Well, not really.

My routine these days takes me past the Castlereagh St clambed about two or three times a week at varying times, and sometimes mere curiousity prompts more.

There's a nice new sheltered bus stop right across the road, with lots of different routes stopping, and so lots of people coming and going, which makes for a handy observation post. I usually sit around for half an hour or so.

Anyway, over the past five or six months, the *busiest* I've ever seen the place was - a young couple in scarlet t-shirts sitting on a lounge next to the entrance to Ron's office. They had their backs to the street. One middle-aged male moving from the public foyer up the stairs to the course rooms, and another indistinct figure passing by a course-room window. This was at about 4.30-5 in the p.m.

The joint is placed smack between two other cult centres - a Presbyterian church, built in 1859, and The Catholic Club. I wonder if they've got as many members as the cult? ;->

Compared to those the hive looks distinctly scruffy. It hasn't had a paint job in years, there's cracks and broken panels in the 'decorative' glass facade, and the faintly 'art nouveau' metalwork on the garage doors and window grills was distinctly grimy. The only clean bits are the 'Now Hiring' signs - red-on-white, and the blue-on-yellow 'You can make a difference...' post-11 September ad campaign. Which they've got strung up so high on the building that it's impossible to read from the footpath underneath, and in such small type that it's impossible to read from across the street - gotta love that 'tek':-).

Not any more - there were three weary-looking individuals out there the other day, giving the facade a scrub-down, or rather, a lick and a promise, because all they had was a weensy bucket and three grey(!) rags, between them. There was an older male, hanging about on the steps at the entrance, who didn't look like he was in charge of the crew, but just sort of hovered there. He finally went up into the public reception area after about 10 minutes. There was also someone moving about up in the course rooms. Wow! Six people at one time!

So I watched these people, and I've got to say, I never saw a more hopeless crew. The railings and gates had *years* of greasy street grime caked on them, and here are these superbeings trying to make it go away with damp rags! One of the victims spent 12 minutes by my watch running her rag across a two-foot grill. I could see no sign that they were talking to each other, and they certainly weren't taking any breaks to watch the traffic or try to body-route some raw meat. They were just staring at their designated patch, making it damp and spreading their little bit of grime. They didn't have a ladder, so all they could clean was as high as they could reach.

I thought about going over and asking them if they were on an 'amends', but then I thought about how this might 'enturbulate' them and maybe even earn them more 'ethics', since they'd have to write a KR if I did. So, I watched them for another half-hour or so, during which time somebody appeared on the awning over the street, and hung an electrical extension cord out of the window and then disappeared back inside. Then nothing happened.

So I gave it away after another 15 minutes and made my way home to a Guinness, some sushi, homemade pasties 'n gravy, and a double-bill of 'Mon Ripoux' and 'Ripoux contre Ripoux'.

This is true :-)

tam

"Of the few innocent pleasures left....

the jamming of commonsense down the throats of fools is perhaps the keenest."

Thomas Huxley

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