THE NAKED CITY – THE EVEN GRUMPIER GUIDE TO NEW YEAR’S EVE!

Already Sydney hotels and those with harbourside apartments on Airbnb are offering rooms with views of the New Year’s Eve fireworks for prices starting around $1,400. It’s just one of the many manifestations of greed, opportunism and manipulation of the public that besets Sydney every NYE.

Yeah, we are sick of it––especially the hype that’s rolled out every year telling us that Sydney’s fireworks are the best in the world and the envy of cities all over the globe––ike Aleppo, Kabul and Baghdad. Yet when you start to look behind the feverish promo pushing Sydney NYE, the ugly truth of the event starts to unveil.

Firstly, if you wanted a greater example of the division between rich and poor in this city, NYE is the classic example. The mega-wealthy and the privileged get the best views of the fireworks from their luxury boats, penthouse apartments and Opera House parties whilst the hoi polloi suffer the indignity of queuing for hours beforehand to scramble for a poky spot on the harbour foreshore.

Secondly, you have to ask why such a large amount of money goes up in smoke every year, supposedly in the name of making everybody feel good (apart from the Council workers who have to clean up the puke soaked mess the next day). A half-hour of pyrotechnic euphoria is a cunning way of making people forget everything that is wrong about Sydney, fuelled on by alcohol and a communal hysteria, it leaves everybody with a visual imprint of the great international metropolis of Sydney: the Bridge, the Opera House and the Harbour. Brainwashing?

There are of course an increasing number of folk (call us party poopers if you like), that would love to see Sydney’s massive expenditure on NYE directed in far more needy areas. Take the crackers out of the equation and Sydneysiders could be encouraged to celebrate with neighbourhood street parties and family gatherings, a good old bonfire in the local park and even a free sausage sizzle. Old school you might decry, but at least thousands would not be crammed like cattle into the city’s hopelessly inadequate trains and buses, especially in the early hours of 2016.

Small kiddies, disappointed at the absence of a big fireworks bonanza, could be shown a recording of last year’s event and hey, they would never know the difference. Let’s face it––the pyros look the same every bloody year, despite us being told that “this year will be something very special”. Thousands of police, paramedics, hospitality and council workers would get to celebrate NYE with their friends and family and the only real losers would be those shameless opportunists who see NYE as an orgy of overcharging.

So if you are seriously thinking of paying somebody on Airbnb $1,500 for the hire of their harbourside apartment for the night, think about this: once the smoke has cleared just after midnight and the last bottle of bubbly all but consumed, reality is bound to hit in. For that kind of money you could have had a holiday in Tasmania or a week on the Gold Coast. And then of course there’s that horrible pile of vomit all over the very expensive sofa, where one of your buddies has just thrown up. Whoops, there goes the security bond!