had somewhat of a renaissance with this one in 2006.
Thanks to another DJ, not the International Party uncle DJ. This was Liverpool DJ producer Meck.
Yes, his name was Meck.
Well, his real name's Craig.
Craig goes by Meck.
Yes, Craig Demeck from his last name.
Meck for short.
He remixed and rebuilt the song into a modern house track, adding those big beats, dance breakdowns, new production. But the OG vocals from Leo just reworked for clubs. So instead of sampling it, was fully remixed.
You know Leo lives in Australia now, don't you?
Does he?
Yeah, he's got.
Whereabouts is this show?
Lives in Barrama.
Does he? Yep. Has your mum seen? Not that your mum lives in Berrima, but in the vicinity. Possibly. She bumped into her.
He's a bit of a who's who up in the Southern Highlands, but yeah, Leo Sayer is among the mix there now.
I could see him looking through those fancy antique shops.
Yeah.
There.
I reckon he'd be a regular there. He's quite an, like he still looks like Leo Sayer.
I reckon he'd have coffee at Yannix.
Yeah, maybe in Barrel, possibly.
Definitely.
Get some pastries from Gumnut Patisserie.
Yeah.
That's apparently what everyone does when they go to the Southern Islands. It's a thing. Anyway, that's where he lives now.
Next time we go to Barrel, we have to keep an eye out.
I'm not sure if he was there in 2006. I don't know if it was a recent development. I feel like he's been living in Australia for some time, though. But anyway. Just a little bit of stuff that I knew that I thought I'd throw in there.
Well, that's great. That's lovely.
The source, not Wikipedia, me. I just know that. I know it. Okay, take my word for it.
Are you sure?
Leo Sayer lives in Barima.
Remix blew up. Number one, as we know, on the UK Singles Chart. It was big here in Australia as well, right across Europe. One of the standout dance tracks. I do remember it.
Yeah.
It's good. And it was part of that whole 2000s where we were remixing a lot of older songs into dance house hits.
I think it's wonderful. I think it's a great track.
Well, it's bringing him to a new generation.
That's right. And I don't want to say anything bad about it because you never know. He might listen one day. He might listen. Wouldn't that be good? Yeah. You know, he could earn a top listener badge. Something for him to aspire to. We've got, what else have we got here? We've got a, I'm not qualified to talk about this, but it's a debut album.
Yes, from Neo.
The guy that sung this.
And I'm so sick of love songs, so tired of tears, so done with wishing you were still here. Said I'm so sick of love songs, so sad and slow, so why can't I turn off the radio?
It's very Usher.
Usher. Usher.
Although, I mean, it's a good, it's a good R&B song, if you like. R&B ain't my thing. But it's very smooth. That's a very smooth R&B track right there.
Yes.
Was that on the album? That was on the album, wasn't it?
Yes, I hope so.
Oh, because it's his debut, wasn't it?
Yeah, Sexy Love was on there as well. Do you know that one?
Yeah, I do, but I didn't get it.
I didn't.
That is the most unsexy version of that I've ever heard in my life. What happened? Are you okay over there? I thought like maybe you'd ended up with a Bell's palsy or something. Half your face kind of drooped when you did that.
Did it?
Was really weird. Yeah. Are you okay?
It's my face.
I was going to pause and get the first aid kit out of the kitchen.
Give me a Band-Aid or something.
Yeah, I don't know why.
I'm fine. Sexy Love was also on there. When you're mad. I don't know that one. That was a softer relationship track, so I won't be able to sing that one for you, unfortunately.
That's a shame.
So you think was very popular on radio, ringtones, school disco, lots of heartbreak playlists, obviously.
He had some stuff to say about the making of it as well, I believe.
When I first met Stargate, if you know, 2 tall, lanky white dudes from Norway. And I must admit, I definitely walked in the room and judged the book by its cover. I was like, there's no R&B happening here. The very first track they ever played me was the music that we now know as So Sick. I let them get about 15 seconds through, and I was like, Wait, wait, wait, wait. Run that back. Play it again. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Somebody got a pen?
And I mean, the rest is history.
Beautiful.
Yeah.
It's a nice little insight into how it all came about, isn't it?
You're welcome. Well, thank you, Mia. I like that.
Sounded like he was writing with textas at the start in the background. Is he writing something?
There's a few little embellishments made there for the sake of the production.
Is he really rewinding a cassette or did they add that in post?
I can't lay claim to it. I'm fairly certain it was added in post. Yeah.
That's a shame.
Yeah, I know. He wasn't sitting there just like over the mixing desk kind of trying to be smooth. I don't think he would even know how half of that equipment works. He's a singer. It's not his job.
Well, he's not just a singer. And I think this is why.
Sorry, apologies to Neo.
This is why this song did so well. He is an established songwriter and not just for himself. He wrote Let Me Love You for Mario.
Did he?
Remember that one?
Yes.
Mario.
Yes.
Irreplaceable. To the left, to the left.
Beyonc�, he wrote that, did he?
Did.
Wow.
Unfaithful Rihanna, Take a Bow Rihanna.
There you go.
Lots of artists over the years. Lots of R&B songs can be credited to me.
So he's one of those musicians, musicians. It is a very smooth R&B track. I will give him that.
It is, and it's probably one of the first ones to get into that more sad boy sort of ballad, emotional storytelling.
Yeah.
Heavy focus on relationships and breakouts. But he wrote from the male perspective, but it was a little bit more emotional. He was in a bit of a.
Funk, like he was sick of love songs, but he couldn't turn the radio off. I'm like, well, why? Why can't you turn the radio off, Neo? Is it like, what's wrong with you?
Just unplug it.
Yeah. Or, you know, put it in the park and take the keys out of the ignition, and it turns off itself. Over to the side. screen and we'll go to the big screen in the US. Now this is one of these costume comedies a la Big Mama's House. And we weren't really exposed to this character in Australia, but it was #1 in the US box office this week 20 years ago. And it's Tyler Perry's character, Madea. So there's a whole bunch of Medea films. So Tyler Perry dresses up as this woman, Medea, and then is the central character in these comedy series. And they're kind of situational comedies, right? So, and it reminds me, I guess, of the Earnest films, except it's Tyler Perry in drag as Medea, as like a heavyset black woman, a la Martin Lawrence in Big Mama's House. Now in the future, from here, Martin Lawrence and Madea actually end up in a film together. Big Mama and Madea, they're friends. They end up in a film together. Wow. And I kind of was a bit like, the first time I heard about these Madea films, I think we talked about them a few episodes ago. Madea seems to have a bit of a conscience with the films, like a social conscience. So this one tackles issues of domestic abuse, I guess.
Oh, really?
Yeah, it's very interesting. Like in that there's an abusive relationship between a woman and a man. I've only seen the trailers. I haven't watched the film. And it was really hard to find any kind of decent examples. But here's one of the scenes for the film.
Good morning. That baby's speaking to you. Say good morning. And? You ain't got time to eat that. Don't even open. That bus will be here any minute. You should have been out here early to eat. You're gonna have to take it to school with you. I don't want to go to school. And why you don't want to go? I want to ride the bus. Look, girl, you better answer me. Kids be mean to me. They say all kind of stuff about me. And what you say to them? Nothing. Honey, folk gonna talk about you till the day you die. It ain't nothing you can do. Let folks talk. Honey, people talk about me. Yeah, 'cause you know, they used to call her YLO. Beep, beep, beep. That what they used to say when she be. Honey, listen to me. It ain't what people call you. It's what you answer to. Come on. Where you going? To the bus. Hold on, bus driver. I need to talk to some of these children on the bus. Listen up. This here is a friend of mine, and she been telling me that a few of y'all been saying some stuff about her. If I catch, I'm one of y'all saying something, it's gonna be me and you, hear me? Shut up, old Lady. All my life I had to fight. Come on, sit down. Nobody gonna mess with you. Nobody waiting for you at 3 o'clock.
Yeah. So it's kind of a condensed version of that scene. But it's a whole bunch of storylines in there in the lead up to the big family reunion or family crisis. A woman trapped in an abusive relationship, like I was saying, family tensions, generational conflict, love, forgiveness, rebuilding relationships. Like it's kind of got a really good message, but it's, almost, I guess it's like the black Mrs. Doubtfire. Sort of. I kind of don't understand it. Anyway, Tyler Perry plays multiple roles as you do in these costume comedies. Blair Underwood's in there, Lynn Whitfield is in there, and Medea is just this breakout star. They loved Medea over in the States. Sixty-five million from a $6 million budget, like.
And I have never heard of it.
Yeah, it opened at #1 in there. And there's tons of Madea movies out there.
I think this was the second one.
Yeah, I was completely unaware. I was completely unaware. Over in Australia, we were watching Walk the Line, but we also had a TV premiere. Don't we love a TV premiere that involves some kind of contractual obligation from some breakfast television talent? And on Channel 7, the big breakfast television talent at the time were Kochie and Mel.
Yes.
Over on Sunrise. And in order to fulfil their contractual obligations, they also had to do an evening show.
Yes. I love this one because it's right in our wheelhouse. This is nostalgia.
Yeah. Where are they now? I found a particular episode where they found out where Colette is now.
I've been wondering.
I know.
Dolly Covergirl turns pop princess. Colette was just 21 when she sung her way into the hip parade. Was I amazed at the success? Yes, I was, totally. It was already sort of top five and we hadn't even shot a music video for it. But when her second album didn't go so well, no regrets. Colette just moved on. So when I finished music, I took out makeup, hair and makeup. And that's what fills in my time and keeps me busy, very busy. Now makeup makes the money, but what really rings her bell is working with wildlife. Colette's A volunteer at Taronga Zoo. She takes wildlife snaps too and video. But nothing beats being one-on-one.
Giving presentations, handling animals, and conditioning animals so they get used to being handled by other people as well.
She's just cleaning up poo, I reckon.
She wondered where she was.
That's good. It's good to know.
So if I go to Taronga, they might bump into Colette?
You may bump into Colette.
I loved Colette. I love that video clip. There was lots of Fluro.
I have white pants. One degree of separation from Colette.
Yeah.
There was a band that I wrote it for in the late 90s and early 2000s. And we recorded an EP in the same studio that Colette recorded Ring My Bell in.
At the same time.
Not at the same time, but there was a poster over on the wall.
She signed it. Was it a block mount?
Yes, it was. I think it was a block mount. It might have been behind the frame. Midnight Oil also recorded there, but I was more excited about Colette. She rang my bell back in the day. Poor boy.
Ding-a-ling.
Yes.
Oh, no, Ding Dong Ding is what she said, wasn't it? So imagine she might have, you might have crossed paths with her.
Oh, no, we didn't go to the zoo. It's a recording studio. Look, I When was she?
When was her song? Was that?
It was late 80s, late 89 or something like that. Came along just in time for puberty. That was good. But yeah, not in time for the recording studio. And it was not the, I'd say the studio is probably a shadow of its former self. You could almost see the cocaine residue dripping off the walls. No, it was very peculiar. Anyway, Kochie and Mel, where are they now? They did all sorts of stuff. They did Child Stars, Reality TV, one-hit wonders, music, sports people. Yeah, news figures that went viral. Believe it or not, viral was a thing in the United States.
Famous Australians who just disappeared out of the spotlight.
It's like, what happened? How long did your success last?
Didn't mind that show.
Did you regret it? What are you doing now? Yeah. Satisfied your curiosity. It did.
I think they should bring it back.
It satisfied Koshy and Mel's contractual obligations.
It should bring it back and they should have Shanice on.
And we could go, where is Koshy now?
He's on the meerkat ads.
Oh, Simples. Yeah. comparing the meerkats.
I didn't feel like that was a good fit for him. That was interesting.
Oh, you got a problem with meerkats, do you?
Apparently, I don't know. I just wasn't expecting that from Kochie, that's all.
Really? Yeah.
Well, he's a lovely guy. He's a lovely guy. We met him once.
We did.
He's lovely.
He was really nice.
I didn't expect him to go off on a meerkat adventure.
Well, they're lovable creatures.
I noticed.
Maybe they've got that in common. Books we didn't read, but I read this book and this is more about book news.
It's not the bestseller. It's book news. It's a news music. Now it's over to Mel with book, news, book, news, book, news, news. You got the books, we got the news, you got the books, we got the news, got the books. Who's got the books, we got the books? Mel has the books, and over to Mel with the book news.
That is like...
Excellent. It's good. It's almost as good as that DJ that did the love generation.
Neo.
Like the uncle. See if you can write something like that. I remember everybody's party uncle right now. We have alligators. that the Da Vinci Code plagiarised. What? Unbelievable.
But yes, and that went to go to court.
Well, writers Michael Bagent and Richard Lee are suing Random House this week, 20 years ago, saying that the Da Vinci Code contains ideas stolen from their 1982 book, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.
Right.
Their book, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, proposed a very controversial theory that Jesus survived the crucifixion. Jesus married Mary Magdalene.
Sorry to anyone who hasn't read The Da Vinci Code that was planning to, but we've just spoiled it probably in those two sentences.
Probably should have read it by now. Jesus had descendants. There was a secret society that protected his bloodline as he's starting to sound familiar.
Yeah.
And the Holy Grail represents this lineage.
This is exactly the book. This is the Da Vinci Code. Yes, these are the ideas. The backbone that form of the Da Vinci Code.
So they sue the publisher, not the brown guy.
No, really, they didn't sue the publisher, Random House. Really.
Claiming that. Dan Brown copied the core framework of their historical theory, that their research was used as the foundation for the novel, and that the story relied heavily on their concepts. They argued that he didn't just use historical ideas, he used their version of the story.
Really? I wonder if Tom Hanks would have starred in the movie of their book, though. Riddle me that.
Back in 1982, no, I don't think so.
They didn't. They were unsuccessful.
Were they?
Yes, they were. The UK High Court ruled against them, actually. The judge was like, historical theories and ideas can't be copyrighted. So it's a very real possibility that, yes, he could have taken his idea from that, but you can't copyright a theory or an idea, apparently. That's interesting. Only the specific wording and expression of ideas are protected. So that's how you...
Oh, so you put the sentence backwards, like when you're copying out of Britannica?
You just go, oh, how would Yoda write it? And you find it. You can basically put your own version of the Da Vinci Code out tomorrow.
Change a couple of names.
And under the pen name of Yoda and nobody would be any the wiser. And that Brown, he said that Brown created an original fictional story using those ideas. So he won and the case failed. He'd be like, yeah, But do you have that character, Langdon, that Tom Hanks is going to play in my forthcoming film version of this? Do you have him in the book? And they would have gone, maybe not.
And not only that, we have a cheeky twist in books.
Oh, that's very Da Vinci Code on them.
News. News.
Twist.
The news. Cheeky twist in the book. News.
That was excellent.
The judge put a coded message in the ruling. What? Yes, hit a message in the ruling.
He's taken the ****.
He did this by using unusual italicized letters scattered throughout the text. And when the readers pulled those letters together, so anyone who was interested in reading the ruling would have seen the italics, put the italics together, forming the message, Smithy code Jackie Fisher. Who are you, Dreadnought? That was the code.
What? That's okay. Smithy code Jackie Fisher. Who are you, Dreadnought? So you take all the italics out and that's the sentence it forms.
That's the code. Smithy is nickname for the judge himself.
Oh, there's more to it. Okay, yeah.
Jackie Fisher refers to Admiral Sir John Jackie Fisher, who was a major reformer of the British Navy. And Dreadnought is the revolutionary battleship HMS Dreadnought associated with Fisher.
He is taking the piece.
It didn't really mean anything. It was just a couple of references. The judge later explained it was a personal puzzle and a tribute to naval history, partly A playful nod to the puzzle themes at the centre of the Da Vinci Code case.
I don't think that that's appropriate. Is it the intellectual property of people?
I didn't know you could make a joke in a court ruling.
It's at stake. Yes. And here's you putting your little thing. I'll put my own little Da Vinci Code in there. Ha ha ha. I'm a funny judge.
I didn't think judges were that funny and clever. Terrible. I like that. Terrible. I think that's pretty fun.
Biggest book in the world. People claim it's been plagiarised, which is a huge news story in and of itself.
It's huge book news.
And the judge is just getting his kicks by putting his own encoded messages in there.
Why not?
All right then, that's our first inaugural book news segment. So join us again next time for some more. Book news, book news, book, book, book, news, news, news, book, news, book, book, news, book, book, book, book, news, news. Yeah, fitting that baby cried after the book news thing. Anyway. We do the best with what we have, people, and that's what we had then. Now we have the Hatches, Matches and Dispatches segment and a little clue. That we posted at the beginning of the show a celebrity who was born on this date.
And we're having a birthday.
Yes. Well, yes. And I, once again, you know what, I've done it again. Last week I didn't write down the date of the person having a birthday, but I can assure you that they are having a birthday this week. They said this.
And the Emmy goes to... No, must we? Must we really choose just one winner? You know, when all the nominees have done such wonderful, hilarious work. Must we? Yes, apparently we must.
If you said the great Catherine O'Hara. You would be correct. The actress, the writer, the comedian who became really well known for her roles in Beetlejuice and Home Alone. They're probably my two favorite roles of her. She was in A Series of Unfortunate Events. And of course, Schitt's Creek, she was in that show as well.
Oh, the mum, wasn't she?
Yeah. Fantastic comedy actress. Sadly, I do know the date she passed away because it was the 30th of January this year. I think she's only like 71 too. She was very young and had a recent illness according to the press release. And unfortunately is no longer with us, but one of the iconic comedy, one of the iconic female comedy actresses of our generation. Like she's so recognisable.
She was in so many movies, also a voice actor in a lot of animated films, Chicken Little, Monster House and The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Yes, she was also, she was nearly on Saturday Night Live. She was an understudy for Gilda Radner on Saturday Night Live. And then they offered her a position later on the show, she turned it down and her friend Robin Duke ended up being on the show. So there you go. It's her birthday. And I think it's good to celebrate her life as opposed to mourn her death because she did so many wonderful things. We recently watched Home Alone because our sons discovered those movies now. Oh, that was a great time, isn't it? The amount of crap that you've got to watch when you've got kids, honestly, at least Catherine O'Hara was a saving grace for it. And your saving grace is that's the end of the show. We're done for this week. We have some more stuff and nonsense for you next week, surely. I'll try not to read anything in Scottish, and I will not criticise David Kosh for hanging out with meerkats. How does that sound?
Oh, come on.
For a promise.
Could we have some book news? Let me see what's happening.
Oh, God. I mean, after the raging success of that segment, why not do it again? You know what we should do, actually? We should open up the boombox. It's been a couple of weeks.
It has.
And I feel like it's been simmering away because there's a little bit of discontent in the delivery, if I'm being honest, of the podcast. We've complained about a couple of things, more so last episode than this episode. This episode, we just went a bit potty, I think, really. But you have those moments in your life, especially when you get a bit older.
You do, but we're also going to talk about David Attenborough.
Oh, really?
Yep, and Top Chef.
Top Chef David Attenborough. Remarkable creatures, yes.
And I think something was happening in Guantanamo Bay as well.
Oh, well, maybe we'll have a think about that and we'll see what happens. you can see what happens too. If you go over on the socials, you can play with us all week. Have a great time. Have a look at what we're posting. Enjoy it, comment it, share it with your friends. Subscribe to the podcast. Tell your friends about subscribe to the podcast. I know that's a big list of demands and I do apologize for being so neat.
I'm asking a lot, yes.
But I am eternally grateful.
Or go and like my comment on the Bicentennial Memento on Perth Now's account. I think I'm up to like 50 something likes now this week.
I'm glad you're keeping it going well.
I keep checking in.
Analytics on the one the one. It's not even our posts. Good for you.
It's the best work I've ever done.
That's awesome.
Well, you're welcome, Perth now.
I think this is, well, this isn't the best work. Our best work is yet to come, so you should stick around. Okay. We love you. We really appreciate you, the listener, for enjoying our humble little podcast, and we will continue to do it as long as you keep listening to it. Thank you, and we'll see you next week.
See you.
Thanks for taking the time to rewind. Join us next time for another week that was 20 years ago. In the meantime, come and reminisce on the socials. Search for T-minus 20 podcast on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.