Nightmare on High Street

Mid-afternoon on a Saturday in the city and the hustle and bustle is in full swing.  I am sat beneath a statue of a once great monarch as I write this, seemingly far from the madding crowd yet only a few footsteps from the ensuing chaos.  A stroll down the main pedestrian area provides an almost nausea inducing mix of sight and sound; a man apparently making sand sculptures but I suspect the reality is that these were pre-constructed using moulds and carefully presented to suggest hours of toil and craftsmanship.  A political protest calling for the end of racist separation in overseas countries is in fine voice.  A noble enough cause but to my mind if you really want to make a difference, dear heart, take a look around you and start right here; it is all well and good going to fight for a worthy cause overseas but that does nothing to help those facing discrimination and hardship on these very streets.

Further down the street is a statue artist – the costume cleverly captures the moment during a wind-swept daily commute in what must have been nothing short of a tropical hurricane.  The execution is very good but as a statue you are asking people to pay while you literally stand and do nothing.  A walk past our inert friend and there are a couple of Phillipino looking characters dressed in pseudo-First Nation costume. At first glance they look almost genuine but, like everything else, if you know what you are looking at then they are anything but authentic.  Their party piece is to use various flutes, pan-pipes etc to a Native backing track.  The track itself is a stereotypical collection of sounds and rhythms but as likely to have as much in common with the First Nation as the Japanese owned bank outside which they perform.

The street is otherwise interspersed with all the expected delights; vendors of not-too-readily identifiable foods, recommended for the most adventurous and strongest of constitutions only.  Slow moving handcarts, the owners of which are purveyors of a whole range of unusual tat at ridiculous prices – the sort of things you could probably find on a popular internet auction site under the category “Job Lots”.  The star-studded line up of street cabaret is completed by a group of street preachers.  I am not going to enter into the whole religious maze here but leave it, as always, to the individual to contemplate their leanings, beliefs and inclinations but suffice to say I do not feel any particular glory and salvation from their gospels any more than a match commentary is likely to fill me with the desire to follow the goings on in the football league.

In typical and fine form for this wonderful city the weather has switched to its default setting of “dull with some rain”; I dare say if the sunshine had continued for just one more hour the local media would be buzzing with talk of an Indian summer (which is, incidentally, a reference to the tribal activities of the First Nation in anticipation of winter conditions and nothing to do with the Asian sub-continent) or other meteorological rubbish.  Time for another wander methinks, to see what the last vestiges of Saturday afternoon bring before the sun sets and the creatures of the night emerge in all their glory.