I have more than enough time on my hands in my semi-retirement. Thinking about what I can do, apart from more volunteer work, I was reminded of a paragraph I read during undergrad days whilst reading up on Baudelaire. It refers to the flaneur, that bourgeois observer of the urban landscape.

"The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flaneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world - impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define." (The Painter of Modern Life)

A more modern and less flowery rending of the flaneur locates him as one who:

"ambles through a city on foot, observing its life without losing himself in it. The flaneur wanders not quite at random, but by following, at each juncture, the path of greatest interest. Perhaps he has a general direction, but no destination is so important as to distract from the distraction of the moment" (Jarrett Walker)

It's an appealing notion, don't you think? So I am thinking of donning the cape of the flaneur (though I've an idea that I have been doing this already) and heading out amongst the crowds of Sydney, a city in many respects suited to flaneury.