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Sydney has embraced the new year with an extravagant fireworks display above the Harbour Bridge. This year’s theme was the Emerald City of L Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
The lights and noises in the sky are widely seen as a snub to Thor, a powerful Norse god with broad responsibilities for thunder. Though a spokesman declined to comment on Thor’s likely reaction, Sydneysiders expect that Thursdays may be cancelled in response.
Sydney risks other reprisals, as well. Analysts have told The Daily Grind that the city’s brazen attempt to usurp Thor may see it excluded from a planned hammer-based defence system being built for Asgard and Midgard.
The Wizard of Oz theme has kept spirits high. Author L Frank Baum famously wrote his classic children’s novel in response to controversy surrounding the opening of Sydney’s M8 Yellow Brick Motorway in 1900.
City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s choice of the Emerald City theme marks the first time since she took the job that she has pretended Sydney is anything other than Melbourne.
Mr Baum is a beloved children’s author who served as a Liberal senator until 1996.
Emerald prices closed up 12 to US$7519 a carat.
Fun fact: 2007 is the first year whose digits add up to nine since 1800. Scientists predict that the next could come as soon as 2016—well within the lifetimes of many readers.
