I must like my area as it's the basis for my forum persona tag name thingy. When I come to describe it I realise that we are trashing it, but there are ok bits as well.
in my local area we have:
- the great koala massacre. We are just waiting for a new regional plan that will hasten our attempts to remove all remaining habitat. The program to teach koalas to eat kitchen scraps and fend of dogs and cars with karate has not been very successful. We also have dugongs, sharks, turtles and dolphins just down the road. Last night on my walk home I counted 20 magpies on the footpath outside a single house. Despite being breeding ( ie swooping ) season I had to practically shoosh this family off the footpath. In the morning our park is full of pink galahs ( large pink parrot things).
- bogans. Hey some of them are really nice people, just like all sub cultures, I'm just not into what most of them seem to value. Bogans are a minority however, our local demographic is oldies/ families/ boaties ( in equal numbers)
- cafe culture - 20 years ago there was nothing to do in Brisbane if you just wanted to hang out. Now we have coffee to combine with warm/ hot sunny weather. Yes, in some places it's pretentious, but sometimes it's nice to aspire to something snooty. A bit of arty farty is ok if you can still laugh at yourself.
- summer storms. We had 3 this morning and it's only 8.30 am. On a hot day they rumble around and bring that expectation of relief from the heat. Hail and storm damage is the cost on occasion, but it's nice to be reminded that we are but a small part of nature.
- traffic. I was in the UK a few years ago. Brisbane is pretty much the same, only our roads are a bit wider so you can pull over. We now get traffic jams in town on the weekend. In a city of 1 million in a region of 3 million this is an achievement
- multiculturalism. yes it's everywhere. We have a lot of Asian folk here. My area is a bit Anglo in origin but out parks that once filled with Greek and Italian families now have to compete with islander families. At this point in time we seem to be playing real nice together. We go into a cold panic at the sight of a boat of refugees unfortunately. We don't get that many, but it was a key election issue last year.
- Tony Abbott and Campbell Newman. Conservative politics rule in Australia right now. I don't like most conservative politicians. I think the economy should serve society, not the other way around. The current mantra is " we are open for business". We have about the best performing economy on the planet and we are still battening down the hatches and selling the environment as fast as we can. The name I would like to see more of in the headlines is Labor's Penny Wong, and not just because she is female, lesbian, Asian, and intelligent. I think she could be our next PM, once the other guys have spent two terms trashing the joint.
I'll let someone else have a rant now. Sorry I didn't do a map. I'm on an iPad And I haven't installed an app for that.
other somewhat unique things in Brisbane
- go between bridge - named after the band
- Citycats - great way to see the city
- ........and finally, hifi stores. We still have about 5 or 6 across in the city and about 3 decent record stores.
