Back to the North Pole?

Adelaide City Council’s hapless blow-up Santas can’t catch a break.

On Wednesday, and for the second week running, we spotted four of them deflated, demoralised and downtrodden across the CBD.

InSider has diligently covered St Nick’s deflationary antics for over a year now but it’s almost getting cruel. Last week, the Santas were at least given blue tarpaulins for protection; this week, it was grey garbage bag-like coverings with sandbags. Merry Christmas.

Sandbags and puddles for Father Christmas

Adding insult to injury, Independent MP Frank Pangallo took to LinkedIn (of all places) to give our inflatable friends a spray.

“Does someone at @cityof Adelaide really think these pumped up santa trolls are a good decoration,” Pangallo asked on Tuesday, before declaring the CBD’s Christmas decorations an “embarrassment” and the Victoria Square Christmas tree “the world’s ugliest”.

Santa outside State Library (with an apology message on the right).

While it’s all fun and games piling on the Santas, their dreadful performance this year could not have come at a worse time – council is drafting a new “Christmas in the City Action Plan” for 2025 to 2028 with their current festive decorations and events plan expiring this year.

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In other words, Santa is up for a performance review.

Veteran councillor Phil Martin offered an ominous warning to Father Christmas today.

“Personally, I think the inflatable Santas have let us down too often,” Martin told InSider.

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“I aspire, like everyone else, to have our City up there among places like London and Singapore displaying the world’s best Christmas decorations.”

InSider suggests the Santas will have to significantly lift their game (and their PSI-levels) to avoid a trip back to the North Pole in 2025.

Repair hope for South Australia’s last drive-in cinema

It turns out inflatable Santas aren’t the only ones who struggle with high winds and hot weather.

In November 2023, Coober Pedy’s drive-in cinema – the last in South Australia – was rocked by a 120km/h wind event.

The wild weather tore panels off the cinema screen and damaged its ageing timber supports, leaving the opal town without one of its mainstay attractions.

Coober Pedy’s drive-in cinema after last year’s storm event. Photo: District Council of Coober Pedy

“Due to a devastating storm on the 15th November 2023 the last remaining drive-in in South Australia is now closed,” the Coober Pedy drive-in website states.

“We are heartbroken as a community.”

Coober Pedy’s drive-in was built in 1965 with volunteer labour and money raised by the Progress and Miners Association.

In its heyday, it showed eight different films a week, according to drive-in volunteer Sue Britt.

“The drive-in provided a multicultural venue for people to regularly get together to share news, gossip and entertainment,” Britt wrote in a history of the drive-in cinema.

“Families used to come when the gates opened prepared to have a picnic meal before the films started.

“Opal miners came in their work utes, initially with gelignite among their other daily mining tools.

“As beer drinking was allowed, the operators decided it would be prudent to ban explosives.”

Last Wednesday, just over a year after the drive-in was taken offline, the financially troubled District Council of Coober Pedy issued a tender seeking a contractor to repair the damaged screen.

The scope of work includes everything from a structural review, bolt repairs and a complete refurbishment of the damaged screen. The council wants the work done by February 24 “to enable the drive-in theatre to commence operations as soon as practicable”.

There’s hope for South Australia’s last drive-in. InSider suggests the explosives ban should remain in place when it’s back up and running.

Another fun thing to do in Adelaide

Adelaide has become the latest city to take part in the global trend that began with a Timothée Chalamet look-alike contest in NYC. Chalamet crashed his own look-alike contest and the latest in an eternal string of viral moments was born, followed by look-alike contests for Harry Styles, Jeremy Allen White and countless more.

Photo: Reddit

Now, our time has come. Are you a tall man, non-binary person, or masculine lesbian with long brown hair? Well, if you have no plans on December 15, come down to Light Square, where you could become the proud owner of $25 and bragging rights at the Hozier look-alike contest.

InSider would never tell a look-alike contest host how to do their job, but considering the Irish musician performed in Adelaide earlier this month their timing is a little off. Either way, while Hozier himself is unlikely to attend, some people who sort of look like him might be there, probably joined by a few people who look nothing like him but think very highly of themselves.

While the Facebook event has had just over 20 people RSVP, it made it to the Hozier Reddit page which has more than 74,000 members, plus another 140,000 people saw it on X (formerly known as Twitter etc. etc.).

So there you have it folks, another event to add to Adelaide’s impressive events calendar. Though while we’re on the topic, InSider thinks a Dev Patel look-alike contest would be an apt choice, given his residency in our great city.