Where have all the Crocodile Dundees gone?

From where I'm sitting, it seems rather strange that people have been worrying about the negative safety aspects of The Railway Children. Apparently, that celebration of solid family values has been sending out inappropriate messages down the years by failing to warn kids that playing near a railway line can be very, very dangerous.

From where I'm sitting, it seems rather strange that people have been worrying about the negative safety aspects of The Railway Children. Apparently, that celebration of solid family values has been sending out inappropriate messages down the years by failing to warn kids that playing near a railway line can be very, very dangerous.

When it comes to safety matters, those of us here in Perth, Western Australia, have bigger fish to fry - specifically, a great white shark that, a couple of weeks ago, killed Ken Crew, a well-known local figure, while he was taking a morning dip on North Cottesloe Beach. Some lethal representative of the natural world is never far away in Australia, but this event was peculiarly local. The beach is not far from the centre of Perth, and Mr Crew was some 20 feet from the shore when he was attacked. It was the equivalent of a great white causing death and mayhem in London's Serpentine.

The beaches along a 100km stretch were closed for a week, an aerial patrol was introduced along the coast, and a certain shark hysteria has been evident in the media. "Shoot the bloody shark, drop a grenade on it or something, blow the crap out of it," was the view of one local DJ, while a correspondent to The West Australian newspaper was more sympathetic, favourably comparing the behaviour of the great white to that of the "human scum" receiving lenient sentences in the courts.

I'm very new around here but I confess that I found this all rather surprising. In a land where entire books are devoted to animals that can kill you - Don't Die in the Bush is a popular guide - I had expected Australians to be more butch, to show more of that Crocodile Dundee ruggedness for which they are famed.

In fact, the people that I have seen around Perth seem to be gentle, courteous types whose attitudes towards personal security would win the approval of the safety experts who are concerned about The Railway Children.

In every playground, there are notices warning of the dangers of swings or see-saws. Beside a dribble of a stream, a sign reads: "Water hazard: children must be accompanied by an adult at all times". Visitors to parks are warned that: "Animals can be dangerous and should not be approached." It is as if life is so good - the people of Western Australia so generally blessed - that even the slightest danger to it must be avoided.

But with this sense of caution comes another, more difficult problem. The big post-shark story in The West Australian has been the discovery of a website for would-be travellers that dared to express the view that "it is hard to get excited about Perth." An outraged, self-lacerating front-page headline read "Dullsville". Valiantly, the state premier, Richard Court, reminded readers that the river is a wonderful asset and that the Barrack Square development will soon be bringing in visitors, but the rest of the newspaper hardly suggested a cutting-edge metropolitan vibrancy. "Men's dress code eased", read one headline.

Perth, according to its mayor, is "the most liveable city on the planet", and he is right to defend the place's reputation. It is charming, the living is easy, and the people are civilised. At 5.30pm on the dot, the shops close and the music that wafts through the city's pedestrianised shopping centre - Elton John, a spot of Seventies soft rock - fades.

At a bar near the station, I thought that I had at last found the Australian I had expected - a vast bull of a man, built on an entirely different scale from normal humans. On his T-shirt, stretched across a massive chest, were the words "Drugs & Alcohol". But there, almost hidden in the overhang of his beer-belly, was the rest of the message: "Not at work, mate!"

terblacker@aol.com