Where's me Serpent?

Our uneleceted President came down to open the festival, as promised.
She told us that our enemies had been vanquished, and that everyone would get a new donkey this Christmas, our something along those general lines.
The Exile John Creedon returned from his sojourn abroad to preside over the festivities.
The fireworks went off, and we were all impressed by the bright lights. We pushed up against the barriers to get the best view.
But... where was the serpent?
All the buzz about in the weeks leading up to the opening of the Cork 2005, City of Culture thing that you may have heard of, promised us a big serpent leaping out of the River Lee. Instead all we got was some tail-like things sticking out of the river and shooting off more fireworks.
Peasants like myself who aren't involved with the Cork 2005 organising commitee are always impressed by bright lights and that sort of thing as we don't have any televisions or computers in our houses and therefore lead very dull lives. But, heck, we were promised a serpent, and I expected one to come splashing out of the river, fire blowing from it's eyes and venom rasping from it's tongue, and this is all I got.
I couldn't be arsed getting up on new years day to aquire a ticket so I ended up buying one on the street. €3 was the price I was quoted but he didnt have the right change so just handed me a big handful of coins. So I paid the best part of a fiver to see a serpent, and this was all I got. I must say I'm really disenchanted.
It's a genuine pity, because there really was a good buzz around town for the rest of the day, with more musicians and performance artists than you could shake a stick at, and there was a genuine carnival athmosphere. It's a shame that at the end, the "organisers" felt they had to herd us all behind barriers so we could see this horribly anti-climatic finale.
It's hardly surprising, given the attitude the "organisers" seem to have, which is that the people of Cork have little capacity for producing anything of value themselves and have so little appetite for high culture that they need to put on some fireworks to keep us amused.
Take a look at their website and all you'll see is links to their corporate sponsers and no potential for interactivity.
On the other hand, go onto Mick Hannigan's alternative Where's Me Culture site and see the buzz being generated, with all sorts of wierd and wonderful ideas being put forth. (one of them is mine. Can you guess which?)
Having been to their opening party in the mardyke which was generated by people from Cork for people from Cork, I'm going to be investing alot more faith in this than in the official Cork 2005 organisation.