Felix the Cat 3

There must be a Felix fan spreading the joy around Sydney! Is it a concerted campaign? Yet more tomorrow....when we ask the question "Is Felix Australian?"

Here the Felix song by clicking here.

Felix the Cat, the wonderful, wonderful cat
Whenever he gets in a fix, he reaches into his bag of tricks

You'll laugh so much your sides will ache
Your heart will go pitter pat
Watching Felix, the wonderful cat.

Gathering support

Some Falun Gong practiotioners were out and about garnering support from the Catholic World Youth Day participants recently. With some success as you can see above!

And thanks to the city workers

The success of people-intensive events depends on the hard work of so many behind the scenes workers. This city of Sydney worker was picking up rubish in Hyde Park to keep the area clean for the Catholic World Youth Day revellers.

Today is, apparently Ratcatchers' Day. I hope this young woman doesn't have to deal with any rats!

It's also Pi approximation day in countries that use DD/MM/YY format for dates: 22/7

Waiting for God....oh...*

I had intended to go up Sydney Tower today and get some aerial shots of crowds following the pope's progress as he "officially" arrived in Sydney (He's been here since Sunday). Unfortunately, there was a wait of at least an hour and a half to get to the top. Lots of young Catholics had the same idea! So, I wandered through Hyde Park, looking for some photo ops, and ended up right at the fence opposite St Mary's Cathedral. The crowd was one deep, so I then decided I would call this post "I did but see him passing by..." and wait with the faithful, as a faithful Sydney blogger, to witness his arrival. After all, there really was only one event in Sydney today.

Here's a pic I took of myself. Waiting.

Here's a pic of the excited (?) crowd.
And here's a pic of the cathedral, with Apollo seeming to be pointing towards it. The side door we were facing is under that middle tower:
It wasn't too long before the masses started to realise that in a triumph of unfortunate planning, il papa was going to arrive in the dark. Maybe it should have happened an hour earlier? Had someone forgotten that it's dark at about 5pm in Sydney in winter? Mutterings began about whether mobile phone cameras would be up to the job of snapping the pontiff as he drove slowly past in the Popemobile. I busied myself trying out various settings on the camera, taking and deleting pics furiously as I tried to decide which setting might cope with both darkness and a slow-moving vehicle. I phoned home to ask someone to turn on the TV and check where he was.

A ripple of laughter went around the crowd (which was getting a bit antsy) as one wag commented that this probably wasn't the popemobile.
Then the helicopters overhead increased in number (about 5) and proximity, one even coming quite low. And a group of cars whizzed past at high speed at the end of the road. I THINK the blurry streak of light you can possibly see behind the telegraph pole was perhaps the popemobile. Or part of his entourage. Someone said it was anyway, so I clicked off a snap.
We waited for the motorcade to round the corner, do a loop around the cathedral and come past us. A group of "official" pilgrims stood on the cathedral steps facing us and waited - at least people around me said they were the official pilgrims' greeting party.

Then a big burly cop with lots of stars on his shoulders came past and said "That's it folks, he's not coming round this way!" Some people thought he was joking and started to laugh. But big burly cops with lots of stars on their shoulders don't joke about these things.

The crowd was left to disperse.

As I was standing right near the merchandising tent, I had to go past the entrance to leave the park. There was a huge queue of people waiting to get inside. It was crammed full so they were only letting a few in at a time. I spoke to a couple at the head of the queue. I asked if they were seeking solace in retail therapy, and it appeared they were...

Moral: Next time, look more closely at the official route map.

* with apologies to Samuel Beckett

Fountains and young boys

Fountains are always hold a strong attraction for young boys. Hassan and Mahommed and their dad, originally from Senegal, were having a really fun time playing at the Archibald Fountain. Their joy was infectious. (Dad was happy for me to photograph his boys).

Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney claimed the day the pope arrived in Sydney that western nations need to populate or perish. He claims that "No western country is producing enough babies to keep the population stable, no Western country..."

Australia's population is growing. Thanks to lovely young people like Hassan, who was born here, and his family who have made Australia their home. So what does Cardinal Pell really mean? Does he mean white Catholics aren't having enough babies?

Australia is a far, far better place for its multiculturalism than it ever was before. Sure there's occasional conflict, but tell me a society, even heterogenous where there hasn't been conflict - Us'es and Thems?

George is also a "climate sceptic" (an interestingly divergent view to that of his pope), which makes his views even more interesting. Does he discount population pressures as a problem, or maybe he's just concerned about population growth in non-western countries?

A le quartorze juillet

OK, yep, I know it was yesterday, but I'm catching up, ok!

There are some not so obvious links to France in Sydney, one of them being what is probably our most well-known fountain, The Archibald in Hyde Park.

It was built in 1932, a gift to the city of Sydney under the terms of the will of a Francophile J F Archibald (in whose name also an annual portrait prize is awarded). As a plaque says, Archibald's intention was to "commemorate the association between Australia and France in The Great War 1914-18" and is the work of French sculptor Francois Sicard.

It depicts a bronze Apollo surrounded by other mythical figures. Horses’ heads, dolphins and tortoises exuberantly spray jets of water.

In the 1880s AF Archibald founded the Bulletin newspaper, famous for encouraging an Australian idiom in Australian writing. But in his own life Archibald was fascinated by all things Parisian. He changed his name from John Feltham to Jules Francois and wore a little French style beard when no one else was wearing them. In donating the Archibald Fountain to the City he imagined its civic design and ornamentation developing to rival the city of his dreaming.

A postcard to the first person who can correctly name the three mythological characters from each of the sculptural groupings shown below!

God and Mammon - Catholic World Youth Day souvenirs

Once upon a time, the churches opposed retail trading on Sundays. Once upon a time, Mammon was regarded as a false god.

Times change and every large event needs its official merchandising arm.

The merchandising tent in Hyde Park associated with Catholic World Youth Day was doing roaring business on Sunday- everything from national flags, to Benedict XVI baseball caps, t-shirts, hoodies, and not to forget Aussie flag boxer shorts and thongs, and ugg boots.

Screens were set up inside the shop showing Guy Sebastian, a former Australian Idol winner performing his WYD anthem. Sony his music distributor is flogging his latest CD (Nashville songs) as well as the anthem. Sebastian is a member of Protestant Pentecostalist sect, Hillsong.

One Catholic group is protesting against the merchandise. Click here for full story.

"Alan Hockey and Michael Gravener - who help run the Share the Meal charitable group at St Vincent's Catholic Church in Redfern - said yesterday that they wanted to voice their protest against the commercialisation of World Youth Day.
Mr Gravener inspected official "I Love Jesus" T-shirts while wearing an orange T-shirt he had bought online, saying: "Where is Jesus in WYD08?"
"This is actually one of the first times I've actually seen Jesus mentioned in the whole promotion of the event," he said.
Mr Hockey said he would not buy any of the official merchandise."They're selling Guy Sebastian CDs but no one has stopped to ask what he actually practises. He's not Catholic - he's from the Hillsong Church and there's a big difference. We're Catholic and we will protest against anything that doesn't put Jesus at the centre of the faith." "

Tree graffiti

Graffiti on a poplar tree in Hyde Park.

Chess in Hyde Park

I can't quite work out what the wheelbarrow was for, unless it was one of the park gardeners stopping for a look. The man with the arm crutch was very adept at using it to move his pieces.

Exercise in the park

One of the fashionable things to do nowadays is to have a personal trainer take you through your paces in a public park or on a beach. So, if a strolling photographer wanders past, be prepared! Here's some late afternoon torture in Hyde Park.