Perhaps all is not lost. There might yet be hope for the education of our youth. Like many people, I have become jaundiced about the results that the system is producing. The whole thing seems to revolve around gender fluidity, boys dressing up as girls, climate change voodoo and, when the system actually gets around to teaching anything, it is based on destructive premises like the British invasion of Australia, the creeping tide of climate change, the superior status of aboriginals, Muslims and refugees and a commitment not to teach anything of any practical value like reading or writing.

But not entirely so. I have had to eat my words, because last week I went to a function at Xavier college junior school which gave me renewed hope. The boys had a Night of the Notables where they had to choose a hero, study him or her (Joan of Arc got a run), make a costume that the hero would have worn and set up a stall with models, charts, drawings and suchlike about the hero’s exploits and answer questions from parents and visitors. It was inspiring to see whom the boys’ chose as their notables: Margaret Thatcher, Mother Theresa, Amelia Earhart, Churchill, Fred Hollows, Copernicus, Magellan, Captain Cook, Edison, and many others, all courageous individuals. One of my heroes, and the best on the night, was Douglas Bader, accompanied by an intricate display of the war-time Hendon Airport, complete with hand-made Spitfires. I was thrilled by the very concept of celebrating the lives of 50 or so real heroes and achievers at a time when we are being mesmerised by the delusion of equality and uniformity and our history and culture are denigrated at every turn. Individualism, winning, pursuing a noble cause, the study of good people doing good things, these concepts are still alive and flourishing, at least at Xavier college. Let us hope they spread.

I was disappointed that Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature in recognition of his songs. I don’t mean the Nobel Committee was on the wrong track in deciding that literature is anything you feel cool about and that songs are as good as anything. It is just that there were so many, far more worthy recipients who have been unjustly overlooked. My short list for this great honour would be: 1. The sext messages of Shane Warne. 2. The Kardashians’ shopping list for an outing to Rodeo Drive. 3. Niki Savva, for inventing a new literary genre porno politics. 4. The screenplay of Debbie Does Dallas. 5. And, for irony, the speech of the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the UN acknowledging the election of his country to the Human Rights Council and its matching advertisement for eight new executioners.

I see that the Herald-Sun had a powerful editorial this week for the repeal of Section 18 C. What particularly caught my eye was the fact that News Ltd is going to defend the cartoonist Bill Leak against the wicked charges brought against him for drawing a cartoon ( remember Je suis Charlie?). This is good, of course, but I hope that this time the company shows more backbone than it did when defending Andrew Bolt. It should have appealed against Justice Bromberg’s very dubious and certainly wrong decision, but gave in. Had it appealed, it would have won. If the charges against Leak succeed, News Ltd should appeal, if necessary to the High Court where the constitutional guarantee of free speech can be affirmed. We could learn a lot from the Left, who know that on the long march to diminish traditional society and its institutions, persistence and incremental steps count most of all and eventually win the day. Let us hope that Leak’s case is one such step, but towards preserving them.

Nor should we forget the opinion poll on Muslim immigration, particularly on what else it tells us, apart from the raw figures. It showed that 60 per cent of Coalition voters, 40 per cent of Labor voters and 34 per cent of Greens want a total ban. The result was so surprising to some people that the poll was repeated, but it produced the same result. You would expect coalition voters to be around the 60 per cent mark and the result from Labor voters shows there is still a sizeable minority of Labor voters who do not have a love affair with the dreamy, tokenistic nonsense its leadership spouts on every rat-bag issue promoted in the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. The big surprise was that, after all its huffing and puffing on Muslim refugees, how terrorists are not really Muslims and all refugees are perfect angels, over a third of Greens voters are apparently in favour of a ban, making them one with Donald Trump on that issue. I was not so surprised. Deep down, the Greens are very shallow. Most of them are the guilt-ridden rich who regard Muslims as a very down-market lot who do not fit in, claim excessive welfare payments, depress property prices in earshot of a mosque and do not even support the left’s Holy Grail same sex marriage. The poll confirms it. In fact, the real reason the left do not want a plebiscite on Same Sex Marriage is that they think it will be defeated, mainly because of Muslim voters. It is one thing to hoodwink a couple of political parties and get the support of so-called celebrities; it is another thing to try to hoodwink the broad mass of the voting public.

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