Horse 948 - I Am Not Making This Up

This post falls into the realms of "I am not making this up... Seriously".

On the eve of Barack Obama becoming President of the USA, he's been compared with a few other presidents such as John F Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln; and perhaps it was a little perverse of me to notice that both of these presidents were assassinated - my sister came up with the supposition that Barack might be as well, simply because of the political tensions which might come about.
Here in Australia, we haven't had Prime Ministers who have been killed, but we do happen to be the only country that just sort of, well... lost its leader.

On 17th December 1967, the then PM Harold Holt decided to go swimming in the surf at Cheviot Beach. Admittedly he had sprained his shoulder previously and despite being advised against it, he went off for a dip anyway. As fate would happen, he never returned.

The Coroner's Report didn't find foul play or communists, submarines or as someone in my Year 9 History class theorised "Giant Migratory Squids" were the cause but rather a simple case of drowning caused by conditions with had turned nasty quickly.

Imagine my surprise then, when reading through The Age (the Fairfax newspaper of Melbourne) I happened to find this:
http://www.stonnington.vic.gov.au/www/html/1863-harold-holt-swim-centre.asp


At first glance it would appear to be in rather poor taste to name a swimming pool after someone who drowned. After all, what sort of confidence could you put in such a venue? Then you realise after looking at their website that the title is probably worthy:

The new pool was to be named the City of Malvern Olympic Swimming Centre, however following the tragic death at sea in December 1967 of Malvern's local member and Prime Minister of Australia, the new pool was named the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Centre. The Centre was opened by the Prime Minister, John Gorton in March 1969.

The truth is that Harold Holt was actually a rather good swimmer. Certainly it would be appropriate for the local swimming pool to be named after its most famous resident. Although having said that, it's still one of those little useless facts that makes you go "What?" and have to justify it with "I am not making this up... Seriously".