I don't know what's going on, but things have been awfully quiet around here of late. I've had almost nothing to do - which is perfect as far as I'm concerned. If I were to wish upon a star, it's that I could close this blog down and put my feet up for good.
I know that's not going to happen - human nature being what it is, a new crop of vandals will spring up, or management at the various agencies that I deal with will change, and everything will go pear shaped again. I'll just enjoy the quiet period while I can.
School holidays have just started. This is usually a peak time for vandalism and malicious damage - unless it's cold and wet. I usually don't bother to report anything during the holidays - I let the vandals do their stuff, and then I get it cleaned up when they're back at school.
Sadly, some students use the holidays to vandalise their schools. One of our local schools has been hit during every holiday period over the last few years - and in the same place each time. How sad is that?
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A reporter from a TV station phoned me during the week. Sydney City Council has an arts program called "Art and About", and it's designed to beautify the city. I've blogged about it previously - one thing they do is to get artists to put up large artworks in lane ways. It's not all to my taste, but it looks better than a dark, filthy lane way. As long as it's legal, I don't care. They can paint exploding pink alien fish heads and I won't bat an eyelid - so long as the property owner has approved.
One of their projects didn't go to plan last week - they obtained permission from a building owner to paint a lane way, and sent out an artist to do the work. Unfortunately, he ended up painting the wrong building, and word of the stuff up reached a news desk.
Because the artist put up something that looked like graffiti, they rang me for a comment. I think they were expecting me to bag the work and have a go at Council.
I declined to do so.
I think the arts program is a good idea. Not all of the art is to my taste, but that's neither here nor there. Council didn't paint the building in question maliciously, and they went through the right channels to get permission from the property owner. And then they simply stuffed up - it happens to everyone. I'm not going to go on TV and act all outraged about this, because I'm not outraged at all. If anything, I'm bemused. I just hope they learn from it, clean up the mistake and move on.
