snifters past

Rotto Bloggo was thrilled to sneak the word "snifter" into a news story this week.

In a front-page effort on the Post, there was this sentence: 'But that doesn't mean mums and dads enjoying a quiet snifter of semillion sauvignon blanc won't be spoken to by the boys and girls in blue.'

The story was about the usual warnings about imbibing at the Australia Day fireworks on the mainland. Rotto Bloggo went to the first fireworks - 1988, if we remember right - and the most persistent memory is of a bloke being sick while leaning out of a car window in the post-event massive traffic jam.

Drinking in public is against the law. Will police target everybody? How is this relevant to the beautiful island?

We saw some illegal public drinking on Geordie Bay on New Year's Eve 2006. We were on our plush beachfront balcony at 8pm, waiting for the glorious sunset (love that daylight saving). Two female senior citizens wandered onto the sand, each with a glass of something cool and white. They were a million miles from hooliganism and anti-social behaviour.

But - such a flagrant transgression could not go unchecked. A fat rent-a-cop wobbled onto the beach, yelling and gesticulating. He wasn't pleased. The women, cowed, left the beach. We yelled abuse at the fattyboomba from our balcony, but to no avail.