........that I have had a gutsful of Peter Montgomery.
I am not immune to events unfolding in Beijing. I have watched a bit. Mrs obald has been much nasally dislocated that Coro has been replaced by the 12m air pistol but even she settled down on the couch on Saturday evening for the much hyped 'Super Saturday'. New Zealand was going to blow away that well known country Michael Phelps on the medals table. Who gives a stuff about a medals table anyway except perhaps China who regard it with the same importance as Germany did in 1936 or The Soviet Union in 1980. The spearhead of this thrust into a cornucopia of medals was to be the rowing. Five finals containing New Zealanders which means we had to put up with five seven minute dollops of the most over rated sports commentator on the planet.
I just cannot see it. PJ Montgomery is held in high regard by his peers. I have a passing acquaintance with one of them who will not hear a bad word uttered against him. Each to his own I suppose but I would prefer to listen to half an hour of someone dragging their finger nails down a blackboard than suffer thirty minutes of the liquid Himalayas man. The key points of my irritation are? Well for starters, the key point. Bloody everything is the key point. But the key point can only be found in the midst of the four hundred word question that requires a two syllable answer. PJ is the past master of the over long question in any interview. 'What is the key point you are looking at as you enter Super Fourteen edition number seven and face the might of the Bulls who, having lost to the Sharks in both 2004 and 2006, are now entering a run of three successive defeats at the hands of either New Zealand or Australian teams this being the case as French and German sides are excluded from the tournament after the ruling by the International Court of Human Rights in the Hague?' 'They are a strong team'.
Get our Pete out of his normal environment (water) and he pines for the sea and all things nautical. He gets togged up in his Drizabone and is sent to perambulate the touchlines at Eden Park. He tends to be very grumpy unless it is raining cats and dogs and then he really perks up. The only thing he can ever talk about during a rugby match is the wind and he likes nothing better than if the ball is being blown off the starboard layline, I mean left upright, by a howling sou'wester. Clown.
And then we have the pre rehearsed spontaneous comment. On Saturday night he was determined that his 'The America's Cup is now New Zealand's Cup' moment was going to be 'Black to Gold'. Drysdale stuffed this up royally for him by coming third. 'And it's 'Black to Bronze'. Terrific, Pete. Well he is nothing if not thick skinned and so he was going to use it somewhere in the evening. Enter the twins. Here we have another key Montgomery trait. A total lack of accuracy. In the closing stages of a thrilling race he had the Evers-Swindells in the lead when they weren't. When the finish eventually came he totally stuffed it up by reading the lane numbers out as the result 'Great Britain first, Germany second and New Zealand third'. What a plonker. Then his mate who had not been allowed to get a word in edge ways all evening said. 'I don't think so, Pete - they are going to a photo'. Photo result comes after a mercifully short interval (Rugby could learn a bit here) and PJ cannot resist the screamed 'And its Black to Gold'. The timing of this was now just dreadful and made the comment look even more lame than it was when he first though of it; which was probably about three years ago.
No, if PJ Montgomery is on the case I'm off to the kitchen for a cup of tea. Any sport that has a bit of water in it I will watch with the sound off.
And a couple of passing Olympic notes. How cool is Mr Bolt? And oh how I hope Michael Phelps is real. Look how long it took them to nail Marion Jones and Carl Lewis.
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