Law and order at the Santa Parade

Ah yes, its that time of the year.  Goodwill to all men and women, lots of Christmas cheer and grumpy security guards trying to evict me from the Santa Parade.  Well, I do exaggerate a little, but don’t worry, I held my ground!  I showed my girls you don’t have to be pushed around by a security guard!  Or two.

I tried to get there early, but half an hour before kick-off doesn’t cut it.  Some people looked like they’d spent the entire day lining the route, with camping chairs, rugs, and picnic bags.  We started off sitting on the road in front of some people in chairs, but a lovely policewoman moved us on because we were in front of the blue line painted on the road.  But that was just the start of our problems.

The Herald newspaper had set up a special grandstand for some competition winners to watch the parade, and there was a lovely big metre wide strip of empty road in front of the grandstand, so I decided to sit there.  Before our bottom had even hit the asphalt, a security guard sporting a florescent orange vest informed me that I couldn’t sit there.

“Why not?” I asked.  ”Because this this area is cordoned off” he replied, gesturing at the orange cones.  It took me about half a second to decide that I wasn’t going to buckle on such a thin pretext.  Something about his righteous manner and the attempt to assert the authority of an orange cone really irritated me.

“Well”, I said, deciding to test the waters, “how are you going to stop us?”

“I’ll go and get a policeman and get him to move you on” he fired back, looking mighty pleased with himself.

“Ok”, I said, and we promptly made ourselves comfortable.  Well, as comfortable as you can be sitting on Albert Street.

After a couple of minutes of intense conversation between Orange Vest and a security guard in a blue shirt, Blue Shirt ambled over.  He squatted down to chat.

“How’s it going?” he enquired.  ”Great” I replied jauntily “How are you?”

“I’m great thanks.  You can’t sit here you know.”

“Why not, its a public road?”

“Are you going to make my life difficult for me?” he asked sorrowfully.

“I don’t know, are you going to make my life difficult for me?” I beamed back at him.

We sparred a little more.  Blue Shirt told me it was illegal to sit on a public road.  I referred to the 200,000 other people sitting on a public road as well.  He inferred that perhaps once they’d dealt with me, they might get to them. Would have made for a slightly pointless Santa Parade, but I didn’t need to point that out.  He realised his mistake and tried to change the topic.

“I used to be a cop” he told me gravely, “So I know my law.”

“I AM a lawyer” I was delighted to tell him, “so I know my law too!”.

He chuckled sadly, made vague noises about talking to the police, and left.

This was a followed by a third visit, this time from a harried looking Herald staffer, who made various authoritative statements about Health and Safety regulations, which did convince me to move a metre further away from the stairs to the grandstand, but finished with me again asserting my intention to stay put, and her stomping off with an exasperated “Whatever!” tossed over her shoulder.  An older gentleman who had been watching the whole thing with great amusement couldn’t stop exclaiming over her poor use of the English language – “Did you hear that?  She said ‘Whatever’!  ”Whatever?’ Absurd thing to say!”

Orange  Vest spent the duration of the Santa Parade stalking purposively past the Herald grandstand, deliberately avoiding my gaze every time he passed, which was a shame as he missed all the cherry smiles I sent his way.

I was delighted to see Blue Shirt and Herald Woman conferring with an actual policeman at one point, who spent most of the conversation shaking his head, and walked off at the end to do something with an actual point.

The Santa Parade itself was fine.  To be honest it all washed past me in a blur of dancers, people dressed as furry animals, clowns and at least 10,000 bagpipers.  There seemed to be a float for most child-focussed products on the market, but not a single sweet or balloon was tossed into the crowd.  I suppose that would have contravened Health and Safety regulations.