Well done Chile!

Lovely to have some good news for a change, and the success of the rescue of the Chilean miners after 10 weeks is a real cheeruper! Chile is not a 3rd world country, but at the same time not the sort of place you'd call at the cutting edge of technology. Nonetheless, they have put on a magnificent rescue effort, and a tremenduous example of what humans can do when they put thier minds to it; and they have been rewarded with success.

The little capsule, 'Fenix', is the real life version of Thunderbirds' 'mole', but in actuality little more than a tin can whose success (fingers crossed as the rescue is proceeding as I type) depends on the straightness and smoothness of a remarkably small shaft, drilled at an angle with amazing precision over a considerable distance. The thing is winched up and down on a steel cable-no high tech here, but it works1 I cannot help but smile as miner after miner emerges and is swamped by hugs from his delighted family. The media are making a meal of it, of course, and Chile's president is making political capital out of it, but not too much so in all fairness, and who in fairness can blame them. This is one of those few news stories that anyone anywhere can take nothing but pleasure in-just plain heartwarming.

And I've needed it, as the darker side of humanity has been intruding into my poor little existence. I've managed in the space of one week to lose a bicycle and a mobile phone to thieving wastes of skin. Not a good week! I will resist the temptation to have a rant about the state of society, the morality of the sort of people who thieve off others. Bikes and phones, even annoyingly uninsured ones, are only things, which can be replaced when the money eventually allows it-Chilean miners are people, and much more important. Kudos to those who didn't give up on them in the bleak early days when it would have been easy enough to simply assume there were no survivors.