Reference :- A lot of seminars are being cancelled of late .

 Reference :-   The Paediatric Academy cancelled a seminar at Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne scheduled for 17th September 2025 . 

 A long time ago , in a previous century,  the senior editor at The Sky Reply was born at the Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne .   Doubtless much has changed over the many decades , they probably don't even use chloroform anymore .  Anyhow , it was interesting to see my old birthplace featuring in the news .  Although it was not exactly in the headlines , one has to look among the back pages of the newspapers to find the article , somewhere near the cartoon section .   

It seems that a seminar titled " Children and War " has been cancelled for reasons that remain obscure .  The theme of the seminar was advertised as  " How war affects children " .  Health care professionals were going to discuss how they could help care for children affected by war .   You know , life changing physical injuries , mental trauma , death of family and friends , loss of any means of support , inability to access schools..... or food or water . That sort of thing . 

It seems like it could have been a worthwhile seminar , but sadly it was cancelled at the 11th hour for some reason or other .  Ken junior reckons it was cancelled because of the likelihood that somebody might mention Gaza .  And to be honest , I think that for once he is on the money with that assessment . After all , over 50,000 children have been killed or injured in Gaza , and Gaza now has a shockingly high number of child amputees desperate for medical care after enduring their amputations without anaesthesia . Many have to face their challenging futures without any surviving family . 

So  I am sure Gaza would have been mentioned .    But the question is , who would have put pressure on my old birthplace to cancel a seminar about caring for injured children because it would mention Gaza ? 

I can't think of anybody or any organisation that would be evil enough to do that , so clearly there must be another reason .   

Maybe it was discovered that the air conditioning in the lecture hall is fairly riddled with Legionnaires' Disease germs or something . That would explain a reluctance to provide a reason for the cancellation . 

It is all a mystery to me . 

Your comrade , 

Ken .