Rhyl-life drama

Is there, I wonder, a category in the Darwin awards for those who, having reproduced, attempt to rectify the situation by removing theselves and their adult offspring from the gene pool in a startlingly novel and unintelligent way?

If so, honourable mention is surely due to the woman who, accompanied by her 15-year-old son, was picked up drifting off the coast of Rhyl this morning. It takes a truly spectacular lack of common sense to take to the sea in an inflatable ring in late October with an offshore breeze and an outgoing tide.

The RNLI are no strangers to the idiocy of their fellow-man (and woman) over bank holidays and Summer weekends, but they might have thought that by now, with the sea at 11 degrees and the air about the same, they could forget about the terminally incompetent and concentrate on rescuing the victims of genuine emergencies.

Anyway, all this started me wondering whether the RNLI have some sort of award system of their own for this kind of thing - after all, they probably see more of it than anyone else (with the possible exception of staff in A&E). You'll find some of the sort of thing I mean here under the label RNLI or sea rescue.

If they do, I'm sure it is kept under wraps - bad publicity and all that - but I'd like to think that, despite the serious nature of the risks involved, they do see a certain black humour in it all.