There is a “cold snap” presently hitting south-east Australia. Apparently some storm out of Antarctica has generated enough momentum to carry all the way here. Yesterday morning Melbourne got all excited as it snowed in a number of places – something which hasn’t happened for 50 years. Elysia was excited too – last night over dinner she told us her school ground was covered with icy hails. All these of course meant that it has been rather cold. The temperature remained between 5-8 degrees for much of yesterday, and this morning one radio presenter suggested it was about 1.5 degrees! When I pulled into the parking lot of the gym at 6 this morning people were seen making quick dashes heading towards the gym, trying to get out of the exposed areas. Inside the gym it was less crowded than usual. I did my usual run, had a quick shower and despite the drenched t-shirt, I still felt cold once outside the gym. I had turned on the heater just before I left home in the morning, to make it easier for wifey and kiddo to wake up. It appeared to have worked as when kiddo and I sat down to breakfast, she suggested she was too warm and wanted the heater turned off! Of course she had an extra jumper on, like I had told her to the day before.

                   Yesterday, I forgot to take my mobile with me to work. I had left it in the jacket I had used when we dropped mom, sis and Stan off at the airport. And what was the result of this slight slip of the mind? 6 litres of milk, 4 loaves of bread and 2 cartons of eggs now sit in our fridge/pantry. Theresa and I both picked up the exact same things on our way back from work – each of us bought 3 litres of the same milk, 2 loaves of the same bread and 1 carton of the same eggs. Yes, we have been married for just that long… So we had French toasts for dinner (to use up the eggs and bread) and had pork strip soup (with beaten eggs of course) to go with the toasts! It was actually quite a nice change.

                   This morning we had a walk-in client. He was of dark complexion, had a middle-eastern sounding name, wore a black leather jacket and had a dark green beanie on. He was unshaven, and looked well-built. He spoke with a slight middle-eastern or south-Asian accent. He had a request which was made to sound unusual but in retrospect wasn’t at all unusual. He wanted his name cleared from credit agencies but said he didn’t want his name to appear on any database at all. In today’s context of fear and irrational responses arising from latest London bombings, these were facts which add up for an easy, though of course unfair, snigger around the office – “he even looked like a terrorist”… He appeared decent enough, spoke English reasonably well and appeared to be a genuine potential client with a fair dinkum request. If the same client appeared pre September 2001, no one would have thought anything. I confess that when he mentioned how he didn’t want his name to appear anywhere, that same unfair thought raced through my mind: “Why, I wonder – who are you hiding from?” I also wonder however if our thoughts and responses were totally irrational. What the London bombings manifestly established was that perfectly normal looking persons with perfectly normal lives are capable of hideous terrorist acts. The one unfortunate common thread through all these perpetrators appear to be their ethnicity which unfortunately has a common religious affinity. If one is middle-eastern or south-Asian and is a Muslim, it immediately arouses suspicions, especially if he is a young single male and has requests like the one we had this morning. I just don’t know what is right anymore. It is wrong to have prejudices but at the same time we cannot ignore the and events facts as they occur. We wrestle to maintain natural justice, fair play and rule of law without consideration for race or religion but events and facts tell us we can no longer have no consideration for race or religion. Or do they? We need guidance from our leaders. Political, communal and religious leaders.