One day about 20 years ago, I was walking down Fitzroy Street, St Kilda, giving a word of encouragement here and an autograph there, just as Sussan Ley was to do on her demanding trips to the Gold Coast. As I progressed, I passed my favourite building in St Kilda, the Banff, truly an art deco masterpiece. By a remarkable co-incidence, there was an auction underway of a flat in the building and, clutching my humble sovereign, I decided spontaneously to take a look. I had always wanted to own a flat in the Banff, not only because of its striking brutalist edifice, but because it was where General Douglas MacArthur lived during the dark days of the Second World War, and even today it is mentioned in hushed tones and respectful nods, especially from real estate agents. MacArthur had left Manila on my birthday in 1942 and ended up in Melbourne to organise the fightback against the Japanese. So, imagine my delight when I emerged from the Banff as one of its owners. Since then, I have had little to do with the building and I must be a model landlord, as my tenants stay on for years without complaint. And knowing that I own this small piece of history has been a continuing source of happiness. Or at least it was, until last week. Some outfit has now cast an eye over my establishment and found that it contravenes a vast number of their labyrinthine regulations and constitutes a threat to the lives of anyone foolish enough to enter.

What, then, are these flagrant breaches of the regulations I am said to have committed? My first transgression is that I have a ‘penetrable gap’ in the balustrade in the foyer which presents a ‘fixed climbable opportunity’, giving rise to a ‘fall hazard’. In other words, anyone entering the foyer will immediately look for a penetrable gap in the balustrade, as everyone does when they enter a building; they will then be unable to resist the temptation to squeeze through, climb up the balustrade instead of using the stairs or the elevator and, having reached a suitably dangerous height, fall to a gruesome death amongst the art deco splendour of the foyer. And how has this come about? Well, lurking in the balustrade, and unnoticed by anyone else in the last 75 years, is a gap of ‘125 mm in diameter’ which any tenant who is a midget or a circus freak would naturally sniff out and crawl through at the first opportunity. And the whole thing is made worse because the balustrade does not suit the ‘stair nosing line’. How lucky we were, then, that General MacArthur was able to escape so many brushes with death in the Banff, as he mounted the entire Allied campaign to repel the Japanese hordes, by resisting the daily temptation to squeeze through gaps and climb up this dangerous balustrade before he leapt into the abyss below.

But the obstacle course had only started, as the intrepid visitor who gets this far and is still alive is then confronted by another fall hazard, this one because of a balcony over the foyer where there is yet another penetrable gap which everyone smaller than 125 mm in diameter will naturally squeeze through and then fall or hurl themselves from the balcony. None of these hazards stopped MacArthur from turning the Japanese tide; there is no record of him saying ‘I want to invade Okinawa, but there are penetrable gaps and fall hazards involved, so I won’t go.’

Next, in a bedroom there is a window that opens to another 125mm gap which people will obviously squeeze through and defenestrate themselves, as people insist on doing these days, even if none have done so since 1942. But things are even worse in the kitchen where the Nanny State maintain the residents will not be satisfied with the mundane activities of cooking and eating, but will devote themselves to finding yet another 125 mm gap when the window opens and give in to the temptation of another ‘climbable opportunity’.

The bathroom door is a hazard, as it opens towards ‘the pan’, creating a ‘toilet door access risk’. The shower recess is also a hazard because it is ‘likely to be slippery when wet’. The historic parquetry floors are a ‘low friction standing surface slip risk’. And if, after a rugged day negotiating these hazards, the occupants think they can retire to the bedroom and dream of their benevolent landlord, they should think again; they are in mortal danger from the curtain cords because they are ‘able to form a loop’. The spectre of a loop dangling in front of an unsuspecting and sleepless resident will clearly be even more of a temptation than the penetrable gaps and climbable opportunities with which my property is infested; some depressed occupant will probably take the easy way out and bring it all to an end by using the loop as a noose, perhaps when the rent is due. The heating, which remarkably comes from a ‘fireplace, gas/oil’, is also a menace because of the ‘carbon monoxide (CO) risk’. Not even the path through the garden is safe, as the astute authorities have noticed that it contains no less a horror than ‘trees/ branches’, a well known menace in gardens these days.

You might think that if MacArthur could withstand these traps and go on to beat the yellow hordes, we should be able to withstand a few climbable opportunities, penetrable gaps, fall hazards and loops in the curtain cords, especially as the tenants have never noticed any of these hazards. But no; we are a much more sophisticated lot than in McArthur’s era, needing all the protection from ourselves we can get. And don’t ask ‘Who won the war?’ It was won by meddlesome bureaucrats enslaving the world with their inane regulations.