Heavenly Beverley : When Mad Dogs And Politicians Go Out In The Midday Sun...

The familiar saying "Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun" has been attributed to Rudyard Kipling, who warned of the perils of the heat, noting that only mad (rabid) dogs or the stiff upper lip Englishman would actually be outside during the middle of the day.

However, Noel Coward included this phrase in a song he penned in 1931 or 1932 and became an integral part of his cabaret act from that time.

The song was intended as a mockery of British colonial behaviour in the Tropics, such as the wearing of excessive and inappropriate clothing for the weather, the scorning of hats (which often led to heat exhaustion or heat stroke) and the retention of pompous and arbitrary bureaucratic practices that were completely at odds with an oppressive climate.

Anyway, this post will illustrate that there is no need to travel to the Raj in order to experience a rather uncomfortable heatwave. A very annoying cyclone named Sean is partially to blame. Travelling well off shore, we have overcast conditions streaming in from the Indian Ocean with very high temperatures creating a exceedingly unpleasant pressure cooker effect.

Plus, heatwaves tend to aggravate the Foot-in-Mouth disease suffered by politicians, who tend to utter the most stupid of their statements during the summer months. For example, take a previous premier of Western Australia (whilst living in Perth's western suburbs near the sea) who unwisely voiced that Western Australians don't need air-conditioning in hot weather. He did not remain premier for too long after that inopportune gaffe.

Then, there is an election pitch by some bloke who used to be a policeman, declaring that business staff lunches and dinners might attract a tax break, and help to raise morale. Even better, he proposed businesses could organise client outings, such as golfing days, which might also earn a tax deduction. I understand dedicated golfers do tend to ignore the weather in their pursuit of ruining a pleasant walk, but the idea of our local businesses entertaining clients at the Beverley Golf Club on a 40 degree day just fills me with cynical mirth.

The star that causes these heatwaves, our Sun, is ideally poised to provide affordable and reliable power generation without adding to Climate Change. We also have abundant supplies of wind and tides, both of which could be harnessed for power. The idea of building seven small nuclear power stations across Australia seems a tad ludicrous, especially since we could all fry our breakfast eggs on the bonnets of our cars. That aforementioned bald headed chap from Queensland has yet to provide any information about these proposed power stations, such as costings, a time frame or the safe disposal of nuclear waste. Not a peep on where that nasty stuff would be stored.

Methinks he doesn't actually believe in his own rhetoric - his gasbaggery is all for the show. But, given his somewhat presidential style performances and lofty ambitions, I could never vote for this politician. The other night, watching a show called "Fortress Britain", we were stunned to hear of a nuclear accident in Cumbria at the Windscale Nuclear Facility in October 1957. Decades before the Chernobyl catastrophe, the fire released radioactive fallout across the United Kingdom and Europe. Located in farming country, milk sales were banned from over 500 square kilometres. The reactor was sealed until the late 1980s and a clean up took over thirty years. In the month prior to the Windscale incident, an explosion at the Kyshtym/Mayak/Ozyorsk plutonium plant in the Soviet Union rates second on the disaster scale behind Chernobyl and Fukushima.

The Windscale event was covered up by the British government and the subsequent report heavily censored. The USSR took nearly two years to evacuate all of the 22 villages in the path of the radioactive cloud. What became of those people is anybody's guess.

I had never heard of either of these events until I watched the British documentary series. I have since learnt the earlier nuclear accident took place in 1952 with in excess of 100 recorded incidents since then, unless one also counts the military scientists who received lethal doses of radiation in 1945 and 1946. I have listened to the comments of proponents of nuclear power, and I remain to be convinced of the safety of these facilities. How far I would need to be from a nuclear reactor in the case of an accident has no definitive answer...Rather like eating a cane toad and hoping for the best.

I suggest that our Federal Opposition leader might enjoy some time out of the midday sun so he refrains from spouting some of his more questionable opinions. The Federal election has not even been announced, so I could counsel him to keep his mouth shut until that time. And behave less like a mad dog.