Wine of the Week:
Pol Roger Reserve Brut Champagne - I have veered from the red theme for no other reason as this is my favourite Champagne and I have had it twice in the space of four days; once during a work function and second to celebrate Little Ballerinas being named a finalist in the Sutherland Shire Business Awards.
I have to blame/credit my mate Matthew for Trish and mine's love of Pol Roger. We went to Singapore for a holiday a few years ago and Matt arranged for us to attend a Pol Roger lunch at a restaurant in Holland Village. We tasted about five vintages of Pol Roger and have not looked back.
From the moment that the cork bursts from the bottle, seeing the streams of small continuous bubbles floating up the glass and having that first sip which is smooth, the fruity nose and a taste that is addictive. If we had the means, it would be our drink of choice but it is brought out for special occasions...or if it is on special, which it was yesterday at Dan Murphys for $74 (normally around $98)
I have decided that party politics has a lot to answer for. Irrespective of what party you may support, it seems to me that towing the party line seems to stifle intelligent, compassionate and thoughtful debate.
This may have been a universal truth that everyone knows and I have just been oblivious or worst case naive about the situation. Just seems that once a politican has left the womb of the party machine or has taken a seat towards the back of the party bus; they are willing to share more of their true opinions, make a stand and perhaps (and just maybe) give an insight as to why they sought political office in the first place.
The recent example of this is the former NSW Premier Kristina Keneally. In the last couple of weeks, the former Premier (hair extensions and all) has made a number of public appearances on shows such as 'The Nation' and 'Q&A'. During these appearances, she has won many admirers from both side of the political fence; with her intelligent, compassionate and common sense debate particularly when it comes to the asylum seeker debate.
In addition to that, Kristina Keneally has also started to be an active Twitter user and is using it to answer questions and connect with the public and all of it with (at times) a self-deprecating sense of humour.
Same thing happened when former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. In the years after he left the nation's top job, he won many new supporters with his work with Care International and other charitable organisations and his willingness to put up an alternative and personal point of view when it came to our involvement in Iraq and our policies on asylum seekers (for the record, Fraser led his Government to develop a policy of increasing Australia's acceptance of refugees on humanitarian grounds). Free from the shackles of party room politics, Fraser demonstrated a compassion and a statesmanship that enhanced rather than detracted from his status as a former leader of our nation...which isn't always the case with our former leaders.
Where I am going with this I am not sure but maybe it is just a warning sign to us that we need to look at our leaders deeper and finding out what they truly believe. And we should definitely start questioning the two major parties more about what they stand for; rather having them try to hug the middle of the road not risking to lose the popular vote.
If we did, maybe we wouldn't have the Parliament we have at the moment...
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