Booze and bouncers: a lethal mix by Miranda Divine.

THANK YOU!

Thank heavens someone has some sense about this whole sorry mess and isn't acting like the world has come to a screaming end because the oh-so-dear dear, darling, beloved, sainted, holy and glorious David Hookes met an early end on the street outside a Melbourne pub last year. Funny how people become so wonderfully well-loved once they die, though, isn't it?

I mean, David Hookes was always feral in my opinion. Some other Australians seemed to think he was a saintly hero of the game of cricket. But I suppose nothing says "Australian Sporting Hero" like a binge-drinking, loud-mouthed knobhead. Maybe Freddie Flintoff should move over here and play for us so that he can attain a sainted stature here as well as in England? Who knows.

When he died, Hookes had a really high blood alcohol level - almost three times the legal limit of .05%. I'd say that probably didn't help with his chances of survival. And it wouldn't have helped with his judgement when it came to punching bouncers. Or being rude to all and sundry (oh wait, that was his usual behaviour...). But being drunk, rude and aggressive really wasn't good.

No, Hookes shouldn't have died. It's not a thing that you'd wish on anyone, regardless of how irritating they are. Live and let live. But you can't really control freak things that happen like that.

I think it's a shame that Zdravko Micevic is being treated like he's killed Jesus or something like that. He's not just been prosecuted by the law, media and Australian public for accidentally causing someone's death by defending himself. It's like it only matters because the guy who he accidentally killed was a celebrity of some variety. And David Hookes wasn't that great a person. What he did for Australia was nothing compared to the work that other people who have met untimely deaths have done, like the top heart surgeon who was murdered in Sydney a number of years ago.

Micevic seems genuinely sorry about it all and honest in his apologies. There have been many, many other bouncers who have seriously injured or killed people with far more intent than this and they've mostly gotten away with it, never having it splashed all over front pages of national newspapers. And their houses haven't been firebombed by members of the public. And their families haven't received racist hate mail and death threats. Maybe something more should be done about training bouncers about how to handle conflicts where patrons get violent with them more diplomatically. But then it's hard to be diplomatic when some drunk person's swinging punches at you, I guess.

Still, Australia needs to do something about its drinking culture before more people die like that, or in car crashes, or from stupid alcohol-fueled violence against friends or loved ones, from alcohol poisoning, or any of the other ways you can die that involve alcohol. But that's gonna be tough when sports stars and other people who are kind of famous are all over the media for getting drunk and getting away with it.