Last few weeks

I am now havong a big holiday and the weather has stayed terribly dry - so much so that even the ultraconservative Bureau of Meteorology admits forecasts based on historical records are of no use at all. Yet, it is utterly gagged still from the pro-active role that our scientific bodies should have been taking for years - towards destroying the road lobby and making sure every cent of government transport funding is to public transport.

To try to calm myself amidst a climate that will soon be as dry as Lake Eyre has historically been, I have spend recent weeks reading at the opposite end of the political spectrum: the P.I.G.s, or Politically Incorrect Guides.

I actually frequently accost people about whether they know what "P.I.G." stands for. Because Australia is too traditional to have the "Sixties" politics that runs Europe, Blue America and Canada, P.I.G.s are quite unnecessary here and nobody ever guesses the answer or has read any of the book. I know, though, that P.I.G.s would be adored by most of Australia's politicians and especially by the mining bosses who keep transport policy on the shortest of leashes towards the most wasteful form - road building, which should have been outlawed constitutionally as soon as the threat of global warming became known in 1981.