STRIKE!
Oh, this is glorious. The railworkers have threatened a strike next week for the busiest day of the Pope’s visit. BRILLIANT. I’m actually serious; I will happily walk the 8km to work if it means that World Youth Day gets buggered up that little bit more. Which reminds me: The official WYD “Uniform and Accreditation Center” happens to be located at 1 Grafton Street, Chippendale, if anyone wants to, you know, protest. Or something. Me, I’m just hoping I can walk down the street to my house without being fined for annoying a Catholic.
ARJ
July 7, 2008 — 5:02 pm
Ooh, I’ve got a friend who lives in the apartment block next door on Grafton…
Kris
July 7, 2008 — 7:35 pm
Well, and yours truly is only 50 meters up the street…
Emily
July 7, 2008 — 9:28 pm
Excellent!
SallyO
July 8, 2008 — 12:05 am
Chippendale sounds like a great place to throw a party! Count me in.
crumpet
July 8, 2008 — 1:10 am
I wish I lived in Sydney right now just so I could do something annoying!
Will Graham
July 8, 2008 — 9:21 pm
What’s wrong with the Pope and World Youth Day? Not trying to start anything, just curious.
Kris
July 8, 2008 — 11:13 pm
That’s cool; it’s probably best that I clarify. I actually didn’t have any problem with either Catholics or WYD – other than feeling vaguely annoyed at the obvious mismanagement of this major international event – until the government made it an offense to “annoy” anyone attending. Shutting down free speech PISSES ME OFF. I got my degree from a major Catholic university, and I know for a fact that these aren’t people who need to be defended from criticism. They’re perfectly willing to face their critics head on, and I can respect that. What I resent is the people in charge denying the public the right to discuss the issues that WYD raises. And, yeah, every time you turn around the government is announcing a new inconvenience for those of us who live and work in the city. They’ve actually told everyone to take vacation time next week, because it’s going to be that difficult to get to our jobs. I can’t afford to take the day off because a bunch of pilgrims want to close all the roads between here and Randwick. It’s the same problem I had with APEC last year. The government tells Sydneysiders to suck it up when we, the people who actually live here, never seen any benefit from these events.
I’d have exactly the same problem if it was World Muslim Youth Day or World Buddhist Youth Day or World Atheist Youth Day. (Yet somehow those seem laughably impossible, right? Which is another reason to be annoyed.)