Photo: Taken last night at the start of the great "Holiday road toll" event.As I post, here in Sydney it is the evening of Good Friday, (a public holiday) hence only one post today.
Easter Monday is also a holiday and in some places, so is Easter Tuesday would you believe. Easter finishes just in time for ANZAC Day on April 25, which is also a holiday. We then have a clear run until early June, when we have a break for the Queen's Birthday.
Australian workers need these holidays so that they can spend time at home organising their social life, attending to personal business, sending and reading private emails and sorting out family problems.This gives them a nice break from doing it in their workplace.
Like all public holidays here, it is also the time for that great event - "The Holiday Road Toll". Radio stations, television and newspapers all carry the latest death toll as headline news. It doesn't matter if 5,000 are killed in a tsunami in the Pacific, some wanker killed while driving forty kilometres an hour over the speed limit, will be the lead story.
"This brings the holiday road toll this Easter to five - one more than last year".
Four accidents in the most populated state in Australia - shock horror. Bring over the CNN team to make sure this shocking news receives global coverage. What's the government doing about it? Why isn't the United Nations stepping in? Why can't the European Union demand action!
Bu the media doesn't restrict things to just local level - oh no. They compare the different states.
"New South Wales has recorded 5 deaths; Victoria 6 deaths, Western Australia 2 fatalities....New South Wales will meet Victoria in the All Australia Road Toll Grand Final."
Pretty soon the phrase, "Holiday road carnage" will creep in to the bulletins. Excuse me, but carnage is 60 innocent people killed in a roadside bomb blast in Baghdad.
It's all very sad and all the other things one is expected to say, but it is not news. It is just incredibly boring. Bring me real news - not what in the majority of cases, are the end results of other people's stupidity.
Mind you, the carnage in Baghdad is the result of other people's stupidity as well.
Hi George - have a pretzel.
