AS a participant in the all-night scrum at Victoria Park the weekend before last, I wish to comment that Ralph Pixton was fully justified in expressing indignation about the trash heaps left behind, but partially off the mark in assessing responsibility.
He should have said ''immature young shameless gweilos'', instead of lumping all of us together.
It was immediately apparent when our group arrived at 8.30pm that the queueing crowd was much younger than last year, consisting almost entirely of high school kids and very young adults.
The trend towards littering became apparent early, as well as numerous other examples of churlish behaviour, viz. throwing things, loud (and tasteless!) music at all hours, and repeated beaning of dozens with errant soccer balls, frisbees and the like. Let it be noted for the record that the adults in the crowd (we decline to reveal our ages, but it's about the average of Ralph's and a high-schooler) were meticulous in cleaning up after ourselves.
The Urban Council contributed and was clearly trying to encourage such an atmosphere, as there was no shortage of bins in which to dump refuse.
The bin liners were even changed several times during the night! Their message, and all other forms of subtle negative feedback, clearly fell on mostly deaf ears.