The papers and television have been full today of Ellen MacArthur's triumphant arrival after beating the record for sailing single-handed around the world. We are all very proud of her, I'm sure. I sail myself in an amateur sort of way, and I get the willies when I get more than a mile from shore or if the wind gets much over Force 3. She is a remarkable young woman, and has done something few people would dare to try.
My pleasure was rather blunted when the newsreader on the radio said that a listener had emailed to complain that the lives of other people might have been put at risk if Ellen had got into trouble and needed rescue. So I'd like to address this little rant to that anonymous person …
If mankind had thought like you, we'd still be living in caves and eating our meat raw, if indeed we ever dared to try and kill anything. The first man to use fire took a risk. The first man to put wheels on a chariot and tie it to the back of a horse took a risk. The brave people who rode the first steam-train took a risk - many believed that they would suffocate when it reached 30 m.p.h. It's risky going for a swim. It's certainly risky crossing the road.
Marco Polo took risks. Vasco de Gama took risks. Columbus took risks. Nelson took risks. The entire nation took a bloody great risk when it stood up to Hitler in World War 2. What would you have done? Hid under the bed, probably. Much safer there.
Everything worthwhile involves risk, of failure, of embarrassment, of injury, of death. That's what mankind is for, to take a chance, to walk another mile, to peer over the top of the next hill. The hills have got a bit higher lately - we've been almost everywhere there is to go, we've even started to investigate other worlds (and I suppose the first landing on the moon wasn't risky at all, was it?) so now we have to try a little harder.
Yes, something might have gone wrong. Yes, she might have needed rescue. If she had, there would have been no shortage of volunteers, not because she's a woman (which she is), not because she's young (which she is) and not because she's attractive (which she is) but because that's what normal human beings do. If someone's in trouble, we help them. We don't make moral judgements from the comfort of our armchair, we get on our horse or our boat or our ambulance or our fire-engine and we go and see if we can help.
The armed forces in particular are full of young men whose dearest wish is to get involved with some risky rescue - that's what they joined for. Our emergency services are careful, dedicated and professional, but I never yet heard any of them complain about having to rescue someone - that's why they joined. For hundreds of years it has been normal for seamen to try to rescue anyone in trouble if they could, whether they knew them or not. When I'm out sailing in my little boat I make a point of waving to other yachtsmen, to the harbourmaster, to men on fishing-boats, to almost everyone I meet (I draw the line at jet-skis of course) because I never know whether one day I might need their help in an emergency, or they mine. They wave back, too. Trust me, that's normal behaviour for normal people.
But not you, apparently. You know better. You're so secure in your nice little, tight little, smug little world that you think you can tell the rest of us how to behave, even an incredible girl who has four times as many balls as I have - and I reckon I must have twice as many as you.
Perhaps you don't have any at all? Perhaps you're going to be our next Wanker of the Week? You are a sad, pathetic, lame-brained excuse for a human being. You are a mealy-mouthed tight-arse. I hope you wall yourself up in your room to avoid the risk of accidents. I hope that after several miserable, boring years you fall off the bed and hurt yourself, and then I hope you die because nobody comes to help you.
But they probably will.
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
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