city bingo 4: sales staff wearing their coats indoors (1)

Can't decide if this city bingo item is a bit too easy for Sydney-siders, albeit only at this time of year, since it expresses a phenomenon so ubiquitous that locals probably don't even notice it as odd.

Although we have had some sunny days, there is definitely a noticeable chill in the air and the nights demand hot water bottles and thick blankets. I may have gone on before about the lack of heating in this city during winter (I write this huddled up to a small convector heater in my office which is doing a losing job against the cold coming through the windows). The most noticeable side effect is the range of usually elegant outer garments that people who work in shops and cafes start wearing.

Here, at the Infinity Bakery in Victoria Street (one of my favourite breakfast takeaway spots), I am now served by people in coats. 

dive-bombers

The one problem being the Noisy Miners - who even have their own Birds Behaving Badly webpage. There is a gang of four to five birds who are very loud, and can aggressively attack the cat if she ventures out onto the balcony, squawking wildly and flying directly at her. Even if she is sitting inside at the window.... 

can't believe I never...

Can’t believe I have never been to Luna Park. That enormous face with the gaping mouth and buggy eyes right next to Sydney Bridge has, to be honest, always put me off. Felt the rides and stuff behind it would be mundane in comparison, and certainly not up to the glorious decrepitude of Coney Island in New York. Plus, I really hate going on fairground rides - I get very sick very quickly, to the extent that even looking at big dippers etc., makes me a bit queasy. But, weirdly, Dr. Cornel West (African-American scholar and activist) was giving a public talk at the Big Top, Luna Park (yes, that is what I said) so I went early to take pictures at twilight. And of course it was a magical place - both in its own right as a fading, small but determined amusement park and as a location to look back at Sydney Harbour and Opera House. Took photos until my battery ran out.  

a little story

The Broken Hill tour and the Terra Nullius book have got me thinking a lot about stories - about the kind of stories that get told about a place, particularly to its tourists and visitors (and in a way, therefore to the inhabitants themselves) something I will be returning to.

So here is my anecdote: that says something about that weird intersection between what feels like an unbelievably ancient land and the way the most recent settlers cruise across its surface. At one moment on the train, as I was watching out of the window idly staring at mile after mile of scrub and orange-brown soil, I saw 3 emus  appear from nowhere and cross the long straight road running parallel to the train tracks. This in the middle of an empty plain. And at that precise moment an ute  drove past (the first vehicle I had seen for 20 minutes). The first and second emus got by, but the third, thrown into a panic, turned back and was hit a glancing blow, such that it flew up into the air. I saw feathers explode and the emu hit the ground - and then the train had gone by.

And then nothing for ages.

the weirdness of broken hill

As part of the journey, we got to stop at Broken Hill, once a boom town for mining, and now - still a mining town but more normal. Well, I say normal, but the whole sojourn felt quite surreal; and not just because we were woken up before dawn (after not sleeping the previous night due to it being a train and all) and were a little lagging. First, we were driven around almost every street in a bus, up and down the small town grid, being shown absolutely everything - some of it twice. I kid you not, we were even introduced to the Coles supermarket as an exciting event; all given out in full chatty and obvious jokes compere mode. Which was followed by a murmured repeat across the whole bus, due to a larger than usual number of older, hard-of-hearing people who needed to be told all over again by their nearest and dearest.

Then, at some unclear point, we were driven to the waste earth/slag heap piled up by the town, on top of which has been built a miner's memorial, in honour of those who had died. A mixture of poignant and community hall, with volunteers serving scones and tea. But also, since I had been reading a book called Terra Nullius on the train, also echoed strangely of missing - indigenous -voices. Neither the tour nor the memorial plaques contained any reference to aboriginal history or people, a whole world ignored and marginalised. 

At the same time, there was another absence - the fact that all the time we were at the memorial, we were walking on top of a working mine, and the tough hard work that continues to involve.

the norwegians are here

A group of young women from Norway (studying petroleum engineering) have moved in next door, and now some boys seem to be sleeping in the shed. Had invited J and her kids; and G, her husband and children over for Sunday breakfast on the deck. Bright, sunny and lovely conversation, unhindered by 3 young men fast asleep throughout,  clad only in their underpants.

politest bus-stop in the world?

Have already mentioned the pleasures of non-car transport in Perth. Am also stunned by the design quality of the bus stops.  These are the most elegant and minimal I have ever seen (similar or better examples from elsewhere welcome) - being flat and rectangular aluminium panels, about the height of an average ten year old. But of course, that means they contain almost no information at all. 

danger: wildlife

I may have gone on before about the sheer fecundity of the flora and fauna here (unlike Britain where in comparison everything has to be coaxed from the ground and nursemaided into adulthood; and where the animal and insect life is almost totally benign).

Everything here is bigger, brighter, glossier, more dangerous (I won't even get onto sharks or crocs). Ordinary butterflies are three times the size, spiders are terrifying large - although in this case the dangerous ones tend to be at the boring end* - and birds are just more full on all around. This sign warns of the reality that, when it has young (luckily a time of year we are now past) it will most certainly attack you, even peck holes in you. Particularly, it seems, if you are on a bicycle.  


* trigger alert: someone thought it was amusing to make the spider illustrations on this website jump about unexpectedly. 

happy christmas everyone!

And - finally - meeting Santa himself, at the Coogee Carols last Saturday. Another surreal winter-in-summer experience. Not just weird because of all the red woolly Santa trappings (ho ho ho) and the snow/sleigh bells songs but also because not a choir, as I had perhaps stupidly expected, but a band and singer and (something I had forgotten how much I disliked) pop songs masquerading as carols. Bah humbug!

more weather

Continuing to be more like tropical Singapore or Hong Kong - high humidity, hot winds, building up to major thunderstorms at the end of each day, torrential rain, that kind of thing. Had the joy of being at K's wonderful new flat overlooking Elizabeth Bay last weekend; spend an inordinate amount of time watching the storm clouds roll across central Sydney with my mouth slightly open.

snow time

I realise it is common to note the incongruity of having all the winter paraphernalia of Christmas (snowmen, santa, reindeer) when the temperature is 30 degrees, but it is still flooring me every time,  every shop window, every street corner.

Just too weird.