Have found another category for Sydney city bingo – traffic controllers. Australia does not feel like a place with much unnecessary over-manning, but it does seem to have some particular over-bureaucraticised routines (a point I will be returning to). Whenever a bit of road in Sydney is being dug up, or closed for some sort of construction activity - however minor the effects on vehicular movement – several people in hi-vis jackets stand around with signs and take their job very seriously indeed. I have already been told off on a number of occasions for not making big detours to avoid (non-existent) traffic problems. These are definitely people who are both alert and happy to interfere.
