A Highly Trained Author Writes

Added on 04 March 2009

Listening to the World Service yesterday when they were reporting the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team, the reporter on the scene was heard to say something along the lines of: The attackers adopted the pose of commandos, showing that they were trained professionals...

A man, a paid reporter, a reporter who showed all the signs of being a trained journalist, actually said that. They took on the pose of commandos so therefore they must be trained. Not, so therefore they must have watched a lot of action movies. Or, therefore they played soldiers a lot when they were kids. Or, therefore they really fancied themselves as Bruce Willis.

By that standard, Two of Two is a highly trained professional footballer, the way he whines and appeals to referees like an over-paid, self-important, nothing's-ever-my-fault Chelsea gazillionaire.

The two gunman shown on the TV coverage, wandering aimlessly around in open ground waving machine guns, didn't look like highly-trained commandos it has to be said. They just looked like a couple of guys. With guns.

Later on, when they were saying on the news that the whole operation had obviously been well planned and carried out by professionals, one wondered if the reporters were basing this on the original assessment of the World Service guy who'd been so impressed with the attackers commando poses.

That's how news works.