Latest news with #Daryl
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Aussie publican receives death threats after filming controversial act with kangaroo
A tiny Aussie pub has sparked an online uproar after it filmed and shared two videos showing a controversial encounter with a kangaroo. The first is captioned 'This guy wanted to punch on this morning' and shows a large male eastern grey kangaroo at the edge of a creek, appearing scared and shaking its head as a dog barks from behind the camera. In the second video, the animal is compared to Bruce Lee because it uses a paw to deflect a stick thrown in the direction of its head. Since Thursday, the post has attracted close to 500 comments, with some respondents concerned about the presence of the dog, and others outraged by the throwing of the stick. 'The poor roo is terrified,' one person wrote. 'Not remotely funny,' another person added. 'Leave him alone,' someone else said. The Kevington Hotel is located on the banks of the Goulburn River in Victoria's northeast. It's publican Daryl said he just posts "different sh**" that happens in the bush that city-folk would be unlikely to see, and that's why he chose to share the kangaroo video. He told Yahoo News he was surprised by how quickly the situation escalated and that some of the responses have unsettled him. He claims to have received an angry phone call from an anonymous number, along with multiple threats to his life. 'There's been three or four death threats, there have been a couple of threats to burn the pub down with us in it, and there's been one to bash me… It's getting a bit ridiculous when someone threatens to kill your family. I mean, over throwing a stick at a kangaroo,' he said. Publican claims kangaroo video taken out of context While the videos themselves are unsettling to watch, Daryl argues his detractors have taken them out of context. He said he ventured down to the creek after he heard his dog barking and then called it away from the kangaroo. He claims to have had the kangaroo's own welfare in mind when he tried to scare it off from an area close to a campground where families camp with their dogs. He's formed an opinion that large males can become very aggressive when they're living close to human settlements. And he doesn't want a repeat of what occurred at a nearby property last year, when a kangaroo was shot because it was considered a risk to a woman and her dog who lived there. 'What I've done with this kangaroo is, yes, I threw a stick at it. I didn't hit the kangaroo. And the whole reason to do that was to scare it off, back into the bushland, which is behind us, so it can live for the rest of its life. And the job's been done. It hasn't come back,' he said. 'If they become a pest, they always get put down, and I don't want that to happen.' 🐳 Major change seen off Australia's coast linked to 'worrying' event 🌏 Irreplaceable 6.5-hectare forest protected for future generations 🚨 Warning signs placed around Australian shopping centre after mass poisoning Daryl said he's got a soft spot for kangaroos and doesn't even serve their meat at his pub. He claims to have saved at least three joeys from the side of the road after their mothers were hit and killed on roads, and to have euthanised multiple injured kangaroos with broken legs. 'I absolutely love and adore our native wildlife… Anyone who wants to take what I've done out of context is just a complete and utter twat,' he said. Concern viewers could copy publican's behaviour The internet is awash with controversial videos of people encountering Australia's wildlife, and social media companies like Facebook have historically refused to remove them. Daryl said he hates seeing animal cruelty videos, and concedes he was a 'little light on strategy' when he shared his own videos of the kangaroo without context. Alyssa Wormald from the Victorian Kangaroo Alliance, a non-profit that advocates for the animals, said 'the best thing' Daryl could now do is delete the controversial video. She is concerned people watching it could assume throwing a stick at a kangaroo is an 'acceptable interaction' and decide to copy the behaviour. 'Despite his intentions, it is cruel,' she said. Not only was Wormald 'appalled' by the stick throwing, she has concerns about the prolonged stress the kangaroo was under due to the presence of the barking dog. Kangaroos are not known to be aggressive to dogs unless they are feeling cornered and defend themselves. High levels of stress can result in a condition called stress myopathy, which leads to muscle degeneration and a slow death. In her opinion, the better option would have been to control the dog and then walk away 'slowly and calmly'. 'Kangaroos usually bound away from people when they are given plenty of space and an exit route,' she said. 'Even if he did scare the kangaroo into the bush, he will likely come back anyway if that is where the food is.' Wormald and her family share their property with a large old male kangaroo, and she feels 'blessed' to have him there. 'They are such special animals and deserve our respect,' she said. Love Australia's weird and wonderful environment? 🐊🦘😳 Get our new newsletter showcasing the week's best stories.
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Scotsman
6 days ago
- Scotsman
Hanging out with an ex-prisoner, stung by wasps and Matt Damon
'Matt Damon is in Buckie. There's more to it, but I just like that sentence on its own. ' Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... The Scotsman's Rural Affairs correspondent, Katharine Hay, has undertaken an epic walk around Scotland, meeting people, and listening to what really matters in rural communities. You can follow along with her incredible journey 'Hay's Way' by signing up to her free newsletter right here. Here's a taster of what you can expect. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Just before setting off on this walk, I remember sitting in my local pub in Edinburgh, which has since closed, chatting to a civil servant who works for the Scottish Government. I was telling him about what I was about to embark on and he was worried I'd get bored. 'You're going to arrive in these rural villages and there will be tumbleweed blowing across the road', he said to me. The last couple of weeks have, like most weeks on this walk, highlighted how that simply hasn't been the case. NW A conversation over a pint with a former inmate who had stabbed people After leaving Aberlour, where I had arrived on Hay's Way before being interrupted by various events and talks in the Central Belt last month, I popped into the Highlander Inn in Craigellachie for a drink. It's a great pub with plenty of whiskies and lovely staff. It's probably my favourite pub on the Speyside scene. Not long after I sat down, two men walked in talking loudly among themselves. The bar space is narrow, so I moved my rucksack out the way to give them a bit more room to walk in. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'Don't worry, we won't steal it', the shorter, more stocky of the pair said. They both had strong Glaswegian accents and the other man was sunburnt on his face. I assumed they were likely contractors up here on a job. The small number of hotels I've stayed in Scotland in rural areas seem to mostly have contractors in. After they settled at the bar with their drinks, they asked me what I was doing with such a big bag. So, I told them. The shorter of the pair, Daryl, then told me about how he marched across 13 mountains in Scotland in one day. Reacting to the bewildered look on my face, he stressed: 'Aye, seriously, them big hills, what do you call them?' To which I replied: 'Munros?' 'Aye, munros', he said. I've only really heard of someone walking maybe up to ten in one day. But 13? Daryl then told me the day trip was made when he was allowed out for a bit while he was an inmate at a prison in Angus. He said when he was let out for the day, he 'just kept walking.' I told him I was a bit naïve when it came to prison life and didn't realise prisoners could go out for long walks in the countryside when doing their time. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Daryl explained he was in an 'open prison', designed to help prisoners reintegrate into society by allowing them to take part in activities or have a few days out when they had completed a large chunk of their sentence. Naturally, I asked what he had done time for. 'Multiple stabbings,' he said. 'In Glasgow.' Daryl said he also did time in Barlinnie in Glasgow, Scotland's largest prison. 'I've spent about a decade of my life in prison, on and off,' he said. After he'd had a few pints, he got pretty close and started showing me pictures of his two daughters, aged 2 and 5 and whom he clearly adored. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad I asked him if he'd ever tell them what he did. He said yes, but not now while they're still young. 'I don't want to scare them,' he said. I finished my half pint that I'd been nursing through this entire encounter, picked up my bag and waved goodbye to the bar staff and my new acquaintances before heading on my way towards Fochabers, which would be the next obvious town for me to stop off at on the Speyside Way heading north east. I didn't make it very far that day. By the time late afternoon set in, the air around me felt like a pressure cooker and I knew the heavens were going to open. Wide. Reaching Boat o' Brigg, where a railway bridge crosses the Spey, I saw a caravan of tents over a nearby wall. Having not seen any campers in a while, I headed over to say hello. A man was speaking on the phone in a language I couldn't quite make out. It turned out he couldn't speak very good English. A very smiley man in the tent next to him popped his head out shouting 'join us!' He said the landowner had asked if they were going to camp in the area then to stick to this spot. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'Not allowed to camp elsewhere on estate', the man said, mimicking the landowner, but still maintaining a huge smile on his face. I finally found out the group of four friends were from the Czech Republic and walking some of the Speyside Way together, but in the opposite direction to me. We chatted a bit before the rain finally came down after a muggy few days, so it was an early night in the tent. NW Wasps out to get me The next day, the group packed up and set off as I was still making my early morning coffee. Weirdly, within about 20 minutes of the group leaving, another four Czech men turned up, set up their camping chairs and started smoking and making coffee. It must have been their morning break. Just before leaving the camping spot, I went to put my rubbish in a nearby wheelie bin. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad As I lifted the lid, I saw a wasp nest attached to it on the inside. Before I could shut it again a swarm targeted me and I was stung in three places. Limping back to pick up my bag, I warned the four burly men dressed in what looked like some sort of army gear about the wasps and they just returned blank looks. As I walked away, I did wonder if the landlord deliberately left the wasp nest there to scare away dirty campers. Fochabers Fochabers had a nice feel to it. I know it's likely something you would find in most villages or towns, but it was particularly noticeable the number of friendly elderly women out with their friendly dogs. The café where I sat to do some writing for most of the day - Greenacres Coffee Shop - also had a shrine of photos of dogs dedicated to a much-loved pooch. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The local museum is impressive and it's where I learnt about the Women's Land Army Memorial at Clochan, just outside the town. The sculpture pays tribute to all those who served in the Land Army during the world wars. Women as young as 17 signed up for the duration of the wars and took on all forms of farming and food production. As usual, I feel like I am rambling on a bit so I will stop there. I just wanted to make up for not sending a newsletter last week. I paused my route last Friday to travel down to Perth for the annual Scottish Game Fair at Scone Palace. I was asked to give a talk what I've picked up on Hay's Way when it comes to conflict between communities and certain tree planting initiatives going on in rural parts of Scotland. The talk will be available on a podcast I believe. I can follow up with a link when that's ready in my next newsletter in case you wish to listen. Matt Damon If me potentially being on a podcast wasn't enough celebrity news for you then you're in luck. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Matt Damon is in Buckie. There's more to it, but I just like that sentence on its own. The Hollywood star of Good Will Hunting and The Martian is being filmed for Christopher Nolan's adaptation of ancient Greek epic The Odyssey. And they are filming off the coast of Moray. The new film has a serious line up of A-listers, including Anne Hathaway, Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. The historical epic is Nolan's first film since Oppenheimer. Mr Damon has been staying at the Seafield Arms in Cullen where he apparently complimented the cuisine, calling it 'the best in the world.' The best in the world! Go Cullen. And just last week, director Christopher Nolan was spotted watching F1: The Movie at Moray Playhouse in Elgin. I haven't reached Cullen yet but, after speaking to some residents in Buckie, I gather the grand ship being used for the film is sometimes berthed in Buckie harbour. I'll be hanging around this area for a bit so I will be sure to report if I get a glimpse of the star-studded cast in what should now be called 'Moraywood.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Rural affairs news this week In terms of rural affairs news, there's little to share this week due to taking some annual leave but also, not long after the game fair, I had to have some dental surgery, so I have been a bit stationary while healing from that. I am taking the rest of the weekend to fully heal before carrying on the walk from the Buckie area. I bet this glorious sunshine we're experiencing at the moment will turn into heavy rainfall by then. Here are some stories I wrote over the last week: Life on the Spey I wrote a piece about award-winning photographer Ed Smith setting off on a year-long project documenting life on the River Spey. His adventure starts with a 10-day canoe trip down the river that runs through Moray. You can read about the story here. Gaelic Work is to start on a new Gaelic centre on Skye. It is hoped the development will not only help preserve the language but also encourage young people to stay on the island. You can read more about that here. Island for sale One of Scotland's last 'untouched' private islands has gone up for sale. A previous owner of the island reportedly lived in a cave on the islet. You can read more about that here. Ticks
The Age
12-07-2025
- Health
- The Age
Noisy restaurants, muffled voices: How hearing loss creeps up on us
Loud noise travelled everywhere with Daryl Holmes. When he drove by, you could hear his car radio blaring. At dinner, he shouted. At night, his wife couldn't sleep over the roar of the TV in the loungeroom. Any time she spoke to him from just a few feet away, he'd shoot back, 'What did you say?' Fifty years earlier, he'd been driving cranes in the steel industry. Then he'd worked in mines. He'd never worn ear protection, despite the cacophony of clangs, rumblings and the odd explosion that were part of a day's work. So the signs ought to have been obvious. But by the time he was 73, Daryl had gone years without acknowledging his fading hearing. In fact, people take five years, on average, to get a test after the first signs of trouble. 'You muddle along because you don't understand the impact,' he tells us. 'I was walking around in sublime ignorance.' At least one in six Australians has a hearing problem. Most are 70 or older, by which age half of people have hearing difficulties. Restaurants become too loud to hear the soft voices of grandchildren. Conversations become stilted and awkward. Our ears are remarkable organs. Damage to their inner workings can't be reversed. That damage can influence other areas of our health too. 'What we're now seeing over the last 10 to 20 years of research is that hearing loss has got such a strong knock-on effect on so many aspects of wellbeing,' says Barbra Timmer, president of Audiology Australia. So how do we hear? What goes wrong with hearing as we age? And how can we get it back? First, how do we hear? Sound cannot exist in the vacuum of space because it needs a medium such as air to carry the vibrations known as sound waves. But in Earth's atmosphere, particles are always vibrating and making sound, whether humans can hear them or not. Sound is measured in frequency, or hertz, which are the number of vibrations the sound causes in a second. Higher pitches vibrate at a greater frequency than lower pitches: a note from a violin, for example, can soar higher than a cello because the instrument has short, thin strings that vibrate faster. Generally, humans can hear between 20 and 20,000 hertz, but the most sensitive range of our hearing is between 2000 and 5000 hertz (a smoke alarm is 3100 hertz). Many animals have higher upper limits – up to 67,000 hertz for dogs, 79,000 hertz for cats and 150,000 hertz for dolphins. Pigeons, on the other hand, are most sensitive to low frequencies called 'infrasounds' of just 0.5 hertz, which scientists think might help them navigate by detecting, for example, far-away breaking waves in the ocean. Humans' outer ears, called 'the pinna' from the Latin for wings, are skin-covered cartilage structures that work like radar dishes to collect sound vibrations. (We can boost the effect by cupping our hands behind our ears to make the catchment area bigger.) The outer ear funnels sound into a 2.5-centimetre-long canal lined with earwax, a mixture of oil and dead skin cells that help prevent unwanted particles reaching the middle ear. The middle ear's job, says Wayne Wilson, an associate professor of audiology at the University of Queensland, is to resolve a problem: sound waves travelling through air, which is low-density, must also make their way through the much denser fluid in the inner ear (more on that in a moment). 'Each ear has about 12,000 outer hair cells and 3000 inner hair cells ... Those little hair cells become Grand Central Station for hearing.' Wayne Wilson, associate professor of audiology at the University of Queensland So, as sound reaches the middle ear, it shakes the eardrum, a cone-shaped disc about the size of a fingernail, which passes the vibrations along to the three smallest bones in the body – the malleus (hammer), incus (anvil) and stapes (stirrup) – which work as a lever system to amplify the vibrations. The final bone, the stapes, has a footplate that presses against a tiny oval-shaped opening, covered in a thin layer of tissue, that forms a window to the inner ear. The journey from larger eardrum to smaller footplate concentrates the vibrational energy into this tiny area – a bit like delivering a one-finger punch – so that hardly any sound is lost as it enters the fluid of the inner ear. The sound reaches the cochlea (Latin for snail shell), a pea-sized spiral cavity that holds the essentials for converting sounds into signals for the brain. Inside it, fluid waves ripple along a ribbon called the basilar membrane, which has various widths and stiffnesses that vibrate to high, middle or low frequencies – much like an in-built piano keyboard. On top of the membrane is our 'organ of Corti', the sensory core of the cochlea, named after the Italian anatomist Alfonso Corti, who discovered it in 1851. The vibrations from the basilar membrane cause thousands of microscopic hair cells inside the organ to bend. Each ear has about 12,000 outer hair cells, which amplify sound, and 3000 inner hair cells, which release neurotransmitters. As Wilson puts it: 'Those little hair cells become Grand Central Station for hearing.' From there, neurotransmitters excite nerve cells that send signals to the brain that become the sounds we hear. What's presbycusis (or, why can't you hear any more in rowdy restaurants)? Presbycusis – from the Greek for old hearing – is one of the most common forms of hearing loss. It affects about one in three people aged over 60, and more than 80 per cent over 84. 'It's something that starts, unfortunately, from about age 40,' says Audiology Australia's Barbra Timmer. 'It creeps up on us; it's not like one day we wake up and suddenly we've lost a lot of hearing.' 'After too much wear and tear, they're all smashed and bent. Some of them have been ripped out of the cell completely. It looks like a cyclone has gone through.' Wayne Wilson, associate professor of audiology at the University of Queensland Its causes are many: genetic differences that express themselves as we age, wear and tear from exposure to noise, our diet, the use of certain medicines that can damage the hair cells of the inner ear, called 'ototoxic' drugs, which include some antibiotics, diuretics and chemotherapy agents. The result of any or all of these is damage to the hair cells in the cochlea – particularly the outer hairs – so sound is no longer amplified as it was when we were younger. Some fish, reptiles and birds can regenerate hair cells inside the cochlea, but damage is irreversible for humans. What does this degeneration look like? 'Take an electron micrograph of a healthy set of hair cells, and you see these lovely stiff hairs sticking up. Think of several rows of fence posts, all perfectly in position,' says Wayne Wilson. 'Now imagine taking a giant wire brush and scrubbing it over the fence posts. That's what we see in the electron micrograph. After too much wear and tear, they're all smashed and bent. Some of them have been ripped out of the cell completely. They're all skew-whiff, not facing in the right direction. It looks like a cyclone has gone through.' The first sounds to go are high frequencies, hence the difficulty for older people in hearing the higher pitched voices of children. Words with sounds of higher frequencies might become harder to understand, says Timmer. 'So the word 'six' we might hear as 'fix' – both 's' and 'f' are high-pitch consonants, and so we might not be able to pick that up.' Low-frequency background sounds are a particular issue because they mask high frequencies. Restaurants with ambient hubbub or music that are decked out in hard surfaces, for instance, cause noise to ricochet and echo. For audiologists, hearing loss can be either mild (difficulty with soft and distant speech), moderate (can hear almost no speech at a conversational level), severe (can't hear any speech at a normal level) or profound (may only be able to hear very loud sounds). The term 'hard of hearing' generally refers to people with mild to severe hearing loss. Many common ear conditions can affect hearing too: one in 10 adults can develop otosclerosis, which causes bones in the middle ear to become stuck together and unable to pass on sound vibrations. It tends to affect people from their 20s to 40s (and is surgically correctable with a prosthesis). Then there's the ringing that affects 10 to 15 per cent of people, called tinnitus, and diplacusis, which causes pitch to be heard differently in each ear. In early life, genetics lead to about one in every 1000 babies being born in Australia with some hearing loss. Children are also prone to ear infections, in part because the narrow passage that equalises pressure and drains fluid from the middle ear – the Eustachian tube – is still developing. If untreated, repeated infections can cause hearing problems. What's the impact of hearing loss on your health? Daryl Holmes' favourite pastime is to be with his team on the bowling green at a local club in Newcastle. Just a few months ago, before he got help with his hearing, he found his game wasn't as good. 'It was inconsistent. Sometimes I'd play a bowl that I was really proud of but you'd be thinking, with the next two or three, what have I done wrong?' He would arrive home exhausted. 'I'd be sitting on the chair and my wife would say, 'You've got to go have a sleep before dinner.'' Indeed, one consequence of mild hearing loss is fatigue – from straining to listen. Some people get by because they fill in the blanks – like reading a sentence with several letters blurred. But the effort involved often means rerouting cognitive resources that would otherwise be in reserve or used for other tasks, says Barbra Timmer. When people say, 'I seem not to remember the gist of conversations as much' it's a possible sign that the energy spent on remembering is being diverted for hearing. Researchers are looking into a link between hearing loss and dementia. A report by the Lancet Commission on dementia in 2024 found people addressing their hearing loss – among other factors such as hypertension, physical inactivity, diabetes, obesity and depression – had the potential to reduce the risk of dementia by 40 per cent. While there is an association between hearing loss and dementia, it is not a proven cause, says Julia Sarant, leader of the University of Melbourne's Hearing Loss and Cognition Program. 'There are other things at play too,' she tells us. 'An example could be hearing loss causes social isolation for a lot of people, particularly if they don't do anything about it because they lose their ability to communicate, and that causes reduced brain stimulation, and that causes reduced cognitive reserve.' 'I was just beginning to withdraw because I couldn't hear the conversations, I couldn't be part of them. But I refused to allow that to happen.' Surgeon Michael Bruce Vascular surgeon Michael Bruce was in his 50s when he began to have difficulty hearing patients. 'I always had the ability to come up with a quick quip, that was part of who I was, and I found that was all slipping away,' says Michael, now 73. (Asked what type of surgeon he is, he replies, 'a competent one'.) He found work conferences, social gatherings and dinners with friends a challenge. 'I was just beginning to withdraw because I couldn't hear the conversations, I couldn't be part of them,' he says. 'But I refused to allow that to happen.' Hearing loss is associated with many other health risks: there's a 47 per cent greater likelihood of people having depression, according to an Australian review of dozens of studies. Another study concluded that 40- to 69-year-olds with mild hearing loss were three times more likely to fall over in a 12-month period. And studies have found a relationship between cardiovascular health and hearing loss, although again there isn't any known causal link. 'One of the things that we have seen in the past with hearing loss is that it was very much seen to be a sensory impairment; something that was sort of inevitable later on in life,' says Timmer. 'Yes, it is a sensory impairment, but the impact from hearing loss is much bigger than we've known in the past.' What is noise damage, and how do you protect yourself? In the 1960s and '70s, Michael Bruce drummed in a four-piece rock'n'roll band called the Whatchamacallits. His highlight was making it on to television talent show Brian and the Juniors. 'We were pretty ordinary but did all right,' he says. 'I'd certainly do it all again.' Still, Michael would lie in bed after a gig and think, I can still hear the cymbals. 'I can see now that it was damaging my ears,' he tells us. 'And you just don't even think about those things at the time. The damage didn't really declare itself until 30 years later.' For health purposes, noise is measured in decibels and time frames. In Australia, occupational health and safety regulations define a 100 per cent noise dose as being exposed to 85 decibels (dBA) for eight hours – roughly the equivalent of someone speaking in a raised voice. From there, every three additional decibels halves the amount of time someone should be exposed to the noise: 88 dBA, or equivalent to heavy traffic, for four hours; a lawn mower around 91 dBA for two hours. In short, says Wayne Wilson, 'It can be OK to listen to really loud sounds if you listen to them for only a very short period of time every day. It is dangerous to listen to very loud sounds if you are exposed to them continuously for an entire day.' Loading In 2010, SafeWork Australia surveyed 4500 people and found 28 to 32 per cent of the Australian workforce were likely to be exposed to noises higher than 85 dBA, especially in manufacturing and construction, perhaps unsurprisingly. Employers are required to try to eliminate the source of the noise, to use engineering controls, to rotate employees and to provide hearing protection. (Workers exposed to potentially ear-damaging substances such as solvents and heavy metals face additional risks.) Overall, studies have found musicians are 20 to 60 per cent more likely than the general population to have hearing loss. Some of those at highest risk can be pit orchestra musicians (those who play in lowered 'pits' for shows, musicals and ballets) who, without ear protection, can be four times more likely to have damaged hearing than the general population, says Sarah Swann, an audiologist at the University of Melbourne. 'A lot of these instruments – especially brass instruments, but flute or the piccolos in the woodwind instruments as well, and percussion for sure – you can safely be exposed to those for about 15 minutes before you start to be at risk of damage.' 'You go out for that big party on Friday night and you binge on that sound exposure, in one event, you've given yourself an 800 per cent dose.' Wayne Wilson, associate professor of audiology at the University of Queensland And music fans beware, wearing headphones with the volume turned up past halfway for prolonged periods can harm hearing. 'If you love your loud music, you can listen to it – just really control the time you spend listening,' says Wilson. Nightclubs and concerts pose a particular risk. 'We often talk about people who binge listen,' says Wilson. 'Even if you are conscious and you're trying to protect your hearing – you do well during the day, you wear hearing protection at work, and you only listen to your music for a little while – and then you go out for that big party on Friday night and you binge on that sound exposure, in one event, you've given yourself an 800 per cent dose.' Not everyone sees not hearing as a negative, though. Rather than use 'deaf' as a medical term, experts tend to refer to the cultural and linguistic identity of the deaf community: people with a wide range of reasons for hearing loss, including those who can't have their hearing restored or choose not to. In the 2021 census, more than 16,000 Australians said they used Auslan (Australian Sign Language), which uses hand, body and facial expressions to communicate words and phrases. How can hearing be restored? Daryl Holmes didn't expect much to be amiss when he had his hearing checked last year. The test, called an audiogram, typically assesses hearing from 250 hertz of sound to 8000 hertz. 'The reason why we test that range is because that covers the speech range,' says Emma Scanlan, principal audiologist at Hearing Australia. Daryl found himself having to guess many of the words, so an audiologist handed him a pair of hearing aids. 'It truly was transformative. I knew straight away that there was a significant difference,' he says. 'And my son said it within that first week, 'Dad, you're not talking really loud.'' His bowling has even become more consistent – his team, the Cardiff Falcons, recently came third in a state competition, their best result since the 1950s. Loading The battery-powered devices amplify sound to make the vibration the ear receives bigger and to ensure the damaged hair cells in the inner ear register it. People with greater hearing loss might also use a remote microphone that, for example, can be positioned in front of different people at a dinner party. If the inner ear is severely damaged, another option is for surgeons to install a cochlear implant (Professor Graeme Clarke famously developed the multichannel implant in Melbourne). The device, which is also battery-powered, sends electrical impulses into the cochlea to bypass the damage and set off a reaction that stimulates the auditory nerve so the brain can interpret the sound. 'We only offer a cochlear implant if they've got a 75 per cent chance or better of hearing better.' Claire Iseli, Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital Claire Iseli, an otolaryngologist at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital who implants the devices, says they can be life-changing, but only about 10 per cent of people eligible for them get the surgery. 'We've found the biggest barriers are people feeling like they might be too old and just assuming that we wouldn't offer surgery to someone in their 70s or 80s. And actually, that's not true, that's the majority of our patients,' she says. (The surgery can be done under a local anaesthetic if the patient isn't fit enough to undergo a general anaesthetic.) Two years ago, Iseli had a 91-year-old man tell her he wanted the implant so he could date again. 'I put a cochlear implant in and at his first check-up he'd already had three dates. Last time I saw him he was 93. And he's got a partner now.' The surgery comes with some risks, injury to the facial nerve and dizziness among them. It isn't reversible and can result in people losing the last bit of their biological hearing – their hearing comes only via the implant. 'That's where the process is very structured,' says Iseli. 'We only offer a cochlear implant if they've got a 75 per cent chance or better of hearing better.' In 2018, after about 15 years of wearing hearing aids, Michael Bruce was training for a provisional pilot's licence but couldn't hear air-traffic control or the other pilots out of his left ear. 'I really loved the flying. So I went to my audiologist, and I asked if there was anything else that could be done. She said the only thing left to try is a cochlear implant.' Spurred by his desire to be 'an active member of society', he received the implant and kept training for the licence. Then his right ear began to deteriorate. He's hoping his second implant, which he had in December, will mean he can obtain the licence, 'a childhood dream'. Doctors said the fact that Michael had worn the hearing aids had helped him exercise his auditory nerve and stop it from atrophying, making him an ideal candidate for the surgery. While hearing aids can sound disproportionately loud at first, the implants can involve a bigger adjustment – Michael says other people initially sounded like they were talking to him 'from Mars'. 'But, at the three-month mark, with my left, my hearing perception went from about 30 per cent to 92 per cent, and three months on the right side went from 31 to 88 per cent.' Music sounded more organic when he had hearing aids; now it sounds a little tinny. 'Although you miss out on different things, the words are so much clearer now. There were words to songs I always got wrong. It hasn't taken music away from my life or anything. In some small way, it's probably enhanced it.' He still drums at home on an electronic kit that he hears via bluetooth to the implants. 'If you're getting ignored all the time, resentment has got to be there. When I went to get the hearing test, [my wife] said, 'I'm really glad you're going.' ' Daryl Holmes It's not all about technology, though. Back to that restaurant where you're straining to hear. 'What's the best position for me to be sitting in? I want the light to be on other people's faces. And don't be sitting near the kitchen,' says Scanlan of Hearing Australia. Or plan to avoid noisy venues altogether. 'Don't have too high expectations of yourself either. Communication is a two-way thing. If someone wants to speak to you in a challenging environment, if they come right up to face you or bend your way, that's the best chance you've got of being able to take part in the conversation.' If you don't hear what someone says, Scanlan recommends not saying, 'What?' but repeating back the parts of the conversation you did hear. 'And what you're doing in that situation, as a person with hearing loss, is saying, 'I'm paying attention, but I'm just struggling.' I have seen that make a really big difference to people's relationships.' Daryl Holmes agrees hearing loss caused friction with his wife: 'If you're getting ignored all the time, resentment has got to be there,' he says. 'When I went to get the hearing test, she said, 'I'm really glad you're going.'' In March, Daryl visited the Sydney Opera House as part of a group of people with hearing loss. They trialled new technology – used for the first time globally in a cultural institution – that broadcasts live performances from the stage via Bluetooth technology to people wearing compatible hearing aids. On stage were a string ensemble and a singer. 'It was like the music of the violins was floating across the floor,' Daryl says. 'I closed my eyes, and I was actually in tears because I felt it's the clearest thing I have ever heard.'
Sydney Morning Herald
12-07-2025
- Health
- Sydney Morning Herald
Noisy restaurants, muffled voices: How hearing loss creeps up on us
Loud noise travelled everywhere with Daryl Holmes. When he drove by, you could hear his car radio blaring. At dinner, he shouted. At night, his wife couldn't sleep over the roar of the TV in the loungeroom. Any time she spoke to him from just a few feet away, he'd shoot back, 'What did you say?' Fifty years earlier, he'd been driving cranes in the steel industry. Then he'd worked in mines. He'd never worn ear protection, despite the cacophony of clangs, rumblings and the odd explosion that were part of a day's work. So the signs ought to have been obvious. But by the time he was 73, Daryl had gone years without acknowledging his fading hearing. In fact, people take five years, on average, to get a test after the first signs of trouble. 'You muddle along because you don't understand the impact,' he tells us. 'I was walking around in sublime ignorance.' At least one in six Australians has a hearing problem. Most are 70 or older, by which age half of people have hearing difficulties. Restaurants become too loud to hear the soft voices of grandchildren. Conversations become stilted and awkward. Our ears are remarkable organs. Damage to their inner workings can't be reversed. That damage can influence other areas of our health too. 'What we're now seeing over the last 10 to 20 years of research is that hearing loss has got such a strong knock-on effect on so many aspects of wellbeing,' says Barbra Timmer, president of Audiology Australia. So how do we hear? What goes wrong with hearing as we age? And how can we get it back? First, how do we hear? Sound cannot exist in the vacuum of space because it needs a medium such as air to carry the vibrations known as sound waves. But in Earth's atmosphere, particles are always vibrating and making sound, whether humans can hear them or not. Sound is measured in frequency, or hertz, which are the number of vibrations the sound causes in a second. Higher pitches vibrate at a greater frequency than lower pitches: a note from a violin, for example, can soar higher than a cello because the instrument has short, thin strings that vibrate faster. Generally, humans can hear between 20 and 20,000 hertz, but the most sensitive range of our hearing is between 2000 and 5000 hertz (a smoke alarm is 3100 hertz). Many animals have higher upper limits – up to 67,000 hertz for dogs, 79,000 hertz for cats and 150,000 hertz for dolphins. Pigeons, on the other hand, are most sensitive to low frequencies called 'infrasounds' of just 0.5 hertz, which scientists think might help them navigate by detecting, for example, far-away breaking waves in the ocean. Humans' outer ears, called 'the pinna' from the Latin for wings, are skin-covered cartilage structures that work like radar dishes to collect sound vibrations. (We can boost the effect by cupping our hands behind our ears to make the catchment area bigger.) The outer ear funnels sound into a 2.5-centimetre-long canal lined with earwax, a mixture of oil and dead skin cells that help prevent unwanted particles reaching the middle ear. The middle ear's job, says Wayne Wilson, an associate professor of audiology at the University of Queensland, is to resolve a problem: sound waves travelling through air, which is low-density, must also make their way through the much denser fluid in the inner ear (more on that in a moment). 'Each ear has about 12,000 outer hair cells and 3000 inner hair cells ... Those little hair cells become Grand Central Station for hearing.' Wayne Wilson, associate professor of audiology at the University of Queensland So, as sound reaches the middle ear, it shakes the eardrum, a cone-shaped disc about the size of a fingernail, which passes the vibrations along to the three smallest bones in the body – the malleus (hammer), incus (anvil) and stapes (stirrup) – which work as a lever system to amplify the vibrations. The final bone, the stapes, has a footplate that presses against a tiny oval-shaped opening, covered in a thin layer of tissue, that forms a window to the inner ear. The journey from larger eardrum to smaller footplate concentrates the vibrational energy into this tiny area – a bit like delivering a one-finger punch – so that hardly any sound is lost as it enters the fluid of the inner ear. The sound reaches the cochlea (Latin for snail shell), a pea-sized spiral cavity that holds the essentials for converting sounds into signals for the brain. Inside it, fluid waves ripple along a ribbon called the basilar membrane, which has various widths and stiffnesses that vibrate to high, middle or low frequencies – much like an in-built piano keyboard. On top of the membrane is our 'organ of Corti', the sensory core of the cochlea, named after the Italian anatomist Alfonso Corti, who discovered it in 1851. The vibrations from the basilar membrane cause thousands of microscopic hair cells inside the organ to bend. Each ear has about 12,000 outer hair cells, which amplify sound, and 3000 inner hair cells, which release neurotransmitters. As Wilson puts it: 'Those little hair cells become Grand Central Station for hearing.' From there, neurotransmitters excite nerve cells that send signals to the brain that become the sounds we hear. What's presbycusis (or, why can't you hear any more in rowdy restaurants)? Presbycusis – from the Greek for old hearing – is one of the most common forms of hearing loss. It affects about one in three people aged over 60, and more than 80 per cent over 84. 'It's something that starts, unfortunately, from about age 40,' says Audiology Australia's Barbra Timmer. 'It creeps up on us; it's not like one day we wake up and suddenly we've lost a lot of hearing.' 'After too much wear and tear, they're all smashed and bent. Some of them have been ripped out of the cell completely. It looks like a cyclone has gone through.' Wayne Wilson, associate professor of audiology at the University of Queensland Its causes are many: genetic differences that express themselves as we age, wear and tear from exposure to noise, our diet, the use of certain medicines that can damage the hair cells of the inner ear, called 'ototoxic' drugs, which include some antibiotics, diuretics and chemotherapy agents. The result of any or all of these is damage to the hair cells in the cochlea – particularly the outer hairs – so sound is no longer amplified as it was when we were younger. Some fish, reptiles and birds can regenerate hair cells inside the cochlea, but damage is irreversible for humans. What does this degeneration look like? 'Take an electron micrograph of a healthy set of hair cells, and you see these lovely stiff hairs sticking up. Think of several rows of fence posts, all perfectly in position,' says Wayne Wilson. 'Now imagine taking a giant wire brush and scrubbing it over the fence posts. That's what we see in the electron micrograph. After too much wear and tear, they're all smashed and bent. Some of them have been ripped out of the cell completely. They're all skew-whiff, not facing in the right direction. It looks like a cyclone has gone through.' The first sounds to go are high frequencies, hence the difficulty for older people in hearing the higher pitched voices of children. Words with sounds of higher frequencies might become harder to understand, says Timmer. 'So the word 'six' we might hear as 'fix' – both 's' and 'f' are high-pitch consonants, and so we might not be able to pick that up.' Low-frequency background sounds are a particular issue because they mask high frequencies. Restaurants with ambient hubbub or music that are decked out in hard surfaces, for instance, cause noise to ricochet and echo. For audiologists, hearing loss can be either mild (difficulty with soft and distant speech), moderate (can hear almost no speech at a conversational level), severe (can't hear any speech at a normal level) or profound (may only be able to hear very loud sounds). The term 'hard of hearing' generally refers to people with mild to severe hearing loss. Many common ear conditions can affect hearing too: one in 10 adults can develop otosclerosis, which causes bones in the middle ear to become stuck together and unable to pass on sound vibrations. It tends to affect people from their 20s to 40s (and is surgically correctable with a prosthesis). Then there's the ringing that affects 10 to 15 per cent of people, called tinnitus, and diplacusis, which causes pitch to be heard differently in each ear. In early life, genetics lead to about one in every 1000 babies being born in Australia with some hearing loss. Children are also prone to ear infections, in part because the narrow passage that equalises pressure and drains fluid from the middle ear – the Eustachian tube – is still developing. If untreated, repeated infections can cause hearing problems. What's the impact of hearing loss on your health? Daryl Holmes' favourite pastime is to be with his team on the bowling green at a local club in Newcastle. Just a few months ago, before he got help with his hearing, he found his game wasn't as good. 'It was inconsistent. Sometimes I'd play a bowl that I was really proud of but you'd be thinking, with the next two or three, what have I done wrong?' He would arrive home exhausted. 'I'd be sitting on the chair and my wife would say, 'You've got to go have a sleep before dinner.'' Indeed, one consequence of mild hearing loss is fatigue – from straining to listen. Some people get by because they fill in the blanks – like reading a sentence with several letters blurred. But the effort involved often means rerouting cognitive resources that would otherwise be in reserve or used for other tasks, says Barbra Timmer. When people say, 'I seem not to remember the gist of conversations as much' it's a possible sign that the energy spent on remembering is being diverted for hearing. Researchers are looking into a link between hearing loss and dementia. A report by the Lancet Commission on dementia in 2024 found people addressing their hearing loss – among other factors such as hypertension, physical inactivity, diabetes, obesity and depression – had the potential to reduce the risk of dementia by 40 per cent. While there is an association between hearing loss and dementia, it is not a proven cause, says Julia Sarant, leader of the University of Melbourne's Hearing Loss and Cognition Program. 'There are other things at play too,' she tells us. 'An example could be hearing loss causes social isolation for a lot of people, particularly if they don't do anything about it because they lose their ability to communicate, and that causes reduced brain stimulation, and that causes reduced cognitive reserve.' 'I was just beginning to withdraw because I couldn't hear the conversations, I couldn't be part of them. But I refused to allow that to happen.' Surgeon Michael Bruce Vascular surgeon Michael Bruce was in his 50s when he began to have difficulty hearing patients. 'I always had the ability to come up with a quick quip, that was part of who I was, and I found that was all slipping away,' says Michael, now 73. (Asked what type of surgeon he is, he replies, 'a competent one'.) He found work conferences, social gatherings and dinners with friends a challenge. 'I was just beginning to withdraw because I couldn't hear the conversations, I couldn't be part of them,' he says. 'But I refused to allow that to happen.' Hearing loss is associated with many other health risks: there's a 47 per cent greater likelihood of people having depression, according to an Australian review of dozens of studies. Another study concluded that 40- to 69-year-olds with mild hearing loss were three times more likely to fall over in a 12-month period. And studies have found a relationship between cardiovascular health and hearing loss, although again there isn't any known causal link. 'One of the things that we have seen in the past with hearing loss is that it was very much seen to be a sensory impairment; something that was sort of inevitable later on in life,' says Timmer. 'Yes, it is a sensory impairment, but the impact from hearing loss is much bigger than we've known in the past.' What is noise damage, and how do you protect yourself? In the 1960s and '70s, Michael Bruce drummed in a four-piece rock'n'roll band called the Whatchamacallits. His highlight was making it on to television talent show Brian and the Juniors. 'We were pretty ordinary but did all right,' he says. 'I'd certainly do it all again.' Still, Michael would lie in bed after a gig and think, I can still hear the cymbals. 'I can see now that it was damaging my ears,' he tells us. 'And you just don't even think about those things at the time. The damage didn't really declare itself until 30 years later.' For health purposes, noise is measured in decibels and time frames. In Australia, occupational health and safety regulations define a 100 per cent noise dose as being exposed to 85 decibels (dBA) for eight hours – roughly the equivalent of someone speaking in a raised voice. From there, every three additional decibels halves the amount of time someone should be exposed to the noise: 88 dBA, or equivalent to heavy traffic, for four hours; a lawn mower around 91 dBA for two hours. In short, says Wayne Wilson, 'It can be OK to listen to really loud sounds if you listen to them for only a very short period of time every day. It is dangerous to listen to very loud sounds if you are exposed to them continuously for an entire day.' Loading In 2010, SafeWork Australia surveyed 4500 people and found 28 to 32 per cent of the Australian workforce were likely to be exposed to noises higher than 85 dBA, especially in manufacturing and construction, perhaps unsurprisingly. Employers are required to try to eliminate the source of the noise, to use engineering controls, to rotate employees and to provide hearing protection. (Workers exposed to potentially ear-damaging substances such as solvents and heavy metals face additional risks.) Overall, studies have found musicians are 20 to 60 per cent more likely than the general population to have hearing loss. Some of those at highest risk can be pit orchestra musicians (those who play in lowered 'pits' for shows, musicals and ballets) who, without ear protection, can be four times more likely to have damaged hearing than the general population, says Sarah Swann, an audiologist at the University of Melbourne. 'A lot of these instruments – especially brass instruments, but flute or the piccolos in the woodwind instruments as well, and percussion for sure – you can safely be exposed to those for about 15 minutes before you start to be at risk of damage.' 'You go out for that big party on Friday night and you binge on that sound exposure, in one event, you've given yourself an 800 per cent dose.' Wayne Wilson, associate professor of audiology at the University of Queensland And music fans beware, wearing headphones with the volume turned up past halfway for prolonged periods can harm hearing. 'If you love your loud music, you can listen to it – just really control the time you spend listening,' says Wilson. Nightclubs and concerts pose a particular risk. 'We often talk about people who binge listen,' says Wilson. 'Even if you are conscious and you're trying to protect your hearing – you do well during the day, you wear hearing protection at work, and you only listen to your music for a little while – and then you go out for that big party on Friday night and you binge on that sound exposure, in one event, you've given yourself an 800 per cent dose.' Not everyone sees not hearing as a negative, though. Rather than use 'deaf' as a medical term, experts tend to refer to the cultural and linguistic identity of the deaf community: people with a wide range of reasons for hearing loss, including those who can't have their hearing restored or choose not to. In the 2021 census, more than 16,000 Australians said they used Auslan (Australian Sign Language), which uses hand, body and facial expressions to communicate words and phrases. How can hearing be restored? Daryl Holmes didn't expect much to be amiss when he had his hearing checked last year. The test, called an audiogram, typically assesses hearing from 250 hertz of sound to 8000 hertz. 'The reason why we test that range is because that covers the speech range,' says Emma Scanlan, principal audiologist at Hearing Australia. Daryl found himself having to guess many of the words, so an audiologist handed him a pair of hearing aids. 'It truly was transformative. I knew straight away that there was a significant difference,' he says. 'And my son said it within that first week, 'Dad, you're not talking really loud.'' His bowling has even become more consistent – his team, the Cardiff Falcons, recently came third in a state competition, their best result since the 1950s. Loading The battery-powered devices amplify sound to make the vibration the ear receives bigger and to ensure the damaged hair cells in the inner ear register it. People with greater hearing loss might also use a remote microphone that, for example, can be positioned in front of different people at a dinner party. If the inner ear is severely damaged, another option is for surgeons to install a cochlear implant (Professor Graeme Clarke famously developed the multichannel implant in Melbourne). The device, which is also battery-powered, sends electrical impulses into the cochlea to bypass the damage and set off a reaction that stimulates the auditory nerve so the brain can interpret the sound. 'We only offer a cochlear implant if they've got a 75 per cent chance or better of hearing better.' Claire Iseli, Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital Claire Iseli, an otolaryngologist at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital who implants the devices, says they can be life-changing, but only about 10 per cent of people eligible for them get the surgery. 'We've found the biggest barriers are people feeling like they might be too old and just assuming that we wouldn't offer surgery to someone in their 70s or 80s. And actually, that's not true, that's the majority of our patients,' she says. (The surgery can be done under a local anaesthetic if the patient isn't fit enough to undergo a general anaesthetic.) Two years ago, Iseli had a 91-year-old man tell her he wanted the implant so he could date again. 'I put a cochlear implant in and at his first check-up he'd already had three dates. Last time I saw him he was 93. And he's got a partner now.' The surgery comes with some risks, injury to the facial nerve and dizziness among them. It isn't reversible and can result in people losing the last bit of their biological hearing – their hearing comes only via the implant. 'That's where the process is very structured,' says Iseli. 'We only offer a cochlear implant if they've got a 75 per cent chance or better of hearing better.' In 2018, after about 15 years of wearing hearing aids, Michael Bruce was training for a provisional pilot's licence but couldn't hear air-traffic control or the other pilots out of his left ear. 'I really loved the flying. So I went to my audiologist, and I asked if there was anything else that could be done. She said the only thing left to try is a cochlear implant.' Spurred by his desire to be 'an active member of society', he received the implant and kept training for the licence. Then his right ear began to deteriorate. He's hoping his second implant, which he had in December, will mean he can obtain the licence, 'a childhood dream'. Doctors said the fact that Michael had worn the hearing aids had helped him exercise his auditory nerve and stop it from atrophying, making him an ideal candidate for the surgery. While hearing aids can sound disproportionately loud at first, the implants can involve a bigger adjustment – Michael says other people initially sounded like they were talking to him 'from Mars'. 'But, at the three-month mark, with my left, my hearing perception went from about 30 per cent to 92 per cent, and three months on the right side went from 31 to 88 per cent.' Music sounded more organic when he had hearing aids; now it sounds a little tinny. 'Although you miss out on different things, the words are so much clearer now. There were words to songs I always got wrong. It hasn't taken music away from my life or anything. In some small way, it's probably enhanced it.' He still drums at home on an electronic kit that he hears via bluetooth to the implants. 'If you're getting ignored all the time, resentment has got to be there. When I went to get the hearing test, [my wife] said, 'I'm really glad you're going.' ' Daryl Holmes It's not all about technology, though. Back to that restaurant where you're straining to hear. 'What's the best position for me to be sitting in? I want the light to be on other people's faces. And don't be sitting near the kitchen,' says Scanlan of Hearing Australia. Or plan to avoid noisy venues altogether. 'Don't have too high expectations of yourself either. Communication is a two-way thing. If someone wants to speak to you in a challenging environment, if they come right up to face you or bend your way, that's the best chance you've got of being able to take part in the conversation.' If you don't hear what someone says, Scanlan recommends not saying, 'What?' but repeating back the parts of the conversation you did hear. 'And what you're doing in that situation, as a person with hearing loss, is saying, 'I'm paying attention, but I'm just struggling.' I have seen that make a really big difference to people's relationships.' Daryl Holmes agrees hearing loss caused friction with his wife: 'If you're getting ignored all the time, resentment has got to be there,' he says. 'When I went to get the hearing test, she said, 'I'm really glad you're going.'' In March, Daryl visited the Sydney Opera House as part of a group of people with hearing loss. They trialled new technology – used for the first time globally in a cultural institution – that broadcasts live performances from the stage via Bluetooth technology to people wearing compatible hearing aids. On stage were a string ensemble and a singer. 'It was like the music of the violins was floating across the floor,' Daryl says. 'I closed my eyes, and I was actually in tears because I felt it's the clearest thing I have ever heard.'
Daily Record
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Record
All fans need to know as The Walking Dead's 'best spin-off' returns with new season
All episodes are now streaming The new season of what some enthusiasts deem the 'best Walking Dead spin-off' is now available for streaming. From today (July 10), fans can indulge in a binge-watch session of all episodes from Dead City's second season. All that's required is access to Sky Max or an entertainment pass on the NOW streaming platform. UK fans have had to exercise patience, waiting significantly longer than their US counterparts for its release. However, the wait has been rewarded with the simultaneous release of all eight episodes. Here's everything you need to know about The Walking Dead: Dead City season two, including plot, cast and reviews thus far. What is the second season of The Walking Dead: Dead City all about? The series continues the narrative of two of the most beloved characters from the original Walking Dead series - Maggie and Negan. Audiences are accustomed to seeing them at odds, but the first season saw them journeying together into a post-apocalyptic Manhattan isolated from the mainland, reports the Mirror. Their mission was to rescue Maggie's kidnapped son, Hershel. The decaying city is teeming with the dead and inhabitants who have transformed New York City into their own chaotic, dangerous, beautiful, and terrifying world. Season two resumes a year after Maggie infiltrated New York to save her son. Her group, The Brocks, have been compelled to join the New Babylon Federation while Maggie has been attempting to move forward with her life alongside her teenage son Hershel and Ginny. However, the new regime is keen to draft the locals for a daring operation to seize control of the metropolis. In the midst of this, Negan strives to unite the factions that reign over Manhattan, fully aware that an offensive on the city looms. Who is in the cast for The Walking Dead: Dead City's season two? What do the reviews for Walking Dead Dead City season two say? Following the finale of season two airing stateside, comprehensive reviews have started cropping up across the web. The inaugural season was met with quite the acclaim from viewers, with one enthusiast proclaiming: "It's definitely the best of the three spin off shows. I had low expectations going into this as the Daryl spin off was a big disappointment. But I was pleasantly surprised by how good this was and really enjoyed it." Regrettably, the sophomore season hasn't enchanted critics to the same degree. Its Rotten Tomatoes score sits at a lukewarm 63%, a significant drop from the first season's robust 80%. Nonetheless, a critic opined that the show's leads did enough to warrant viewing. Their words: "Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohen make the writer's job easy as they consistently deliver within Negan and Maggie, making Season 2 well worthy of a watch." Another noted: "The Walking Dead: Dead City goes weirder in season 2, with more eccentric groups, all the while continuing its introspective look at Maggie and Negan." What have the star of Waling Dead Dead City said? Lauren Cohan has not only returned to the role of Maggie, a part she's embodied since 2011, but in a thrilling turn of events for the show's second season, the star has also directed an episode of Dead City. Discussing her new undertaking, Lauren expressed: "Being able to direct on a creative level is so satisfying because you collaborate with everyone and you get to you get to go into their world. You go into the production designers' world you go into the costume designers' world." She went on to explain: "I felt like the responsibility to the fans is baked in because we know it, we love it. We just don't want to get in the way of the thing we love. And the responsibility to my co-stars, working with the actors is the best part of the whole thing because we speak the language."
