Tuesday, 5 June 2007
They (whoever they are) claim that if f you stand in one place long enough the rest of the world will eventually pass by.
That may or may not be true, but recent experience suggests that if you stand on the edge of the movie set long enough, you’ll encounter most of the population of Bowen and a substantial number of out-of-town visitors, as well.
Pamplona continued was the theme for the start of Week Three, and while the cattle were headed out of town by week’s end, their continued presence provided plenty of motivation for people to turn up in anticipation of the running of the bulls and frequent opportunities to spend a lengthy period talking to people I hadn’t seen for (in some cases) years....
And if there’s not much happening, at least there’s usually someone to talk to.
As usual with such things, when it came to the running of the bulls, a sort of pattern emerged fairly quickly. The herd completed a couple of laps of the circuit early in the morning before the cameras were sent elsewhere to film other sequences. Once the crew broke for lunch the speculation about a repeat performance would start, and towards the end of the afternoon some sort of action would ensue, though towards the end of proceedings it was rarely the sort of action the spectators were hoping for.
After the previous week’s incident when a single silver car parked near the corner of Herbert and George Streets on Thursday afternoon prevented the mob from doing a lap or two, it was hardly surprising that the barriers stayed in the positions used for bovine exercise rather than being moved to allow a better view of proceedings for spectators and a better chance of motorists finding a parking spot close to the middle of town.
And the actions of the stubborn gent who refused to move his car earlier in the week probably ensured that things stayed that way until the bull-running sequences were well and truly out of the way Well done, that man (not).
However it would be impossible to leave the subject of downtown Pamplona-By-the-Sea without a word of praise for the cattle minders.
The prospect of seven hundred head of cattle moving through the streets of town was probably regarded as a serious incident waiting to happen in some quarters, and the fact that those activities passed almost without incident reflects great credit on the stockmen who supervised the herd as they went through their paces.