Delta Goodrem: Aussie singer surprises commuters at London station with piano performance
Jumping on the piano — which was gifted to the station by English composer Andrew Lloyd Webber in late 2024 — the 40-year-old treated onlookers to several hits from her second album Mistaken Identity as she celebrated the project's 20th anniversary.
The album symbolised the star's triumphant re-emergence following a battle with Hodgkin's Lymphoma at just 18.
Having clearly lost none of her powerful vocal range, the girl who was 'born to try' painted smiles on the faces of travellers as the echoing of classics Wings, Predictable, Hearts on the Run, and other hits rang out through the cavernous concourse.
'This is the most magical place,' Goodrem reportedly told fans between songs.
'Every piano tells a story—and this one's seen some legends. I'm honoured to share a few songs with you while I'm here in the UK.'
With Sir Elton John first gifting a Yamaha piano to the station in 2016, the transient landmark has become a hub for talented stars to ply their craft — including Alicia Keys, Nora Jones, Jeff Goldblum, John Legend, and Sir Rod Stewart.
Peter Martin-Jones, Head of Marketing at London St. Pancras Highspeed, said the Aussie's performance would serve to continue the legacy.
'We're thrilled to have welcomed Delta Goodrem to St. Pancras International for this special performance,' Mr Martin-Jones said.
'Our public pianos have become a stage for extraordinary talent and unforgettable moments, and Delta's visit was no exception. It's moments like these that make St. Pancras a unique cultural hub for London, bringing music and joy to all who pass through.'
Dressed in a black leather jacket and pants to contrast with her white heels, some fans may have clocked Goodrem's imposing diamond ring worn since her engagement to Aussie guitarist Matthew Copley in 2023.
However, the talent was not seen complimenting it with the diamond band that she had reportedly rocked during her two sold-out Hackney Empire shows in London earlier this month, which prompted speculation the couple had wedded in secret.
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Sydney Morning Herald
12 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Searching for something to read? Here are 10 new books
From a celebration of reading, to war heroes and Donald Trump's economic policies in our non-fiction round-up, to a creepy cli-fi thriller and a queer black comedy in fiction releases, this week's reviews have something for almost every reader. Happy reading. FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK A creepy mix of cli-fi disaster fiction and psychological thriller, Emmanuelle Salasc's My Sister arrives in the English-speaking world in a brisk translation from the French by Penny Hueston. It's a tale of twin sisters, Clemence and Lucie, reunited in the remote mountain village of their childhood, about30 years after Clemence left it and her sister behind. What has she been doing all that time? She doesn't have time to reveal all before a siren goes off – a warning that the glacier above the village is in imminent danger of cracking and laying waste to all in its path, as it did 150 years ago. Lucie is desperate to evacuate with the rest of the town, but her sister demurs – claiming she's on the run, among other things, and manipulating Lucie into staying in the shadow of ruin. With panic on one side, and preternatural calm on the other, a game of cat and mouse ensues. Salasc writes with enviable crispness, and she laces the central conflict with an exquisite sense of psychological cruelty and menace and mystery. You'll find yourself wondering which twin to believe as this tale of sibling rivalry and ancient dread unfolds. Monica Raszewski follows her previous novel, The Archaeology of a Dream City (shortlisted for the 2022 NSW Premier's Literary Award for New Writing), with Crimson Light, Polished Wood, a compassionate meditation on legacy and loneliness. Falling in love with schoolteacher Margaret, Leonora emigrated from London to Melbourne. Near the novel's opening, Margaret dies of cancer and Leonora finds herself locked in a potentially acrimonious legal battle with her partner's grieving, but bigoted, mother over the estate. Meanwhile, Leonora has developed a complex bond with Polish neighbour Anna, introducing Anna's daughter Lydia to art and literature in a way that leaves an indelible impression. It is from Lydia's perspective that the novel is largely drawn, and Raszewski captures the intensity and ambiguity of the intergenerational friendship with tension and tenderness. This is a delicately wrought queer novel that stakes out contradictions of inheritance and belonging – their tenuousness, their ferocity – while allowing enough scope for the reader to interpret characters, events and emotions in more than one light. Described as an 'all-round chaos merchant', Nell Jenkins is suddenly compelled to perform acts of filial piety against her nature. She fled her childhood home in Aotearoa New Zealand at the first opportunity as a teen, but now her mother's had a stroke. Her brother nursed their father through cancer, so it's Nell's turn to care for their mother. Her homecoming isn't exactly badly timed – Nell has an ongoing issue with her former boss (who is also, messily, her ex-girlfriend), and a stocktake of her life in Sydney is warranted. Soon, though, Nell's anarchic approach to sexuality re-emerges, and she winds up having sex with people she probably shouldn't – the brother of her dead best friend from childhood, and Katya, beguiling assistant to a washed-up TV psychic, Petronella Bush, into whose orbit Nell is inevitably drawn. Unresolved – and indeed irresolvable – grief does lie behind some of the sexual antics and unfulfilling romantic cul-de-sacs in Dead Ends, deepening the emotional ambit of this queer black comedy from the other side of the ditch. Music, love, literature… and sheer dogged perseverance. 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He might also be an overgrown baby throwing a tantrum and smashing his toys. Except they're not toys. Like the election of Trump himself, his trade wars amount to a mass exercise in self-harm – but it won't be confined to the US. As Coggan points out, clearly, with a mix of the amused and bemused, the tariffs will be paid, not by foreign companies, but American ones, which will pass the cost on in increased prices for domestic goods. Coggan is also deeply aware of the history of such economic folly, likening Trump's tariffs to Churchill's decision in 1925 to move England back on the gold standard – which eventually resulted in the general strike of 1926. Underpinning that move, and MAGA (not to mention Brexit), is an absurd nostalgia for the lost paradise of imperial greatness. On top of this is the sheer uncertainty of world trade now – policies issued one day, being reversed the next. The only certainty is that those who voted for Trump will be the ones hurt most, and the already obscenely rich will get richer through tax cuts for the wealthy. This is brilliant synoptic analysis. Australia's Aviation Heroes Colin Burgess Simon & Schuster, $36.99 In April 1918, Australian reconnaissance pilot Jack Treacy was a pallbearer when the Red Baron (shot down by Australian anti-craft) was buried. As the body was lowered, however, the ground gave way, and he nearly went to the grave with the German ace. It's one of the more comic tales in this record of Australian airmen in war and peace – often taking pivotal roles. In 1942, no-fuss Queenslander Donald Bennett, for example, founded the Pathfinders squadron, which went ahead and dropped flares over target areas – highly dangerous. A more flamboyant character was fighter ace Clive 'Killer' Caldwell, who downed five Stukas in one operation. This account of their exploits and of others, involving interviews with many of the flyers, goes from the rough and tumble days of WW1 (when the life expectancy of a pilot was five flying hours) to the Korean War. Dramatic times, dramatic tales. When counsellor and educator Lael Stone talks about 'owning' your story, she means facing up to it. For more than 20 years, she has been dealing with individuals and families who are existentially held back because they don't. A painful past leaves psychological 'imprints', which, if not addressed, can result in repeated patterns of behaviour. This, in turn, stops us from moving on and living 'authentic' lives (authenticity being a key term throughout the book). To an extent, it may sound like psychology 101, but when she delves into such notions as 'the dark night of the soul' and the possibility of rebirth that's written into the concept, she does it from a deeply personal point of view (the traumatic birth of her third child), as well as from case studies put together over the years – all of which ground her theory in lived experience. She tends not to quote her sources, but it was difficult not to feel that – with frequent mention of the 'authentic' and 'individuation' – the ghosts of Heidegger and Jung were not far away. A very accessible self-help guide. One of T.S. Eliot's greatest poetic gifts was his sense of the rhythm of language, the child Eliot often making up a line, getting halfway, and finishing with 'dum-ta-dum'. The rhythm told him the sentence was unfinished, and that very rhythm was the key to finding the words. 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Despite its claims to being definitive (Amy Odell interviewed over 200 people from family to colleagues and friends, but never interviewed Paltrow, as much as she tried), this biography, often as not, highlights the problem any biographer has to face - the impossibility of getting inside the head of the subject. Odell takes us back into a childhood (father film producer, mother actress, Stephen Spielberg her godfather) that was almost designed to produce a Hollywood star. She also delves into Goop, her company that markets wellness products, much to the horror of the US medical profession. What comes through is the paradoxical nature of her subject; constantly in the spotlight, but elusive and often retiring. Odell attempts to give us a portrait from all sorts of angles, and not just her good side.
The Age
12 hours ago
- The Age
Searching for something to read? Here are 10 new books
From a celebration of reading, to war heroes and Donald Trump's economic policies in our non-fiction round-up, to a creepy cli-fi thriller and a queer black comedy in fiction releases, this week's reviews have something for almost every reader. Happy reading. FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK A creepy mix of cli-fi disaster fiction and psychological thriller, Emmanuelle Salasc's My Sister arrives in the English-speaking world in a brisk translation from the French by Penny Hueston. It's a tale of twin sisters, Clemence and Lucie, reunited in the remote mountain village of their childhood, about30 years after Clemence left it and her sister behind. What has she been doing all that time? She doesn't have time to reveal all before a siren goes off – a warning that the glacier above the village is in imminent danger of cracking and laying waste to all in its path, as it did 150 years ago. Lucie is desperate to evacuate with the rest of the town, but her sister demurs – claiming she's on the run, among other things, and manipulating Lucie into staying in the shadow of ruin. With panic on one side, and preternatural calm on the other, a game of cat and mouse ensues. Salasc writes with enviable crispness, and she laces the central conflict with an exquisite sense of psychological cruelty and menace and mystery. You'll find yourself wondering which twin to believe as this tale of sibling rivalry and ancient dread unfolds. Monica Raszewski follows her previous novel, The Archaeology of a Dream City (shortlisted for the 2022 NSW Premier's Literary Award for New Writing), with Crimson Light, Polished Wood, a compassionate meditation on legacy and loneliness. Falling in love with schoolteacher Margaret, Leonora emigrated from London to Melbourne. Near the novel's opening, Margaret dies of cancer and Leonora finds herself locked in a potentially acrimonious legal battle with her partner's grieving, but bigoted, mother over the estate. Meanwhile, Leonora has developed a complex bond with Polish neighbour Anna, introducing Anna's daughter Lydia to art and literature in a way that leaves an indelible impression. It is from Lydia's perspective that the novel is largely drawn, and Raszewski captures the intensity and ambiguity of the intergenerational friendship with tension and tenderness. This is a delicately wrought queer novel that stakes out contradictions of inheritance and belonging – their tenuousness, their ferocity – while allowing enough scope for the reader to interpret characters, events and emotions in more than one light. Described as an 'all-round chaos merchant', Nell Jenkins is suddenly compelled to perform acts of filial piety against her nature. She fled her childhood home in Aotearoa New Zealand at the first opportunity as a teen, but now her mother's had a stroke. Her brother nursed their father through cancer, so it's Nell's turn to care for their mother. Her homecoming isn't exactly badly timed – Nell has an ongoing issue with her former boss (who is also, messily, her ex-girlfriend), and a stocktake of her life in Sydney is warranted. Soon, though, Nell's anarchic approach to sexuality re-emerges, and she winds up having sex with people she probably shouldn't – the brother of her dead best friend from childhood, and Katya, beguiling assistant to a washed-up TV psychic, Petronella Bush, into whose orbit Nell is inevitably drawn. Unresolved – and indeed irresolvable – grief does lie behind some of the sexual antics and unfulfilling romantic cul-de-sacs in Dead Ends, deepening the emotional ambit of this queer black comedy from the other side of the ditch. Music, love, literature… and sheer dogged perseverance. They're all you need to sail through a nightmare world, right? I suspect there'll be more than a few readers who baulk at the rose-coloured glasses I Cheerfully Refuse puts on, and I count myself among the chipper refuseniks on that score. Leif Enger has created a jarring picaresque that's hard to get invested in and is ultimately too shallow to succeed as allegory. What starts as a cosy love story set in a lakeside town on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, turns into a bleak and wildering voyage when Rainy, a musician, sets sail upon Lake Superior after his wife Lark is murdered. Lark's passion for reading and literature was intrinsic to their romance and the idealisation of both carries Rainy through, trenchant and largely unchanged by disaster, delivering unlikely blasts of optimism in the face of a grim world. And it is societal collapse-level grim – so grim for many, in fact, that a suicide drug known as 'willow' has become popular. Rainy has the drug aboard, though as he veers from coast to coast on the lake encountering a motley mix of stragglers, strangers and escapees, he stays immune to the disillusionment claiming others. Unfortunately, Rainy never really develops or grows, other characters can feel like mouthpieces, and the episodic plot militates against depth, refusing to coalesce behind anything more defined than vague platitudes of a stoical variety. The Stars Are a Million Glittering Worlds Gina Butson Allen & Unwin, $34.99 Running away from a catastrophe for which she feels responsible, guilt-ridden Thea escapes her life in New Zealand through travel, eventually joining throngs of others in San Pedro, a Guatemalan town that's become a party destination for international backpackers. There, she meets the attractive Chris and his partner Sarah, before another tragedy strikes, building a new layer of guilt and secrecy. The novel wends its way through 15 years. Thea finds a partner with secrets as consuming as hers, and although their relationship becomes gnarled by what they can and can't hide from one another, Thea chooses to abandon a rootless life running from her feelings in favour of a settled one in Tasmania. The truth will have its due, however and, during the pandemic era, amid lockdowns, pressure mounts to reveal dual mysteries from the past. Despite the clanger of a title, The Stars Are a Million Glittering Worlds is rich and deft literary fiction – it's full of vivid, sharply observed travel writing, all nested within a psychologically intricate examination of the effect of guilt on human personalities and relationships. The Economic Consequences of Mr Trump Philip Coggan Profile Books, $17.99 When describing the wrecking ball of Donald Trump, celebrated British economics writer Philip Coggan likens him to a Marvel character looking at the global trading system and shouting 'Hulk, smash!' He might also be an overgrown baby throwing a tantrum and smashing his toys. Except they're not toys. Like the election of Trump himself, his trade wars amount to a mass exercise in self-harm – but it won't be confined to the US. As Coggan points out, clearly, with a mix of the amused and bemused, the tariffs will be paid, not by foreign companies, but American ones, which will pass the cost on in increased prices for domestic goods. Coggan is also deeply aware of the history of such economic folly, likening Trump's tariffs to Churchill's decision in 1925 to move England back on the gold standard – which eventually resulted in the general strike of 1926. Underpinning that move, and MAGA (not to mention Brexit), is an absurd nostalgia for the lost paradise of imperial greatness. On top of this is the sheer uncertainty of world trade now – policies issued one day, being reversed the next. The only certainty is that those who voted for Trump will be the ones hurt most, and the already obscenely rich will get richer through tax cuts for the wealthy. This is brilliant synoptic analysis. Australia's Aviation Heroes Colin Burgess Simon & Schuster, $36.99 In April 1918, Australian reconnaissance pilot Jack Treacy was a pallbearer when the Red Baron (shot down by Australian anti-craft) was buried. As the body was lowered, however, the ground gave way, and he nearly went to the grave with the German ace. It's one of the more comic tales in this record of Australian airmen in war and peace – often taking pivotal roles. In 1942, no-fuss Queenslander Donald Bennett, for example, founded the Pathfinders squadron, which went ahead and dropped flares over target areas – highly dangerous. A more flamboyant character was fighter ace Clive 'Killer' Caldwell, who downed five Stukas in one operation. This account of their exploits and of others, involving interviews with many of the flyers, goes from the rough and tumble days of WW1 (when the life expectancy of a pilot was five flying hours) to the Korean War. Dramatic times, dramatic tales. When counsellor and educator Lael Stone talks about 'owning' your story, she means facing up to it. For more than 20 years, she has been dealing with individuals and families who are existentially held back because they don't. A painful past leaves psychological 'imprints', which, if not addressed, can result in repeated patterns of behaviour. This, in turn, stops us from moving on and living 'authentic' lives (authenticity being a key term throughout the book). To an extent, it may sound like psychology 101, but when she delves into such notions as 'the dark night of the soul' and the possibility of rebirth that's written into the concept, she does it from a deeply personal point of view (the traumatic birth of her third child), as well as from case studies put together over the years – all of which ground her theory in lived experience. She tends not to quote her sources, but it was difficult not to feel that – with frequent mention of the 'authentic' and 'individuation' – the ghosts of Heidegger and Jung were not far away. A very accessible self-help guide. One of T.S. Eliot's greatest poetic gifts was his sense of the rhythm of language, the child Eliot often making up a line, getting halfway, and finishing with 'dum-ta-dum'. The rhythm told him the sentence was unfinished, and that very rhythm was the key to finding the words. Teacher/librarian Megan Daley, in this updated version of her 2019 publication, emphasises the centrality of reading to a child from birth in developing a sense of the 'rhythm of words' and a 'network of language'. She takes us on the journey of becoming a reader from the cot to adolescence, noting the need for young people to enjoy reading, but also the need to develop their skills. She covers the waterfront, such as the benefits of an embracing diet of genres, also saying children shouldn't be protected from darker texts – a female student once asked her where in the library the 'sad' books were. Incorporating the contributions of authors, this is a first-rate guide for parents, teachers and carers. When Gwyneth Paltrow was filming Shakespeare in Love – which, apparently, she initially rejected without having read the brilliant script that gave her an Oscar – she seems to have made herself quite disagreeable. Despite its claims to being definitive (Amy Odell interviewed over 200 people from family to colleagues and friends, but never interviewed Paltrow, as much as she tried), this biography, often as not, highlights the problem any biographer has to face - the impossibility of getting inside the head of the subject. Odell takes us back into a childhood (father film producer, mother actress, Stephen Spielberg her godfather) that was almost designed to produce a Hollywood star. She also delves into Goop, her company that markets wellness products, much to the horror of the US medical profession. What comes through is the paradoxical nature of her subject; constantly in the spotlight, but elusive and often retiring. Odell attempts to give us a portrait from all sorts of angles, and not just her good side.
News.com.au
17 hours ago
- News.com.au
Costeen Hatzi gives ‘behind the scenes' details on relationship with ex, Nick Kyrgios
Costeen Hatzi has opened up on life after love with a global tennis star following her recent split with Aussie champ, Nick Kyrgios. Neither Kyrgios or the popular influencer, 26, have revealed the reason their romance came to an end, but Hatzi has now said she will never bad mouth her former partner, regardless of what has gone on between them. 'Friends and family have given me great advice to just focus on myself and be the classier person when it comes to the break-up,' she told Stellar magazine in her first interview since the split. 'I've really taken that on board, because I don't want to ruin his name. 'Sometimes my emotions get the better of me, but then I remember that it's not in my nature to say anything bad about him. We still had a beautiful relationship, even though things didn't turn out the way [I'd hoped]. I've found peace within myself, and I hope he's happy. I don't wish bad upon him at all.' The pair went public with their relationship in January 2022, after meeting by chance a few months earlier when Hatzi was selling a mirror on Instagram. But in March of this year, rumours began swirling the pair had called time on their relationship, fuelled by a string of cryptic social media posts including one where Hatzi appeared to say that she was 'divorced'. The pair have since completely erased each other from their social media accounts. Hatzi, who was regularly seen courtside supporting her now ex, said the break-up has left her with a lot of time on her hands as she'd previously supported the tennis champ's gruelling sporting schedule. 'I was fully supportive of him. I went to all the tournaments. I was doing everything behind the scenes – his washing, his cooking … everything,' she told the publication. 'And I was happy to do that, because I loved him and we had a great relationship at the time. So I don't regret anything that I've done. 'It's different now. I have all this time for myself. I'm in a really reflective but motivated place. It's definitely been a bit of an adjustment, but I mentally prepared myself for that; it wasn't a shock. This year has been like a transition period.' She added that while there are days where she's 'not 100 per cent happy', she's confident that the split with Kyrgios – who is often labelled the 'bad boy of tennis' due to his controversial on-court behaviour – was the right decision and she's focused on the future. 'Going through a break-up is not going to tear me down or upset me too much. I just need to look forward and throw myself into work, throw myself into fitness and that's what I've been doing, really.' Indeed, a quick scroll of her social media feed shows she's certainly putting the relationship in the past, with snaps showing Hatzi currently travelling through Europe, visiting Spain and Italy. On one bikini photo, fans were quick to pour praise on the influencer, labelling her pink two-piece 'a vibe'. 'It's giving Barbie on holiday,' one commented. 'Forever obsessed with you,' said another. As someone else declared: 'Wow I'm speechless you are 100 per cent the queen.' Meanwhile one cheekily jibed, 'Nick who?'.
