Get Back on the balcony

Sir Paul McCartney will soon be back in Adelaide – but will he be back on the Town Hall balcony?

InSider understands the English singer’s Australian tour announcement has Adelaide City Council hoping We Can Work It Out, with an invitation looming to bring McCartney back to the spot where he and The Beatles greeted tens of thousands of adoring Adelaide fans nearly 60 years ago.

A piece of glass artwork depicting the Beatles’ visit was erected on the Town Hall balcony in 2016 to mark the building’s 150^th anniversary.

Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith, like her distant predecessor Sir James Campbell Irwin, is keen to welcome McCartney to the city’s civic centre.

“Sir Paul McCartney returning to Adelaide would give us a great chance to Come Together like we did back in 1964,” Lomax-Smith said in an emailed statement.

“Those lucky enough to be in the city that day would fondly recall The Beatles greeting the crowd from the Adelaide Town Hall balcony – the largest gathering the band had attracted anywhere in the world.

“It certainly won’t be just Another Day when Sir Paul will Get Back to our beautiful city and we would dearly love to host him here at Town Hall to reflect on those remarkable scenes.”

An estimated 350,000 people lined the streets between Adelaide Airport and Town Hall when The Beatles made their first visit to Adelaide on June 12, 1964.

McCartney kicks off his Australian tour at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre on October 18.

Student union’s merger snub

The Adelaide University Union’s rebrand to YouX is yet to catch on in some circles.

As Elon Musk is presumably finding out, renaming a long-standing, well-recognised brand to something based on the letter “X” can take a little while for people to accept.

It appears the former Adelaide University Union (AUU) is learning the same lesson.

After spending nearly $80,000 on changing their name to “YouX” last year – and a further $47,452 on producing newly branded materials – the student organisation’s rebrand has not been recognised in the agreed merger of the University of Adelaide and UniSA.

The snub is found in the draft legislation for the establishment of the new “Adelaide University”, which was released by the state government this week after input from the universities.

The 37-page Bill makes no mention of YouX; it does, however, dedicate a section to “The Adelaide University Union”.

The section of the draft Adelaide University Bill 2023 dedicated to the AUU.

A YouX spokesperson clarified that YouX “is a trading name of the Adelaide University Union”.

“The AUU is an unincorporated body and any reference in legislation would need to name the AUU as the holder of assets, contracts or liabilities,” the spokesperson said. 

“The AUU is still used as required in governance documents and legislation, but for all operational purposes YouX is the recognised organisational name.”

The legislation outlines that the “AUU” may transfer its assets, contracts and liabilities “to another body that is, or is to become, the successor of AUU… whether by the creation of a new entity or an amalgamation”.

In other words: a second rebrand might be on the cards… and the budget.

That’ll be something for YouX to work out with its UniSA counterpart, the University of South Australia Student Association (USASA) – perhaps not the easiest negotiation when one party recently spent more than $120,000 on a branding update.

USASA president Isaac Solomon told InSider that “no decision about the merger of student organisations have been made at the current time”.

Hoodwinked over Aquatic Centre closure?

Adelaide’s “unsavable, unrepairable and unusable” Aquatic Centre is on its last lap – but not everyone is cheering it to the finish line.

The Malinauskas Government revealed in June that the North Adelaide swim facility will be closing in August 2024 to fast track construction of their big splash $135m new Aquatic Centre.

The Adelaide Aquatic Centre in North Adelaide. Photo: Tony Lewis/InDaily

But the more than 12-month closure of the old centre until its replacement opens in late 2025 has left several facility users with a sinking feeling.

The InSider was handed a notice that’s been circulating around the old aquatic centre – claiming (albeit falsely) to be from Labor MP for Adelaide Lucy Hood’s office – polling swimmers on whether they would like the old facility to remain open until the new centre is completed.

“Previously Centre users were told the Centre would remain open until the new one is built and ready to use,” the notice reads.

“Ms Lucy Hood, Labor MP for Adelaide would like to find out if you want to keep the centre open until the construction of the new centre is finished and useable so there will be no discontinuation to your wellness/fitness habit and enjoyment.

“Your ‘YES’ or ‘NO’ choice will be considered.”

Dozens of people signed their names onto the notice responding “YES”. However, Hood’s office denies anything to do with the letter.

“The survey has nothing to do with Lucy Hood and was not arranged by her office,” a government spokesperson said.

“It was a simple mistake made by a local constituent who was made aware of the error and was incredibly apologetic.”

Mysterious letter aside, those seeking changes to the $135m project are continuing to pool their resources – an Adelaide Park Lands Association petition asking the state government to move the centre out of North Adelaide’s Denise Norton Park/Pardinyilla (Park 2) has now gathered more than 5000 signatures.

Where there’s a will there’s a wave…

Gender goals

There’s been no whingeing about the lack of male leaders showing up at the FIFA Women’s World Cup despite the Premier only making his first appearance at one of the nation’s biggest sporting events four games in. Opposition Leader David Speirs is not bothering to show up at all.

But Sports Minister Katrine Hildyard remains impressively positive, not missing a match and rubbing shoulders with consul generals, ambassadors and trailblazing first female FIFA secretary general Fatma Samoura.

There are worse sporting snubs after all.

Hildyard can tell stories about the first Australian women’s football team having to train with car lights on the pitch – and about another charming incident where she asked the chair of one of South Australia’s women sport teams about female representation on the board.

His answer? “The board members all have wives.”

It is enough for Hildyard to see two billion viewers tuning into FIFA Women’s World Cup games in Australia and New Zealand – 11.5 million Brazilian viewers alone watched their team take on Panama in Adelaide.

The Matildas game this week smashed the Ashes cricket television viewing ratings making it all the more curious as to why our sport-mad Premier has been missing on holidays until his first match appearance this week. And baseballer Carly Moore jets off to Canada this weekend as SA’s first representative on the Emeralds at the Women’s Baseball World Cup.

InSider is finding it difficult to imagine a similar holiday booking clash when the AFL Gather Round comes to town next year.

Hollywood star’s Coober Pedy blast

Hollywood legend William Shatner is starring in a video released by the SA Film Corporation where he tells of having “a blast” filming a new reality series in the Outback town of Coober Pedy through April and May this year.

The Canadian actor who appeared in Star Trek and Boston Legal appears on the SAFC site chatting about the unscripted television series Stars on Mars.

“The South Australian desert was a totally out of this world filming location like nothing I’ve seen on Earth – it was like we really were on Mars,” he says about the experience.

“I now know why so many films and TV shows have chosen to shoot in South Australia; it truly is a beautiful and unique part of the world.”

Stuff you should know…

It’s always good to celebrate Friday, even a rainy dreary one, so InSider went searching for international days to celebrate. Passing over the most probably important but hard-to-celebrate International Clouded Leopard Day, InSider landed on something we can all get behind: International Beer Day. While it’s kinda like Father’s Day – isn’t everyday beer day” – we will raise a glass to whoever decided ale needed its own day…

… in BREAKING NEWS: Coopers just announced that after a few years in the making, “Coopers Australian Lager is coming to your locals this week. It’s our biggest release in over 10 years, and this beer’s staying on for good.”

They say it’s a refreshing Aussie lager with “aromas of stone fruit, citrus, and late hopping will land your nose right in the tropics”.

All made with Coopers’ own lager malt.