locked and loaded in Adelaide

Adelaide is my home town, but don't force me to admit it too often.
This week it is looking verdant and cold as I reconnoiter the mall
looking for likely guerrilla targets.


Anyone introducing a new product to the country tests it here.
Adelaidians are fairly impervious to marketing tricks and remain
un- seducable to the next new thing. The multitude of mullets and root perms
attest to this. If it sells in Adelaide it will sell anywhere.

The mid winter solstice is cold and I have not felt my toes
for two hours. I am punishing my father for
not turning up the heating at home and he is now enlisted.
He is lookout and camera operator. He isn't too sure about this
and his eyes are swiveling about his head.
I have to give him a stern look.

Adelaidians studiously ignore me, except for one guy with a
camera who swears he isn't a creep. He lends an air of credibility
to the stitching, and my father looks relieved.

Nearby are the famous silver balls - affectionately known
as the Malls' Balls, by sculptor Bert Flugleman, Bert is
into shiny big curvy things
and I get to kit a cover for one of his pieces
in Wollongong in November.

Guerilla knitting..... it's 2009's answer to the pet rock.
It's all just a flash in the pan, really.
As father explains, the term comes from the old muzzle loading,
flint lock rifles. He makes them from scratch, you see.

When dad slides the 1851 barrel into his intricately carved stock,
you can hear the air whooshing out. To hold this gun is to
wonder how anyone could have survived any war.

And to fire it....

well..

A muzzle loader requires a small amount of gunpowder to lie
in the "pan" while a flint is snapped over it and creates a spark.

You get the term "bright spark" for this as well.

If all goes well, the flint scratches light into gunpowder, whooshes down
the barrel and you have a shot fired. Many times however it fails,
where by there is a spark of hope but little result.
Hence, "flash in the pan".

Now Dad, let's go home, cut loose and put in another light bulb so I can
actually see what I am knitting and have the heat on enough so beanie wearing
is not essential indoors, or I'll punish you
again by cleaning the pantry.

A Rundle Mall knit up with accomplice, lock stock and barrel.