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Memoir of a Commentary Engineer

The phone rings. It's Jon Pearce, offering a contract to go to Australia and cover the Rugby World Cup. I look at the computer screen in front of me. It contains the word "Grimsby". Somehow I manage to tear myself away from it and grudgingly resign myself to being flown business class halfway around the world at someone else's expense, in order to do a job that a lot of people would quite happily "help" me down the stairs so that they could get to go instead. Oh well…

Business Class

Heathrow. After the usual shuffle of bits and pieces from one case to another so that I make them all comply with the airlines 32Kg line of death, I have plenty of time to wander around and consider this: what about Americans? In my experience, a people who have luggage as colossal as their fridges. No wonder most of them don't have a passport.

We change planes at Singapore. Mark spots a RELAXED Steve and saves him from trying to board a flight to Phnom Penn. By the time we get to Sydney, the combination of Melatonin, booze and being too bloody tall for my own good have left me ever so slightly relaxed myself.

Settling into the backseat of the car that is to take us to our hotel in Sydney, Mark asks the driver what sort of car it is. The answer lasts for the rest of the journey. Against better judgement, we find ourselves saying things like "hmm", "I see" and "really" at moments of otherwise blessed silence. Sydney gleams all around us.
We're here!

Is it me?

…Or were significant sections of the opening ceremony somewhat inscrutable? I don't mean to pour water on what was a terrific spectacle, but what were those people doing when they turned themselves into huge, human deelyboppers during the "water" phase? And as for the 20 nationally themed giant French ticklers. Well.

Trains, Planes and Automobiles

Agnostics beware. The following passage may change your world, because I have proof. Proof that God exists. Not only does God exist, I can further inform you that her name is Pauline.

It is clear to me that the monumental task of getting all of us to where we need to be, when we need to be there, in as pleasant a way as possible and in a way we all understand, cannot be performed by a mortal human. Ergo, supernatural forces are afoot. As a former atheist, I can tell you it came as a bit of a shock to me too. I now feel comfortable in the knowledge, not only that there is an afterlife, but there is perfectly planned afterlife. God - I humble myself before you in awe and wonder…

More to come if you can stand it…