Thursday, March 22, 2007

Capital Canberra?

Given the authors of this blog hail from the city that John Cleese described as the perfect suicide catalyst for those searching for the courage to knock themselves off, it is perhaps a bit hypocritical to draw similar conclusions about another city on the basis of only a brief visit. But hey, this is the blogosphere where half-truths, semi-truths and you-tube-truths are the order of the day. So yes, to put it bluntly, Canberra is a good place to visit if your idea of a Saturday night out is searching desolate streets for the lone McDs that still happens to be open after what appears to be the universal bedtime of 6pm. It's a good place to visit if you want to see vast but empty centrally-planned open spaces without having to sign on to a UN weapons inspection team for a ticket to North Korea. It's a good place to visit if you like to driven in circles around a ludicrously complex system of concentric roundabouts, the only purpose of which is to prevent the few remaining residents from fleeing. It's a good place to visit if you enjoy experiencing a city so boring that even the politicians refuse to live there.


Ok, that's a slight hyperbole. It's not that bad. With the sun shining on a glorious autumn day, things began to look up as the party set off for the heart of the nation - Parliament House. Obviously realising where pollies rate in the scheme of things, the architect took the unique approach of burying the whole darn thing underground. Or maybe it was to make sure Dick Cheney feels right at home in a nice cosy bunker when he visits.

Advance Australia Fair! With the Cricket World Cup in full swing, there's little chance of catching the Prime Minister in the vicinity. And Kevin Rudd is off raiding the future fund so that Aussies can download movies at 40x their current piracy rate.


Rock seizes the opportunity to ruin what would have otherwise been an compositionally interesting study in linear perspective.

Nothing quite sums up the utter desolation of Canberra than this award-winning shot. There'd be more life in the middle of the Gobi...

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Oi, Oi, Oi!


You know things are bad when the filler photos (not to mention filler captions) start appearing...


See what I mean?

Ho hum...

Despite Howard's best efforts a non-cricket playing, non-jandel wearing, non-holden-driving visitor manages to evade the Naval patrols and barb-wired detention facilities to set foot on the golden soil...

Will they fly this at half mast when Ricky Ponting and Co get bundled out of the World Cup?

When there's nothing else to see, and nothing else to do, you have to make your own entertainment...

Up, up and away, into the wild blue yonder...

The earth-shattering impact is enough to send the bomb squad into action. Luckily, like everything else in this city, they don't exactly move at a frenetic pace.