Skywirting
Sep. 17th, 2010 05:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dormouse1953The peninsula from which the south side of the Sydney Bridge starts is known as The Rocks. The oldest dwelling house in Sydney is preserved there. There's a small plaza which gives the best view of the Opera House (except possibly from a boat). You can also see the bridge quite well. Apparently, you can take a walk over the arch of the bridge and I could see the specks that were people apparently doing this. Well, with my head for heights, there's no way I was going to do this.
As I arrived in the area, I nearly ran into a gaggle of people staring at the sky. I looked up and overhead a small aircraft was writing a message in smoke. The word IMAGINE was the result. I sat down in the plaza and you could see the word slowly drift northwards across the harbour. Then I noticed the plane was back and writing another word. I could see FLORI and guessed it might be a travel company advertising holidays in Florida, maybe. But the next two letters were A and D in that order. The full word was FLORIADE.
My first thought was that the pilot had made a mistake writing Florida and tried to cover the mistake by turning it into a nonsense word. I recall one of the A.P Herbert Misleading Cases where a political candidate hires a skywriter to advertise his campaign but the pilot is a supporter of his rival candidate and puts misprints into the message that turns it into an insult. The legal minds have to decide whether in English law this is libel (written down, a permanent item) or slander (spoken and ephemeral).
Then, a couple of days later I saw a reference to Floriade. Turns out it's a flower festival held in Canberra in September.
As I arrived in the area, I nearly ran into a gaggle of people staring at the sky. I looked up and overhead a small aircraft was writing a message in smoke. The word IMAGINE was the result. I sat down in the plaza and you could see the word slowly drift northwards across the harbour. Then I noticed the plane was back and writing another word. I could see FLORI and guessed it might be a travel company advertising holidays in Florida, maybe. But the next two letters were A and D in that order. The full word was FLORIADE.
My first thought was that the pilot had made a mistake writing Florida and tried to cover the mistake by turning it into a nonsense word. I recall one of the A.P Herbert Misleading Cases where a political candidate hires a skywriter to advertise his campaign but the pilot is a supporter of his rival candidate and puts misprints into the message that turns it into an insult. The legal minds have to decide whether in English law this is libel (written down, a permanent item) or slander (spoken and ephemeral).
Then, a couple of days later I saw a reference to Floriade. Turns out it's a flower festival held in Canberra in September.
