Green

There are lots of things to like about Adelaide, from the parks to the markets and the hills to the sea. I still don’t think much of the curry, but one thing that I really enjoy is the city’s little attempts to look like a big place.

This occurred to me during the week as I came across our own little LA, a series of handprints from Formula 1 drivers placed haphazardly on garden walls and shop fronts. A kind of metropolitan fossil find…dinosaur bones from a time when Adelaide had something for the rest of the world to look at. There is no explanation attached, no apparent reason, they are just there. They are not a tourist attraction, but perhaps should be. I got a small kick from knowing I have bigger hands than Damon Hill.

Another of my favourite South Australian institutions is that of Thinker In Residence. Each year we invite an eminent academic to come and live amongst us and then tell us where it is all going wrong. It is a highly sought after position, partly because much of their time here is spent as drinker in residence, touring the abundant vineyards, and partly because being a salaried smart arse is a job to kill for.

The ‘Thinker’ for the year is generally selected to address the burning issue of the day for our perpetually worried state. This year an American professor is telling us about environmental sustainability which, after bidding for the world cup (!), is the hottest potato in town.

To be fair he is very clever and a brilliant speaker, I attended a lecture which suggested that his time in the wineries was not entirely wasted. He is here because Adelaide has a massive environmental impact for a little place, it’s the size of London with a tenth of the population.

Apparently we have what is called a significant footprint. Depending on your spin it means big gardens for everyone or an unsustainable metropolis. When you add the size of the average car, the way we drain the River Murray and fill the shark infested sea with pollutants, we become the biggest environmental terrorists per capita in the world. Something must be done and he has some very practical ideas.

Next year’s resident boffin has just been announced as an eminent Canadian child psychologist. As I mention, the choice of Thinker reflects the worries of our state and this can only be a reaction to our paranoia about childhood obesity.

The tabloid TV which this country so adores runs a story a day on tubby kids. So, forget the Home & Away propaganda of skinny, tanned, well adjusted, surf dudes; real Aussie kids are probably chewing through a Chico Roll, the deep fried food of choice. Everyone assumes it is full of chicken, but nobody is brave to check for sure.

That the country is getting fatter is not really a surprise; the restaurants have no concept of portion control. I have rarely been able to finish my plate when eating out; too much is just enough being the motto of the South Australian restaurateur. Meanwhile, bananas at nearly £5 a kilo make the healthier option a little out of reach.

Anyway, getting back to greener matters, it was National Tree Day last Sunday and we took our trowels down to the park to join in a mass planting of drab looking shrubs. These sorry looking sprigs are of great importance as native species which offer food and cover for native wildlife and strike a blow back against 200 years of introducing weeds and tougher plants which wipe out the more frail local flora.

While Mandy and I had a good time getting our hands dirty, I’m not sure this was the relaxing weekend in Adelaide that I had promised Jonny McGarty. For those of you who don’t know him, Jonny has been beavering away in the tropical north of Queensland at a mine engineering firm. He recently resigned to take a job in the desert, 400 miles from the nearest town, a place which redefines the benchmark for the middle of nowhere. After a year in the fruitless pursuit of intelligent life in Queensland he had hoped that the relative sophistication of Adelaide might give him one last bit of cheer before heading off to find copper in the harsh outback. I don’t think his plans included wallowing in the mud. Still, he’s from Wigan and knows how to put a brave face on things.

Keep well
M&W