So I live in cutesy South Yarra. It’s on the eastern side of the Yarra river and very close to town. That’s why the games have been good. Because to avoid the Commonwealth Games, I decided to walk into work. So i’m ahead about $90 in train tickets and a little bit more fit from walking about 7 kilometres a day round trip.

In case you’re wondering, yup it’s been noisey. I can’t think of one day that I haven’t woken up to a helicopter. For a no-fly zone, there’s certianly about 10 times more choppers than normal. There have been cops through the normally quiet Botanical Gardens en masse. Patrol cars doing laps and motorcycle cops in threes riding around.

Because plenty of roads have been cordened off or closed off all together, and all the kids have been on school holidays, most things have been quiet. My local cafe where I grab a morning take away has been virtually empty. Usually it’s buzzing with little Melbourne Grammar girls sipping lattes. Late this afternoon, I jumped a cab and the cabbie said that he’s lost a fair bit of cash over the past two weeks because of the games. It seems to be a recurring theme if you watch the news too. Although these are the only two examples I can cite. Seems the fear of games crowds has scared everybody off . . .

Aside from the Police and aural intrusion thankfully I managed to take in absolutely 0 of all the events.  It would’ve been nice to see Paul Kelly play at the finale but meh, i’ve never cared enough to see him before today. Apart from that, yesterday I was driving home down the Eastern Freeway and the whole city horizon was lit up like a Christmas tree at night with the closing ceremony fireworks. Hey I am not a sports fan anyway. And the ‘Stolenwealth’ games as one protestor’s placard put it, didn’t exactly get me in the spirit.

Overall it’s a resoundinf feeling of indifference though. Let’s face it, the Commonwealth is a defunct institution. Whilst the Olympic spirit stirs up blood in the nether regions, the old we’re a bunch of convicts born into a Commonwealth of even more convict nations just plain irritates me. Wars have never stopped because of the Commonweath games as far as I know. Maybe we can all get together and kill off England in a kind of pseudo Olympic spirit!

Now I am looking forward to the Gran Prix. The track is less than a kilometre away. So I think I should hear a lot of that. But in all honesty, that’s a welcome intrusion in the morning. You know, the whole engines tuned to absolute perfection revving off of their rocker going round in circles kinda does it for me!