Grand Prix

Greetings from ground zero.

So the Grand Prix has left us for another year, praise the gods. This is what it's like on the track's edge.

First, every time you venture downstairs, the street is full of men with beer bellies, long shorts with pockets on the knees, because this is where their hands reach to, red Ferari caps - everyone supports Ferrari - and huge laminated tickets on lanyards around their necks. Why is this? They come in packs and they like to spead out in a single line across the pavement. Occasionally there will be a small boy or two in the group, never a small girl. Even less often a woman with a remote expression on her face will be with her husband. There are the grid girls of course, but I've never seen one of them except in pictures. They don't venture away from trackside.

The only people who even come close to annoying me as much as the Grand Prix men are the bicycle riders in their spiked shoes and lurid testicle clutching garments who infest the local cafes on Sundays.

The first two days feature aeroplanes - lots of aeroplanes. They roar overhead, circling and spewing out trails. There are helicopters too. But this is the good part. On the third day, the heavy stuff arrives, massive jet planes which set off huge booming explosions overhead, using a technique which I'm told was developed to frighten villagers in Vietnam. It certainly scares the hell out of me. The first time I heard it I ran outside, assuming that the building was about to collapse. It sets off every car alarm for miles, and every dog in St Kilda barks. God knows how they cope at the old people's home on the corner.

Actual race day is not so bad, it's just the dull roar in the background all day that can be a bit stressful. During the afternoon, Ferrari wins the race, and by Monday all is back to normal - in the street that is. The park is full of stands, fences, portable lavatories, trucks and assorted paraphernalia for weeks.

There are good things of course - there is always a newspaper picture of tiny Bernie Ecclestone with gigantic Ron Walker and Bernie's Amazonian wife which gives fleeting pleasure, and...actually that's the only good thing I can think of.

And now they want to run it at night, so as to catch the TV in Europe. Dear God, think of the energy wasted, think of the light towers polluting the park - and once they're up, will one use a year be enough Ron? No.

The first year of the Grand Prix, all the shopkeepers went crazy. They brought in portable refrigerator cabinets full of beer, espresso machines for the footpath, there were huge plastic rubbish bins outside cafes, full of little plastic bags of biscuits, and nobody came. Fitzroy Street is no more than the path to the track. They are not interested in coffee and bickies, and they'd rather get their beer closer to the smells and sounds of the cars.

So the second year there were no preparations, except for sad little signs outside the shops, saying We Will be Open as Normal on Grand Prix Weekend. Because, you see, not only do Grand Prix goers not spend, the locals go away for the weekend. Except me, because the damn thing crept up on me. Next year...