In praise of being ordinary

April is the cruellest month, as the poet once said.

Lately I have been trying to live like I was still at my peak. the result has been - I was a little tired, and started to do silly things.

I lost my wallet, twice. Luckily there are honest, considerate people around. I keep a list of phone numbers in the wallet. The first time my son called to say the Station master in the city had phoned him to say my wallet had been handed in.

The next week, to avoid a bit of driving, I caught the train into town with my grandson for a special day out. We were going to meet his dad for lunch. But when I went to pay for lunch I couldn’t find the wallet. Luckily I carry a spare $10 in my jeans which I used for a cheap meal at the take away. The next day I had a phone call from a woman way up in the central coast, to say she had found the wallet under the seat when the train was making its return journey north.

That meant a 250 km round trip to collect the wallet. Being Friday I couldn’t wait till the following Tuesday to get the parcel if she posted it to me – I would need the driver’s licence and my bank card to withdraw some cash before then.

April wasn’t finished with me yet. Last week I looked at the late afternoon sky and thought the clouds might give me a nice colourful sunset to photograph. I packed up all my gear, and rushed out to the car. I ran back to get a bottle of soda water to drink while waiting for the sun to set. The bottle slipped from my fingers as I took it from the fridge and it smashed on the kitchen floor. Glass and drink everywhere. Buggar, I thought, I’ll clean that up when I get home. Rushed back to the car and took off. I got halfway into town and I thought Buggar, I’ve left the camera behind. Unfortunately I was in the long tunnel under the airport, and couldn’t turn around for another 6km. Back home I grabbed the camera bags threw them in the boot and took off again.

I planned to drive up to Sydney harbour, to set up for the photo, when I found the road closed , with workmen getting ready for the Sydney Triathalon on Sunday. I had to park 1.5 km from the point, and walk/run the rest of the way, carrying a couple of camera bags and a tripod.

I stopped near the Cathedral to park. Buggar, I’d left my wallet home, to feed the parking meter, and hadn’t replaced the emergency $10 in my jeans. The parking meters in this part of town demand $7 an hour. I risked getting a parking fine. I left the car and ran.

I made it to the headland on the harbour, thoroughly out of breath, just one minute from the time the weather report said the sun was due to set. There were about 30 other photographers already set up as I tried to squeeze in.

I got a photo of the yellow setting sun, not a great shot, but passable.

April wasn’t finished with me yet. The next morning I thought I would try for a photo of sunrise, from North Head entrance to Sydney harbour, over by Manly. I had checked the weather forecast the night before and they said it would be fine day. Manly is an hours drive away, so I had to leave home by 6.00 to be setup for the sunrise.

When I went out the front door I checked carefully that I had everything I needed, but the morning was suspiciously dark. Fog, or something worse? Should I bother going at all.? When I got to Manly there was heavy cloud from horizon to horizon. No sign of the sun. I sat around drinking tea for an hour, to see if there would be a break in the clouds, but the sky remained gloomy.

Yesterday I went to the shop and bought the meat supply for next week. I got two lamb shanks, and a chicken. Then I forgot about them in the car. This morning the meat didn’t look or smell as if it would do my taste buds nor my health much good.

I had also left the parking lights on over night. I don’t know why they are called parking lights, when they drain the battery flat if you leave them on when you park the car. The upshot was that without a battery the car wouldn’t start.

Road service only took an hour to arrive and help me start the car. The mechanic advised me that I should take the car for a run, for at least half an hour, to fully charge the battery. Through the tunnel again, and as the road came to the surface I ran smack bang into a gridlock traffic jam. I had forgotten about the Sunday football and the fans trying to get to the oval. I sat in the car inching forward, but all the exits from this road were blocked off, for a ’special event’. When I managed to break free I headed home as fast as I could, to sit with a glass of port and watch the football on teev.

Only a couple of days to survive now, till the Merry month of May.

Nearly two years have gone by since cancer was confirmed in my prostate. I am pleased to report that my prostate and I are still here.

According to the odds given by my urologist, blokes my age with confirmed cancer had an average of five years of good running ahead. So, that gives three more years ahead before I beat the ‘ordinary’ level of survival.

It’s been an up and down ride along treatment so far. When my GP first sent me to an urologist, he had found a Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) reading of 4.0 in a routine blood test, which is at the top of ‘normal’ readings. Cancer was confirmed, with a biopsy.

The recommended treatment was to start on hormone therapy. Over the first year of hormone implants, the PSA reading in blood tests continued to rise 8, – 12, – 22; continuing well above high range readings.

So a course of a drug called Cosudex started. Cosudex is used in a combination treatment (sometimes with surgical or medical castration) for the treatment of stage D2 metastatic prostate cancer. Without the castration (phew!) my PSA dropped to a reading of 1.7.

The Cosudex treatment finished a couple of months ago, and this week my blood test PSA reading has gone back to 4.0, where I started this journey.

I am feeling relatively stable and rested, maybe as stable as hormone replacement will allow. There’s a few problems with peeing, especially at night, and my libido has gone into retirement.

For now, I will follow The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy advice : Don’t panic. I’ll wait till the next review in July, to see what happens to the next PSA reading, before talking to the urologist about options and risks.

I’m listening to a podcast of The Last Night of the Proms on web radio, from the BBC, as a way to relax from this morning. I usually don’t like some of the music from the regular proms, the pieces are often a bit too unfamiliar, esoteric and too highbrow.

But on the last night the audience let down their hair and have fun, as a reward for being a good audience during the season. By tradition, in the second half of LNAP they play the Sailors’ Hornpipe, and sing that old chestnut Rule Britania, then Jerusalem; there’s lots of balloon popping, whistle blowing, wearing of silly hats and champagne sploshing. They sway together to The Bride’s Chorus the way you or I might sway to The Maori Farewell. Its what kids have been doing at pop concerts for decades, whereas at classical concerts the stiff-necks rule

Traditionally the Proms finish with Land of Hope and Glory (Pomp and Circumstance), which gives the lads and lasses a chance to swell their chests, wave their flags and bang their party poppers (usually out of sync with the orchestra)

There’s six thousand in the Albert Hall singing and jigging, They have big screens around England with crowds of prommers who can’t make it into the Hall joining in, in outdoor places like Hyde Park, (30 000 people) plus Dublin and Scotland, with the picnikers singing along just as if they were in the hall.

At this moment they are singing ‘ You’ll never walk alone’, and bodies are swaying, and all the parks are joining in. It is delightfully emotional.

I’ll freely admit that I get a little moist-eyed at some of the songs each year as I listen to the LNOP. The audience shows that there’s pride in their nation and its not just patriotic jingoism.

I’m not up for flag-waving nationalism and raw tribalism of some countries and their anthem singing. However, I like living where I live and if it comes to international sporting events I like it when an Aussie player does the rivals over. But then after the game I want to enjoy a beer with the otherside; you never know, next time the Aussies might get done, and then its someone elses’ fans turn to shout.

The Brits have done Pride in Country well. Their spirit has taken many forms over the years, a bulldog, Swinging Britain, their spirit during the second world war. They have some traditions worth following. Especially their football club fan loyalty and colour wearing. (Go the Gunners)

I am against clubs’ hooligan violence, but the old time team songs sumg at astadium during play is enough to stir the blood. Just like the Kiwi Haka.

The only Aussie team song that comes close to having the same rallying power is the song of the Collingwood Aussie Rules team. In this video its sad to say they have to play a recorded version over the public address system, the fans don’t have enough oomph to do it themselves

I grind my teeth with ferocious embarrassment when I watch an Australian representative sporting team lined up before the game, ready for the national anthem, and its obvious the players don’t know the words.

I don’t expect a ‘last night at the proms’ on the sporting field, but something more than a shy mumble would be good.

But still, Aussies are young and free. We’ve only had 30 years to learn the words of our national anthem, so without a karaoke-like prompt, sportsmen can’t be expected to remember the whole 20 lines.

Peaceful, stately, plump, playful, sociable and magnificent creatures. These were my first impressions, on seeing a humpback whale in the wild.

Last weekend I went on a whale-watching cruise, off the northern coast of NSW. The crew offered passengers tea and biscuits and free sea-sick pills; There was plenty of space for twenty passengers – tourists, families and amateur photographers - inside and outside the cabin, and rails to hang onto in a tossing open sea. Comfortable seats and tables inside the cabin, in case nature decided to give the hunters a touch of wind or rain. Quite unlike the morbid conditions for crew I’d read of in the whale-chasing book ‘Moby Dick’.

Twenty minutes out from the harbour heads we saw, and heard, a whale blowing to the surface. There was a pod of four humpbacks within a few metres of the boat, coasting north for the winter. There’s little wonder our first whales seemed so easy to find ; perhaps they found us. The ship’s captain said he’d had a hundred percent success rate in spotting whales each cruise. He said there were an estimated 10,000 whales migrating north along the coast this season.

This pod was enjoying a lazy day in sun stroked water. They idled along, a few minutes near the surface, then made a dive for about six minute, then back to the surface. They weren’t interested in performing spectacular tricks you see in tourist brochures, no spectacular leaps to break into the air; no rolling, no waving of their fins.

There was a healthy swell running, water rising about two metres, and the whales seemed determined to keep at least one swell between themselves and the boat. This gave them some privacy, they were down one dip in the ocean, we were in another, and a wall of water between us.

The swell meant some of the passengers on the vessel weren’t all that interested in the water or its whales; they tried to avoid eye contact with the swell. They had their faces buried in paper sea-sick bags, or were queued for a turn in the toilets. Some hung over rails, looking green and grey down into the blue sea.

I can say, with some luck, I didn’t fall victim to a churning stomach.

The boat followed the pod for 90 minutes. I assume it was the same pod all the way; sometimes we lost contact and waited till we saw more slicks on the surface of the water, and headed just north of that spot.

Photography was difficult. I didn’t know if the whales would surface one side of the boat, or the other., If I would be setting the exposure to shoot into the sun, or with the sun at my back. The sea moved, the boat bobbed up and down in the swell, the whales were moved up and down the swell, appearing and diving in seconds, and I hung grimly onto my camera, and the side rail, trying to focus. Of 250 shots, I accept three as OK.

On the return to harbour there was time to think about what I’d seen.

There’s nothing special about eating whale meat, that justifies slaughtering them. There’s nothing special about their blubber, except for their own survival. We humans can always find alternative sources to whale blubber products.

In my time I have seen whale skeletons in museums. I’ve seen a whale skeleton on the beach at Bicheno, in Tasmania. I’ve seen whalebones in corsets and carved bones in scrimshaws.. I’ve seen little whales in commercial aquaria.

I’ve read Moby Dick, and seen TV news of their carcasses being hauled onto modern whaling boats. But none of these second hand encounters prepared me for their size, and grace.

My brief meeting with the humpbacks, living, breathing and caring for each other was an unusual but also an ordinary experience;

More than just a nice afternoon’s amusement; this was nature behaving normally. I saw these whales as every-day creatures as ordinary as oxygen and as probably just as essential. The sooner they are recognised for not being alien, the better

Enough already of alpha males, managers, team leaders, committee chairwomen, gurus, captains, advisers, consultants and positive thinkers leading us all up the garden path.

There are too many aspirational chiefs paid too much money, and too few Indians. There’s too many bullying-cooks in the kitchen claiming credit for all of a restaurant’s stars, too little recognition of kitchen hands or dishwashers who make the stars shine.

I’m told that in the biblical beatitudes there’s a promise that the ‘Meek shall inherit the earth’. I can’t see that happening anytime soon.

There’s too much scoffing at the idea of anyone with a meek attitude inheriting anything of value. For example, writers James Joyce and William Blake condemned the meek philosophy, for advocating a “life without striving”.

I reckon its time for power-hoarders at the head table and those sitting on thrones on the top floor to share a balance of their powers. Time the silent majority were given a fair go.

With that in mind, I’d like to say a word or two in favour of the meek and mild amongst us. I’d especially ike to say a special word or two in favour of a particular branch of the meek – the wimps.

I don’t know how or why the word ‘wimp’ came to be a derogatory term. It is generally thrown about by some bully, as an insult to suggest an unmanly person.

But in a fair world a wimp is a soft spoken, generally conservative person who doesn’t rise to the bait of being dared to do stupid stuff. A Barney Rubble, rather than a Fred Flintstone.

A wimp is someone who might sit on the fence, seeing green grass on both sides. A wimp might own a small dog, or wear zinc cream in the sun. A wimp won’t cheat when playing. A wimp might simply be shy. A wimp is someone who takes her turn in a queue, rather than shoulder her way to the front of the line. Wimps might be found short on adrenaline, but that won’t stop them be heroes in necessary.

I didn’t find where the word was first used, but last century a couple of famous characters were Wimps with a capital.

J. Wellington Wimpy, generally referred to as Wimpy, was a character in the long-running comic strip Popeye, He was meek, peaceful, and a staunch friend to the Popeye family. This Wimpy really liked hamburgers, wore a bowler hat, and usually had gravy stains on his tie. He was my favourite character in the comic, and I hoped that I would grow up to be just like him.

Well before I was old enough to listen to old time radio, there was a popular comedy program called Fibber McGee and Molly. Sometimes I got to hear later episodes in Australia

One enduring character was Wallace Wimple, nicknamed “Wimp” by McGee. Wimple was a timid birdwatcher, who lived in constant terror of his “big old wife” named “Sweetie Face”

WIMPS also stands for “Where Is My Public Servant”, a project for little people with big ideas.  It is a project run by and for young people. Iin particular it is to  help young people to influence decision-makers.

In today’s creative science and technology fields, there’s a lot of important wimps.

In space there are the super physics heroes, Weakly Interactive Massive Particles, known as “Dark Matter”

Wimps were responsible for making computers accessible to non-technical people, in the late 1980s, with four contraptions called Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers

Who knows what can be achieved for the prestige of wimps. if we can =together= bring wimps back into popular favour, we might see the annual tennis tournament in London renamed as Wimpeldon

I can walk for miles, I can march in step, but when it comes to dancing, I disown my feet.

These days, rather than make a fool of myself, I don’t dance. Firm rule, never an exception. At weddings I sit over in the darkened corner at the back, hoping none of my relatives will make a scene telling me that I have to get up on the dance floor.

I haven’t always been like this. As a young buck I went to all the church dances, to the Saturday night dances at the Wonderland Ballroom, and often served as dancing partner with pretty young debutantes.

I didn’t have two left feet, and was pretty light in the moves for a waltz, two step, tango, foxtrot, and barn dance. I could keep my dance partners reasonably happy with swing, jive and boogie.

The secret was: Couples touched when they danced. I was holding a dancing partner, and could sense what move they wanted to do next.

This good life started to fall apart though, in the 60’s and 70’s. I began to feel incompetent when the Twist and the Limbo started.

At the time I was friends with a lithesome professional TV dancer. She could out-dance Syd Charisse. When she took to the floor, everyone else, including me, sat down to watch the beauty grace and skill while she danced in a world of her own making.

Then the world went crazy with dances where touching your partner was considered uncool. I blame women’s lib for that. The music industry peppered Saturday nights with ridiculous dance fads such as Mashed Potato, The Hitchhiker, Walking the Dog and the Harlem Shuffle. Look up clips of them on YouTube. People ‘did their own thing’ on the dance floor.

Then John Travolta did his thing in Saturday Night Fever. Dancing without touching. Not one male in a hundred could look that good on a dance floor.

The other 99 of us fell into deep depression with all these new gyrations. At any wedding or family party you can see for yourself how the men folk of my generation fell apart. No matter how hard we try to keep our dance partners happy, we look ridiculous. It has degenerated to a level of self satire.

We jerk and grimace and stomp and wave our limbs like puppets with broken strings.

I know there’s a camera waiting, ready for the next episode of ‘Funniest Home Videos’. Look on YouTube for less wary blokes who are trying to do what their women have been doing for years – freestyle on the dance floor. Geek dances , Boris Yeltsin and He feels good to be alive

What’s that? You think we could dance if we just tried?

Here’s some dance moves I have tried to choreograph, so I can get up on the floor and accommodate friends and family who are dancing fools.

• The Tin Man Walk, as in the wizard of Oz.
• Walking with a Zimmer Frame.
• On Roller Skates, Losing my Balance
• Stepping on soap in the shower.
• Old Man in Slippers Shuffle

Now matter how much I practice when I think no-one is watching, I could never be as smooth as this guy. Perhaps he is the one-in-hundred.

If you can accept for a moment the idea that ’simple is best’, I am sure you will enjoy 1000 Awesome Things.

This Blog is a view of the world celebrating discovery of simple pleasures within reach of ordinary everyday life, without being maudlin or preachy. Each awesome entry gives the same sort of pleasure a dad gets when he tells a dad joke, or when mum puts comfort food on the table for the family.

Regularly updated each weekday by Neil Pasricha, the site was launched on June 20, 2008. Pasricha now attracts 40,000 people each day to join his discussions on topics such as how to enjoy wrong coloured foods

Starting with small delight #1,000 and working towards #1, the site is now nearly half way to its goal. For each entry so far Pasricha has provided a warm, opinionated, biased, idiosyncratic take on everyday goings-on. He provides an explanation for each choice, and some of the pieces are quite detailed in their description and affects.

The illustrations are original, quirky and really add to the flavour of the blog.

The blog has good reviews from BBC, CNN, and Wired magazine. Someone on Wikipedia said their five favourite posts were:
· Ordering off the menu at fast food restaurants (#949)
· Old, dangerous playground equipment (#980)
· Smiling and thinking of good friends who are gone (#829)
· Mastering the art of the all-you-can-eat buffet (#864)
· Old, classic board games (#847)

My favourite so far is thing #565, ‘Moving forward and moving on’.

This week 200 of the best posts so far are being published in book form - The Book of Awesome. On Amazon, the book is rated highly by those who have seen a copy.

Pasricha says that he works in an office, and is just a regular guy who loves the smell of petrol, sleeping on the cool side of the pillow, and peeling an orange.

Writing these blog entries has had an effect on the man driving 1000 Awesome Things. He says:

I hope we hear lots more from this guy

I think that I’ve forgotten my share of useful facts. Mostly because they’ve been superseded by new stuff I’ve had to learn.

I forget stuff all the time. I forget to comb my hair before I leave for work. I forget where I put the car keys. I forget the names of people I met this morning, and I forget the faces of friends I haven’t seen in 20 years.

Sometimes words I want don’t jump to mind; I need to wait a few hours for the cobwebs to fall away.

Without my diary I wouldn’t remember half the jobs I am supposed to do next week. Even with a trusty organiser I’ve now booked myself to be in two different cities on the same day next month. I’ll have to tell a fib to one of my family; and we all know that a fibber has to have an excellent memory.

When I go to the grocer’s I take a written list; otherwise I come home with wrong purchases. So what’s new? I had to carry a written list when I ran to the corner shop aged ten; and when I lived with mates, aged 20; and in my thirties, when I was married. Today, in my 70s, if I don’t have a shopping list, I forget to buy tissues and toilet rolls that I need.

The most common trick the forgetting fairy plays is when I re-heat a cup of tea that’s gone cold, and ten minutes later I wander around the house looking for my cup, forgetting to look in the microwave oven.

But I have always forgotten such things, with little concern that I might have become abnormally absent-minded.

This ability of mine not to remember everything is nothing unique. There have always been normal people who get on the train with odd socks, or a with a dress tucked into knickers, because they forgot to check in the mirror.

Mostly I suspect failure to recall occurs because we get distracted, or because we are not sufficiently interested in routine tasks, of what we’re doing, and so, need to operate on auto-pilot.

Forgetfulness and distraction are a part of ordinary daily living.

I am told we can do exercise to help muscle-up our memories; there’s a game a memory training guru played, where he showed me a tray with 20 objects on it, and then I was expected to try and recall the items when the tray was removed. Most of these tricks really didn’t help in the long scheme of things.

Now, with hordes of drone-like baby boomers worried about growing old, they appear to have a deep fear of not only loosing skin elasticity, but they are being told they may, proabably, also lose an inevitable  fight with Alzheimer’s. There’s a whole new industry in researching and caring for dementia patients.

Whereas in days of yore, relatives would simply lock grandma in a home and take her for a Sunday drive once a month, now the aged care industry organises sing-songs and knees-up for their bed-bound, foggy-minded oldies.

Despite the growing industry of care and research, there is no known cure, nor way of preventing, memory loss -  yet. The best advice I’ve had in 70 years was from my grandmother, in days before the I-phone apps, who said if I had to remember something, to tie a knot of string around my finger. That would give me a clue that I had to remember something.  

I believe they – the professional care support industry - mean well, and they believe they are essential to the welfare of oldies and their families, but a full house of empty-headed geriatrics is bread and butter to this industry. Every day, especially in Twitter, I see new research warning of an increase in memory loss. And demands for higher wages for helpers in the old folks home.

How can I know if my forgetfulness is unusual, a result of memory fading like the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland, or the onset of progressing senility and dementia.

Perhaps I am loosing my marbles and I am in their target ( what’s the word, I’ve forgotten, its on the tip of my tongue) – a yes, target demographic.
 
Despite all the proclaimed tests for early warnings of loss off mental facilities, if my grey cells die and memory fades, it will fade away imperceptibly, like hearing loss or receding hair lines. I probably won’t notice anything other than my frustration because the crossword puzzles seem to be getting harder to solve.

Perhaps there should be a dash of cold reality from the Aged Care industry. Reality about what the aging baby boomers, their parents and children can expect, without scaring them stupid. What is ordinary memory loss, and what is tragic debilitation.
 
I searched Google and other web search machines for answers. Incidentally, one of the suggestions from a serious scientist said that use of web search engines was likely to cause us to lose the power to remember; well they said that, centuries ago, about the evil of printed books, didn’t they. But I digress. In the search I found a useful web blog: geriatric care management , with advice to “Help Manage the Care of an Older Adult”. Assuming, of course, this is an adult who has passed over to another dimension, and needs help from family or the helping industry.
 
“Alzheimer’s is not forgetting your keys. It’s forgetting what your keys are for.”
 
This was an “Ah Ha” moment. Its OK, and normal, to forget where I put my keys.
 
If I am strapped to a chair, and fed mush, I probably won’t care what the keys are used for.

Abuse is frequent on the web, it isn’t normal on-line behavior.

Some say the lash should be used in response to rude and offensive name-calling on the internet, but I am persuaded this could simply make the miscreants’ behaviour even worse.

When I was a kid, adults threatened to wash my mouth out with soap when I was a potty mouth. They did it to me twice. Soap in the mouth is a truly effective form of aversion therapy, which I recommend to all moderators of internet service platforms and social networking media. The after-taste, the foam around my lips, from Palmolive and Pears soap, made me sure that I watched my ‘Ps’ and ‘Qs’ before I let rage reach my tongue.

In the early days of web conversations, typing ALL IN CAPITALS was considered the depth of archaic bad web-manners, akin to SHOUTING in face-to-face conversations, to drown out other points-of-view. Frequent application of virtual softsoap replies from normal web users almost eradicated use of capital offence.

Then came Flame Wars 1.0, especially in group forums on the internet. The normal wisdom of crowds on the web turned into an online lynch mob screaming virtual tirades. Posts from immature web junkies degenerate from polite logical arguments into invective. Disputes raged as if conversation was a game of Aliens Vs. Predator, (”Mankind’s two ultimate nightmares come together in mortal combat, and whoever wins - we lose.”)

Occasionally, innocent bystanders like me still stumble upon a new flare-up of a flame war. It seems that this sort of ungentle conduct is today directed more against scientists than any other group. For example, read some of the posts from climate change deniers.

Just this week, there’s been a wild response to an innocent message from eminent scientist Richard Dawkins. In case you haven’t caught up to the fracas, Dawkins is now being described in the press as the most hated man in Britain today – in terms usually directed at unpopular politicians.

Dawkins mistake was to update his website with a letter politely explaining a few planned changes to the “community” bulletin board, where more than 85,000 enthusiasts come to air their views.
Read Richard Dawkins Message here, and a summary of the reactions. You can smell the blood, as if instead of being a web discussion the site had turned into a cage fight.

Dawkins must have thought he had been transported a back alley.

When tempers flare, and insults are hurled with impunity like this, the web resembles the underground inhabited by droogies from A Clockwork Orange

It’s time to bring ‘nice’ back into popular use in web culture.

The word ‘nice’ has many meanings. Back in the 12^th century it meant foolish and stupid. Nice. Then it became a cliché, lacking qualities of precision and intensity in its synonyms. The normal meaning today is accepted as: being pleasant; and kind.

In a difference of opinion on the web or in real life, it’s possible to press your case as hard as you can, and still behave in a friendly civilised manner; That doesn’t mean you need to be friends.

Nor does it mean you rebut your opponent with language like that found in Clockwork Orange “You twitching, gelatinous yolk of rancid effluvia”. That’s not nice.

Last night in Sydney the local  Chinese community gave Sydney a priceless cultural present to celebrate Chinese New Year.
This was a Twilight Parade, with elaborate floats, magnificent costumes, dancing, drums and dragons. Lots of dragons. It was reported as the largest Chinese celebration for New Year, outside of China. Who knows if that is true or not. It certainly felt true, as the parade worked its way through the centre of the city.
This has become a major event on the summer calender, for those who know that it is on. But The Chinese New Year doesn’t get a quarter of media promotion that is given to other festivals on in Sydney during summer.
More than 3 000 Chinese-Australians gave of their time energy and talent to make this parade happen. Ordinary people; mums, dads, kids, tradesmen, bankers, shopkeepers, chefs and clerks.
There were a few poobahs up the front of the parade, councilors, politicans and glamorous movie stars, soaking up glory. But the rest of the paraders were our neighbours and schoolmates.
About 100 000 people came into town to enjoy the spectacle as spectators. But that means about 4 million people didn’t get to see this magnificent cultural celebration.
And how did the media bring this massive event into our homes. About 7 seconds viewing on the TV news, photographed in the dark. A small paragraph in the paper; with no photos. A story about a picnic in the park earlier in the day got more media coverage.
All those people who spent months rehearsing, training, practicing, making costumes, raising funds really add quality and depth to life in Sydney.
As I walked around Hyde park earlier in the afternoon I was constantly greeted with smiles, laughter, people pleased for a chance to show off their costumes and show me how they brought dragons to life during the Twilight Parade.

For more images of the costumes in the parade, have a look at my Flickr gallery