Climb Mount Everest and there is a possibility you won’t make it down again. Abseil in a remote gorge and there’s a chance you may experience difficulty.

The onus has to be on the participant to ensure their own safety in the event of a disaster.

Sailing solo around the world should be a self-managed risk.

From my perspective, this activity in a 12-metre yacht is destined to be problematic. Trouble is almost assured.

But time and again, authorities are called out to mount predictable rescue operations, the latest being to assist 16-year-old Abby Sunderland.

While I admire the teenager’s ambition and tenacity, there’s no way I’d let my 16-year-old daughter take on a mission like this. The notion is inconceivable.

And if any person undertakes such a high-risk non-essential leisure activity, surely it is their responsibility to protect themselves.

I’m not suggesting stricken sailors should be abandoned to their own devices, but they should be discouraged from starting in the first place.

You need a certain degree of wealth to attempt an around-the-world voyage. If a person wants to cross the southern Indian Ocean in winter, they should have a support vessel accompanying them.

The Governor General’s official residences house more than 3000 bottles of fine wine. So what!

I don’t get what the problem is either.

Her Excellency is wary of extravagance, so only gives guests wine valued at $20 or less.

Let’s get this straight … she sends a flunky to the bottle-o to buy $15 plonk from petty cash (or orders delivery from Dan Murphy), rather than tap into her cellar.

And she wonders why her stocks aren’t depleting and puzzles over what to do with them. Sigh.

Simple solution: Use your stocks before you buy any more wine.

Sir John Kerr (pictured below left at the Melbourne Cup in 1977) would have known what to do.

I respect the man and he expressed a commonly held view, so I don’t deride it.

As an editor, it has always been my philosophy to choose a good positive story over a good negative story, if I have a choice between them for the front page.

A lot of factors influence my decision making and most of them are played out instinctively every day. There is no formula and often there are several options which could be equally valid.

A key consideration, but not the only one, is to sell newspapers. People are interested in stories about other people.

They like to read about crime and they like to read NEWs. NEWs is something they don’t already know; something that’s new.

Paid newspapers (those that have a cover price) have to be sensitive to what people like to read, otherwise they would go out of business.

We’ve seen a trend in Australia that free newspapers take a fluffy position, all warm and fuzzy. This affirms the view among some people that paid newspapers are focused on doom and gloom.

I don’t think that’s the case.

When it comes to my responsibility, it’s to reflect society back to itself; the good and the bad. I don’t feel a responsibility to be positive, but I accept one to advocate on behalf of the town.

A journalist’s responsibilities (which I share) are to be accurate, fair, ethical and balanced.

A PR consultant has a responsibility to be positive and I don’t think some people understand the distinction.

Newspapers are not public relations vehicles. They are … newspapers.

An example of our so-called negativity I heard today was placing on the front page the story of an engineering firm going bust, costing more than a dozen jobs. I knew we had that story exclusively (because our company is a creditor), therefore it’s NEWs.

The fate of that business is important to more than a dozen families. And many creditors are unhappy they will receive five cents in the dollar at best. It’s an important story and it needed to be told.

So to critics of negative stories, I say they are part of life. They are also an important part of our business, which is to sell NEWs.

Where else would a pair of walkers get married but in Walkerville? Australia’s walking hero Jared Tallent desperately wanted the silver medal in yesterday’s 50km walk to go with his bronze from the 20km to make it a full set. He gets his “gold” when he marries fiancee and fellow walker Claire Woods next Saturday.

The two walkers will get married in the Adelaide suburb of Walkerville.

Intrigued, I turned to page seven and found it was somewhat misleading, but in a non-offensive way. The story was a beat-up but funny.

The City of Ballarat presented embroidered silk pyjamas to the Prince of Wales (late Edward VIII) in 1920.

Five female hundred employees of a local garment factory each put a stitch into the royal present.

Edward, who was something of a ladies man, might well have claimed to have slept with 500 sheilas in Ballarat.

A group of the city’s historians want the jammies back to put on public display. They wrote to Buckingham Palace humbly petitioning Her Majesty in that regard.

The bemused Royal Archivist wrote back saying they couldn’t find the sleepwear. She thought Edward might have taken them with him when he abdicated and shot through to France.

“They are no longer in royal custody,” Pamela Clark advised.

The charges could be upgraded to murder.

An earlier court hearing was told that police found the bodies in a “state of decay” and the toddlers appeared to be malnourished.

It’s too easy for people to have children. It’s harder, in fact, to get a licence to drive a motor car.

Being a parent is just about the greatest responsibility most of us ever take on during our lives, yet girls can become mothers while teenagers and the government hands them $5000.

You need to be 18 years old to drink in a bar or watch a porn movie. You need to be 18 to vote.

You need to pass an examination to drive a vehicle, but nobody tests your capability to be a parent.

I’ve seen it written before, I forget by whom, that more children are born to parents who shouldn’t be having children than to parents who should.

This probably sounds terribly fascist, but if natural selection is a valid theory the human race is going backwards.

Not all families in lower socio-economic brackets are dysfunctional, of course. I’ve come across too many examples though to believe society should continue turning a blind eye to the problem.

Many children are born into generational welfare. Their prospects of escaping the cycle are very limited.

I’m not advocating sterilisation or removing the children. We need a proper debate however, about reinforcing to parents the responsibilities they assume by procreating.

We have a citizenship test. How about a parenting test? Twenty simple questions. Fail the test twice and forfeit the child to adoption.

Sounds like something out of Monty Python doesn’t it?

“The Attorney-General, Michael Atkinson, approved an application to exhume the body of Charles Cameron Kingston, one of the Fathers of Federation, as part of a paternity case,” the Adelaide Advertiser reports.

The bodies of two other people suspected of being Kingston’s illegitimate offspring also were exhumed. They are Genevieve Grey and AA “Bert” Edwards.

The paper gives no details about the process to exhume a body, how much it cost or what the relatives thought. Amazing.

I can’t really believe this is happening. Surely the dead are sacred and should only be disturbed if there is a forensic legal reason for doing so.

A third generation paternity case hardly fits into that category.

University boffin Professor Maciej Henneberg, partnered by fellow boffin and former Premier John Bannon, said the work being undertaken was personal and historic.

“The businessman alleged he and his sister are illegitimate descendants of Charles Kingston . . . there also are suggestions there were other illegitimate children and that is why we are following the historic side. It is important for the history of this state that it be resolved,” he said.

Why is it so important to dig up three dead people?

Every family has skeletons in the cupboard. I’ve got a mystery involving my great-uncle Ned, who according to rumor, fathered a child by his neighbor’s wife.

It never occurred to me that he, the woman and her daughter should be exhumed and it never would.

There’s debate in Australia now about an “opt-out” clause for organ donation. What about allowing an opt-out for exhumation? Charles Kingston, Genevieve Grey and AA “Bert” Edwards had no say in this.

Kingston was South Australia’s longest serving Premier of the 19th century and became a Minister in the first Commonwealth Parliament.

He was tipped as a future Prime Minister but quit the national ministry in 1903 because of poor health.

He is regarded as a “father of federation” and travelled to London to seek endorsement for the new dominion from Great Britain.

Someone on ABC Radio today likened him to Abraham Lincoln. Would Americans allow him to be dug up as part of an alleged paternity claim?

Curiously and rather insultingly, the Adelaide Advertiser described Charles Kingston as a “lecher” because of his sexual adventures.

Technically correct, I suppose, but his wife was barren. They certainly wouldn’t use the term to describe a living politician with the same disposition.

I would describe him as colorful. He apparently beat up his wife’s brother when he refused to approve their marriage and challenged another MP to a duel.

An 11-year-old boy on a camping trip discovered a skeleton when he went for a pee.

I received a message from the boy’s mother following a similar story we reported a week earlier. That involved a tradesman finding bones while having a wee break in the bush.

Don’t know about you, but I’m not game to seek relief in the bush any more.

An Australian mine worker, Matthew Norman, was among the nine people killed in an accident at the South Deep gold mine operated by Gold Fields near Carletonville outside Johannesburg last Thursday.

Matthew’s father Kevin contacted the Kalgoorlie Miner and we ran the story on Tuesday. Only one local TV station has picked it up since then.

Matthew had lived and worked in Kalgoorlie before moving to Perth and then South Africa to be with his wife.

Mr Norman said he had heard reports his son was concerned about safety conditions
on the mine.

“There’s a lot of hearsay he was worried about safety, but the man from the mining company said he hadn’t heard that – but he would say that, wouldn’t he?” Mr Norman said.

Matthew’s uncle Rick Brown lives in Kalgoorlie. He said he was saddened by reports lapses in safety procedures could have led to his nephew’s death.

“It seems that with the mining companies over there, it’s just statistics,” he said.

“Over here, we lose one person and there is uproar. They need support from our mining companies over here, in regards to safety.”

It’s the safety issue I want to raise in the public domain. With increased contact between Australia and South Africa, and the globalisation of mining, it’s likely more Australians will go there to work at various times.

Australia has arguably the best mine safety record in the world. Hopefully we can transfer our safety skills, knowledge and expertise to other countries.

Meanwhile, there’s no consoling the family of a young man who had friends, a loving family and a promising future.

Today, I found a couple of stories involving penguins and seals which would never cut it in the main news pages but somehow attract interest on the internet.

The Age reported “Little penguins get frisky feet” at Phillip Island.

“A false breeding season has begun in Phillip Island Nature Park, with frisky penguins uncharacteristically courting and mating months before breeding usually occurs,” the paper reported.

The unseasonal sexual activity was attributed to an improvement in the birds’ nutritional state and changing hormone levels.

Fair enough, the penguins get randy when they’re well fed, but is it newsworthy? Readers seem to think so.

And thanks to a new blog The Inquisitr I learned that “Sex pest seal tries to make love to a king penguin” was making web news at London’s Daily Mail.

“The 16 stone seal first subdued the two-and-a-half stone penguin by lying on it. The penguin flapped its flippers and attempted to stand and escape – but to no avail,” the Mail reported.

“The seal then alternated between resting on the penguin, and thrusting its pelvis, trying to insert itself, unsuccessfully.”

While frisky penguins arguably have a cute and fuzzy factor the same can’t be said for a seal rapist.

Although scientists described the incident as rare, I question the need to publish this type of information and the length of the report, including blurry photos of the attack.

Only one reader had been motivated to comment last time I looked. Kevin from Lincoln insightfully said: “Extinction is a distinct possibility if this behaviour becomes prevalent amongst seals.”