Homebush - land of mosquitoes

Rollerbladers used to be such a common sight. What happened to them? Did they all trip over a tree root, break their necks and die?

I've only rollerbladed once. I went to Centenial Park with some friends, hired some blades and proceeded to fall over an awful lot. I eventually caught up with my friends, only to find that they were huddled around one of our party that had managed to break her leg in 3 or 4 places. Six months on crutches.

Sod that for a laugh. I walked my blades back to the hire shop.



Here we have it - Mosquito Heights. This is one of a series of apartment buildings out near the old Olympic site. It's built on and next to a swamp. We went to drinks in an apartment here a month or two ago, and as soon as the sun went down, I was covered in mosquito bites. I splatted at least 10, and they kept on coming.

I found out later that the state government used to have a spraying program back around 2000, but stopped paying for it as soon as the Olympics finished. The result is that the people that have forked out a fortune for these swampy apartments now find that they can't go outside after sunset for fear of being eaten alive.

What I can't work out is why the residents don't club together, pay a levy and hire a boat or helicopter to do spraying on their behalf. Why the hell do people hang around waiting for the government to do something about it, instead of doing it for themselves?



This is a damned shame. There was an old, wooden building on this site until last month, and it housed a cafe that I always wanted to stop at and try. Then some fool decided to burn it down. This is all that is left.

If they catch the bastard, I hope they cut his balls off.



Here's one for building things to last. This is a bridge at the Olympic Park site. I have hated the bloody bridges around here for ages, since the decks are made of wooden slats, and the slats degrade and turn into a million splinters, and you can guess which poor bastard generally finds himself sitting on the side of the road pulling splinters out of blown tyres.



Call me stunned again, but what sort of damned fools build bridges out of stuff that only lasts 10 years if you are lucky? This is not a patio in someone's backyard. This bridge gets a lot of pedestrian traffic, it's totally exposed to the elements and it crosses a swamp.

Duh! Build it out of concrete or some other such horrible looking, but hard wearing material.

The stupid frogbrains are of course replacing the splintered slats with new wooden slats, which will require replacing in about 2012. This bridge is a perpetual employment machine.