Lindsay Barrett is a writer, cultural historian and curator. He has written on a wide range of aspects of the experience of modern life, including technology, art, sport and politics. His book on the Whitlam Government’s purchase of the Jackson Pollock painting Blue Poles has been acclaimed as the definitive cultural history of this event. He was born in Sydney, and some of the things that make up the narrative of New Year’s Day at the Hotel Australia he actually witnessed, while others he has only read about in the newspapers.