Garth George reflects....

...on life, the Universe, and some of the things that have piqued his interest over the last year - firstly, music to the ears of climate change sceptics:

Were it not for the world financial meltdown, they might not have bothered but, faced with the economic realities of emission limits and
trading schemes, they have stepped back from the brink of madness.

In Britain, the Meteorological Service, which has wrongly predicted record high temperatures for almost every year since the turn of the millennium, last month conceded that last year would be the coldest year this century. That means 1998 remains the hottest year on record since the Medieval Warm Period 1000-odd years ago. In fact, world temperatures have fallen since about 2002.

Then a few consumer issues:

I hope sometime this year the Advertising Standards Authority takes action on the grounds of lying in advertising against whomever it is who writes and authorises the health warnings on cigarette packets.

The warnings invariably say "Smoking causes [whatever dread disease]" when the truth is that smoking might contribute to the development of some affliction or other.

Another thing I would hope for this year is that someone will produce
for the supermarket shelves a seedless raspberry jam. Surely there is a big market for such a product among those, like me, who have false teeth, love raspberry jam but can't put up with the discomfort of eating it.

And I hope someone might solve the conundrum of why, in a country in which sheep outnumber people by something like 10 to one, I can't buy a tender lamb chop no matter what I pay.

And lastly, a wonderful reflection on the end of Australia's dominance of the cricket world - this one is brilliant!!

Meanwhile, the highlight for me of the last week of 2008 was the dismissal on 99 of Australian captain Ricky Ponting in the second innings of the second test against South Africa, depriving him of a world record four twin test match centuries, and the subsequent humbling of the Aussies by nine wickets to give the Jaapies the test and the series. It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of blokes.

Love him or loathe him - Garth George is one of the old-school of journos who calls it as he sees it, for which we should all be thankful.