Default System, Bliss and Contentment

I enjoyed a day of free tram service on my first day of arrival. Hopping on from tram to tram, I visited Adelaide's city attractions - from the shopping mall to the post officers and to Central Market.

I thought, how wonderful. I also thought, who say there is no free lunch in this world. Adelaide has this free tram service - convenient, thoughtful and absolutely free of charge.

On the second day, as we stepped into the tram stop outside our hotel, we were being told that the tram service would not be on today. The 40C days for a century heat forces public transport to shut down - that I read from the newspapers. Commuters were warned that the public transport system is not out of the woods after it literally buckled under the strain of yesterday's extraordinary 45C heat.

Dozens of TransAdelaide's (the tram operating company) hired security staff manned the entrance of the tram stops advising commuters of alternatives. However, confusion reigned at Victoria Square (where the Central Market is), where a security guard was directing tram passengers to shuttle buses outside the South Australia Water Building, only to find some trams kept running! We were about to walk to the get the shuttle bus then a tram rolling down King William Street. It's appalling!

Yet I was thankful! I could still hop on the tram on a sizzling hot day of over 40C. Just like this man whom I talked to at the tram stop. He said,

"Yes, it's hot. But it's predictable. It's hot, it means hot. It won't give me a storm, a surprised shower, it won't turn chilly suddenly."

That is bliss.

I also like this man who is a glass-maker. While the mercury outside hit almost 46C, the temperature inside their glass blowing studio was 64C.

"But we've got to keep working," Mr Eamonn Vereker of Waterford Crystal said, "Summer is our busiest time. That's when there's the most demand for our product. At the moment, We're doing a government job, making 60 round bowls for Minister Rankine. You generally put on a little weight in winter but it melts off in summer, which is why my wife likes me working on hot days."

That's contentment.

And of course, there are discontentment. The Transport Minister said the Government had bought the wrong trams.

"Last winter the trams were stopped because they skidded in the wet and in summer they cannot run in the extreme heat."

It looks like "spending taxpayers' money wrongly" is the "default mode" for most government system universally!

And so, I caught these people demonstrating outside the Parliament House.

Does that mean that with free no-tram-service, the government has to give more pies?

(Above) And yours truly has not comprehended this protest language. Can anyone help?
(Below) Probably the "fat cat" means the Transport Minister. Or "fat cat" has other meaning?

Leave you with this -

A cheerful heart is good medicine,
but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
Proverbs 17:22

(Next: The happy people in South Australia)