There's a round-robin going around on Schapelle Corby. Like everybody else I've been appalled at her misfortune but utterly confident that she is utterly blameless and I pray that the Indonesian courts will find her so. I've been likewise absolutely appalled at the indolence and raging incompetence of our airport authorities and the Australian Federal Police.

So let us all spare a thought and a prayer for Schapelle's appalling plight in Bali. Alas, we must understand that Indonesia has all sorts of axes to grind and like any emergent nation doesn't like being pushed around or shown up to be hopelessly incompetent. We know that our Prime Minister has had a quiet word with their President and that means that their President will have had a quiet word with the judges. To find Schapelle guilty would unleash such a storm of protest that no Indonesian would be safe in this country. A touch of common sense at the outset at Bali would have saved a lot of trouble so a way needs to be found to allow the Indonesians to save face. That's what all this hoo-haa is really all about: saving face.

Many readers have yet to live abroad in a country where values are quite different from our own, where, because one is white, one isn't safe from lunatic bureaucracies, where one has to walk virtually on eggshells and quietly pray that one can get to the end of one's stay without falling foul of what passes for the local authorities.

It's a sad thought but there are simple lessons to learn from all this. Within Australia always travel with the most elementary luggage. Never ever put a laptop or a video camera in your 'non-hand' luggage. And if you find that hard to take then remember that in the days of shipping lines it was the common practice for the crew to rifle the passengers' luggage the night before a ship docked at its destination. I know that to my cost. It must be faced that Australia cannot emerge from Schapelle's plight with clean hands for had the authorities here been up to scratch none of this would have happened.