Just when you thought that our intrepid Minister for H₂0 couldn’t embarrass himself more than he already has, Tim Holding admitted that after slipping down a mountain for 200 metres, he was offered help from passing mountain climbers, BUT refused. These climbers wanted to lend him some snow shoes.

Not for him a beacon and other mandatory safety precautions for solitary adventurers. He was going to do it his way.

What is his way? Well, may you ask. His way is to go alone, lose his footing when he became confused, refuse sensible offers of help from other trekkers and then risk the lives of 80 rescuers.

Some adventurer! If it weren’t for the efforts of the Australian Federal Police who used a special plane to seek him out, he would still be there freezing his butt off. When asked if he would go a wanderin’ up a mountain in below freezing temperatures again, he said yes, but he would take a safety beacon with him next time.

Of course he would have to take lessons on how to switch it on, no doubt. It was noted that he did not even suggest making a donation to the rescue mission.

Do we really need politicians who are so inconsequential and are willing to risk the lives of others just because their brains originated in a pickle jar?

I have to confess that I didn’t even know that Tim Holding existed until he got lost on a solitary climb up a mountain in the alpine region of Victoria this weekend. Apparently, the wandering minister is Minister for Water in the Australian state of Victoria.

We don’t have much water in Victoria and we don’t have much of a minister either, it appears.

Holding is an experienced mountain climber, we are told, but he went off on his own in below freezing temperatures without a GPS device. I would have thought that a GPS device was crucial if you are into frolicking on dangerous terrains on your own.

Holding seems to have become lost and failed to return on Sunday afternoon. So now we are endangering the lives of 80 rescuers who also have to spend the nights on the mountain in order to retrieve the lost minister.

It’s an expensive and dangerous exercise. We have had irresponsible people go adventuring before and when they were lucky enough to be found they sold their stories to newspapers. I hope that our errant minister will not do that.

I also strongly believe that adventurers should repay the cost of their rescue by taking out insurance before they embark on their follies. Why should their behaviour incur a cost to the community when they didn’t take sensible precautions in the first place?

Accidents are one thing and they are bound to happen but irresponsibility is another. If Tim Holding is found alive I hope that the voters will remember his stupid, risky and inconsequential behaviour when election time comes.

p.s.

Tim Holding is a very lucky man. He has just been winched to safety by courageous rescuers. Hope he gets sent to his room without dessert!

For the past year I noticed that my facial complexion was peeling constantly. It was very irritating. I put it down to Melbourne weather as one does. Finally, I went to a beautician and asked her why my skin was peeling all the time. She asked me what I use on my skin and I told her “mineral makeup”. Her eyebrows shot up, her eyes widened in horror as if she’d just been offered treatment from Michael Jackson’s personal physician.

It turns out that mineral makeup is only suitable for teenagers with oily skin. I am not a teenager. According to her, mineral makeup should be avoided by anyone over the age of 20 as it is very drying. I am well over the age of 20 and until I used mineral makeup had never had a problem with peeling skin.

So I decided to read up on it on the internet. Here is a hyperlink to a health site about mineral makeup.

I wonder how many women out there are suffering dry skin problems because they fell for the hype.

Since giving up mineral makeup a few days ago my skin has stopped peeling. There’s definite improvement there. Can’t say the same for Melbourne weather, though.

I can’t be the only person in the world who is utterly and totally and completely bored with discussions about climate change and ETS. I’m so fed up with it all that I’m actually looking forward to the world running out of everything and exploding in one big bang so that’s it’s over and done with already.

This gloom and doom is making me switch off–if only. So it was with great joy that I heard about an orchestra in Scotland which is lousy. It knows it is lousy and it likes it that way. You can hear the Really Terrible Orchestra on You Tube and believe me they are more entertaining than the bleating about global warming and carbon balloons and giant footprints and all that rot.

The orchestra website describes its mission as follows:

“The Really Terrible Orchestra exists to encourage those who have been prevented from playing music, either through lack of talent or some other factor, to play music in the company of similarly afflicted players. The policy of the orchestra is to make no distinction between the various grades of ability and the various forms of music, or time signature. The RTO looks forward to a further lowering of standards, in order to underline its commitment to accessibility and relevance.”

Now isn’t that refreshing! We need a laugh in this miserable world or we will get to the stage of not giving a damn if the world boils over. I’m already at the stage where I feel aversion when politicians talk. I bristle when I hear the words Afghanistan or Iraq. Africa is a basket case which will not be solved in our lifetime. Nor will the Middle East be at peace in the foreseeable future. So thank goodness for the Really Terrible Orchestra and what it stands or does not stand for.

Now that the law has permitted Christian Rossiter’s nursing home to stop feeding him through a tube against his wishes, I hope he will not linger too long.

He has declared that he wants to die and was even trying to travel to Switzerland for help.

My sick father starved to death and it was a horrible way to go. I have personally witnessed the failure of palliative care. Now that the court has conceded, Rossiter has asked that painkillers be administered through the feeding tube instead so that his suffering will not be prolonged.

Mr Rossiter is only 49 and became a spastic quadriplegic as a result of a car accident. He has no quality of life and no hope of recovery and so his nursing home has asked for legal permission to stop feeding him through a tube. Artificial feeding is considered to be a medical procedure and so Rossiter has the right to refuse such a procedure, the court said.

The nursing home was naturally concerned that it could be charged with murder or euthanasia so it went to the law. Thank goodness that the court has seen reason.

I wish Mr Rossiter a peaceful and speedy departure. He has suffered enough. In my opinion, he should be helped to leave this life with more dignity than a slow and painful death by starvation. There is something very callous in a world that condones such cruelty.

When a convicted criminal is sentenced to jail for life, a sentence which is usually reserved for criminals who have committed a very serious offence, he or she should serve out the sentence.

I question the ethical validity of releasing life-term prisoners just because they are terminally ill.

Take Ronald Biggs, for example, who took part in a train robbery in which a guard was killed. He escaped from jail, lived many years in South America, thumbed his nose at British law and then returned to the U.K when he was ill and needed free medical treatment. Now that he is mortally ill, he has been released on compassionate grounds.

The question I ask is what has he done to deserve compassion?

Today we hear that the Lybian bomber convicted of blowing up Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie may be released from prison because he has terminal prostate cancer. The question I ask once again is why should a terrorist who claimed the lives of 259 passengers plus 11 residents of Lockerbie be given any compassion at all?

He is not in pain and he will probably survive for many years according to the Scottish Lord Justice, Lord Hamilton. But even if he were in pain, so what?

While doubts have been raised about al-Megrahi’s guilt, this is a separate issue since he has been convicted. While his conviction stands, he should die in prison.

Many years ago, I spent a very solemn afternoon in the Lockerbie Memorial Garden. It was a small unassuming place but very poignant. I could not help but think of the thwarted lives of the innocent victims on Pan Am Flight 103 and those who died in the quiet village which will always be associated with one of the world’s most heinous crimes. The memory of this tragic event is as vivid in my mind as it was 21 years ago.

That’s when I felt true compassion.

First of all, I will preface my outrage by stating that “The Australian” is a newspaper that I respect and subscribe to. But what it did regarding the disclosure of yesterday’s roundup of alleged terrorists was a betrayal of the Australian security system. Continue reading →

If it weren’t so tragic for Mr Grech this whole incident over a fake email could be the plot of a Restoration Comedy of Errors.

We have two ambitious political foes out to stab one another in the back or the front or anywhere else as long as the blow is fatal. Continue reading →

So the government is going to do something positive about the binge drinking problem. What is that something, you may well ask… Continue reading →