G20 Brisbane Countdown: Black Hawks, Shirt Fronting and Colours

On a Friday I usually like to take a look around the rest of Australia and steer away from Brisbane for a while. But this week Brisbane becomes the focus of attention not just for Australia, but for the whole world.

Brisbane is hosting this years G20.

The city has been warming up for this event with its G20 cultural celebrations which started back on the 24th October. The program has included lighting and projection projects, visual art and film, music, dance and much more.

Last Sunday we went into the city to take a look at the Colour Me Brisbane trail in which many of the city’s buildings were, well, coloured. Not just coloured, but colours that change. Have a quick scroll through these…

Colour Me Brisbane (1) Colour Me Brisbane (2) Colour Me Brisbane (3) Colour Me Brisbane (4) Colour Me Brisbane (5) Colour Me Brisbane (6) Colour Me Brisbane (7) Colour Me Brisbane (8) Colour Me Brisbane (9) Colour Me Brisbane (10) Colour Me Brisbane (11) Colour Me Brisbane (13) Colour Me Brisbane (12)

Colour Me Brisbane (14)Of course, hand in hand with all G20 summits are the accompanying G20 riots and I think it’s fair to say this city is expecting trouble. Our army and police force have been preparing for this for some time now.

The RAAF are based at Amberley which is about 20 kilometres as the helicopter flies from where I live. If you were to draw a straight line from Amberley to Brisbane, my house would be on that line slap bang in the middle. So I’ve seen a few copters fly over my place in the last couple of weeks.

Black Hawks over Brisbane

Update:

Unfortunately that video was removed for an YouTube, so here’s one that was taken of those Blackhawks checking out the Gold Coast…

Shirt fronting

Anybody old enough to remember Frankie Goes To Hollywood and their number one hit “Two Tribes” will undoubtedly also recall the then US President Ronald Reagan Vs Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko fighting match that was the centrepiece of the accompanying video.

30 years or so on, their vision may become a reality, except it will be our Australian leader, not the US President, taking on the Russian.

Facts and figures…

This next video may not be the most exciting in my quartet, but how else would I have got to know that Brisbane is the ninth city in the world to host this event. I also found out that Australia has never hosted a meeting of this scale before and that…    well, you may as well check out the video…

What that video didn’t tell you though was that Friday, 14 November has been declared a public holiday here in Brisbane.

Yay!

There’s a bit of a concern that during the G20, which actually lasts for three days, the city may become a bit of a ghost town, rioters excepted. To counteract this, our Lord Mayor has declared that two council run multistorey car parks will be completely free for the long weekend.

So, I might just pop into the city for absolutely no real reason whatsoever, just to save myself $30 or so.

And finally, for those who do not remember Frankie Goes To Hollywood and their number one hit “Two Tribes”, it really was a classic and here it is. Well, why not?

Visa Assessment Service
{ 6 comments… add one }
  • jim November 9, 2014, 1:46 am |

    bisbrane very nice any time of year … o dear me memories i would far rather have RELAX buts another story …

    ON A SOMBRE NOTE AS ITS ARMISTAS DAY ON SUNDAY SPARE A THOUGHT FOR OUR FALLEN …AND WHAT WAS AUSTRALIA LIKE 100 YEARS AGO ? YOU MUST REMEMBER BOB ?

    • BobinOz November 9, 2014, 10:11 pm |

      Ha ha, it would be some kind of miracle if I could remember what Australia was like 100 years ago 🙂

      And yes, we should remember our fallen this weekend, they gave everything and we have so much to thank them for.

      Cheers Jim,

      Bob

      • Ellisa November 11, 2014, 11:25 am |

        I remember from 1959 when I came to Australia from the UK. Not quite 100— but give me time! It was quite impressive, though never as big as ANZAC day. On the 11th of November the whole place (Sydney in this case) would come to a standstill at 11am. Buses and trains would stop, drivers would get out of their vehicles and stand beside them with their hats in their hands. All the pedestrians would stand and bow their heads and everyone would hold still and quiet for a minute.

        I had not ever seen anything like it in Britain, and was quite overwhelmed by it.

        Fast forward to 2012, when I was in a shopping centre when I glanced at my watch and noticed it was after 11 am. I asked if I had missed the silence., and was told they had had complaints about it, and customers did not like it so they don’t have it.

        So now I stay home.

        But who is right?– I don’t know –but I’ll stop typing as I will be sounding like a grumpy old lady!

        • BobinOz November 11, 2014, 6:07 pm |

          Nothing wrong with sounding grumpy, it is part of the charm of getting old, that’s my excuse anyway 🙂

          I have to say, that does sound awesome the way they paid tribute to our fallen back then, absolutely awesome. Who is right?

          I think it’s a shame that we now live in a place where some people feel they can’t even spare one minute given the rewards that each and every one of us benefits from each and every day.

          There, told you, I’m grumpier than you are 🙂

  • Ellisa November 8, 2014, 2:05 pm |

    There was a G20 meeting of some sort in Melbourne in 2008. It turned into a bit of a riot for the 2 or 3 days it was on. Actually more than a bit. The Victorian Police were a bit miffed as there was also a U2 concert and a Make Poverty History concert on the same weekend and they felt it didn’t seem to be really sensible timing. They were right!

    Of course in Brisbane you may not have so much on at once. (Yes—it’s a snippy comment about Brizzie from down south! We have to compensate for our amazing climate somehow.)

    By the way those lights on the buildings look lovely, well worth going to see.

    • BobinOz November 9, 2014, 9:43 pm |

      Hi Ellisa

      U2 and a Make Poverty History concert, is that all? We’ve got a Beatles reunion with Sean Lennon standing in for John and Prince playing guitar in place of George Harrison.

      My nose did grow a couple of inches whilst I type that, but it was worth it 🙂

      Yes, no doubt we will have trouble here as well, hope they don’t smash up the city too much, took us long enough to recover from the floods. We shall see, but I suspect it will be a long weekend.

      Cheers, Bob

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