Olympickle

This is the second time in a row I've watched the Olympics from a country other than Australia. The first time was in London, with the Poms devoting huge amounts of airtime to every single athlete they had, even little Suzie Scunthorpe who finished 83rd in the women's indoor potato peeling. It isn't surprising to find Canadians have a similar nationalistic focus, but they seem a lot more mellow than the generally outraged British. It's probably because the Canucks are used to getting their asses heartily kicked by the Americans all the time.

In Sydney, the home field advantage was always going to help Australia do well, but Athens has seen another strong performance that has left the rest of the world shaking their heads and wondering if Vegemite contains large quantities of horse steroids. At this moment, Australia is on 16 gold, 11 silver and 15 bronze, ahead of Japan, Russia, France and even Germany. Everything might change in these last few days, but it's already a ridiculously good performance for a country of 20 million people.

A negative aspect of the Canadian coverage is the masses of nasty American reporting pumped in, often as padding. I never want to see another interview with US athlete XYZ, with an inspiring soundtrack and a chat with their obnoxiously proud parents. It's nauseating. I'm not from America, I'm not in America, and there's already plenty of America on television. Give me a touching human interest story on an athlete from Djibouti any day though, they never fail to warm my heart.