Pat’s Point of View

Yesterday I made what seemed like my millionth trip to Canberra. Nothing really deserved it’s own post, so here are a few tidbits:

• There a hell of a lot of roundabouts (’traffic circles’ if you prefer) in Canberra. They are the ultimate in user self-governance. How democratic of Walter, although I suspect the prolific use of roundabouts has more to do with lowering the cost of road infrastructure by not having any traffic lights.
• Whilst the situation with cabs in Canberra is stupendously bad (if you’ve ever tried getting a cab at Canberra airport you know what I mean) it’s worth pointing out that the taxi drivers are pretty good. They’re tidy, polite, topical, they speak English, and they know their way around. Unlike most Sydney taxi drivers who don’t tick any of these boxes (who hasn’t had to give their cabbie directions to a well-known destination?). Dare I say it, this is likely because Canberra’s cab drivers aren’t fresh off the boat.
• I met a lady named Gwenda. It’s like her parents couldn’t decide between Gwen and Glenda. It’s annoying but not as bad as the thing where people create a new name by spelling an existing name incorrectly (eg Jorja, Kortny). I think there are more than enough names in the world without resorting to this kind of ‘creativity’. Either way, I think it’s rather cruel of parents to give their children such stupid names.

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