Festive feel helps a city recover
“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed but I don’t see that. Seems to me that love is everywhere.” – Hugh Grant, Love Actually I’D like to give a big shout out to Crown Casino this week. I know some may see that as making a pact with the Devil, or akin to siding with Big Tobacco, but I think credit should be given when it’s due — no matter who’s doling it out.
And last week Melbourne needed at least one very small part of Crown.
What started as an anniversary trip to Melbourne on December 21 for us ended very differently, thanks to the Flinders St carnage.
We were only a block away in Collins St, meandering our way through some late Christmas shopping, when the pedestrians were mown down around 4.40pm. The urgency with which an unmarked police car barrelled down Collins St and into Elizabeth St, followed soon after by a motorcycle cop coming from the opposite direction, was my first indication that something out of the ordinary was unfolding. By the time I walked down to Elizabeth St, the roadway ahead was already choked with flashing blue and red lights. Late that night Flinders St still remained sealed off, while emergency vehicles lined both sides of Swanston St. But by the next morning the city’s Christmas equilibrium had returned. It was not the scene of the crime that people were queuing with their children to see, but the gingerbread village in the Town Hall, Myer’s Christ- mas windows — and the half-hourly show in Crown’s atrium.
That’s not people ignoring the events of the previous day, or being oblivious to the realities of the world we all now live in. Nor was it allowing such events to dictate their lives.
The sellers armed with scores of those ubiquitous red and green foam antlers, the duelling voices of the Queen Victoria Market vendors, the hopeful street corner sellers of the Big Issue wishing passersby a Merry Christmas and happy New Year — all added to the much-needed festive feel.
I’ll be remembering December 21 for all the right reasons next year. Doubtless I’ll recall the events of December 21, 2017, but I won’t let it define what is to come. The past never should.