Cleopatra's Bling Podcast

Our guest today is more often referred to by the charming moniker “Blooms” which she uses as her Instagram handle @petrinablooms. This cheerful gardener is as riotously colourful and funny as the wild and varied flowers she tends to in the green expanses of her suburban Melbourne home.

It’s these flowers that Petrina Burrill handpicks and sells as part of her sustainable floristry practice. In signature pale pink overalls you can find her in a garden that Design Files has described as a Narnia, frollicking amongst pastel petals, and deep green fronds.

Many of us spend our whole lives attempting to climb the ladder of success in our chosen profession. Liam Spurrell found accolades and opportunities early: thanks to his talent for flavour and keen eye for detail already at a young age he found positions opening up to him in some of Melbourne’s best restaurants. But rather than stay in the ratatouille race, Liam decided to trade in his chef’s whites for muddy boots, secateurs and scissors.

He is now a full time forager, sourcing ethical and sustainable produce from beach bananas, to mountain marigold, to olive herb.

Co-host James is back to the Podcast to talk a small but ubiquitous accessory with a very long history: the silk scarf. This week we've got ancient spies, martial arts, war propaganda, and the death of a star of the stage.

Plus: Listener questions!

Over the past years Olivia has found twin passions in learning the Arabic language and advocating for Palestinian liberation. A mentor and teacher who helped to guide her in this journey is Yousef Alreemawi - a lecturer, political adviser and commentator, editor, and friend.

They discuss the beauty of Arabic as a language, its unique expressiveness, and his experience as part of the Palestinian diaspora.

Kirstie Clements has presided over the most glamorous corners of the Australian fashion industry throughout her long career. At one point in time her role took her from clubbing with supermodels and Guns N’ Roses in Paris, to high tea with Estée Lauder at the Plaza New York, to travels alongside Armani in Shanghai. Despite these stylish credentials, she finds that much of her creative and professional inspiration has been drawn from fine art, poetry, music, film, and travel.

She sat down with Olivia to dish on how to reinvent your creative message, adapting to life in a new country, and how it felt to be elevated to Vogue's editor in chief.

Co-host James returns to the Podcast to talk the life and times of the Renaissance's most infamous scoundrel: Benvenuto Cellini. This week we've got murder, sex, war, poetry, goldsmithing... with a touch of necromancy and some favours done for the Pope. It's the history of the life of Florence's most famous goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini. What better man or place to cover than that which inspires so many of our collections and where our first bespoke solid gold pieces were made? Plus: Listener questions!

The male boxer you see fighting it out in the ring at the Olympics, or the man who comes round to repair your burst water pipe - these might be the last kind of people you would stereotypically expect to pull off their gloves to reveal bright nail polish.

Our guest today, Harry Garside, happens to be both: a professional fighter, and a tradesman. He also happens to be a laid back pioneer of the diverse possibilities of gender expression, having sported nail lacquer in the ring. His colourful hands were shown to the world when the gloves came off for a celebration of his Bronze Medal-winning stoush.

Permaculture is the development of agricultural systems that are sustainable and self-sufficient.

Anna, more widely known as "The Urban Nanna", is a former primary school teacher with a horticultural background. Nowadays, rather than a stuffy building, the great outdoors is her classroom. Anna teaches traditional ways of crafting, preserving, and cooking, all the while living in the precarious rental market of suburban Australia.

Olivia spoke with Anna at her wifi-less home, to discuss how foraging goes far beyond food, and the reviving of cultural traditions involving connection to Country and community. Listening to this episode will make you see the urban world around you in a completely new way, from using roses for flavour, to hawthorn for lowering blood pressure, wild violet and cherry blossom for infused sugars, and pine mushrooms for pizzas, stocks, and risottos.

We welcome new co-host James to the Podcast, who will join for regular chats that will give you a laugh as you cook or commute. CB founder and designer Olivia, and musician James are good friends with a wealth of stories and banter between them.

They'll also provide insight into the historical backgrounds of some of the world's most famous materials, places, and objects that historically connect us to the jewels we wear today.

This week we've got Big Men, brain goo, and a treasure map of precious minerals told through myth. It's the history of the gemstone jade, which features heavily in all Cleopatra's Bling collections.

Plus: Listener questions!

Leo Kretzenbacher views language as a collective artwork created by all people who use it. He was born in Austria, grew up in Germany and has been teaching and researching in the German Studies Program of the University of Melbourne’s School of Languages and Linguistics for over a quarter of a century.

WhileLeo has done literary and cultural studies as well, his main interest is in linguistics. Collectively he and Olivia speak over 15 languages. They discuss the best ways to learn a new language, frankness vs politeness in different languages, proxemics or "closeness" in intercultural communication.