Whoever is responsible for organising today’s Canberra leg of the Beijing Olympic Torch Relay is clearly doing a fantastic job at applying to be come to become the head honcho in the Department of Inconvenience. Starting the torch relay during peak hour and closing roads as they see fit during this time is a stroke of genius. Making everybody who lives or works in or around the road closures leave very early for work, and forcing extra traffic on to arterial roads which were cleverly opened with one lane each way along various parts of the road is also very clever.
And as if last night’s 6pm fireworks weren’t enough (they weren’t inconvenient) there had to be another set of fireworks at 6am today. That was a very inconvenient wakeup call, as was the 45 minutes of bird hysteria which followed it. The helicopter which has been in the air for about the same amount of time and flew directly over my house at 6:30am was also very inconvenient.
I’m just glad that my working day does not start in the normal place today, because otherwise I would be leaving for work at about 7:40am to ensure that I am out of the area before the random rolling road closures, and before everybody else has the same idea and clogs my alternative routes.
Update: Oops, a stroke of sanity from the Department of Inconvenience, the closure of Parkes Way has been delayed until 8:30am. At least their P.A. system is blaring out across the lake and wafting noises over my suburb, hope is not lost for this new government department. End Update
Samuel