Jesus saves!
And scores!
Now it just wouldn’t be an Australian qualification campaign if there wasn’t a bit of agony thrown into the mix, hey.
I get glued to news media in the hope of finding a resolution to stories I find troubling. The 24/7 cycle sucks me in like little else; my media diet spans The Australian to Crikey and most everything in between.
The immediacy of bad news gives rise to the hope that good news is just around the corner, about to arrive just as swiftly. For instance, I waited years and years to hear of Osama bin Laden’s demise, and just as I’ll always remember doing a Year 7 science project (a Powerpoint presentation on a floppy disk!) on the night of the 9/11 attacks I’ll never forget hearing the first rumblings of news of bin Laden’s death on Newsradio during my lunch hour on a day of teaching. Bookends, I suppose.
Similarly, although obviously not even in the ballpark in terms of severity compared with the example above, I’ll always recall the evening before the end of the prime ministership of Kevin Rudd. It was June 23 2010, and a friend and I were going to be on the airwaves on 3MBS. As we waited to enter the studio, the surly folks presenting the earlier opera program were studying The Australian’s website with concern. Post-show, as the night wore on and the coup’s outcome became more and more evident, I ventured into the city with some friends to watch the World Cup match between Australia and Serbia - somewhat fittingly Australia won the match, but it wasn’t enough to progress into the next round. Then in the morning I had a funeral to attend, but before leaving for it I watched on Sunrise as the ballot was held, and leaks to Twitter confirmed the result.
So to close: I wonder what this next fortnight will hold, and if anything at all happens what I’ll be doing. What might this bookend be?
