Jozef Imrich, name worthy of Kafka, has his finger on the pulse of any irony of interest and shares his findings to keep you in-the-know with the savviest trend setters and infomaniacs.
''I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.''
-Kurt Vonnegut
Nobody Gets Promoted for Simplicity. “You can’t write a compelling narrative about the thing you didn’t build. Nobody gets promoted for the complexity they avoided.”
They've announced the winner of this year's Rasputin Prize -- a Russian literary prize named for writer Valentin Rasputin, not the better-known one ... --, and it is Груманланы, by Vladimir Lichutin; see, for example, the report at Российский книжный союз. See also the Вече publicity page for Груманланы.
As a child, Jason Mumford, now 30, would spend weekends with his mother trawling through junk piles and op-shops for treasures to decorate their home. “Growing up not so wealthy, we definitely could never afford expensive furniture, so my mum was very good at being resourceful,” Mumford says.
“I remember people coming around, probably judging its tired facade, and then they’d walk in and be shocked because the interiors were full of personality, and very curated with some really lovely, unique pieces.”
For Mumford, a designer who lives in Randwick, his upbringing spurred a lifelong obsession with interiors, and specifically, pieces that sit at the intersection of striking design and accessibility; items others might discard without realising their potential value.
Jason Mumford at this vintage furniture store, Two Hands Collect, at Mitchell Road Antiques, with a number of his vintage IKEA finds, such as the Storvik Rattan armchair by Carl Öjerstam.JESSICA HROMAS
Which is how he found himself preoccupied with vintage IKEA furniture. “It all started with the Niklas shelves, modular shelves I just became really obsessed with. They’re from the ’80s, but they were made up until the late ’90s,” says Mumford.
Mumford found the original IKEA catalogues from his and his partner’s birth years, as well as one from 2000.JESSICA HROMAS
“They were in the background in Seinfeld episodes and there’s an episode on Friends where they’re literally building the shelves. So they were a bit familiar, and they’re also super practical for apartment living because they’re very adaptable. They’re a bit of a lifetime piece.”
The typical Niklas shelving system will have three “ladders” you then hang shelves on. Mumford estimates since he started collecting vintage IKEA six years ago, he’s amassed as many as 30 ladders. “I probably have the largest collection in Sydney.”
Mumford has since accumulated a number of vintage IKEA finds, even catalogues from his and his partner’s birth years. He’s not the only collector who’s realised the worth of vintage IKEA.
Today, it’s not uncommon to see the Niklas shelves listed for upwards of $2000 (though if you’re lucky, you can find them for free through unsuspecting sellers on Facebook Marketplace).
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For the past two decades, mid-century modern furniture has enjoyed a revival, and among valuable pieces designed by Europe’s most recognised designers, vintage IKEA has become highly sought-after.
“For a long time, IKEA was synonymous with poor quality, and when the history of Scandinavian design was discussed, IKEA’s products were simply left out,” explains Andreas Siesing, a Swedish design historian and IKEA expert. “When the enthusiasm for retro and vintage furniture from the 1950s and ’60s grew rapidly in the early 2000s, IKEA’s models followed suit.”
IKEA was founded in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad, with an ethos of democratising design. In 1948, he launched a furniture range, wanting to make functional, stylish pieces available for everyone.
In the first half-century of IKEA’s existence, the quality and design was impressive. “There was likely greater scope to make purchasing decisions based on pure instinct – Ingvar Kamprad’s own – so the range is more eclectic and, for better and worse, less considered,” Siesing says. As the company grew, except for one-off collaborations with certain designers, the style became simpler and quality waned as pieces were made for the mass market.
Collectors have realised those early items are worth the hunt.
In 2021, a world record was set when the Cavelli armchairfrom the late 1950s was sold at the Stadsauktion Sundsvall auction for 151,000 SEK ($22,828), making it the most expensive piece of IKEA furniture ever. It’s one of the rarest collector’s items because they were made in very limited numbers, but also due to the chair being constructed with teak (the most popular wood in Scandinavia at the time) and its Italian-style design.
Matthew Sullivan with some of his vintage IKEA pieces, including the Anne Nilsson-designed glassware, IKEA PS 2014 On the Move side table designed by T. Richardson, C. Brill & A. Williams, Ola Wihlborg Postmodern PS Series Bowl (yellow) and easychair Vågö, designed by Thomas Sandell. WOLTER PEETERS
Matthew Sullivan, 53, has been collecting furniture for more than 25 years and runs his own business through Silverfox Vintage in the Blue Mountains. “A few years ago I saw something on Facebook Marketplace and I thought, ‘shit, that’s really interesting’. I looked at it and I realised it was IKEA,’” says Sullivan, who buys and sells mostly ’80s, ’90s and early 2000s IKEA.
Sullivan notes that many people who come to him looking for vintage IKEA are younger generations wanting the pieces they had in their bedrooms as kids, such as the IKEA Skojig Cloud Lamp from the ’90s. “They see and recognise those items from their childhood, so there are all sorts of different eras and layers to it.”
Northcote health worker Con Skordilis, 55, has been collecting vintage IKEA furniture for the past decade and similarly noticed an uptick in interest. “It’s becoming a bit more mainstream now,” says Skordilis, who prefers post-modern pieces of vintage IKEA. “People are realising how important it is and prices have gone up. It’s more difficult to find these days, whereas in the past people just used to throw things out.”
Con Skordilis’ collected of vintage IKEA includes the PS Nybygge 2012 shelves in his kitchen, the 1970 Mila chair, and the 2002 Jonisk lamp (rear).JUSTIN MCMANUS
One of his greatest finds – the Moment sofa designed by Niels Gammelgaard – was almost garbage.
“I found it on a street bounty group,” Mumford says. “They weren’t even taking a photo of the lounge, they were just taking a photo of the rubbish pile, and I drove an hour and a half to go and get this thing out of the junk.
“It’s super sleek and sexy by this amazing designer, and it’s quite rare. It wasn’t sold for a very long period in Australia, so there’s not a whole lot of them floating around.”
Every collector has their own white whale of vintage IKEA. Sullivan’s is the 1993 Vilbert chair by Verner Panton. Skordilis and Mumford both love the 1970s Impala sofa by Gillis Lundgren.
Siesing says the ’70s-era pieces are particularly noteworthy because IKEA was “small enough to leave plenty of room for experimentation; the furniture on offer was inventive and remarkably varied”.
For budding collectors, the advice is to hold on to items you have, and keep an eye out for designs that could be worth something in years to come. “Prices will continue to rise for the foreseeable future. Interest is growing at what feels like an explosive rate,” says Siesing.
“Fascinatingly, there is still much left to discover. Many vintage models have yet to appear at auction. Vintage IKEA has a bright future ahead of it.”
“When a mysterious financier named Melmotte arrives in London, society rearranges itself around him & the promise of riches he brings. Some characters’ honesty & moral sense carry them through … while others are brought low by their own greed & dishonesty”
‘These AI agents have been really, really helpful,’ says a former Sydney employee. ‘But you couldn’t use something like that to replace an actual human worker’
All these billionaires will never have enough money:
Jeff Bezos is worth $220 billion.
After building that fortune from overworking and exploiting his own workers, Bezos is now developing a fund to acquire manufacturing companies and automate them.
Why do we always hear about immigrants taking jobs when the oligarchs are actually to blame?
Novels set during the Industrial Revolution can illuminate what it's like to live through epochal change.
As the debate about our AI future continues to rage, I find myself wondering if we’re all going to become like the main character in my favorite 19th century novel, North and South. The heroine is a young woman during the Industrial Revolution who has to adjust to a whole new way of thinking and living and a host of new societal norms. Sound familiar?
Every day we read about the potentially huge effects AI will have on the labor market, the economy and society. Although many people speak about the future with certainty, we don’t really know what’s to come. People thought the invention of the cotton gin would finally help end slavery. In fact, it massively increased it. On the other hand, weavers on the eve of the Industrial Revolution were right that their livelihood would be decimated by the introduction of “the new machinery.”
It’s too soon to say with any confidence what effectAI will have on the labor market (or the economy or society). Many people claim it’s already leading to job losses, but the best evidence we have suggests that hasn’t started yet. That doesn’t mean we should ignore it or look away — but it does suggest we might be better served examining lessons from the past than merely speculating about the future. As Winston Churchill once said, “The longer you can look back, the farther you can look forward.”
If you want to feel what living through a massive technological shock and its aftermath looked like, it’s time to take a step back from the large language models and read some of the great novels of the Industrial Revolution.
The White-Collar Weavers
Today’s conversation about the labor markets and AI often proceeds as if we’ve never seen this sort of shiftbefore. In particular, people focus on the effect the AI boom may have on higher-wage workers, rather than the lower- or middle-wage jobs that were most affected by the earlier disruptions of computers and automation. However, that dynamic isn’t new. Technological change has altered “high-quality” jobs before.
During the Industrial Revolution, the invention of steam power, the power loom and other machines made manufacturing more efficient — particularly the manufacture of textiles. These machines absolutely upended the economy and labor markets. In the long run, the transformation was good for workers and economic growth, but it was incredibly painful. (I’m grateful the Industrial Revolution happened: I now get to have a career pontificating about economics. I’m also grateful I didn’t have to live through it.)
At the time, weavers enjoyed a relatively high standard of living. They were certainly not in the 1%, but they were in some ways the white-collar workers of their day, enjoying flexible work hours and relatively high pay and social status. In fact, the Luddites became a political force partly because their high status allowed them to organize and fight back. They ultimately lost, but they had the social capital to mount a resistance.
How big was the shock? We didn’t have a Bureau of Labor Statistics in the 19th century, but real wages for handloom weavers seem to have fallen by half between 1806 and 1820, and it took decades for the workforce to experience broad benefits from all that machine-induced productivity. In 1806 handloom weavers earned about double what factory workers were paid; by 1820 they earned more than 25% less.
What It Feels Like to Live Through Technological Change
Without today’s preponderance of hard economic data, it’s hard to adequately quantify the impact of the Industrial Revolution on labor. Fortunately, we can turn to literature. Novels illuminate what people were living through at the time. I have three to point you toward (and a runner-up).
First, Shirley by Charlotte Bronte. Shirley is about a factory owner in the early 1800s who wants to install “the new machinery.” It even begins with a Luddite raid on a delivery of machinery! The mill owner Robert Moore and two young local women, Caroline Helstone and the titular Shirley, are trying to navigate what a changing economic landscape means for them as individuals and members of society. The book talks about both the economic pressure on Moore to compete and how different members of his workforce respond to the shock differently.
It also emphasizes the role the larger economic situation (e.g., the commercial repercussions of the Napoleonic wars) played in the adoption of machinery — an important aspect of this history that’s often overlooked. Technological change doesn’t happen in a vacuum; one thing that made the Industrial Revolution particularly painful was that export restrictions put pressure on the textile industry, increasing the incentive to invest in machinery.
Second on my list is the aforementioned North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell. This novel takes place a little later, in the 1850s;it features an established factory owner interacting with workers in a “new factory” with machinery. The book explores how capital owners and laborers figured out how to work together in the new equilibrium. But it also emphasizes how the changing economy changed the social structure. Its heroine, Margaret Hale, the daughter of a minister forced to move north, struggles to adapt to the changing economic world even though she isn’t affected economically. Her family’s finances are not altered by the decision to modernize a factory, but modernization profoundly shifts the world around her, changing what is expected of her.
Margaret’s role in society was very clear in the southern agricultural economy, but in a northern town dominated by manufacturing and a society that revolves around who is empowered or disempowered by that technology, she doesn’t know how to respond. What is her relationship with newly empowered workers, such as the union leader Nicholas Higgins and his daughter, who become her friends? What should she make of the factory owner John Thornton, whose understanding of economic and social niceties totally differs from hers and who strikes her as uncaring and uninterested in the welfare of others? (Those of you who’ve read Pride and Prejudice can probably guess where that one is going.) As a “neutral party,” Margaret gets stuck in the middle of the ongoing labor unrest that emerges as capital owners and workers try to negotiate a new equilibrium. And she has to decide what responsibilities citizens have for one another in the new world — and what should be carried over from the old.
Third, A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. Yes, this book is about the Christmas spirit, looking after our fellow man and how we should respond to poverty in our midst, not the Industrial Revolution. It is, famously, about Ebeneezer Scrooge, a miser who hoards funds and doesn’t care about the suffering around him but is then visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve who show him the error of his ways. But it also contains the scene in English literature that to me best describes what the policy response was to the Industrial Revolution and poverty at the time: “Are there no prisons? … And the Union workhouses? Are they still in operation?” Dickens generally doesn’t focus on the deeper economic conditions that led to the poverty he saw. He doesn’t distinguish between people who are poor because they lost jobs and people who are poor because they never had them. He simply wrote about the economic pain they were suffering.
I would not be a literature nerd if I didn’t sneak in an honorable mention. If you want to keep reading, The Way We Live Now, by Anthony Trollope, published in the 1870s, focuses on greed during the railroad boom (part of what’s dubbed the Second Industrial Revolution). When a mysterious financier named Melmotte arrives in London, society rearranges itself around him and the promise of riches he brings. Some characters’ honesty and moral sense carry them through the resulting storm, while others are brought low by their own greed and dishonesty. It’s a wonderful summation of how people and society can get carried away by even the possibility of profit — and what that looks like during a technological boom time.
We don’t have the data we need to know exactly what disruption looked like during the Industrial Revolution, and we certainly can’t know with confidence what’s going to happen to us over the coming years. But all of these books can help us understand what drove people to invest in technology, what it felt like for workers at the time, how society changed and how it responded (or didn’t) to those who lost out.
We’ve lived through technological shifts before, including changes that came first for skilled, higher-status workers. Then, as now, people were panicked about their jobs, their economic well-being and the shifts in society, and unsure how they should respond. The AI transition may be faster, bigger and more disruptive than the Industrial Revolution. But if we want to have a flourishing economy and society on the other side, learning from what our predecessors went through is even more important this time around. And that’s exactly what literature is there to help us do.
Joseph's Church Hall, 2B Gordon Street, Rozelle, 2039
The Australian Premiere of an original musical, 18 Eden Avenue charts the fortunes of three generations of women. They share life under one roof in a run-down, historic house – until a handsome young boarder arrives. He brings changes to the dynamic in the house, stirring up laughter, romance and long-buried secrets.
Packed with wit, warmth and catchy songs, this fresh new musical has already charmed audiences in New Zealand with standing ovations and rave reviews. A sparkling contemporary story about family, love and the surprises that live behind closed doors.
Three generations of women share life under one roof in a historic house – until a handsome young boarder arrives and stirs up laughter, romance and long-buried secrets. Packed with wit, warmth and catchy songs, this fresh new musical has already charmed audiences in New Zealand with standing ovations and rave reviews. A sparkling contemporary story about family, love and the surprises that live behind closed doors.
All treasure hunters will appreciate this wholesome musical
In an age where selling a theatre ticket has never been harder, there is something genuinely admirable about the Genesian Theatre Company choosing to programme new works. It takes courage and a commitment to expanding what audiences expect from a night at the theatre.18 Eden Avenueis exactly that kind of show — imperfect in places, but earnest in all the right ways, and a reminder that local theatre remains one of the great undervalued pleasures of Australian life.
The story centres on the residents of a suburban house at 18 Eden Avenue, where multiple generations navigate relationships, family tensions, and the awkwardness of young love. At its heart, the musical explores connection: teenagers discovering their feelings for the first time, adults juggling responsibility and expectation, and an older generation whose memories and eccentricities colour the household. The domestic setting gives the show a gentle intimacy, allowing the characters’ personalities and interactions to drive much of the narrative.
Roger Gimbett takes on the triple role of writer, director and set designer — an enormous undertaking — and for the most part the production sits comfortably within the intimacy of the small stage space. The story moves with humour and heart across its two acts, and there is genuine charm in the world he has created. While the set is thoughtfully conceived, the printed backdrops and painted elements do not always sit comfortably together visually. Occasional sightline issues and some confusing blocking decisions also made the action harder to follow at times, moments that may have benefited from the perspective of a broader creative team to help refine the staging and improve clarity.
Musically, the production is guided by musical director Christine Firkin, who faces the unenviable task of rehearsing and presenting songs supported by MIDI backing tracks. While the cast clearly worked hard to bring energy and commitment to the numbers, the lack of higher-quality accompaniment affected the musicality of the vocals.
Those six cast members bring considerable energy to the stage, and it is in the performances where 18 Eden Avenue really finds its heart. Jasper Barnard as Simon captures the particular agony of a teenage crush with authenticity, while Jack Taylor as Gilford is a reliable source of laughs, particularly in Act 2, which gives him real room to run. Greg Thornton brings a quiet, understated warmth to Arthur, grounding the ensemble beautifully.
But the show belongs, unambiguously, to its three generations of women. Sophie Laurantus as Poppy walks the tightrope between teenage independence and maternal reliance with impressive ease. Isabella Rodrigues brings real strength to a woman holding everything together under pressure — her performance has a steel to it that the show genuinely needs. And Jenny Jacobs as the senile grandmother Honoria is simply a delight, milking every comic line, drawing some of the evening’s biggest laughs.
In a world teetering on the edge of anxiety — and let’s be honest, WW3 is not feeling entirely hypothetical right now — there is no better medicine than two hours of live storytelling with people who care deeply about what they’re doing. Get along and support your local theatre. You’ll be glad you did.
– The other Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig is an international performer and has established himself as a trusted theatre specialist on the Sydney Arts Scene. While he understands the technical side of theatre, Dan writes for the everyday theatregoer (unlike some of those more prominent publications). When not in the audience, he loves to travel the world and try new gins.
18 Eden Avenue runs for 2 hours 30 minutes (with a 20-min interval) and plays at St Joseph’s Church Hall, Rozelle through 28 March 2026. Tickets are available through TicketSearch.
Disclosure: The Plus Ones were guests of Genesian Theatre Company. Image credit: Homepix at Fivedock and Simon Pearce
Book and Lyrics Roger Gimblett. Music Sally Bodkin-Allen. Genesian Theatre Company, Director Roger Gimblett. 13 – 28 Mar, 2026
Number 18 Eden Avenue is a big, old, historic house. It’s the family home of Sophie who’s a dance teacher, her daughter Poppy who’s nearly 16, and Sophie’s mother Honoria, who’s a little bit eccentric … and confused. There’s a boarder who works at the local post office and raises plants in a greenhouse at the bottom of the garden in his pare time. And a cat that inhabits the ballroom.
There is also a teenager called Simon, who lives next door … and a newly arrived boarder called Gilford, an aspiring actor from the country.
Roger Gimblett and New Zealand composer Sally Bodkin-Allen combined their skills again to create this gentle little musical that they began to write in 1994 – and “found again” during the Covid lockdowns. The finished work debuted in Invercargill in New Zealand in 2022. This production, directed by Gimblett himself, is its Australian debut.
18 Eden Avenue is not your usual musical! There’s no high-stepping, three-part harmony chorus/ensemble. There are no Disney-type animal characters or mermaids or flying cars. It’s just what the advertising suggests: “a contemporary story about family, love and the surprises that live behind closed doors.”
“Honoria, Sophie and Poppy”, as their first song explains are “Three Strong Women”.
Honoria, played by Jenny Jacobs, has had an interesting past. It’s nice to see a musical that includes an older, wise, female character and Jacobs brings her own wisdom and experience to the Honoraria she plays. She makes her more aware than she pretends to be, a little bit crafty, and aware of the perplexities of aging especially when she sings “When I Dream … I remember the things don’t recall”.
That song is special. There is much in it that will reach those in the audience who identify with Honoraria … or those who care for loved ones like her … or those like Gimblett and Bodkin-Allen who are understanding and aware.
Isabella Rodrigues is Sophie, a single mother looking after her family, boarders, and a run- down house that needs repair. Rodrigues has a good stage presence and a nice sense of comic timing, both of which she uses effectively to find the considered balance in this character. The Sophie she creates is strong, independent, thoughtful, covering any moments of regret or resentment with inner strength and quick wit.
Poppy, played by Sophie Laurantus, is more aware than most teenagers and Laurantus makes her thoughtful, understanding, and uncannily wise. Her Poppy is observant – and Laurantus uses stillness and watchfulness effectively to show the intelligence and unusual depth of this young woman.
Greg Thornton plays Arthur, the boarder who has been “Someone in the Greenhouse” for years, almost part of the family, and in on one of the family secrets. Thornton makes Arthur a quiet observer, caring but a little bit reticent – hiding who he’d really like to be.
Jasper Barnard is Simon, the boy next door who spends his time pretending to fix the lawnmower so he can talk to Poppy, even though she doesn’t appreciate his attention. Barnard makes Simon a bit gangly, but thoughtful and observant, especially in his many still moments on the stage – or in some of his smart lines like “He’s not even a real actor. He hasn’t even been on Home and Away”.
That actor, Gilford, is played by Jack Taylor, who gives the character lots of hopeful ambition and positivity as he relishes the many ‘theatre’ references and stage jargon that Gimblett managed to inject into the script, particularly the song “What’s my Motivation”.
Together the six actors take the audience though a background of ‘secrets and lies’ interspersed with some gentle, mellow songs and some clever, carefully written lyrics, and light one-liners. When asked her favourite Greek God Sophie, carrying a basket of washing, replies, not Croesus but “Creaseless … the God of Ironing”.
At a time when the world is ‘droning’ with uncertainty and musicals are written about subjects like netball and the evil dead, it’s nice to see something that is, as Gimblett says “optimistic and heartfelt”.
