Monday 3 March 2008

What makes a city?

It's good to be back in Sydney. Whatever else you can say about it, it's where I grew up, and it's familiar. Today's SMH has two contrasting articles about Sydney:

On the one hand, the most recent Anholt City Brands Index has rated Sydney the world's best city in terms of "presence, place, potential, pulse, people and prerequisites".

On the other, another article speaks of an exodus, with a Nielsen poll finding that 21% of Sydneysiders are thinking of leaving.

The contrast probably says something about the nature of cities.

Getting colder?

After only 3 months, it is autumn again! This autumn should involve a lot fewer fallen leaves. I really don't understand how anyone could have called the last few days cold, though. Not to mention having heaters on...

After all, the cricket is still dragging on. The season doesn't seem to have been well organised this year. Apart from anything else, they really should have had at least two days between the last preliminary game and the first final, to avoid giving one team four times as much rest beforehand. Not that that's an excuse.