The Great Race

No not the film called 'The Great Race' but the Bathurst 1000, on today at Mt Panorama.  As it runs all day there is plenty of time to wander the streets, taking the air and finding out what's going on.  I must admit there was not that much going on.  One of the local churches being repainted was about the biggest news on the streets. 

That was Sunday when I started this post.  Now it's Monday so Mycroft has been out and about earning a living.  Seated on a bus this morning and this evening, I was a witness to strange events.  This morning's bus journey was uneventful enough, but this evening strange things were afoot. 

There was a man seated a couple of rows up holding a huge ball of newspaper.  From the discussion he was having with the man in front of him (in a black leather jacket), it seems Leather Jacket had balled up a page of the Sydney Morning Herald and thrown it to the floor of the bus.  Not unreasonably, the first man suggested that Leather Jacket take his rubbish with him.  Leather Jacket's 'argument' was that the Herald should be confronted about their paper.  Seemingly he did not like the content, well not of part of that particular page as he seemed to be happy to read the rest of his paper.  One wonders if he was incensed by only a small part of the page he balled up.  Then again the ball was so big I could still read the articles on the outside of it from a few rows back. 

I wondered what this episode teaches us.  I concluded that it was a good thing Leather Jacket was not reading  a tougher book that incensed him, like one of those plastic books that can be read in the bath.  Or reading an ipad, or an old fashioned laptop.  Balling those things up would have tested him out. 

It's also important to remember that Leather Jacket might not have been well: sometimes it's better to leave people alone.  In this case, the man might have needed help, not censure.  I hope it was not that dramatic.  Certainly I was watching to see if Jacket would punch the other gentleman but nothing happened and we all carried on our bus journey.  As no doubt commuters will do for another hundred years, oblivious to the miniature drama played out on a Monday evening on Parramatta Road.  Sic transit gloria.