Trying out some more Aussie slang today. Maybe one of my Antipodean readers can tell me if I’ve got it right.

I’ve always been a fairly cliched Gen X-er – sarcastic, cynical and suspicious of excessive earnestness. But nearly a year ago, with the arrival of Baby Z, the bulk of that sardonic skepticism got left on the delivery room floor. These days if you want to see me go all soft, see my eyes well up, see me get all gooey like baked brie, all you need to do is tell me a good evocative Dad story.

Like the one that I heard on a Radio 4 podcast this morning. A Ryanair flight (useless busses with wings) from Bristol to Barcelona lost cabin pressure at its cruising altitude. The oxygen masks deployed but did not dispense oxygen and neither the pilot nor crew made any announcement as to what was happening until they got down to a ’safe’ altitude of 8,000 feet. So the passengers on the plane were subjected to a few very frightening minutes during which they had no idea whether they were going to live or die.

One of the passengers was Pen Hadow - explorer, inspiration, environmental and motivational speaker and A Free Man’s new hero – was asked later by Radio 4 if he was frightened:

“Honestly, I don’t wish to sound sort of typically stiff upper lip about it, but for the first second or so I was sort of confused, it all happened so quickly. And then when I looked at my son’s face I knew what I had to do.”

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This got to me as well, for the same softie Dad reason. If I was still uncertain about what to do on the upcoming election day, this might be enough to sway me.

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