World Youth Day Update #2

This morning while exploring a ruined 19th century swimming baths, which were built as part of a now closed psychiatric institution (another project of mine involving a truly enlightened Victorian doctor (who was almost certainly gay) which will (hopefully) one day have a web site of its own) with my littlest Duck-Noodle and the Hounds of the Atonement (ok, so one's a terrier-cross, but let's not be picky) we heard the strangest sound coming on the wind across the upper reaches of Sydney Harbor.

It sounded like - I swear I'm not making this up - a group of women singing "whoo-hoo" to the X-Files theme. Given our surroundings it was spooky enough to start the dogs howling, and you've got to remember these are creatures that don't bat an eyelid when I play Rammstein.

Now I've got to confess I always found Scully kind of cute in a purely physical way, but Mulder was the much more interesting of the pair, although I suspect his life would have been a lot simpler if he'd tried a little anti-obsessive medication. For a few moments it wouldn’t have surprised me if either of them jumped out from behind a tree, and I turned on our trusty camera in anticipation.


Looking towards the source of this strange chanting, it seemed to be coming from a group standing in front of the Sydney Boys High School Rowing Club. Zooming in revealed the singers to be a group of nuns: it was then I remembered that next week the Pope-on-a-Boat parade will be passing this way en route to the Sydney Olympic stadium, where he’ll be doing whatever it is Popes do in Olympic stadiums with a couple of hundred thousand young people. Clearly the X-Files is part of this aquatic liturgy, and the Sisters were just rehearsing. Which sure makes a big change from strumming guitars and singing Kum-By-Yah.


When we bought this camera Mrs. Caliban expressed concern that I'd get up to mischief with the high-powered digital zoom. Somehow though I don’t think taking telephoto pictures of Nuns was what she had in mind ;-)