My Manifesto: The Incoherent Ramblings of a Madman

"Ah Qld................'ey"

After one missed red traffic light - the joke the entire time we were there was:
"Ah - we're from NSW we don't stop for Qld'ers".

It's not like it mattered anyways- there's not actually anyone in Brisbane. I expected a city and found a large country town with a mall that one could blink and feel like they were in the middle of Armidale.

I had always imagined Brisbane to be much more like Surfers Paradise and the rest of the Gold Coast - modern, new, tacky, cheap. Brisbane, however, is very old fashioned and stylish. Stylish being very un-Queensland. I am sure Brisbane is a disgrace to the rest of the state for its old school charm.

Brisbane and Melbourne have a lot in common, so forgive me if I tend to compare them too much in the next few psuedo-paragraphs. They both have a stylish mix of old and new. They are both river cities. They both miss the harbour of Sydney - during new years festivities if at no other time.

I'm not sure about the New Years at Brisbane in comparison to Melbourne. Melbourne has multiple lame fireworks displays one after the other at different points in the river. Brisbane has one good fireworks display that can only be seen from select locations. Does being able to see more of the lameness of the Melbourne fireworks make them better? Does the one-off better fireworks display make them better? I'm not sure. The one thing I can be sure of is that neither are anywhere near that of Sydney.

A few things strike me as being odd in Qld. The Qld roads do not have arrows on them indicating that lanes end and you should merge - something that is oft repeated in Vic. The arrows indicating lanes end are something NSW people come to rely on when driving as a final warning that the lane is ending. Now the interesting things are the signs they have everywhere that are more like driving lessons 101 than anything of real importance....

"Indicate Before Changing Lanes"
"Unnecessary Swerving Causes Accidents"

After being in Qld for half a day I realised why they need these signs everywhere. There's crazy nutters changing lanes all the time with no indicators and for no reason what so ever - it's like they take it upon themselves to do zig-zags purely because they can! In a state where their drink driving ads are more about how damn unlucky and inconvenient it is to get caught than anything else - their speeding signs are along the same lines and they need instructional signs on basic driving skills? It's no wonder they keep killing so many people on the roads! 5 hit and runs on one night when I was there! (and no - I had nothing to do with it as my car was safely in a parking lot the entire time)