X-Nico

91 unusual facts about Sydney


1810 in Australia

6 October - A town plan of Sydney was published, on which the streets were given new and permanent names, including Market, George, Park and Barrack Streets.

1831 in Australia

18 April - The Sydney daily newspaper and Australia's oldest newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald is first published.

1916 in Australia

They raided hotels in Liverpool before travelling by train to Sydney, where one soldier was shot dead in a riot at Central Railway station.

A. T. Anderson

He retired from the military in 1924 and settled in Sydney.

Aaron Buzacott

He was buried in the Congregational burying-ground in Devonshire Street, Sydney, now the location of the Central Railway Station.

Abraham Rabinovitch

Abraham Isaac Rabinovitch (1889-1964) was an Australian-Russian property developer and well-respected pioneer of the Sydney Modern Orthodox Jewish community; in particular as a founder and philanthropist of Sydney's full-time Jewish educational institutions.

Alan Dargin

He performed on the streets of Sydney, through to performances in front of François Mitterrand and with many symphonies around the world, including the Vienna Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra at Royal Albert Hall, as well as many other locations in the United States, Japan, and Europe.

Arden Anglican School

The pre-school and primary School are situated in a bushland setting in Beecroft near Beecroft railway station on Wongala Crescent, while the secondary school is located 200 m from Epping railway station, in the suburb of Epping.

Ardijah

In 1990, Betty-Anne (Lead singer) and Ryan Monga (Producer, Musical Director & Bass) along with the Band moved to Sydney, taking their sound throughout the pubs and clubs of Australia.

Ari Ben-Menashe

Ben-Menashe moved to Sydney, Australia in 1992, then to Montreal, Canada, where he married a Canadian woman and became a citizen.

Australian Federation Flag

It is still used in Sydney Central Railway Station main hall.

Banksia nutans

Readily grown in areas with Mediterranean climates, its sensitivity to dieback makes it short-lived in climates of summer humidity such as Sydney.

Bellevue, Glebe

It is owned by the City of Sydney Council and listed by the Heritage Council of New South Wales as a property of historical significance.

Bethlehem College, Ashfield

Students are easily identifiable by the amethyst and navy school uniform - fondly known around the inner western suburbs of Sydney as "Ribena Berries".

Bethlehem's greatest rival was St. Mary's Cathedral who Bethlehem felt had an unwarranted advantage in that the Carnival marching band was from the Cathedral boys school which often played for St. Mary's.

Bill Lickiss

He was born in Sydney to William George Lickiss and Lillian Rita, née Green.

Blanche Cave

The location has been the site for a number of events, such as, in the early days, annual New Years parties and, much more recently, it was featured as part of the Olympic torch relay for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

Canberra railway station

NSW TrainLink Southern - terminating services; returning as country services to Sydney Central

Canterbury Park Racecourse

It is located 11 km (7 mi) from the Sydney Central Business District, in King Street in the suburb of Canterbury, adjacent to Canterbury railway station.

CASsat

In 2006, it was being jointly conducted by the University of Sydney's Australian Centre for Field Robotics, the University of Technology, Sydney's Mechatronics and Intelligent Systems Group, and the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Systems.

Catholic Church and HIV/AIDS

Soon after, the Sisters of Charity began to admit patients suffering from the mysterious new disease at St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, in Sydney's inner city, which became a world leader in HIV research.

Clive Steele

Setting up private practice in 1924 as a consulting engineer, he designed and supervised structural works including the State Savings Bank of Victoria building in Melbourne, the members' stand at Flemington Racecourse, the National Mutual Life Association of Australasia Ltd building in Brisbane, Her Majesty's Theatre, Sydney and the Melbourne Town Hall.

Coenraad Frederik Strydom

Strydom took part in the first two Tests of the tour, a pair of victories over Australia in Sydney and Brisbane.

Dennis Kuchar

Kuchar is associated with St Vincent's Hospital, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute and St Vincent's Heart, specializing in cardiac arrhythmias, catheter ablation, pacemakers and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators.

Display case

On occasion, display cases are built into the floor, such as in the Museum of Sydney (in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia), where the remains of drains and privies are shown in their original context, along with other archeological artifacts.

Dupleix

a steamship built at La Ciotat in 1862, which between 1883 and 1888 operated between Sydney and Noumea, was sold, refurbished and subsequently operated between Australia and New Zealand.

Eden George

He returned to Sydney in 1895, where he set up a photography business named 'Eden Photo Studios' at 727 George Street, opposite Central railway station.

Ethel Anderson

She was asked by the rector of St James' Church, Sydney to help decorate the Children's Chapel and designed a mural scheme for it which was executed by the group in 1929.

Express bus service

For example in Sydney, the letters L (as in L90), E (as in E70) and X (as in 610X or X84).

Festa del Santissimo Salvatore a Pazzano

Pazzano-Australian emigrates in Sydney (Australia) in Narrawena suburb celebrate Santo Salvatore's fiest with a similar statue of the St John the apostole parish.

George Goyder

In 1848, at the age of 22, Goyder followed his sister and brother-in-law, George Galbraith McLachlan, to Sydney, New South Wales.

Helen Zerefos

Zerefos is also a tireless charity worker for the Ageing Research Centre at Sydney’s Prince of Wales Hospital.

Heritage College Cooranbong

Heritage College Cooranbong is one of four Christadelphian Heritage Colleges in Australia; the other three are located in Perth, Adelaide and Sydney.

Hillsong Church Kiev

Hillsong Church Kiev (formerly Kiev Christian Life Centre) is the Kiev-based offshoot of Hillsong Church in Sydney, Australia.

Hugh Buggy

Buggy was much travelled during his journalism career, working for several Sydney and Melbourne based newspapers.

International Terminal railway station

International railway station, Sydney, Australia (Also known as International Terminal)

John Allworth Clark

John Allworth Clark died on Tuesday 14 June 1932 at his home, 233 Stanmore Road, Stanmore, Sydney, New South Wales.

John Busby

In June 1825 Busby made an interesting report on the state of the water-supply of Sydney, and suggested that a supply could be drawn from "the large lagoon in the vicinity of the paper mill" to a reservoir in Hyde Park from which it would be distributed throughout the city by pipes.

Johno Johnson

He served as director of the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney and was chair of the Catholic Newspaper Company, publishers of the Catholic Weekly.

Joseph Coles Kirby

Joseph Coles Kirby (1837-1924) was an English flour miller who migrated to Sydney, Australia in 1854.

While still the minister of the Port Adelaide church, Kirby became secretary of the Social Purity Society in 1882 and spent time in Melbourne and Sydney advocating temperance and women's suffrage.

KIIS

KIIS 106.5, a contemporary Australian radio station that broadcasts to the Greater Sydney area

Leaf green tree frog

The leaf green tree frog (Litoria phyllochroa) is a species of stream-dwelling frog, native to eastern Australia from the Queensland/New South Wales border south to Sydney.

Leonard Chamberlain

After spending 1913 in England, Chamberlain returned for one final season in 1914 before again leaving the state, this time to Sydney.

Litoria chloris

Litoria chloris, also commonly known as the red-eyed tree frog or orange-eyed tree frog, is a species of tree frog native to eastern Australia; ranging from north of Sydney to Proserpine in mid-northern Queensland.

Macquarie Street, Sydney

The southern end of Macquarie Street is located at the northern end of Hyde Park, where it meats St James' Road and Prince Alfred Road at Queen's Square, Sydney, to which Phillip Street and King Street also join.

Margaret Flockton

Her first regular employment extending over 7 years, was as commercial artist for the Sydney firms of Gibbs, Shallard & Co.

Marist Sisters' College, Woolwich

Marist Sisters' College, Woolwich is a systemic Roman Catholic secondary school for girls', located in Woolwich, a Lower North Shore suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

Metrosideros excelsa

The pōhutukawa has been introduced to other countries with mild-to-warm climates, including south-eastern Australia, where it is naturalising on coastal cliffs near Sydney.

Michael Bialoguski

In 1941 he travelled across the Soviet Union by train to Vladivostok, on to Japan, departing ostensibly for Curaçao (then part of the Netherlands Antilles in the Caribbean) but using forged papers to come instead to Sydney, Australia, where he worked as a violinist and music arranger.

Michael Hissey

Michael Hissey is an Australian musician, teacher and conductor who has for ten years been the Musical Director of St Mary's Singers at St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney.

Mosman Preparatory School

Mosman Church of England Preparatory School is an all-boys school in Mosman, a suburb of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia.

Nino, Princess of Mingrelia

Princess Nino's only surviving portrait, produced by an unknown artist during her St. Petersburg years, was purchased in 2010 by the Australian entrepreneur Victor Greenwich Dadianov, a scion of the Dadiani dynasty and Honorary Consul-General of Georgia in Sydney, at one of the auctions of Europe, and was presented by him to the Dadiani Palaces Museum in Zugdidi, Georgia.

Nova Scotia peninsula

When included with the Sydney and Inverness coal fields on Cape Breton Island, these regions were extremely prominent in the industrial and social development of Nova Scotia.

Own This Club

It was directed by Silo Collective in Sydney and shows scenes with Marvin walking through Kings Cross station and Green Square while the ACE dance group are dancing behind him.

Pineapple Poll

Mackerras knew the Savoy Operas well, as he had played oboe in a pit orchestra in Sydney, where all of the extant Gilbert and Sullivan operas were played except for Utopia Limited and The Grand Duke, and those operas are not represented in Pineapple Poll.

Rhacophorus vampyrus

The first specimen was discovered in 2008 by Jodi Rowley of the Australian Museum at Sydney, Australia, and her student Le Thi Thuy Duong from Ho Chi Minh City University of Science.

Rivalries in the National Rugby League

The two clubs neighbour each other in the inner suburbs of Sydney and over the years have often been in bitter dispute over numerous issues.

Roy Courlander

He ended up in a small industrial town of Lethbridge Park, two hours' drive from Sydney, which at the time was home to many serving and former soldiers.

SCENE Music Festival

The festival features mostly alternative music and has hosted such groups such as Sydney, Alexisonfire, A Northern Chorus, Billy Talent, Boys Night Out, Cauterize, City and Colour, Ligeia, Crush Luther, Del tha Funkee Homosapien, Johnny Truant, Lights, Magneta Lane, Raising the Fawn, The Trews, and The Black Lungs.

Self-immolation

Self-immolation "setting oneself on fire, especially as a form of protest" was first recorded in Lady Morgan's (1817) France.

Sémillon

Sémillon is widely grown in Australia, particularly in the Hunter Valley north of Sydney, where for a long time it was known as "Hunter River Riesling".

Shawn Atleo

He holds a Master of Education in Adult Learning and Global Change (MEd) from the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia.

Shezada Hyder Ali

Now most of the descendant family members of Tippu Sultan and Abdul Kareem are in Calcutta, some descendants are in the state of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh (Vijayawada) and some in the USA, Sydney (Australia) and KSA.

Silverton Tramway

After the completion of the Trans-Australian Railway, the Silverton Tramway and the South Australian line to Port Pirie was a missing link in an unbroken Sydney to Perth rail journey (Perth to Kalgoorlie, Western Australia was the other).

Skopos market insight

SKOPOS Market Insight is a global market research agency and communications research company with offices based in London, Cologne, Berlin, Paris, Johannesburg and Sydney.

Smooth toadlet

Sydney is the collision point of the 3 species, however around Sydney there is only Smooth Toadlets, just north of Sydney there are Dusky Toadlet and just south of Sydney there are Tyler's Toadlets, the Smooth Toadlet occurs throughout much of the Tyler's Toadlet and Dusky Toadlets range.

Sopwith Gnu

Two Australian aircraft were used by Australian Aerial Services Limited on the Adelaide to Sydney mail route.

South Australia–Victoria border dispute

As a result of appointments of Government Astronomers in Sydney and Melbourne there were far more precise values for the longitudes of these places and hence the 141st longitude of the legal border.

St Scholastica's College

St Scholastica's College was founded by the Sisters of the Good Samaritan in 1878, on a site in Pitt Street where Sydney's Central Railway Station now stands.

Striped rocket frog

The striped rocket frog, Litoria nasuta, or in its native range known as the rocket frog, occurs mostly in coastal areas from northern Western Australia to around Gosford in New South Wales at its southernmost point, with a disjunct population occurring further south at the Sydney suburb of Avalon.

Studebaker Commander

On a 3,000-mile run from Fremantle to Sydney, they smashed the previous record by 12 hours 23 minutes despite traversing 450 miles through blinding rain, and having to ford a river when a bridge had been washed away.

Sydney City

City of Sydney, the municipal council responsible for central Sydney, Australia

Sydney, Nova Scotia, a community in Canada formerly a city (1904–1995)

Sydney Deamer

He had a distinguished career in civilian life as a journalist in England and Australia and as a newspaper editor for the Sydney Daily Telegraph under the new proprietor Sir Frank Packer between 1936 and 1939.

Sydney, Lady Morgan

The results of Italian historical studies were given in her Life and Times of Salvator Rosa (1823).

The Eight Lancashire Lads

Brothers Richard, Eric and Clem White went to Sydney, Australia in the 1910s and formed theatre companies including Edgley and Dawe.

The Rodney

In Nov. 1895, Rodney lost her figurehead in a gale in the English Channel, while en route from Gravesend to Sydney.

Tyler's toadlet

It has a solid distribution south of Jervis Bay Territory and there are some populations between Jervis Bay and Sydney, there are records for this species north of Sydney, however similarities with other Uperoleia frogs may have led to mis-identification.

University of Sydney Faculty of Dentistry

It is an Australian graduate-entry dental school based at two locations: Westmead Centre for Oral health (WCOH) which is a part of Westmead hospital, and Sydney Dental Hospital (SDH) which is situated between Chalmers Street and Elizabeth Street opposite the entrance to Central Station.

Unk White

He came to Sydney in 1922 with the artists Joe and Guy Lynch and was soon immersed in the bohemian scene there.

Vika and Linda

The recording of the album, Princess Tabu took place in Melbourne, Sydney and Tonga.

Walter Marks

As a result of an inheritance in 1912, he was able to partly finance the building of his chambers, the twelve-storey Culwulla Chambers in Castlereagh Street, Sydney, the tallest building in central Sydney until after World War II.

Waterfall railway station

For the railway station in Sydney, NSW, Australia, see Waterfall railway station, Sydney

Way to Go!

The actual filming location was a decayed ballroom in a derelict building adjacent to Sydney's Central Railway Station.

White woman of Gippsland

There were two women aboard, the wife of the Captain and a woman sailing to Sydney to join her fiancé, Mr Frazer.

White-footed rabbit-rat

The white-footed rabbit-rat (Conilurus albipes) is an extinct species of rodent, which was originally found in woodlands from Adelaide to Sydney, but became restricted to south-eastern Australia.

William Hodgkinson

Hodgkinson spent much of the 1890s in Sydney and Western Australia, working as an expert in mining.

Wolf Fang

Players start along the shores of Australia and proceed to Sydney before being allowed to choose where to go from there.

Women's shelter

((cite ishtarsociety.org)) Later others opened in places such as Christchurch, New Zealand, and Sydney with similar ideals in mind.

Zhan Shi Chai

Kin Foo, the Chinese wife who accompanied Zhan from China, died in 1871, and Zhan later married Catherine Santley, a Liverpudlian whom he met in Sydney, Australia.


1993 Ansett Australian Indoor Championships

The 1993 Ansett Australian Indoor Championships was a tennis tournament played on indoor hard courts at the Sydney Entertainment Centre in Sydney in Australia and was part of the Championship Series of the 1993 ATP Tour.

1994 Australian Indoor Championships

The 1994 Australian Indoor Championships was a tennis tournament played on indoor hard courts at the Sydney Entertainment Centre in Sydney in Australia and was part of the Championship Series of the 1994 ATP Tour.

Alfalfa House

Alfalfa House Community Food Cooperative Ltd is a not-for-profit food cooperative based in Enmore, Sydney, Australia.

Battle Scars

When Fiasco was in Australia for Supafest he came to Sebastian's Sydney studio to record the rap.

Belanglo State Forest

The Belanglo State Forest is located south of Berrima in the Southern Highlands, three kilometres west of the Hume Highway between Sydney and Canberra.

Bernard d'Ascoli

In 2000 he was a special guest of the Sydney Olympic festivities, appearing at the Opera House both as recitalist and soloist with the Sydney Symphony.

Bill Athey

He made his debut in the Centenary Test at Lord's in 1980, and eight years later appeared in the Bicentennial Test in Sydney, along with fellow survivors John Emburey and Mike Gatting.

Brian Tse

While in Sydney, he became influenced by the cartooning style of Michael Leunig, a Melburnian who was (and remains to this day) one of the most popular and critically acclaimed cartoonists in Australia.

Brindabella Ranges

Brindabella Valley (in the middle of the range, is 40 km south-west of Canberra and 350 km from Sydney.

Carrier Air Wing Two

Port calls during the past three deployments have included stops in Sydney and Perth, Western Australia, Manama (Bahrain), Jebel Ali (United Arab Emirates), Singapore, Kelang (Malaysia), Hong Kong (China), Pusan (Korea), Yokosuka (Japan), and Hawaii.

CBD Rail Link

CBD Relief Line, a similar proposed rail link in Sydney, Australia

CDS Global

The company employs over 2,500 individuals worldwide, with sites located on three continents; Australia (Sydney), Europe (Market Harborough; Brighton), and North America (Boone, Iowa; Council Bluffs, Iowa; Harlan, Iowa; Tipton, Iowa; West Des Moines, Iowa; Wilton, Iowa; Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; Prescott, Arizona; New York City; Markham, Ontario; and Montreal).

Chong Tae-Hyon

In 1999, as a junior at Kyung Hee University, Chong was selected as a member of the South Korea national baseball team for the 1999 Intercontinental Cup in Sydney.

Christopher Augustine Reynolds

The principal consecrator was Archbishop John Bede Polding of Sydney, and the principal co-consecrators were Bishop Daniel Murphy of Hobart, Bishop Matthew Quinn of Bathurst, and Bishop James Murray of Maitland.

Corey Gameiro

On 3 January 2014, Gameiro scored his debut goal for Sydney FC, scoring against Adelaide United with a header from a Nikola Petković free kick.

Cronulla railway station

Cronulla railway station is a railway station on the Sydney Trains network, a short distance from Cronulla Beach of Sydney, Australia, on the Pacific Ocean.

Denise Roberts

She was nominated as 'Best Actress in a Leading Role' by the Sydney Theatre Critics for her role the highly successful David Williamson play 'A Charitable Intent'.

Dennis Ferguson

In September 2009, in response to public anger at Ferguson living in the Ryde area in the Northern Suburbs region of Sydney, the Government of New South Wales under Premier Nathan Rees and the Housing Minister David Borger moved to introduce legislation to allow the government to evict child sex offenders from public housing.

DeviantArt

Starting May 13, 2009, deviantArt embarked on a world tour, visiting cities around the world, including Sydney, Singapore, Warsaw, Istanbul, Berlin, Paris, London, New York City, Toronto and Los Angeles.

Diploglottis australis

The Native Tamarind is grown as a decorative tree in various parts of urban Australia, including behind the Mitchell Library in the city of Sydney.

Garry Bradbury

Garry Bradbury is an Australian electronic musician active in Sydney's experimental music scene since 1979 where he was an early member of the pioneering post punk / industrial band Severed Heads, from 1981 to 1985, appearing on the albums: Since the Accident, City Slab Horror, Blubberknife and Clifford Darling, Please Don't Live In The Past.

Gerardo Ribeiro

He serves on the faculty of the Meadowmount School of Music, and in January 2006 was invited to the Australian String Academy Summer School, held in Sydney.

Harry Lourandos

Lourandos was born in Sydney in 1945, to migrant parents from the island of Ithaca in western Greece.

History of Wagga Wagga

The town was the starting point of the "Kangaroo March", one of a series of snowball marches conducted in New South Wales during the war where groups of recruits would march toward Sydney and appeal to men in the towns along the route to join them and enlist in the Australian Imperial Force.

HMAS Heros

In late November and early December 1941 she took part in the search for survivors from HMAS Sydney and found one of the ship's carley floats: one of only two items found from the cruiser, and currently on display at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

Illawarra

The Illawarra region is linked to Sydney by several passes and a motorway (Southern Freeway) and electric railway (see South Coast railway line); to the west by the Illawarra Highway and Picton Road; and to the south by the Princes Highway.

John Lazar

Born in Edinburgh, Lazar came to Sydney in 1837 where he worked as an actor and theatre manager.

Johnny Wardle

Apart from 5 for 79 and 3 for 51 on a flood-soaked pitch at Sydney, he had little to do.

Julia Hargreaves

She finished 24th at the 2011 La Coruna CSI5 Grand Prix held in La Coruna, Spain; finished 13th at the 2011 Wien Stadthalle CSI4 Table A held in Wien Stadthalle, Austria; finished first at the 2011 Sydney Royal CSI1 held in Sydney, Australia; and finished eighth at the 2011 Zuidwolde CSI2 held in Zuidwolde, The Netherlands.

Live: Bad Kitty Board Mix

Live: Bad Kitty Board Mix is a 2006 live album by Sophie B. Hawkins recorded at The Triple Door (Seattle, USA) and The Basement (Sydney, Australia).

Liverpool Street

Liverpool Street, Sydney, an important thoroughfare in the central business district of Sydney, Australia

Mark Scatterday

His other commissions and premiers include works by composers such as Steven Stucky, David Maslanka, Jorge Liderman, Verne Reynolds, Christopher Theofanidis, John Fitz Rogers, David Liptak, Robert Morris, Jeff Tyzik, Joseph Turrin, Kyle Blaha, Jacob Bancks, James Matheson, Steven Burke, Sally Lamb, Sydney Hodkinson, and David Borden.

Pel-Air

Pel-Air Aviation Pty Ltd (trading as Pel-Air) is an airline based in Mascot, Sydney, Australia.

Prince of Denmark's March

The march is used as the background music during the hourly performance of the Royal Clock in the Queen Victoria Building, Sydney, Australia.

Ricky Nixon

The plan was criticised by many Gaelic football officials and players, including Sydney's Tadhg Kennelly.

Ron Withnall

Withnall was born in Townsville, Queensland, but attended school at Canterbury High School in Sydney.

Servant Girl Annihilator

William Sydney Porter, better known as the short story writer O. Henry, was living in Austin at the time of the murders.

Sydney Airport Holdings

MAp owned shareholdings in Brussels and Copenhagen Airports besides Sydney until 2011 when the company sold its shares to concentrate on the latter, though retained a 1% holding in Bristol Airport.

Sydney Boys High School

Also nearby, but not associated with Sydney Boys and Girls High Schools, are Fox Studios Australia, the Sydney Cricket Ground, and the Sydney Football Stadium.

Sydney Devine

Sydney Devine (born Cleland, Lanarkshire 1940) is a Scottish singer whose career began with a television appearance in 1953 at the age of thirteen, developed during eight years touring with the White Heather Group.

Sydney Underground Film Festival

In 2007, the festival screened over 100 films, including a range of diverse and original films from Sydney filmmakers and filmmakers such as David Lynch, Martha Colburn, David Firth, Virgil Widrich, Bill Morrison, Abigail Child, Albie Thoms, David Perry, Paul Winkler and Dirk De Bruyn.

Television broadcasting in Australia

The CEO of TVS Sydney, Laurie Patton, is the Secretary and represents ACTA on the Federal Government's Digital Switchover Taskforce Industry Advisory Group.

Tenterfield Oration

The town of Tenterfield suffered from the disunited administration of the States, as it was distant from the New South Wales state capital of Sydney and rather closer to commercial centres across the border in Queensland.

The Camels

After a performance at the Come Together Music Festival The band was then commissioned to write 3 songs for a documentary about Sydney's Bra Boys surf gang from Maroubra and returned to Birdland for the recording.

The Paper Scissors

The album was featured as Album of The Week on Sydney's influential FBi Radio as well as receiving regular airplay on Californian StationKCRW which is considered "one of the most influential independent music radio stations around the globe"KCRW Wiki.

Thomas Gascoyne

Three days later he competed in the tandem races at Madison Square Garden with his partner Sydney Jenkins.

William Snell Chauncy

In 1868 Chauncy was appointed road superintendent at Goulburn, New South Wales with one of his responsibilities being improvements to the main Sydney to Melbourne Road (now the Hume Highway).

Xpression FM

Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke, is one of many famous alumni of URE and Xpression, a list that also includes the BBC's Jon Kay, James Pearce, Grainne Landowski, Matthew Sydney and motorsport presenter Ted Kravitz.