BY the time you read this, I will be cruising north along the Captain Cook Highway in a car full of four gorgeous women.

In preparation for our arrival at Port Douglas, bottles of beer will be placed on ice on board a magnificent yacht bound for Low Isles.

We will sail and drink and be merry, relaxing and soaking in the lap of luxury and paradise.

I will have deserved this rare slice of heaven for two reasons.

The first reason is painting.

I may be ensconced in the back seat with a bevy of beauties now, but just 24 hours earlier, I was painting the inside of our house. On my day off.

If there is a task as evil and soul-crushing as painting, I haven't done it. It is worse than making mosaic tables or shopping or listening to a long speech by Jim Turnour.

The pain and suffering lasted for several hours, and that was just choosing the colour.

We chose white. But with about 3654 shades of white on the market, we ended up with one of the hundreds available in the off-white sub-category.

Then we spent another two hours cleaning the walls, moving furniture, laying drop sheets and wondering if we had chosen the right shade of white.

Thank God for paint fumes, because my memory of the whole saga is hazy.

Unfortunately, the toxic vapours were not strong enough to erase the mental picture burnt into my retinas early Wednesday morning.

This is the second reason for my much-needed day of luxury.

I was getting ready for work when the image of horror and doom flashed on the TV screen during one of those awful breakfast shows.

At first glance, they appeared to make a lovely couple.

One was dressed in a sharp dark suit and the other in a flowing white dress, striding along the red carpet waving to cheering fans.

Meeting in the US for a mutual love- in, they posed for photos and gazed into each other’s eyes to talk about deep and meaningful topics.

Yes, George W. Bush and Pope Benedict XVI were like two peas in a pod when they met in Washington this week.

The similarities between the two are stark. Both are rich old white men who head up huge empires of wealth and power and, occasionally, evil.

The Pope can speak several languages and so can Bush, whose first language is Dubyanese, a unique dialect featuring words such as "subliminable" and "misunderestimate".

The language is still being studied by skilled linguists, but it is thought to derive from the speech of people suffering severe brain damage.

Both men are deeply religious and attract lunatics and fruitcakes as followers. They support a ban on abortion and back the wearing of silly hats.

Both of them can't bring themselves to admit their empires are sometimes responsible for evil deeds.

During his visit, Pope Benedict offered a lame apology for decades of child abuse, blaming both Catholic priests and society’s "breakdown of values".

Bush, the world's most powerful village idiot, has difficulty spelling the word apologise so there's little chance he'll admit culpability for his role in the deaths of 4000 American soldiers and countless Iraqis.

As I painted and painted yesterday, I couldn't get the image of them grinning like drugged weasels out of my head.

So it's little wonder I'm sailing and relaxing right now.

Besides the unshakeable thoughts of loathing I have for what the Pope and Bush represent, I still have to paint two bedrooms, the hall and all of the bloody skirting boards.

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