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pat_woolford Mar 1st, 2010 12:31 PM

Just looked at the Sydney forecast Carol, maximums of 23-27C for the next week.

Still, and also speaking as an ex-Sydneysider, I think it would have been a bit nippy yesterday at only 19C for the 5,000 odd who posed naked on the steps of the Opera House.

simpsonc510 Mar 1st, 2010 01:51 PM

" ....the 5,000 odd who posed naked on the steps of the Opera House."

Yikes! I had no idea... What is going on in Sydney these days? It's been nearly 6 years since my last visit.

Maximums of 24-27 for the next week sounds delightful to me. All of my other OZ visits have been during the June to September timeframe, and it could get a bit blustery and chilly at that time.

Carol

Melnq8 Mar 1st, 2010 02:34 PM

Regarding those naked people in Sydney:

http://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunrise/facts...grant-excited/

pat_woolford Mar 1st, 2010 02:46 PM

Thanks for the link Melnq - simpson, the naked photo shoot was arranged by the organisers of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, this is a huge event in Sydney, held this time of year for about the last 30 years. It was a bid to help promote understanding between hetero and homosexuals, and seems to have met with great success.

simpsonc510 Mar 1st, 2010 03:46 PM

Thanks, Mel and Pat, for that information. It's all for the arts...
:)

margo_oz Mar 1st, 2010 05:06 PM

simpsonc510

We all go naked in Sydney now!

Sure cuts down on the clothes you need when travelling - and associated laundry!

Sydney is a fun place! ;) and quite informal

simpsonc510 Mar 1st, 2010 05:34 PM

That's what I love about the Aussies! It's always a fun place, thanks to the people. You'll never know what fun they can be until you've spent 13 days on a bus in the Outback travelling with 43 of them (which is what brings me back to attend the wedding of someone I met on that bus, waaaaay back in 1988)!

I guess I can really pack light, eh Margo? Except for the very special dress and shoes I bought for the wedding, that is.

Carol

Neil_Oz Mar 1st, 2010 08:56 PM

"You'll never know what fun they can be until you've spent 13 days on a bus in the Outback travelling with 43 of them"

Sounds lke pure hell to me, but then I'm a bit of a curmudgeon at heart.

Speaking of curmudgeons, a small band of Christian wowsers (see below) led by one of Sydney's prize idiots, The Rev. Fred Nile, used to shadow the G&L Mardi Gras praying for rain as a signal of God's disapproval of the cavorting sinners. I think there might have been a light sprinkle one year, but otherwise God showed no interest.

History Department:

The epithet "wowser" was claimed by the 19th-century Sydney scandal-sheet publisher and politician John Norton, signifying a miserable teetotalling killjoy. He also had a fondness for aliteration, as the following shows:

"I invented the word myself. I was the first man publicly to use the word. I first gave it public utterance in the City Council, when I applied it to Alderman Waterhouse, whom I referred to as the white, woolly, weary, watery, word-wasting wowser from Waverley."

That effort paled into insignificance, though, compared with Norton's comments on Queen Victoria's eldest son Prince Alfred after the latter's visit to Australia in 1867. And he didn't spare poor old "Affie", as he was known to his mum, on account of his having been shot by a mad Irishman while in Sydney:

Norton thundered in his rag, the problematically-named "The Truth",

"He (the Prince) left this colony amid the howls of the harlots whom he bilked and the lamentations of the poor washerwomen whom he had refused to pay for the disagreeable task of washing his doubly dirty linen. Traced and tracked to New Zealand he was, under threats of detention and legal process, compelled to pay for his dirty living and settle some of his tradesmen's bills."

They don't write papers the way they used to, that's for sure.

Melnq8 Mar 1st, 2010 10:30 PM

Let's not forget the Kiwis and their annual Boobs on Bikes parade. I watched the news coverage on the event while we were there one year and it was a complete hoot (ahem, maybe that should be 'hooter')

http://weirdnews.about.com/od/weirdp...s_on_Bikes.htm

simpsonc510 Mar 2nd, 2010 04:37 AM

Is there something in the water or the other side of the globe? haha

simpsonc510 Mar 2nd, 2010 04:37 AM

Sorry.... ON the other side....


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