And I'm off ...

Arctic here I come - well almost. Stage One is flight to UK tomorrow, then boring admin for a few days before flying to Iceland to join my Russian friends aboard the vessel! In the meantime I am trying to get out of work before midnight tonight, as I still have to pack. I HATE leaving things to the last minute.
I watched the BBC World News this morning, and was as always pleasantly surprised by the coverage. On NY1, ABZ, Fox, CNN etc I am used to 29 mins of the half hour being devoted to either:
1. Steve Irwin (now rechristened Saint Steve) and his unfortunate death, emphasising what an environmentalist and activist he was (here was me thinking he was someone who incited children to play with crocodiles and said CRIKEY a lot). In Australia, until his untimely death, he was treated as a bit of a joke to be honest. He was very ocker http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ock1.htm and therefore not particularly bright. This is the guy who two years ago was universally vilified for the "baby dangling" incident. His idea of fun was to screech to a halt in his Range Rover in the outback, run into the road to catch a brown snake by its tail. Hmmm. Would you let this man babysit for your child? But since he unfortunately was impaled by a stingray barb, he has been canonised. Please, do not take this as Steve-bashing. I am sure he was a lovely man, seemed genuinely caring and concerned about people and the environment, but he was not a saint and most of the time went about things in rather a bungled manner. Phew. We also had a Crocodile Hunter marathon on the Discovery Channel all weekend - fun fun fun.
2. 9/11 - the other big issue at the moment understandably. Again, please don't think I am underestimating the value, importance and sheer horror of what happened 5 years ago, with its continuing impact on everyone's life. However, I do not believe that CNN replaying its coverage of the events of September 11, 2001 in REAL TIME helps anyone. I think it is tacky. Equally, all of the NY news channels simultaneously played live the entire coverage from the WTC of the reading of the names of those who were killed, focussing intently on George W Bush shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot and looking to the sky like a little boy in need of a bathroom. It was an event that needed to be marked and should continue to be marked, but I guess that I am missing the rationale behind 6 NEWS channels showing exactly the same event at the same time. It was almost as though they thought if they didn't, they would receive complaints. Why are all these documentaries not replayed all through the year, why have a 24 hour coverage focussed around that day just in the few days leading up to it? We don't just show WWII coverage around Remembrance Day? Equally, there are a lot of things happening in Afghanistan and Iraq at the moment (so BBC World tells me). These are all linked to the events of September 11th (the extent of the link I leave to everyone's own viewpoint), why not put on some of those stories as well, and inform people?
I will get off my soapbox now as it is not very amusing. I will say that the light display from the WTC site was beautiful and very moving - an appropriate memorial, and some of the documentaries were very well produced.
Hope everyone is looking forward to tales of Iceland, even though that is not really to do with NY! But it is my blog, and I will do what I like with it!