"Those were the days, my friend..."

(Photos: Waratah Rovers Bicycle Club, outside the Royal Hotel, Picton, NSW, October 1900, NSW State Library collection)



...when we wore hats on bicycles to protect us from the sun.

Today over 100 years later and notwithstanding the call to arms to guard against skin cancer, Australian governments stand in the way of sun-protection whenever we get on our bicycles.

Governments only pay lip service to the notion of sun protection otherwise they would eschew the madness of bicycle helmet law and encourage us to don big brimmed sun hats the minute we unpadlocked our bikes.

In reality bicycle helmet law has relegated sensible sun protection to second place. Unsurprisingly the risk of skin cancer when riding a bicycle 'Down Under' is extreme at any time during the day other than night-time.

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"Those were (also) the days, my friend," when we had a transport system in Sydney we can only dream about today and are desparately trying to recapture.

Given the current beleagured transport system was an issue the government went to an election on, declaring fervently that they were going to it sort out, the big puzzle now is why the Transport Department's proposal to reintroduce trams into George Street has been so catergorically rejected by the private sector infrastructure lobby group, Infrastructure NSW, who keep interjecting with their own multi-billion dollar tollway plans...

$$$ Why does Infrastructure NSW have so much caché with the NSW Premier?

$$$ Why did he ever appoint them?

$$$ Why are their musings so favoured by him?

$$$ Why are all they so stuck on 'Paradigm Car'?

$$$ What about what Sydney people actually want?

Obviously not everything about the 'Good Old Days' was good, but they sure had sun hats, bicycles & public tranpsort covered