Roamer's column

Now that the seventh President of the Republic, Eddie Fenech Adami, has entered the middle age of old age and leaves the public arena to shuffle off the coils of power and responsibility that were his for so long a time, it is the turn of George Abela, in the middle age of middle age to step into his shoes as the eighth President of Malta.

The past two years have not been years Abela would willingly wish to re-live; for if truth be told he would rather have realised his primary ambition of becoming leader of the Labour Party. It was not to be; life's like that. You aim for something; it eludes you - in this case the disappointment had pleasant and honourable consequences. The new President will spend the next five years relishing his good fortune. The rest of us will hope, trust and pray that it will be our good fortune too.

Last Wednesday Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi presented two motions before the House, both of which were passed nem con, as they say. The first was an expression of appreciation for Fenech Adami's presidency; his dedication to the country he had served so unstintingly, his Europeanness, his sense of statesmanship at home and abroad.

The second motion called for the appointment of the new President. The Prime Minister described the choice as a historic step forward in the sense that a person had been selected whose political loyalties before last Wednesday lay with the party in opposition.

But as Gonzi made a point of remarking in Parliament, the selection of Abela not only demonstrated a new way of doing politics by rising above them (Joseph Muscat, please note). The man possesses the necessary qualities: a family man, honesty, integrity, a person with a genuine belief in the intrinsic value of solidarity in thought, word and deed, one who appreciates the culture of this land and its beauty, who understands the value of work and, a factor none of his predecessors possessed, but which he shares with the Prime Minister, a zest for sport. Properly, he expressed his belief in the man as somebody who would bring to the office his innate understanding of the country's present moment and whither it was going.

I expected more from the opposition leader. He seconded both motions but there was a lack of generosity in his recognition of the outgoing President, from whose end of term dinner he had previously and lamentably excused himself. There was about his contribution a culpable lack of imagination.

Abela acquitted himself brilliantly in an interview reported in last Friday's edition of The Times. He put his questioner right on several occasions; and that from the word go. No, the President "does not have an ineffectual role" and he intended to make it "an effective and relevant Presidency". Did he believe Gonzi and Muscat "had the intention to get rid of you from the active political scene by nomination you...? How gauche. Why on earth should Gonzi wish to rid the political scene of Abela?

Asked about matters that involved him as a politician he insisted that the old George Abela was necessarily a different person to the new George Abela. In short, he was now beholden to the whole country and as President he would so conduct himself that in five years' time he will wish both sides of the House to hold him "in high regard" as they had "the outgoing President for having given the Presidency the stature it deserves".

Today, his speech to the nation "will reflect what the new President feels and believes".

Per ardua ad astra

I was unaware until now that in the land I inhabit there live three men - in alphabetical order, Greg Attard, a doctor, Marco Cremona, and engineer, Robert Gatt, a business systems consultant - who share a terrific ambition. They intend to climb Mount Everest. With them as their guide will be Victor Saunders, a Scotsman, who has been to the top of the world - and back - on four occasions.

If it is a picnic you are after, Everest, which rises more than eight kilometres into the Himalayan skies, will not be the likeliest spot to choose. Our intrepid men, however, will be following in the footsteps of more than 2,000 climbers who reached up to the stars and experienced exhilarating sensations that are the preserve of the brave. I wish I could say that I wish I was young enough to have a go, but that would be a preposterous lie. Nor can I excuse myself by saying that I am too old for this sort of thing. In 2003, a 70 year-old completed the climb; at the other end of the age scale 15-year-old did the same in 2001 and a blind man scaled the highest mountain on earth three days later, his only painful regret, I imagine, that the scales did not fall before his eyes.

It all started with an Edmund Hillary from New Zealand and a Tenzing Norgay from Darjeeling. That first successful ascent was in May 1953, the year God was asked to save Elizabeth Regina as she was crowned. While Hillary and Norgay were freezing on their height and massive crowds were cheering the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, I was on fatigue duties in Aldershot, slightly bewildered by the chores as I swilled buckets of water down a wooden corridor that could never be made clean, polished my boots the clarity of mirrors and grew older on a diet of bangers and mash, than which, let me tell you, there is no better meal.

But back to Everest, to anywhere but Aldershot and, in alphabetical order, to our heroic business systems consultant, doctor, engineer and guide. What an intrepid quartet and what an honour for us when they succeed in scaling a mountain cold with the snow and ice of millennia. With them as they set out on the adventure of their lifetime, go, many times over, the good wishes of an admiring nation.

Before they make their attempt, it need hardly be said, they will be scaling other less daunting heights, preparing themselves physically and psychologically for the gruelling endurance test ahead.

Shooting PC insanity dead

Australian general interviewed by female reporter on a matter to do with guns and children.

Female Interviewer: "So, General Cosgrove, what things are you going to teach these young boys when they visit your base?"

General Cosgrove: "We're going to teach them climbing, canoeing, archery and shooting."

FI: "Shooting? That's a bit irresponsible, isn't it?"

GS: "I don't see why. They'll be properly supervised on the rifle range."

FI: "Don't you admit that this is a terribly dangerous activity to be teaching children?"

GS: "I don't see how. We will be teaching them proper rifle discipline before they even touch a firearm."

FI: "But you're equipping them to become violent killers."

GS: "Well, ma'am, you're equipped to be a prostitute, but you're not one, are you? (Radio silence followed)."

Chestertonia

Gilbert Keith Chesterton died in 1936. Two days before, he had recovered enough consciousness to receive Holy Communion, his last before he joined the communion of saints.

The day before he died he regained enough consciousness to recognise his wife Frances. "Hello, my darling", he said and then noticed that Dorothy Collins, his secretary, friend and "daughter of desire" (the Chestertons were childless and in love with children), was also in the room. "Hello, my dear." His last words, serenely uttered, encapsulate the depth of his love to the two women who meant most to him.

On Gilbert's memorial card, we are told in Maisey Ward's biography of G.K.C., his wife added Walter de la Mare's tribute to her husband: Knight of the Holy Ghost, he goes his way/Wisdom his motley, Truth his loving jest;/The mills of Satan keep his lance in play,/Pity and innocence his heart at rest.

The memorial, celebrated at Westminster Cathedral before a crowd of 2,000 people, was led by Monsignor John O'Connor who had received him into the Church in 1922. The panegyric was preached by the most famous English convert to the Faith in the first half of the 20th century, Ronald Knox. Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, later to become Pope Pius XII, sent a cable on behalf of Pope Pius X1... "Holy Father deeply grieved death Mr Gilbert Keith Chesterton devoted son Holy Church gifted Defender of the Catholic Faith. His Holiness offers paternal sympathy people of England assures prayers dear departed, bestows Apostolic Benediction." The secular press refused to print it.

God willing, on the anniversary of his death, Sunday June 14, I will devote this column to some of Chesterton's writings. These pointed, essentially, in the direction of one reality: the truth of the Catholic Church; he wrote a book and called it Orthodoxy - 14 years before he joined it.

With awesome symmetry, 14 years after he was received, he finished writing his autobiography; in between, The Everlasting Man, described as the incarnational history of the world. There is not a single date in it because for him only one date mattered in that history; and everybody knew what it was.