Speaker's Corner, the Domain

When I arrived in the Domain this afternoon it was still only 1.30pm and no-one was around. I spoke on the phone with a friend and then waited until a man arrived named Steve Maxwell. He had given me a business card on a similar Sunday some weeks earlier with the web address of Speaker's Corner, and this time we chatted for a while together as we waited for 2pm to roll around, which is when the show usually starts. I told Steve about my Kindle because he has written a history of Speaker's Corner but only has, he said, a few copies of the book left. He agreed that an online distribution method would be beneficial. Soon there was a car unloading chairs for spectators, so I helped bring the chairs into the park. When they were set up a man named Shimon, wearing a yarmulke, came by with his two children, and he was soon up on the dais giving an impromptu speech about homelessness to the small gathering there. When he had finished Steve got up on the dais but I had to leave soon after so walked up through the park to the Eye Hospital, then across Macquarie Street into Martin Place where there are dozens of pup tents set up outside the Reserve Bank by rough sleepers.