From brothel to baby clinic

I regularly drive through the junction at Woolloongabba in Brisbane where Annerley Road intersects Stanley Street.

The Mater hospital occupies one corner. The Clarence Corner Hotel is on another. And an arcade of scummy, heritage façades housing all manner of zany establishments’ “tees the square”.

Sitting at the traffic lights you see the patients from the Mater stumble across as the alcoholics come out of the Clarence (at all hours), also stumbling, and an eclectic parade fumbles about for an “eclectic meal” in one of the beaten up diners…

Nestled amongst this “cluster” is an amusing example of irony as you are likely to find.

A building that, since time immemorial, housed strip joints and prior to that brothels, is now a baby clinic called “arrivals”.

Formerly “Bad Girls”, the boarded up, brooding, jet black walls have made way for full length windows and a “starched nappy” white paintjob.

The irony is never lost on me and I chuckle every time I go past it. Bob Dylan would call it a "simple twist of fate". Quite a nice one, I reckon...

TECHNOLOGY AND TRAVEL

Brown eyed beauty is
daring to sail,

alight with the tide
and arrive with the mail,

elope with the slope
and return via rail,

circle the compass
on a mercury trail.

Send her my words on an infinite tablet,
receive back her vision, swift
"click"
and I'll have it.