Phillip Adams (36 page)

Adams saw people he originally met more than 30 years ago. The Adams family bounced around in everything from camels to hot-air balloons and went through hundreds of security doors with metal detectors that didn't work. Every Egyptian tomb has a false door with hieroglyphics on it, through which pass the spirits of the dead, but since a terrorist massacre at a temple 12 years ago stopped tourism in its tracks, Egypt has been filled with false doors containing what are supposed to be metal detectors. About a third of Egyptian workers are involved in ‘securit' but Adams said guards carrying AK47s would do anything for you if you gave them five Egyptian pounds. It was so much like Monty Python's Flying Circus that he expected to meet John Cleese at any moment.

His favourite artifact is the Spink Head, the limestone head of a nobleman from Memphis, the ancient site of the Great Sphinx. The arrogant-looking fellow was sold in London in the 1920s at Spink, a famous auction house, but was blown to pieces in Berlin in the last days of World War 11. Adams bought the fragments and had them put together by Peter Wighton, whose credentials for the job were that he was a panel beater, and panel beaters are good at curves and shapes. The Spink Head now sits behind Adams' desk in his Sydney office with the academic cap from one of his honorary degrees on it.

Adams had no interest in Aboriginal relics, and the fact that some of them are ten times older than the Egyptian pyramids, until he visited a museum in Munich. He was visiting it because it displays Hitler's favourite art works, and the museum also had an exhibition of plaster reproductions of Aboriginal cave paintings that astounded him.

Chris Fischer, who catalogued his collection, said in his report that the antiquities portfolio (from the onset of civilisation to the Middle Ages) is the largest, representing almost half of all Adams' artifacts. The portfolio is dominated by two Etruscan objects: 1) A painted ceramic Etruscan funerary plaque with two Amazons on horseback, made in Etruria, Italy, in the Fifth Century BCE and 2) A painted polychrome figure of a standing bull, also made in Etruria, between 449 and 350 BCE. Fischer said, ‘These represent a unique insight into the funerary customs of a civilisation still largely cloaked in mystery. ‘We are not aware of any other objects similar to these in any other private collection throughout the world.'

The catalogue of antiquities also lists for special mention: a marble figure of the goddess Aphrodite bathing, from Greece in the Fourth Century BCE; a painted ceramic figure of a naked dancing satyr from Fourth Century Greece; a painted ceramic Fifth Century BCE Greek urn lid on which is a muscular naked man reclining on his elbow; a Second Century CE Imperial Roman marble figure of the god Eros as a child, with a portly body, thick fleshy thighs and a large potbelly and holding a goose; a marble figure of the demi-god Hercules as an elderly man standing over the slain five-headed Hydra, from Second or Third Century Imperial Rome; a coffin for a woman, with on the top a carved pear-shaped face wearing a false wig and broad collar, from Egypt between 1069 and 747 BCE; and a marble figure of an Imperial Roman senator from the Second Century BCE.

The highlights of Adams' European art collection are: 20 first edition Goya etchings from the Los Caprichos series; a group of marble statues from between the 17th and 19th Centuries (particularly the portrait bust of a nobleman that combines the artisan's skill to mimic classical Roman portrait busts); a wooden-framed piano from England between 1800 and 1809; a 1634 oil portrait of Henry Daleebret, King of Navarre, Spain; and a 19th Century marble horse head that is a direct copy of the Horse of Selene, part of the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum.

Adams' Near and Middle Eastern art collection dates from the Middle Ages to the present day. The item highlighted by Consulting Arts is a colossal figure of the seated Buddha made of painted wood and inlay in Burma between 1850 and 1949.

The pre-Columbian collection comes originally from North and South America between the onset of civilisation and the mid-16th Century. It is dominated by objects made from ceramic (the preferred material due to its abundance, malleability and durability) such as vessels and figures from Mexico, including fine small figures from Colima, Nayarit and Vera Cruz. The highlights are a Colima standing duck; a painted ceramic plate with legs shaped like open-mouthed dragons, from Costa Rica between 950 and 1150; a painted ceramic figure of a kneeling woman wearing a short skirt, decorated cap and ear discs and holding a small child on her lap, from Mexico between 100 BCE and 250CE; and a ceramic standing figure of a nobleman Mexican ball player made between 350 and 950.

Adams' 46 prehistoric artifacts from around the world before civilisation include stone and animal bone tools produced in Africa or Europe from the Neolithic period to the start of agrarian culture in mainland Europe, especially a European stone axe head dated about 240,000 years BP (Before Present); a stone triangular United Kingdom hand axe or knife from 250,000 BP; and a stone Egyptian axe head from 240,000 BP.

The Tribal Art collection highlights, according to Consulting Arts, are: a selection of 20th Century musical instruments ranging from a leather and bamboo drum from Indonesia to an African xylophone; a Nigerian wooden throne carved with figures of men, women and leopards; and an African xylophone made of wood, rope and gourd.

One oddball item in Adams' collection is a postcard written by George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) to the Australian cooking author Edna Walling, of Mooroolbark in Melbourne, on which Shaw says in handwriting: ‘Don't ask me to read anything. I have more writing on my shelves than I can hope to get through in the few days (perhaps hours) left to me.' He died not days or hours but three years later and his sentiments are similar to Adams' when he is sent manuscripts that the authors ask him to read and criticise.

Adams bought items that particularly appealed to him, mostly years ago. He said in the oral history that the National Library recorded in 1994 the collection was ‘a metaphor for loneliness, for needing, something quiet I could do at home.' Now, his unique and valuable collection seems to have faded into the background of his life, although it gives him many memories as he sees the artifacts all around him at his Sydney office and in secure places elsewhere. Asked by the National Library whether he had any plans for it, he said he tried to give it to the National Gallery ‘but I had a very strange run-in with the then director. It will finish up being disbanded and probably handed out to a dozen different galleries.' The collection is now so large that if Uriah Heap came to his door with a priceless item going cheap, he would probably bid him goodbye.

Chapter Twenty-Two:
What Drives Phillip Adams

Phillip Adams has left his mark on many people. He has his own touch. His imperative is to do things continuously. He responds to enthusiastic people and he is driven by ideas, and by his justifiable ego, although he denies he has an ego, which shows he doesn't fully understand himself. He also does not accept criticism, and that is a fault. He cares a great deal about society and he has a genuine love of people, although he is prone to fall out with some of them. The Australians who scare him are those who never have a moment of intellectual engagement and who do nothing much with their time — most of them.

Adams sincerely wants to improve people's lives, either personally or through his column and program. He says he is driven by an awareness of mortality, which he has had since he was very young. It gives him a great sense of urgency to do all he can in his remaining years: ‘You want to do all you possibly can in the miserable time you're allotted.' Using Adams' figures, we have 175,000 hours to do anything in our lives, or 4,375 forty-hour weeks. In the total lifetime of humans on this planet, the life of Adams or anyone else is like a bird flying across a room, and Adams is aware of this more than most people.

He often talks about his unpleasant childhood — perhaps too often, as it is now so long ago. And he does admit that many other people had a much more unpleasant childhood than he did. As he says, people don't choose their childhood or their DNA. It chooses you. When he says he is still working very long days, he doesn't by any means have to do so; he chooses to, and many of the things he does are not work at all. I phoned him at his Paddington pad one weeknight at 7.30 p.m. When he answered, he'd obviously been asleep, and having catnaps is one way he makes up for being an insomniac.

Adams' days are largely unplanned except for the imperative of fronting his microphone at 10.05 p.m. four nights a week, fronting the few remaining organisations he gives his time to and meetings and conferences he agrees to chair. He's just as scared of falling off the media landscape as falling off the planet. He says he's amazed how many people waste so much time in their lives. He doesn't seem to understand that most people just live day to day or even hour to hour. It's a pity they do, but that's people. Adams claimed to me, ‘I'm amazed how little I've done,' but this is in reality a scene of a play — the humble front he puts to people. He has achieved many, many times more than most people and more than most pillars of society, business or industry achieve. Some of his weeks are much busier than almost any other 71-year-old could handle.

‘You need stamina to do it,' he told me. ‘It's not a moral venture; it's predetermined by your genes. These days I'm not chairing seven organisations like I used to. I'm still in half a dozen organisations but I used to be in twenty. That was a sort of madness.' He used to endure hundreds of boring meetings but hardly ever goes to meetings now. He avoids the company of bigots, racists and bores — often the same people. He has no real complaints about life, except sometimes about his ageing body.

Adams would be devastated if he lost
Late Night Live
or his
Weekend Australian Magazine
column. The program standard is as good as ever, partly because, in spite of his ageing voice, he is as good as ever at presenting it and also because its producers put a lot of effort into preparing the background material and arranging interviews around the world. The column is sometimes as good as it was years ago, often not. Adams seems to think he can just bash it out at weekends year after year at his farm — he says it takes him hardly any time at all — and still maintain the quality. To maintain an even quality it needs more research and thought, more new topics and fewer revived ones.

Adams overstates most things, which works well when he exaggerates the importance of a person he's interviewing. But although his contribution to society has been huge, it has a dubious effect on politicians. They might listen to some of his broadcasts and read some of his columns, but politicians usually have strong opinions about what should be done, so they do what
they,
rather than
he,
believe. Adams' views would be more likely to change the thoughts of the hundreds of thousands of ordinary, uninfluential people who read or listen to him every week.

It is paradoxical that he believes in his own importance but (his friends say) he does not take himself too seriously. His self-deprecation on-air wins him many listeners. It is also paradoxical that he helps many people, both in what he says and also personally. Some of his friends worry about his health and lack of exercise, just walking to and from his car. Like his friends, I tell him he should look after himself better. He doesn't take any notice.

Adams is passionate about people but a self-proclaimed anti-social who likes to say he hasn't been to a dinner party for years. But if he is in a group of people, he likes to be the centre of attention, which he usually is. He has ‘presence'. There is no-one like him, certainly in Australia and perhaps in the world. He gets his own way, as do most influential or powerful people. And if he doesn't get his own way with someone, he is likely to cross them off his list. In the tussle with the ABC over it wanting him to identify himself with every broadcast, he won. On the other hand, he does not, in print or on-air, criticise Rupert Murdoch, who pays him for his
Weekend Australian Magazine
column, although when the magazine editor reduced its size, he protested loudly and got others to do so, but in the end put up with less space than he had previously, but a more prominent position.
He certainly enjoys his work and the attention he gets when, for example, chairing functions. He has an attractive voice both in person and on-air. Few people have a brain like his. The other side of the coin is that he is abrupt when he doesn't want to continue a conversation and he sometimes agrees or offers to arrange things and never gets around to it.

He can match word for word the people he interviews, including professors from around the world. When he has a
Late Night Live
conversation with an enthusiastic person he knows and likes about a subject he also likes, it is great radio. When he reads what his producers have given him and the person on the other end of the phone in Quito or Addis Ababa is not good at being interviewed, the result is naturally less gripping. But he never sounds bored, and he sounds as if he is talking just to
you
. He admits he is sometimes already exhausted when he arrives at the ABC studios, but when he faces the microphone, his adrenalin takes over and he's off and away with another program, spoken in correct but colloquial English, showing warmth to his guests and his listeners, enjoying his own whimsy and jokes but sometimes, as he grows older, rambling a bit too much.

Adams is always on the go and thinking of the next thing to do. Now that he has passed 70, this puts a strain on his body, which he fears is falling apart. He should not keep saying on-air that he's old; it's obvious anyway, and saying so doesn't impress anyone. None of us can help getting old. He enjoys having two places to live, Paddington and Elmswood; if he didn't have Patrice Newell to care for and feed him over his long weekends at Elmswood, his health would suffer, and he admits he and she would tear each other apart if they lived together all the time. Some of his friends believe he has never quite forgiven himself for leaving Rosemary, although he would say it was what he had to do after he met Patrice and was charmed by her when both their marriages were already on the rocks.