Mayor Moore's Go Go Bag

[Printed in Sydney Morning Herald 19/7/2007]

So Mayor Moore proposes the “Go Bag” to relieve Sydneysiders from their natural fear of impending doom. Is that like the “doggy bag”, or as they have in some US counties, the “to-go-cup”? All this on-the-go: coffee-to-go, breakfast-to-go, terrorism-to-go, a whole proliferation of options to keep my heart rate and cholesterol up.

I was managing my anxiety pretty well thank you very much until Ms. Moore decided that a black bag filled with beach-going / house-burgling peripherals was my only saving grace from Jihadist death from above.

Checklist: a black baseball cap, toilet paper, an AM/FM Radio, sunblock, a torch, spare batteries, spare keys, adhesive tape, disposable gloves, water, energy bars, runners and a notepad and pen. Should I pack-in a wrench too?

Get with the times Ms. Moore. We all have iPods. Whilst waiting to die form nuclear fall-out, I don’t need to be further aggravated by having to listen to the oral scatology of Allan Jones taking a bunch of call-ins from the (hopefully) radioactive wasteland that used to be Cronulla.

But at least, if the impending terrorist attack never occurs, we will be well prepared to go on a spur-of-the-moment manic murder rampage OJ style. Remember people, “if the glove don’t fit, you must acquit!”

And what of a minor-emergency, like a citywide blackout, non-virgin inspired? There’s an image. How are the police going to react to anxious citizens geared-up on energy snacks, running around in the dark, consulting a tactical map with a flashlight whilst wearing disposable gloves, donning a black baseball-cap and arbitrarily taking notes and duck-taping members of the public to telephone polls?

And what’s with the sunblock? Are they merely merging two failed awareness campaigns – terrorism and skin cancer? And I was just getting the hang of “slap on a shirt, slip on a hat…” Oh wait, I f***ed that one up, didn’t I?

Truly though, I would prefer to be fornicating on doomsday, so let’s make it a “Go Go Bag”. Pack some stripper slippers, lube, condoms and we can make the apocalypse a real party, Sydney-style. Voila! Safe-sex awareness too!

Can I assume this new measure means that all the phoned-in advice from the “Keep Australia Safe” fridge magnets didn’t amount to much? I must admit, I did phone-in to my local MP Joe Hockey’s fridge magnet advice line, though not to implicate my neighbours, but to inquire as to the whereabouts of a decent Thai take-away in Hunters Hill. The response was insufficient for my next vote.

Surely the $200,000 that Clover is going to cough up would go to better use by actually preventing potential terrorist attacks. Maybe a monument donated by the city of Sydney to the parks of Damascus, Jakarta, Pyongyang… inscribed, “Sydney: The World’s Fifth Best City. Please don’t attack us.”

Far more effective, I think, than inciting “bloody hell”. Tourism 1. Terrorism 0.