The value of Boris

Some people find it easy to mock the 'faux-oaf' Boris Johnson (although in reality he is the very antithesis of what it is to be a fool), but the present London Mayor is probably a good man to have around in a crisis, as one Londoner found (who as it so happens says she did not vote for him, but no matter). Naturally Boris is refusing further comment on the matter, as in my experience is often the case when decisive action and innate courage are involved.

Nanny-State Netherlands says 'No!'

From a British perspective it sometimes seems that we have the most complete 'nanny-state' in the world (why, there's even a blog dedicated to the premise), but we have a close rival in the Netherlands, whose government apparatus has stepped in to prevent a 13 (going on 14) year old girl from launching her attempt to sail solo around the world. Here are a few excerpts from the BBC report which illustrate perfectly the suffocating effect on a young person's courage, when even the judge admits her sailing-skills are not in question:

Judges at the Utrecht district court said Ms Dekker's sailing skills were not in question. But they said her safety plan was not fully developed and that she had no experience with sleep management.

- the final sentence really takes the biscuit! Just how much 'experience' do the judges at the Utrecht district court have with this thing called 'sleep management'? And just what does this thing about her safety plan not being fully developed mean? Not all risks can, or necessarily should, be ironed out before anyone steps out of their front doors in the morning. I might be involved in an accident later this morning when I go out in my car to do some shopping; perhaps this (I hope!) non-existent accident will be 'my fault', or perhaps not. Does that mean I should just stay in bed all day, to avoid the risk?

Interestingly just yesterday Prince Edward's off-the-cuff and perfectly reasonable if infelicitously-expressed comments (about the untimely death of a young person walking in the bush in Australia) seem to have sparked off both remarks about 'another Royal gaffe' in the style of his father The Duke of Edinburgh, who started the 'Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme', but also challenging the [obvious to me] fact that some young people do seek out thrills and yes, DANGER, quite deliberately. There are other points of view, however. Poor Price Edward - his youthful folly with the "It's a knock-out" games is never likely to be forgotten, nor his petulance when criticised for the flop it turned out to be. But however clumsily he may have expressed himself recently in Australia, I think youngsters do relish a certain element of 'risk' and being taken out of their usual 'comfort zones'. It's just a pity that 'the State' seems to want populations to be totally-insulated and docile 'consumers' unable to think for themselves or to do (or be allowed to do) anything for themselves. Would we have ever travelled to what is now the United States or Australia, for example, if the explorers who undertook those quite dangerous expeditions (not to say fatal for some of the early pioneers!) had not had the courage to sail off in pretty small and flimsy craft with none of the modern technologies we take for granted such as GPS or satellite-internet? With this attitude is it ever likely we'll make a return visit to the moon, never mind attempt visits to Mars and beyond?! Rant ends ...

Finally, I wish the young Dutch person mentioned at the beginning of this article every success when she finally manages to escape the clutches of the Dutch 'State' next summer.

"The Germans suffered the same as we did."

The words of the last known surviving British soldier to have fought in the trenches of World War I, Harry Patch (109), during a visit to the trenches where he fought 90 years ago.

What do any of us 'youngsters' know, really know, of the horrors that people like Mr Patch suffered? Not much, I suspect. At any rate I salute this fine old gent. Read more about him here.