Tuesday, May 09, 2006

How do you reckon?

Was just woken out of a sound sleep at 5.30 am by an SMS from my little sister saying Get up and put the telly on, so was able to see Brant Webb and Todd Russell emerge from the mine shaft, take their tags down off the wall where they'd been for the last fortnight, and put their arms round their wives.

After they'd been carted off to hospital an impromptu press conference developed with one of the rescue workers, a very cool dude called Rex Johnson, who gave a detailed and articulate account of the last half-hour or so of the rescue. When someone asked the inevitable idiot journo question, 'How did you feel when you saw them?', Johnson raised an eyebrow a fraction at the journo, made a wry face and said 'Well, we still had a job to do.'

6 comments:

Zoe said...

Wish I'd put the telly on. Then I wouldn't have heard the bloke on RN saying "This town really knows how to jubilate."

Very good news, and lovely to see the townspeople so relieved and happy.

ThirdCat said...

At school drop-off, no one was saying 'just hurry up' or 'quickly put your lunch in your locker'.

And I am relieved for that family, delaying their funeral all this time. I've been thinking of them a lot.

comicstriphero said...

I wish there was some way of following this story that didn't involve the overkill of the media circus and their idiot questions.

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

'To jubilate' -- I love it.

Yep, the inevitable microphone in the face and 'How do you feel?' questions were running hot this morning -- f*cking vampires. I'm reminded of that character in Hannibal who spices up his drinks with children's tears.

3C -- I had a very similar experience in the supermarket, which was full of total strangers smiling at each other and saying 'No, no, after you.'

misstickle said...

I guess it will provide some variety from asking family, friends, townsfolk and assorted experts "so, what do you think the two men are feeling right now?".

Anonymous said...

It is very good news indeed. A collective cheer has gone around the country.

Especially from those of us with loved ones in the mining industry. I've watched a lot of the coverage with a queasy feeling of "there but for the grace of god" as Mr Kate worked in a gold mine for a few years until recently. We always put the idea of danger out of our minds but you know bad things happen, and they happen quite often.