Summer 2006 - National Rifle Association

Two things preoccupied me as, feeling distinctly crotchety, I satdown with the Brontosaurus Broadcasting Corporation to watchsome bits of the Melbourne Friendly Games - between other Jurassiccommitments. How much of the shooting would I see, and wouldany of my wishes come true? On balance I was pleasantly surprised.Broadcast BluesEarlier I had clicked my way to the BBC website and into a sectionreserved for square eyed sports fans. There I came across a completeschedule for something called “interactive”. You cannot say thatus dinosaurs are anything other than adventurous. Loiteringamongst the ingredients at the end of the menu were some regularslices of enjoyment: an hour a day (give or take) of shooting.It was a pleasant surprise for someone accustomed to the Manchester diet - which was to shooting whatbiblical plagues of locusts were to the harvest. I then realised that every upside has an opposite: one had tohave access to digital TV in the form of cable, freeview or satellite and, more fundamentally, one had to be ableto skive off work between 2.30 and 3.30pm on the days in question.Or I suppose you have to have a recording machine for which you have the knowledge that allows you to setit with ease, in such a fashion that it records what you think you want – roll out the eight year old child whowill set it for you with a sneer.Luckily I had part of the kit and some of the time. As I negotiated my way through a variety of buttonpressings on the remote I found myself facing the interactive screen offering five choices and there, on streamfive, it was. Shooting from Melbourne. I genuinely thought this discovery was a major evolutionary moveforward from four years ago.That is where my euphoria ended. It was the day of Charlotte Kerwood and Rachael Parish winning thewomens’ pairs double trap gold medal. The programme started with a somewhat wooden commentatorannouncing that this was shooting from Lillydale. Just in case you missed it in the shock of your discovery,the video tape spluttered and he said it again. (Sugar to editor – “Listen sunshine, I am not deaf. You’refired”).Now, I do not wish to carp or appear overly cynical, but the commentary went from wooden to chipboard.Information about the discipline was sparse to non-existent. Camera work was a matching waste-land. I amsorry: I was not impressed. One longed for a spark of life, a nugget about Kerwood instead of his crushingopening strike that nominated her as the Indian representative.I spun off a cretaceous email pronto to Messrs. BBC, offering a view on a view. I think I was to the point andmarginally constructive. I did say that I welcomed the change in policy from four years ago. But no reply.True, the coverage progressed to smallbore and pistol. The reports and stories were there, driven by MickGault’s record breaking efforts which by then had been picked up by the media. But I regret that, due tocompeting commitments, I did not manage to see any of the other one hour specials. If they did not improvefrom the first, then I have the feeling that it simply would have offended my sense of what could, and should,have been on offer, or what two half sensible lucid shooters could have voiced-over from their armchairs backhere. Perhaps a more devoted watcher can enlighten me.Broadcast RoyalsDespite that, the coverage was there. Even though I was not able to abscond at all in the rest of the week, I wasable to make do on normal BBC round-ups. Back on the BBC mainstream there was frequent and accuratereporting, with decent slots and some short interviews. Gault in a seaplane; Babb, Hector, Lacey, Kerwood,Barnett and Patel all with comments about their successes.So I have to be even-handed. Thank you BBC for your studio based coverage: Balding, Richardson, Davies,Irvine ‘et al’ were generous in their approach and made a point of saying just how successful the HomeNations shooters had been.But to whom should I address the question “Why not in 2002?” I take comfort in knowing that the answerwould never come. What the shooting bodies need to do now is to develop contacts with the broadcasting44T REX - DOWN UNDER FROM MY ARMCHAIR IN THE CAVE