You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun.

I am continuing my ‘urban grit’ theme today, with another image of the out-of-control wild streets of Hobart. Yes, today we have a photograph of barbed wire.

For reasons obviously beyond my feeble comprehension, there is a bundle of haphazardly arranged barbed wire on the side of the fire escape to keep reprobates off of the roof of this building.

The logic behind this placement intrigues me. You see, the barbed wire only extends perhaps 1.5 metres across the ledge adjacent to the roof top, but the fire escape itself extends at least 2.5 metres, but more likely 3. This would allow enough space for all but the most corpulent of miscreants to freely access the roof and commit all sorts of heinous acts with the pigeons nestled on top.

This oversight leads me to think that I can safely rule out roof access as the reason behind the inexplicable placement of the barbed wire. However, the wire does not sit in front of anything but a bare brick ledge. It protects no skylight, vent, power box or air conditioning unit. It most certainly does not protect a trench on the Western Front of France (which it faintly resembles). It just sits there on a 1.5 metre bare patch of a join between the fire escape and the building.

I have contemplated whether or not it is possibly an art display, as the fire escape overlooks an ‘art space’. This I have ruled out though, as I think it is far too creative and oblique for the standard of art usually observed around these parts.