A person walking to work in the dark is terrified by a figure approaching them, only to find out it's just a morning jogger. The U.S. is considering dropping the prosecution of Julian Assange. Sierra Leone has declared a state of emergency due to a widespread epidemic of people addicted to a drug made from human skeletons. Sylvester Stallone is accused of mistreating actors on the set of his new movie. The Wellington Boot Race Carnival in Australia is taking place this weekend with big prize money.
You're waking up with the Central West Burst Breaking on 92.7 Zulu. I'm walking into work this morning. Of course, it's still dark, even though we've had the daylight savings change. The sun comes up, probably about 6am now. Five, still dark, walking to work. Through a very dark part of my walk to work, not many streetlights around. Turn around, there's a figure, dressed in all black clothing, slightly accelerating towards me. So I start pace walking, sort of striding ahead faster than normal.
Turn around, they're still accelerating towards me. I'm absolutely terrified. Turn around, I think, this is the end, this is it. You'll never hear from me again. Turns out it's one of those morning joggers. Why in the world would you be out when it's five degrees, having a run? Almost gave me a heart attack. Was not pleasant. Later this morning, Robbie Mortimer comes on, the musician, the absolutely brilliant artist that he is, ahead of the Stock Root Music Festival coming up later this month.
Tell us all about what he's been up to, what he's going to be playing at the festival, and what we can all expect. First, DJ Snake, Dustin Bieber, let me love you. Zoo FM Breakfast, your home of Dubbo's best music from the 80s to now. It's Keegan with you for your Thursday morning. Cheers for your company. Hungry. Ed Sheeran, 20 minutes to 7. Zoo FM Breakfast, Keegan with you on your home of Dubbo's best music from the 80s to now.
Top of 21 in Gilligan for today. Currently four and a half. Going to be sunny today and right towards the weekend. It's been reported that the U.S. is considering dropping the prosecution of Julian Assange. If you're not sure who Julian Assange is, don't blame you. It's been a while since the case was actually brought forward towards him. It was a bloke, an Australian bloke, that decided to put forward classified information from the U.S. military and the U.S.
government, which of course it was classified. So he's ended up being charged by the government with espionage or some form of leaking secrets crime. He then fled to an embassy and ran inside the embassy, closed the door, and then they couldn't get in there. Apparently a wooden door is very strong when it comes to it having a flag printed on the front of it. I don't know how it's progressed further than that, but people are reporting they're considering dropping it.
I've looked into it slightly. The only indication that Joe Biden is considering dropping the case is him literally saying to a reporter when they asked, Oh, you were considering Anthony Albanese's request to drop the case against Julian Assange. And Joe Biden simply responded with, we're considering it. That's been the whole conversation. There is nothing else to it. I myself, when asked if I'm going to do something, have said many a time, I'm considering it. And then moments later, I've completely forgotten.
You're on ZOO's Breakfast. Harry Styles, 10 minutes to 7. ZOO FM Breakfast, your home of Dubbo's best music from the 80s to now. Top of 21 degrees today in Wellington. Currently four and a half. Going to be sunny right across the weekend. Our phone number, you can give us a ring any time. 6884 849. That's 6884 849. Just seeing here the traffic a bit slow this morning out front of the Royal Hotel in Narrowmine. Dandaloo Street, supposedly.
Traffic slowing down there. Might be normal business, but anyway. Well, that started brilliantly. Anyway, I'll restart that and then try and propose it differently. If there was one thing I didn't have on my 2024 bingo card, it was people huffing the grinded up remains of bones. That certainly wasn't something I imagined. Sierra Leone, where that is in the world, I have no idea. It has declared a state of emergency in response to a widespread epidemic of people who were hooked on the drug of human skeletons.
What a sentence. Apparently a drug is being crafted from human bones that sends someone on a spin for multiple hours. And it's becoming so widespread that drug dealers are breaking into cemeteries to literally kidnap the skeletons. This is something out of a movie. This isn't real. This can't be real. Police have actually been sent to guard cemeteries overnight. Right across Sierra Leone in response to the psychoactive bone broth. They've had to go and protect them overnight.
Armed police to make sure people don't go and kidnap the dead. God forbid if some of the users of this strange psychoactive drug made of bones realise that they too actually do have skeletons. You know, it's turned to cannibalism. Tochi, what it is. This is UFM Breakfast for your Thursday morning on the Home. At Dubbo's. Best music from the 80s to now. It's Keegan with you. Cheers for your company this morning. Lady Gaga. 20 to 8.
UFM Breakfast. Your home at Dubbo's. Best music from the 80s to now. Top of 21 degrees today in Wellington. Currently 8 degrees. Going to be sunny today and right through the weekend. Possible rain on Monday. If you're driving between Wellington and Dubbo this morning, on the Mitchell Highway, places slowing down to 40km an hour. There's road work. Certain areas. I'd add a couple of minutes to your travel time this morning. Sylvester Stallone. He's once again made the news, and not for good reasons.
But this time, he's apparently being accused of horrible behaviour. Horrible is probably the word to use. Towards fellow actors on the set of his new movie, Tulsa King. I wasn't even aware he was making a new movie. I thought he'd retired. But anyway, Tulsa King. They're currently in the production of it. Stallone, he's allegedly been seen rampaging around the set, just storming all over the place, calling actors and extras names such as Tub of Lard, Fat Guy with Cane and Ugly.
That's what Sylvester's been saying to fellow people on the set. Tub of Lard is probably the one that stands out to me there. I haven't heard anyone use that as an insult in I don't even know how long. A director has even quit over the situation, after he was supposedly the victim to a tirade of F-bombs during a lunch break. Man was eating a sandwich. Maybe he went on a smoke break. He's gotten abused. A quote from one of the members of the production crew reads as this.
Stallone was very upset with the look of the background actors. He said they were hideous and old and fat. That's apparently the words being quoted there of Sylvester Stallone towards some of the background actors on the set. Look, if I'm going to be honest about the whole thing, I'd probably take Tub of Lard as a compliment any day over some of the insults you hear thrown around Dubber. Check out ZooFM on Facebook for more. Empire State of Mind, 20 minutes past 7.
ZooFM, breakfast for you Thursday morning. Top of 21 degrees today in Wellington. Currently a 6. It's going to be sunny right across your weekend. The 2024 Wellington Boot Race Carnival starts tomorrow. And to give us the full rundown, the president of the Wellington Race Club, Peter Barton, joins us. Cheers for coming on the show. It's my pleasure. I hear the carnival runs over two or three days. What's the schedule looking like this weekend? Oh, it's a very busy schedule.
I'd imagine so. The start of the Wellington Boot Carnival is a Friday race meeting. And then on Saturday, there's Calcutta at the Wellington Soldiers Club. And a golf day, four-man Ambrose at the Wellington Golf Club. And Sunday is the main racing day, which is the Wellington Boot. How's the Calcutta looking like so far? Fairly good. I think we'll get a big roll-up. And the TAB are turning up, and they're going to be giving away hats and mystery bet prizes.
Pins, special boot pins. As well as that, the Soldiers Club has organised a band called the Floorboards. It's led by the lead singer, a fella called Dean Ray. He came second in X-Factor in 2018. Oh, yeah, rightio. Well, for a while. Brilliant. I also hear there's transportation being put in place for the punters on the... I think it's the Sunday. How's that coming together? Yeah, there's a few buses from various hotels I think are still going.
The races have enormous nominations, the best nominations I can ever remember. So there'll be a lot of horses from Sydney and provincial areas. I see that, yeah, the prizes are just absolutely massive. What exactly is up for grabs in some of the races? Well, the Wellington Boots has total prize money of $200,000. Then the Wellington Cup has prize money of $100,000. Town Plate has prize money of $50,000. And there's two other races with prize money of $50,000.
Total prize money for the day on the Wellington Boot of $550,000 for the day, which is enormous. That is a lot of money. And just to take it back a bit before I let you go, what's the history behind the Wellington Boot for anyone unaware? Well, the Wellington Boot, the first Wellington Boot was run in 1981, and the name was developed by the president at the time, Barry Hoskins. Previous to that, Wellington always used to run a St.
Patrick's Day meeting, and Barry just all of a sudden came up with the idea, why don't we call it the Wellington Boot? Because at that time, you know, the big race, the Golden Slipper, at Rose Hill, and he thought, well, they've got their slipper, why don't we have our boot in that store? Great. Thanks for coming on for a chat this morning, Peter. Where can people head to find out some more information about the carnival this weekend? Well, you can go to our website, Google Wellington Boot, and that'll take you there, or Wellington Race Club, I mean.
Brilliant. Thank you so much for coming on this morning to have a chat. Thank you very much. You're on Zoo's Breakfast. Mo' money, mo' problems. Zoo's Breakfast Thursday morning. Kicking with you. It's over 21 degrees today in Trang. It's currently 9.5. It's going to be sunny today and right across the weekend. While we should all be buying, you know, electric vehicles, turning off the lights and not pooping as much, probably, that's another thing to add to the list, I'm sure, a new player has entered the field.
Apparently it is now a crime against the environment to wear jeans. Yes, jeans. I'm not sure why, but scientists have conducted a study that suggests every time you buy a new pair of jeans, it is equivalent to driving 10 kilometres in your car. 10 kilometres, like from Dubbo to just past Brocklehurst, if you buy a pair of jeans. I don't know if that's how far the jeans can drive you, but anyway. On average, a pair of decently priced jeans produce 2.5 kilograms of CO2, with the majority coming from the manufacture of the material, with pairs being worn around 127 times on average before being replaced.
Do you wear jeans 127 times? Do you count how many times you wear your jeans? If anyone asked me to count how many times I wore jeans before I bought a new pair, I'd think there's something going on there, because that's just odd. Surprisingly, buying second-hand jeans in general, it reduces carbon emissions by 90%. I mean, I'd like to see how true that is after I finish my iced coffee in the morning. Paul Russell, Lil' Buffet, ZOOFM Breakfast, good morning to you.
Absolutely beautiful track from Powderfinger, 10 past 8, ZOOFM Breakfast, your home of Dubbo's best music from the 80s to now. Road work between Wellington and Dubbo this morning, areas of the highway, slowing down to 40 kilometres an hour, but only in small parts of it. So we'll just add a couple of minutes to your journey this morning. The Stock Root Music Festival is coming to Dubbo later this month on the 20th, and one of the headlining artists, Robbie Mortimer, joins us this morning.
Cheers for coming on the show, mate. Thanks very much for having me. I can't wait to get out there. You were out at, actually, Way Out West Fest in Queensland recently. How did it all go down? Yeah, it was amazing, mate. I love, you know, I've got a really lucky job where I kind of get out to go and see some beautiful parts of the country and meet some awesome people, and, yeah, Way Out West Festival in Winchester was one of those opportunities, so it was a terrific experience for me.
Can people expect to hear some of the same hits of the upcoming festival here in Dubbo? Not to spoil anything yet, though? Yeah, I try and kind of change up the setlist every time we kind of play and to see what works with the crowd and, obviously, you know, getting, I guess, a good connection with people as well. So, you know, we'll change things up a little bit, but the crux of it will be you've got a formula that works, so we're going to rock it out and bring a big, higher country energy show to Dubbo.
100%. I mean, you're up in Queensland, you're coming down to Dubbo. Where are some of the other places that you've toured? I'm, obviously, born and bred in Orange, so I've spent most of my time in the Central West region, and, you know, I've got a great following there, a great group of friends and people that have, you know, come around to a lot of my shows in the Central West. So I've spent a lot of time up and down the coast the last couple of years promoting my music and just getting out, and, you know, this year is no different.
I'm spending a lot of time on the road this year, and I can't wait for this. It's my favourite part about being in the industry. You were saying you've been around the Central West a lot. How do the Central West crowds now get behind your music, because you're well established? I'm very lucky. I've spent a lot of time, you know, in the grassroots of Central West. I'm very lucky to have a good following. I've spent most of my musical career, you know, doing shows around the Central West in places, and I'm very grateful for the support I have.
I have people that have been there from the very start of my career and up until, you know, just recently, supporting me with my new single that I've just put out. So I love the Central West. I'll always be a country boy from Orange and that region. So I'm very, very honoured to have the support that I have from, you know, from the wider Central West community. You were just talking about some of the grassroots out here in the Central West.
Take it back a bit. What is your story of originally getting into creating music? I guess I always kind of grew up in a household that was very much encouraged to do whatever we wanted to do, you know, as long as we did it properly. And, you know, I tried a couple of different avenues, a couple of different paths, you know, with sport, and I was a school teacher and all this, but it always just came back to music.
I've always written music since I was young and got on, I guess, this little musical journey, and it's just been a thing that makes so much sense to me. So I'm very honoured to do it, you know, as my full-time job and becoming an established artist here in the Australian country music scene. And everything, I guess, I've learned has come from my upbringing in the country. So I'm very excited for what's to come with it as well.
You say you were a school teacher. You didn't teach music by any chance, did you? I actually didn't. I was so clear from it. I wanted to keep enjoying music. I didn't want to be teaching recorder or something like that. It turned me off of it. So I stayed clear of teaching music, and I just kept that for, you know, something that I knew I wanted to do professionally one day. Just hold there a sec, Robbie.
I'm going to take a break. We'll come back. I want to touch on how far your career has actually come, because obviously it's had quite a beginning. It's gone a fair way, and some of the stats that I've seen from your streaming services that you've put up have just blown the figures out of the water. Quick break, mate. We'll come back, touch on that. It's 2FM, your home of Dubbo's best music from the 80s to now for your Thursday morning.
We're speaking to Robbie Mortimer, who's one of the headlining artists of the upcoming Stock Route Music Festival coming to Dubbo at the Lazy River Estate. Oh, turn it up now, so I can get my try. Your career has come so far, and it's had a grassroots beginning, but some of the figures I've seen, you're blowing records out of the water for your music stats on streaming services recently. Yeah, we've had some really good numbers and people kind of really getting around the new single, Blow The Speakers.
It's been really, really well received by, you know, not just people in Australia, but, you know, all over this world. People kind of started trending on social media and how to get a really good following and people just connected to the song. And honestly, when you write something like that, I guess you have hopes for a good intake of people consuming your music, but sometimes you just don't know. And this song really, I guess, blew expectations out of the water and set the high standard of what I want to be doing.
To touch on Blow The Speakers, I saw some clips, I think, of the music video online. It looks incredibly cool. What was, to summarise, what was the start to the end of actually making that song? I guess, for me, as I mentioned, I've been on a little bit of a journey the last couple of years and I wrote this song in terms of, you know, really wanting to create this high energy. It's like a mission statement, to be honest.
It's a song I went home for a couple of years after writing music and coming back and I wanted to lead out with something really strong and powerful and show people this is who Robin Mortimer is. And I think this song goes out, you know, the song has themes of, you know, a kid leaving and chasing his dream and then, I guess, the main theme of the song is how everybody in life is searching for something and once you find it, don't let it go.
And, for me, it was music. So, you know, living that life unapologetically and, as a matter of fact, you get to it, it's turning it up so loud that you blow the speakers because you found something that just makes sense. That's absolutely brilliant, mate. Well, cheers for coming on for a chat this morning, Robbie. It sounds like a hell of a time ahead when the festival comes to town. I can't wait and I'm really, yeah, really appreciative of the Dubbo community for getting behind it.
You know, make sure you do. It's a great opportunity for you to, you know, come and see a great line-up and a good day of country music with an international act as well in Dan Davidson. It's a day not to be missed, so I encourage you to go and get your tickets and, yeah, come and support us. We're looking forward to getting out there in Dubbo. 100%, absolutely. Well, cheers, mate, thanks. Much appreciated. Good on you, guys.
Have a good day. I appreciate your support. If you'd like to see Robbie play live as well as Dan Davidson, the Bushwhackers, Max Jackson, Ashley Dallas, a list of absolutely brilliant artists at the Stockroot Music Festival later this month, you can go ahead to stockroot.com.au for tickets and for more information. You're on Zoo's Breakfast. Jenny Gray's 20 Minutes to 9 Zoo FM Breakfast. Heavy traffic on the Mitchell Highway at the moment, about 15 minutes out of Wellington, heading north, or sort of north-west, into Dubbo.
There's road work currently going on, reducing the speed to 40 kilometres an hour. It's heavy traffic there. Everyone's slowing down, and it's a little bit better, but still bad, closer to Dubbo on the Mitchell Highway as well. So there's road work going on in multiple places, and if you're travelling between Dubbo and Wellington this morning, I'd recommend adding just a couple of minutes to your travel time. Top of 21 degrees today in Narromine, currently 11.5, going to be sunny.
In another case of the recent solar eclipse sending both people and animals into a spin, a chicken has been brought into the mix, because why not? Gertrude, a black and grey chicken of large stature, was happily poised to watch the eclipse take place. I'm glad that Gertrude was taking part. Her owner, Tad, decided it would be appropriate to don the chicken's eyes with specifically made solar eclipse chicken goggles moments before the eclipse took place. The thing is, just as the goggles were placed on the chicken, the chicken goggles, and the eclipse hit its peak, Gertrude decided that'd be the perfect opportunity to pop out an egg.
Just, you know, sit back, relax, pop out an egg, watch the eclipse. It's everyone's idea of a lovely weekend. Have a listen to this, what can I call it, groundbreaking audio of the events that took place when Gertrude decided that she'd watch the eclipse. Hi, Gertrude. Are you enjoying the eclipse? Well, let's see. Are you happy? Yeah, she's enjoying it. Well, looky there. Well, looky there. And there goes the egg. All right. Well, I hate to think what happens when they take the chicken to the dentist and they put on those sort of dark dentist glasses.
Suddenly, you know, whoop, and there's an egg omelette in the filling drill. Dubbo's best music. Tones and I wrap it up. Zoo FM breakfast for your Thursday morning. Top of 21 in Dubbo today, 22 in Cobar. Going to be sunny in your full weather in just a couple of minutes after the local and national news. Tomorrow on the show, we're going to have a flight lieutenant from the Royal Australian Air Force on. You may have seen those sort of planes, the Air Force planes buzzing around the town, the red ones.
I'm pretty sure they're bright red. I had one fly over my house at, like, 100 metres the other day. Almost pooped my pants. But I'm going to talk to the flight lieutenant from the Air Force. We'll find out what they're here for, what they're doing, what they're actually learning in these planes and what the planes are capable of. Your 80s hour at work is next. You're on Zoo's Brekkie.
