For more than four years, I’ve been buying my takeaway coffees from the Imperial Cafe & Pub on McCallum Street, and it’s only just now that I realised why the tables and chairs are placed so that patrons who dine in get to face McCallum Street and the silver-grey office block across it.
When a traffic police patrol bike comes along, as one did this afternoon, ridden by the shortest traffic policeman on motorcycle I have ever seen – his boots could only touch the ground one at a time when he was on the bike – the patrons are alerted by the proprietor of the Imperial, who simply mumbles ‘lai liao, lai liao’.
There’s a mad dash across McCallum Street by about half a dozen courier riders and deliverymen who run off to move their vehicles which are illegally parked on the street as well as on the side lane.
No one gets booked this afternoon, as the policeman seems like a nice enough fella, standing around till all the illegally parked vehicles have cleared the area before getting back on his bike and riding off.
