This will hurt me...

Here is the view of Mount Wellington looking west from Hunter Street, across the fish punts and overpriced over-rated boutique fish and chip joints that can be found down along the waterfront... Hang on... Hang on... I've just got to interupt today's post to cross to my LA correspondent who is waiting outside Michael Jackson's Neverland compound ranch. Me in Hobart: "Dave, Dave can you hear me?" Dave in LA: [Silence as Dave scratches his nose and looks bored] Me in Hobart: "Dave, are you with me now?" Dave in LA: "Yes Kris. The media have thronged to Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch here 200 miles out of LA." Me in Hobart: "So Dave, do you have an update for us?" Dave in LA: "Well, there is a lot of people about. And a lot of media vans." Me in Hobart: "Can you confirm that former king of pop, Michael Jackson - responsible for such hits as Thriller , Bad and Say, Say, Say - remains dead?" Dave in LA: ...

So here is the sky this morning, at about 7:45 am. Some interesting cloud formations going on, and if there are any meteorologists out there that can explain to me why you get these ‘cotton ball’ clouds, I’d be most appreciative. I don’t watch a lot of TV. I do stick it on for the morning news headlines though, so even with my limited exposure I haven’t been able to miss the almost-pornographic orgy of grief that appears to have overtaken Australian television screens over the past few days. I’m all for covering important stories, and I understand that capturing the ‘human element’ is important when endeavouring to understand the magnitude of an event like this, but there is a point that aiding comprehension becomes gratuitous exploitation of other people’s misery . This morning the TV crews appeared to have run out of locals to goad into crying for the camera, and had resorted to the old standard of “one branch of the media talks to another branch of the media about the locals”. In ...