Over the past week I've been watching, in a half-hearted way, the coverage of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi. Most of the world, even people in the Commonwealth, take no interest in this little colonial remnant. Aussies love it because our athletes get to win a lot. So why am I only half-hearted? I think the main reason is that Australian coverage of the event is so poor. Australian broadcasters have determined (I'm not sure by what means) that Australian audiences are only interested in watching Australian athletes. It's not that we just get to see events where Australians are competing. It's that we only get to see the Australians, full stop. For instance, an Australian, Fabrice Lapierre, won the mens long jump at these games with a jump of 8.30 metres - a full 60 centimetres shorter than Bob Beamon's 1968 effort . Was this a surprise or was he the favourite? Who did he beat? Did he blow the field away with his first jump, or lag before coming thro
'Contemplating the teeming life of the shore, we have an uneasy sense of the communication of some universal truth that lies just beyond our grasp.' - Rachel Carson