Observing the Aussies: Australia Day...

Every country needs a national holiday. Here in Australia they have, what else, Australia Day. No one I've spoken to here has any idea what it commemorates, but there you are. I had the chance to celebrate the Day in Adelaide, South Australia this year. From the list of activities, here are my observations:

10:00 Adelaide City Council 2007 Australia Day Grand Parade
Billed as a grand parade it was more like just an "iffy" Parade. One pitiful bagpipe contingent provided music for a march of a smattering of the different ethnicities represented in South Australia. Noticably missing were American and Canadian, but the English were there. And while ever other represented group were walking, the English were riding in cars. Asked about it one dapper gentleman quipped "This way if we need to we can run over the ethnics!" Uh, Happy Australia Day to you too, buddy.

11:15 Lord Mayor's Official Flag Raising Ceremony
After an eternal roll call of greetings to distinguished guests, the flag was was merely unfurled from the top of the pole after some verse by hizzonor; despite the description it would be "raised in a magnificent ceremony." This was followed by a 21 gun salute. Actually is was 4 guns fired 5 times each plus one. And to be precisely accurate, they were ceremonial cannons and not guns. No matter how you look at it the end result was it startled the park birds so badly only those under cover kept clean.

11:45 Premier's Cake Cutting Ceremony
This happened at more like 11:30 because, c'mon, how long can a (4 X 5) + 1 gun salute last? At first I wondered why the Premier of South Australia would be here for this until I realized the only thing bigger than this happening in SA was probably, well, nothing. Luckily, I missed the speech trying to crane my neck and see a pie floater that was being eaten next to me because I'd never seen one. Unluckily, I did hear them singing the "Happy Birthday Song" to Australia (rolling my eyes). Anyway, I can only assume Mr Premier did cut a cake, but we were too far away to see it.

12:00 Spectacular Daylight Fireworks by Howard & Sons
Spectacular. Daytime. Fireworks. Well they got two out of the three. The fireworks did have silver sparkly things in them to reflect the sunlight and they tended to include more noisemaker type pyrotechnics - which sent another paroxysm of fear through the park birds and another dive for cover by the crowd. What they also forgot to mention was that the fireworks would rain down the exploded bits of shell and embers onto the crowd. One hit smack in the middle of that pie floater being eaten next to me. Afterwards the display got a smattering of applause by those still left out in the open after the birds and the embers who came through unscathed.

Of course, any Australian would wonder why I expected anything more. After all, it's Adelaide.

- Farmer Ted