All our city was effectively done and dusted, broomed up and made ready as for a certain pop sensation over the Easter break. Though *not a fan of the British superstar Ed Sheeran - all truth be told I'd hardly heard of him till recent months when advertising already undertaken was stepped up in deadly earnest - I've been made well aware (like the rest of the town) that this really is (now was) a really big deal for Dunedin, N.Z., Inc. What I mean is, like a really, really, really, big, super-dooper deal. And all the rest!
That aside, and trusting the seeming myriads of folk driving and being driven in and out of the city, from accommodation provided (from Balclutha to the south all the way through Oamaru to Dunedin's north) for up to 100,000 people evidently - I mentioned this as being a very big deal; Dunedin's normal population is only 100,000 after all, topped up for nine-ten months each and every year by around 20,-25,000 (locally-, nationally-, and internationally-sourced varsity) students - throughout Thursday, Saturday and (Easter) Sunday to see Sheeran perform at one of his three concerts in our newfangled Forsyth Barr Stadium, were actually really well-served by his performances there...
Yes, assuming that (positive glean on/view of events/proceedings) to be the case...and I've no reason to think otherwise - but then how would I even know, having neither read newspaper accounts thus far nor heard from (do I even know any?) *actual fans (bar the daughter of parents providing me a very appreciated hitchhike ride back to Dunedin late Saturday afternoon)...yes, assuming all of that to be the case, I still regard it as utterly reprehensible and abhorrent that Dunedin city councillors (or so I understand) had the gall to put their feet down and require workers (of whatever sort, background and/or industry) to work throughout said Easter break completely irrespective and regardless of selfsame workers' (and their families' and loved ones') personal convictions, however strongly held and deeply cherished, as to the rights and wrongs of their so doing.
Hey, who appointed the D.C.C. as our conscience or moral guide? Who indeed! And it matters not whether one believes in Easter or not, let alone the biblical history upon which the observance is reputedly (and arguably) based - and much genuine dispute exists upon that front, I am only too well aware (and am certainly not indifferent or insensitive to).
But any tier of government seeking to intrude its nosey beak into areas of private conviction and heartfelt conscience - in however tentative, incremental and minimal a fashion (as it may well be argued) - is thereby intruding into areas of peoples' lives that are truly sacrosanct and inviolable, and quite frankly, ought to be respected and treated with due deference. At the very least. Assuming, that is, that we still live in a truly free society - itself a moot point these days I'll concede.
Moreover those steadfastly pursuing this sort of 'City Hall knows best', interfering approach in the lives of their citizenry - as is the case in this small and seemingly insignificant but notable instance - are, I believe and respectfully suggest, taking the first, however tentative and hesitant steps, upon a path that will in the not too distant future - actually, in an essentially similar if far more international (and religio-political) context altogether - see the biblically-prophesied 'abomination of desolation' 'standing where it ought not'...i.e. '[with]in the [very] holy place' of the God-given conscience sacredly entrusted to humankind, to every individual person (child or adult) upon Planet Earth.
And when that moment arrives, folks, when that critical juncture is reached - yep, you guessed it - we're to quite literally 'head for the hills'. For our very lives (for both time and eternity) will verily depend upon it.
*And as I told a bank teller in town the other day (Thursday) while ***all downtown was astir for his - no, not Jesus the Messiah's long-anticipated Second Advent, but this singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran's - (physical) coming to Dunedin. I hadn't really heard any of his music (except telecast 'trailers' for his upcoming three concerts here) and hoped I wouldn't, instinctively/intuitively sensing I simply wouldn't be into it - yet withal not really wanting to dis this popstar of the up-and-coming (and, anyway, is that the Y or the X?) generation, and/or, even in my own small way, discharge bucket-loads of cold water (or worse) on the town's festivities - let alone be a party-pooper. Not that I could really care either way, much bigger issues are at play here.
***Reminding me of observing lines, or rather a succession of seemingly endless groups of Fleetwood Mac fans locked arm-in-arm, wending their ways through the same streets just a couple years ago, my noting at the time that it was evident who the actual fans/concert-goers were as opposed to those other city street strollers simply ambling their various ways back and forth upon everyday outings and to and away from workplaces and other such. Itself recollective of my own attending my one and only ever 'pop concert' just a couple years prior to that, for the Seekers' 50th reunion concert in my birthplace of Christchurch.
Whereupon - just as with those town-dwellers (in that ancient fairy tale) totally transfixed under the Pied Piper's spell, or, similarly, as with the innumerable species of animal drawn inexorably towards and into Noah's celebrated Ark as if by magical unseen hand or supernatural guidance - the hordes and huddles of died-in-the-wool devotees characteristically made it clear - if completely unintentionally and even as it were subconsciously - that they were bone-of-their-idols'-bone and flesh-of-their-idols'-flesh; and quite unashamedly so.
**And a local bus driver who filled me in upon many such details later Thursday told me the $400 odd cost (?of all three concerts) - naturally, depending upon the particular deals folk managed to get - would make attending Ed Sheeran's shows way out of the question for ye average university student here. As one Alabaman student I chatted with on my way to Centre City that day fully attested.
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