The things you see in Canberra

I suspect my fellow *Canberra* chess blogger, David Smerdon, hasn't yet got the hang of the 'Canberra thing'. On the one hand he appreciates the beauty of living in the nations capital, but on the other, he still views it through the eyes of an outsider. This is not an uncommon attitude amongst recent arrivals to the city, as the rationalisation is that their only here for work/study and will soon be gone to fairer climes. This attitude persists until the moment they wake up one morning, and realise they always wanted to live here, they just hadn't known it until now.
And when you live in Canberra you get to see things that make the city different. I don't mean the lack of traffic jams, the wonderful flora and fauna, or the generally excellent winter weather. Instead the odd things when Canberra sub-cultures collide.
Last Saturday Street Chess (played under the trees in City Walk) began surrounded by an enormous number of motorcycle riders. It turned out that the annual Bikie charity run was scheduled to finish just as Street Chess was starting. It also turned out that a pillow fight (yes you read right) was also scheduled to be held at the exact time and place that the charity run was finishing. Now if I was planning to hold a *pillow fight*, doing it in the middle of a large group of bikies would not have been my preferred option. But to their credit, the organisers stuck to their guns and at the appointed time, 100 or so people came streaming from everywhere, and began to lay into each other with previously hidden pillows. With the bikies, the police, and the general public staring in amazement, this went on for about 90 seconds. Then as quickly as it started it ended, and within another 30 seconds the pillow fighting crowd had completely disappeared.