Surry Hills – the suburb where we live - is in lockdown. Now when I say “suburb” I don’t mean it in a Margot and Jerry way. It’s very central I’ll have you know and ever so hip. Full of bijou restaurants and shops selling stuff no one needs. But in Australia everyone lives in a suburb. Sydney itself, the narrow strip of skyscrapers between the harbour and Central Station, is called a suburb. Which perhaps says more about this place than any number of letters I could write.
Anyway, Surry Hills is in lockdown. Two of its main thoroughfares, Foveaux and Bourke, have been shut off entirely. Those foolish enough to drive this weekend have been funnelled into Crown and as I type are sitting in their cars going nowhere. Helicopters hover low in the sky and groups of policeman are hanging around on street corners.
Devonshire, the street which runs from our place to Central Station, is also blocked off, crowded with water trucks leaking all over the tarmac. This morning as I smugly left my car at home I asked one of the council workers if a pipe had burst.
“No pipe” he said “Just pope”.
The water vans were there to fill the huge plastic barricades which ran the length of Devonshire. Did you know they are filled with water to keep them solid and emptied again when they need to be moved? Well now you do. And the reason for the barricades? For the lockdown of Surry Hills and half of Sydney this weekend? The council man had it right. The pope’s here and God it’s getting annoying.
July 17th – 21st inclusive are World Youth Day (named by somebody who can’t count I’d guess).and apparently this a big deal in catholic circles. We were told it would be the “biggest youth event in the world ever” but that didn’t sound such a big deal. After all, what were they comparing it to? And we scoffed at the idea that hundreds of thousands of pilgrims would make the trip to Sydney. I mean, that pope, he’s not so big any more is he?
Oh how out of touch we atheists can become. 60,000 people are planning to attend the Friday night mass on the harbour. 250,000 will be at the weekend services at Randwick Race Course. And as far as I can tell the vast majority of them are indeed youths and more surprisingly actually from all over the world. Mexico, Chile, Croatia, Austria, the US, the UK, Germany, France, India, Guam, Senegal, I could go on. Thousands and thousands of young people everywhere you go, all of them singing and dancing and playing the guitar badly.
And you can’t help but like them. Admittedly they’re clogging the transport system and they have terrible skin, but they’re all so happy in their matching rucksacks, so friendly and optimistic. Great hordes of them have been crossing my beach all week like a disorganised but victorious army, calling out and challenging each other to games of volleyball or swims in the icy water.
Some locals have objected to the $150 million the NSW government has put into this jamboree but when you see them all here from all over the planet, smiling and spending money you can’t help but be uplifted.
At least that’s how my thinking went for a while. But then, on Thursday evening, the pope got in my way.
Every afternoon I train for four or so hours on Manly Beach. By the time I’m on my way home I’m exhausted, covered in sand and - at this time of the year – cold. All I want to do is get the ferry to Circular Quay and jump on my bus down to the Hills. Which is easy enough if some popstar in a white dress isn’t planning to drive past your bus stop.
I got off the ferry to find thousands of people lining both sides of the road screaming at an approaching cavalcade. Deep breath, I’ll get a train. Except, as I queued for my ticket, the station suddenly closed because the platform was too full. Deeper breath, I’ll walk. Oh, except they’ve closed off all the roads because Bride of Chucky is doing his drive past right now.
“You could try and flag down a helicopter” suggested a policeman before retreating from the look I gave him.
The worst moment was when I walked from the place where the popemobile was about to drive to where it had just driven. Four thousand catholics turned as one and ran past me to get a second look. And there’s me carrying ten volleyballs. As you can imagine, this was just about efuckingnough. How dare this stupid man get in my way?! We’re trying to run a city here not a cult. And have none of these people noticed that this stupid man won’t allow condoms in AIDS-ridden Africa? Or that he thinks that my lifestyle if evil and that half my friends should go to hell? Or that the insitution which he leads has caused systematic child abuse and ruined hundreds of thousands of lives? How dare a man whose only redeeming feature is that he actually looks evil tell me how to live my life?
Oliver designed a t-shirt which read “World Youth Day 2008, I was touched by a priest down under” and oh I wish I was wearing one just then. “Oh” I shouted “oh, you mindless idiots, did you hear about why the mass is being held at the race course? Because it’s the only place in Sydney where you can legally ride a three year old!”
Except I didn’t of course. I just fought through the crowds and once they opened the barricades somehow caught a miracle taxi home. Maybe God was feeling protestant that day. Anyway, there are still quite a few pilgrims milling about, still singing and carrying crosses. And I don’t mind them, so young and guilt ridden, so malleable and out of tune. But I’ll never, never forgive the pope.
No comments:
Post a Comment