Well, this old gull has seen a lots of fireworks shows. There's the Council one down on the pier: us gullz always view that one from North Beach or the Southshore Spit - too much noise, smoke, and general mayhem up close. Mind you, those are truly spectacular displays: on behalf of the ratepayers' houses I perch on, I say: if you have to give the Council oodles of dosh to piddle away in various ways, the annual Make Things Go Bang display is right up there with the best of them.
But away from the bright lights, there are other, much more amateur fireworks shows, too. There are little groups of people secreted away everywhere, preparing their own displays. And on the big night, getting totally trolleyed, letting their carefully prepared displays go off in various ways. Yelling and yahooing generally help. But, as seasoned observers, us Gullz take such displays in our stride.
The Gullz fraternity/sorority have been endlessly amused about the antics of more than the bang-and-spark sort of fireworks. There's been another little group secreted away, preparing the Big Bang Submission for the Council's Residential density Study.
That Big Bang was meant to show the Council that the Little People were going to Stand Up and Not Let Development Happen anywhere in Brighton! And there was a Form Letter to sign, which said all that in simple words, so as not to have to let any of the Little People actually Think for Themselves. Because That, as we oldsters all know, leads to People Getting Ideas and that will Never Do. And so about, oh, thirty-seven people actually signed their brains away.
But then two Utterly Dreadful things happened to this little band of
The Council looked through all the Submissions, and decided that the Form Letter was actually just one small-s submission, not, as the purveyors and thought controllers had hoped, thirty-seven Big-S Submissions. Quelle horreur! Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth!
And the Evil Capitalist Developers who had bought the beachfront sections in the Commercial Zone, had their Tower Plan finally passed, put up a big sign advertising a quite tasteful looking glass and steel apartment block, and all this, just one short block away from the Chief Thought Comptroller General! And right in the path of the summer solstice sunrise, too.
Well, as us Gullz well know, you don't go poking at a sleepy dog, seal, human, or Council, without expecting some sort of unpleasant surprise. Little yappy dogz can give a Slow Gull a nasty surprise. Seals, well, have you ever smelt their breath when they open their mouths? Humans, let's just say they are one unpredictable animal of them all. And Councils, being Humans plus lots of Other People's Money, are the ones you least want to poke at for any extended period.
So, hindsight being a rather exact science, we Gullz can give the Bad Pennies of the world a leetle advice.
Try and be nicer to other people, because thinking that you're the Expert, Oracle and Fountainhead of Wisdom can be just so very tiring.
And, as brilliant as your voice sounds to you and your sweetly deluded followers, the rest of the citoyen of this fair city have a say, too. That's what Councillors do.
It's called Democracy.
