Traveller On Big Wheel

Sunshine and cider are a potentially lethal mixture, especially as we have so little sunshine! This was dramatically demonstrated when a protestor from the Travelling community bedecked only in shorts decided to scale Belfast’s very own ‘Big Wheel’ on Monday evening.

The centre of Belfast was brought to a standstill as specialised fire brigade personnel were brought in to scale the wheel – therefore putting their own lives at substantial risk – to bring our shorts wearing airborne Traveller back to ground.

Personally I would have speeded the wheel up and seen if the drunken lunatic could do a passing imitation of a demented hamster! ‘How cruel’, I hear the middle class cry; ‘not so’, I say. If this idiot wanted to go up uninvited and unaided he should have been prepared to come down in similar fashion.

In the end no damage was done to either the climber or those brave souls who set out to save him. He will doubtless be given a conditional discharge and be sent on a weekend away doing rock climbing at the tax payer’s expense as punishment.

The only positive thing to come out of all this is that somebody was actually on the damn monstrosity for the first time in months! I have always wondered just what the hell there is to be seen in Belfast, no matter the height.

A few bemused tourists were seemingly trapped for over three hours as our half naked protestor banged his head off their gondolas. One Canadian thus trapped seemed relieved that he had after some time managed to find something worth photographing in our wonderful city. Maybe the Council should offer our climbing friend a steady job? Every Monday afternoon he could climb up the wheel and give our beleaguered visitors at least one memory worth bringing home...