Sweet sweat

What is it with beach tents?

In living memory we've been able to take whole families to the beach for whole days without the aid of a beach tent. Today, I walked to the local beach and was confronted with the peculiar view of sand massed with beach tents. Once upon a time we may have owned a beach umbrella - in fact I'm not sure we ever did - but it was quite common to see families camped under these minimalist shade structures for their day at the beach. In fact the amount of shade shed by umbrellas meant that it was the 'Esky' (cooler box) that benefited most from the shade, while mere humans suffered the full blast of the sun. Not so today. The beach was full of families from the western suburbs - you can tell them by their pallor and their shape; not the streamlined design of beachside locals - and these 'westies' each had their own beach tent. 'My' sand was covered by groups of tents, rows of tents, pairs of tents - very few occupied their own isolated spot. Even larger tents, shade and fly-proof structures occupied the grass verge between the road and the sand. It looked alien. If you can't stand the heat; stay out of the kitchen guys!

Huh! Fooled you - you thought I was going to get into a heavy discussion of the recent 'race riots' on Sydney beaches didn't you. Well, more astute and more rabid social commentators than I have already said it all and I'm sure you know that I found the whole thing disgusting and a most regrettable incident in Australia's history. Totally un-Australian actually, despite the protesters wrapping themselves in Australian flags and shouting OZI-OZI- OZI.

Australia's richest man died last night. He was a larger than life character and not a bad bloke by all accounts. Even money can't buy off fate.