Queen's Birthday long weekend in Canberra: each year, these four evenings are punctuated by sporadic and random explosions throughout the capital. No, it's not an attempted coup, it's fireworks. For a few weeks each year around this time, hitherto empty shopfronts become bastions of capitalism as shonky salespeople offload truckloads of legal explosives to willing parents. (Canberra's other main industry is XXX porn videos. And people say this is a dull place.)
Over the last couple of years, for reasons of public liability insurance, the more lethal fireworks have been banned, and apparently this year there will be no noise-making gear whatsoever. Which must not have got through to the people concerned, because even as I write, the inner south sounds not unlike Baghdad By Night. And anyway, our street (tomorrow is our night) has a secret weapon: somebody's father has what has been described to me as a "small cannon". Which uses home-made gunpowder. And which he only fires once. I have a horrible feeling I know why. Mulled wine will be served throughout. It also works as an anaesthetic. This could be the last post.
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