Back from holiday in Ireland - a wonderful week of relaxation enjoying the hospitality of a very relaxed nation.
Perhaps that's why my hackles rose at what appeared to me to be the "over-organised" and far from relaxed weekend that was the Tall Ships Race.
Let me take a reality check with you.
Am I the only one who found the huge number of people - mainly standing about just kicking their heels - in luminous yellow jackets a source of great annoyance?
I mean where do they get these bananamen and bananawomen from? How have they been trained and what authority do they have?
And why do, what must be perfectly decent everyday folk, turn into power-crazed demons once they don those high-visibility jackets?
Surely it did not need two bananapersons posted at the end of each road on Riverside Drive, blocked with cones, to allow-through the occasional cars of residents.
If we check what authority do these people actually possess to empower them to order-around other citizens I strongly suspect that the answer would be... absolutely NONE.
Come to think of it, this phenomenon of officious petty bureaucrats ruining an otherwise enjoyable event is not new.
It happened with the big fireworks display in the city last November 5th when completely unnecessary traffic jams were caused by the banana bunch closing off roads until all hours of the night. Ludicrous.
But the level of crowd control over the Tall Ships event was in a new league of officiousness.
We went to view the ships at the Albert Dock but turned away and gave it up as a bad job because of the reception we received from the banana bunch.
We were bawled-at and informed there was a "one way pedestrian system" operating around the Albert Dock. We looked inside at reasonably thin line of folk walking along and marvelled at the stupidity.
No doubt the idea - in advance - looked sensible. It would improve the flow of people and guard against them falling into to dock. In fact it was ludicrous.
It simply created queues of irritated people and spoiled the day for a lot of us. We were not the only ones to give-up on the event.
The Powers that Be need to take notice and learn to relax a bit when it comes to these set-pieces. The pleasure is so easily squashed out of them by over-organisation.
Let's just hope they take notice in time for the Mathew Street Festival. It would be a shame if it was ruined by the Yellow Meanies!
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