City of Churches
Got back from Adelaide last night, which disappointingly proved no warmer than here but at least it was very peaceful and green and it was good to catch up with family and friends. Even though I did worry my parents by not coming home on Monday night. They knew I was catching up with my liberal friend, so I was a bit mystified that they would worry. I did think about calling them, but by the time it became obvious I wouldn't be coming back that night it was well into the a.m. and I decided (wrongly, as it turned out) that a phone call from me at that hour would only disturb them. When I wasn't there when they woke up they called my friend's mobile (not mine!). Apparently they had decided that since I was meeting said friend in a pub and they knew he had run nightclubs in the past that obviously we would have spent the entire (Monday) night out in pubs and clubs - so far so good, if it hadn't been for the pernicious effects of spending far too much time reading the Adelaide Advertiser, which had led them to believe that every venue in the city was a hotbed of bikie-related crime, drugs, violence, drink-spiking, sexual assault and mysterious disappearances of young women. So naturally, if I hadn't come home and I'd been to a pub the night before, I must have come to an ugly demise at the hands of bikies. Right.
I know it's sweet that they worry about me, but there's something quite irritating about the whole thing as well - the total ignorance of actual pub/club culture supplemented by a far too ready acceptance of sensationalist journalism as a source of accurate and comprehensive information. Not to mention the implied assumption that neither my liberal friend nor I would have the class or the smarts to avoid the sort of establishments frequented by bikies - although I suppose if you can't differentiate between one dark alcohol-fuelled den of iniquity and another, it would never occur to you that simply avoiding the dodgy ones was even an option.
I know it's sweet that they worry about me, but there's something quite irritating about the whole thing as well - the total ignorance of actual pub/club culture supplemented by a far too ready acceptance of sensationalist journalism as a source of accurate and comprehensive information. Not to mention the implied assumption that neither my liberal friend nor I would have the class or the smarts to avoid the sort of establishments frequented by bikies - although I suppose if you can't differentiate between one dark alcohol-fuelled den of iniquity and another, it would never occur to you that simply avoiding the dodgy ones was even an option.