Chile-related humour

What with all the God this and God that and Praise The Lord the other, I am reminded of an old Jewish joke:

A Rabbi is in a boat out at sea, and a storm blows up. The boat takes on water and begins to sink. He starts to pray: "Lord, when I dedicated my life to you, you promised you would always look after me. Now, when I need you most, please save me from the raging sea and bring me safe to land."

After a short while, he is aware of another boat alongside him. A man on the other boat shouts "Quick, Rabbi - jump across into our boat and you will be safe!"

"No, thank you. The Lord has promised he will save me, and I trust in him." The boat drifts away.

Later, the storm gets even worse, and the boat is being tossed to and fro like a child's toy. And then a lifeboat comes alongside, with searchlights and three lifeboatmen wearing buoyancy vests and holding out a lifebelt. "Come on, Rabbi - grab the lifebelt and we will bring you to our boat and you will be safe!"

"No, thank you. The Lord has promised he will save me, and I trust in him." The lifeboat waits for a moment and then turns and speeds off.

Later, the storm is crashing and thundering around his little boat, the waves are smashing down on the deck and the Rabbi is sure that the end is close. Suddenly, he hears a noise above him, looks up and sees a helicopter. The winchman looks down and shouts at him through a loudhailer:

"Stay where you are, Rabbi, and I will come down with a harness for you, and we will take you to safety!"

"No, thank you. The Lord has promised he will save me, and I trust in him." The helicopter hovers for a while, but the crew see he is determined, and eventually it moves away and out of sight.

A moment later, a huge wave capsizes the boat and the Rabbi is drowned.

Soggy and bedraggled, he enters Heaven and meets God.

"Lord, Lord, you promised me that if I dedicated my life to you, you would always look after me! Why, when I needed you so badly, did you let me down?"

"Well, Rabbi - I sent you two boats and a fucking helicopter. What more did you expect?"

What brought those miners to safety against incredible odds was not some divine intervention. It was the skill, experience, professionalism, expertise and sheer dogged determination of the rescue team. Watching it made me proud to belong to the human race.

You can argue where those qualities came from for as long as you like, of course. But let's not dismiss the contribution of the drilling teams, the paramedics, the engineers and the winchmen. If God was at work at the San Jose mine, it was through real flesh-and-blood people.

33/33

All 33 miners safe.

Bloody heroes, the lot of them. Miners, engineers, medics, families - even the politicians. An operation that was, according to advice given to President Pinera at the outset, only 2% likely to succeed. 100% success, and completed within 24 hours.

Great news.

Right, I'm off to bed.

18+

I'm watching the Chilean rescue intermittently. There's only so much joy and happiness a man can stand at once. Last I saw, they had recovered 18 of the men. That's over half-way there. No glitches, no delays, no goofs. Bravo for human ingenuity, sheer dogged persistence, and good, solid engineering.

The whole mood, from the BBC reporters to the people back home, and the cheering crowds on the streets of Santiago, is overwhelmingly positive and joyful. This is going to have an immense and beneficial effect on the approval ratings of the politicians involved, on the Chilean national self-image, and even on Chile's reputation and trade with the rest of the world. After all, having seen the professional and competent way this whole operation has been organised, who would not trust a Chilean company to deliver the goods?

It's a triumph, and it's all down to one decision. I don't know who decided it, but it was a masterstroke to say at the outset that the men may be down there until Christmas. Everyone who heard it groaned and sent up a silent prayer for the poor buggers trapped underground. And now the operation is under way in October, and may be finished tonight, we are in awe of their professionalism and progress. Tim Wilcox of the BBC is almost wetting himself with excitement at the 'remarkable' rate of recovery of the men.

Imagine that, when contact was first made with the men after 17 days, the Chilean authorities had said that they expected the men to be home with their families in a couple of weeks. The whole world would be wondering why it was taking so long, what incompetence had led to the delays, why didn't they let some real engineers take it over, and so on.

I would bet serious money that the engineers had a pretty shrewd idea from the start how long it would take. Drilling through rock is what they do, after all. It's a classic example of the fundamental customer service principle: under-promise and over-deliver. If you think you can solve a problem in twenty minutes, tell the customer you will call them back in half an hour, and then try to do it in ten. It's called 'managing expectations', and I think the Chileans have done it brilliantly.

Seven Up

They have just pulled the seventh miner out of the ground.

What a stunning achievement. Virtually everything is being done for the first time, with equipment designed for the occasion. Everything is going as it should. And it's not just the ground-breaking (heh) engineering. The men are in remarkably good condition, and are a testament to the care that they have received while underground.

What has perhaps been the most surprising aspect has been the involvement of the politicians. The President, Sebastian Pinera, and the Mining Minister, Laurence Golborne, have been a constant presence, and have been actively involved in the operation. No doubt it will be doing their approval ratings a bit of good, but their involvement seems genuine. Contrast Gordon Brown's photo-opportunities in Iraq - staged backgrounds, managed situations and visible disenchantment by the soldiers involved.

Er, shouldn't that be ...

Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, after the rescues started last night:

I want to thank God in the first instance, without whose help this rescue would not have been possible.

Doesn't he mean "would not have been necessary"?

Chilean Breakthrough

According to the BBC, the drill which is opening a passage down to the trapped Chilean miners has now broken through to a chamber which is in reach of the men.

Rescuers have drilled through to the underground chamber where 33 Chilean miners have been trapped since August.

The breakthrough at the San Jose mine came shortly after 0800 local time (1200 GMT).

It means efforts to remove the miners through the tunnel should begin within days.

This thing has been on my mind since the first collapse and the news that the miners were trapped. I haven't written anything here about it, but I have thought about it a lot. I've never been down a mine, but I have been down plenty of potholes and caves, and I know the feeling of isolation you can get when you are a long way from the surface, with millions of tons of rock above you. If you are mildly claustrophobic, as I am, and especially if the exit route is tight and arduous, you need to keep a cool head and in firm control of your own emotions. Those men must be very tough characters. I cannot imagine the thoughts that must have gone through their minds in the last 65 days.

To be honest, I didn't expect the greatest of responses from the Chilean authorities. We've all seen what a clusterfuck it can be when man meets critical situation in countries which don't have a tradition of a calm and measured response to situations (I'm trying to be polite here). But they seem to have done everything right so far. Three separate methods of reaching the trapped men, all running simultaneously, and the actual extraction of the men thought through carefully, with every contingency planned for.

The men are expected to be split into three groups. Some who are fit and have the most technical know-how will be chosen to go first - in case something goes wrong.

Then the weakest are expected to be brought to the surface.

A final group, including some of the strongest miners, will wait till last.

That sounds like a very sensible approach. And the shift leader, the man who led them down there and has played such an important part in keeping them healthy and sane, will be last, like the captain leaving a sinking ship.

That's truly heroic.

If I were the praying type, I'd be praying for their safe return from now until the last guy is brought out. The scenes when the men start reaching the surface are going to be amazing. And I say 'when', not 'if'. From what I have seen in the reports, I have every confidence that the operation will be a success.

Good luck and good wishes to everyone involved. I'll be thinking of you all.