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On the couch / Silence is Golden, Golden By Jerrold Kessel Late in the reign of Queen Victoria: Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone. The old queen's loyal prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, excitedly informs the regent of the "big news." QV: Oh yes Mr. Disraeli, what is it? Advertisement BD: A major new communications device, Ma'am. QV: Oh yes Mr. Disraeli, what is it? PM: It's called the telephone, Ma'am. QV: That's wonderful Mr. Disraeli, but what exactly does it do? PM: You can use it to talk all the way across the oceans to your subjects in Indiyah, Ma'am! QV: Wonderful news Mr. Disraeli. (Long silent pause). But what do I say to them? An apt question these days with all the verbosity pouring out from "the Open Channels" of network after network, station after station, purporting to cover the war, commentator after commentator doing their best perhaps, but rarely succeeding in telling us something really new, something we can't work out for ourselves as our lives are blanketed by the mass of visual images. Take Ofer Shelah, normally a somewhat strident, but very believable news host, falling back into bad old days as a basketball analyst when the whole thrust of his assessment derived from whether Maccabi were doing well or awfully on court - nothing whatever about the opposition. A valuable sports analyst can't just give his support to one team if we are to get a true picture of what's happening in the game. You don't have to like the opposition - you can want them to lose, but you have to understand they're also in the game. On Tuesday, after the tragic school incident, Ofer went on analyzing what the IDF and the government would do, oblivious to the fact that others - the Palestinians, Israel's enemies, Israel's fading international friends - might have been so affected by the school killings that the whole picture of how the war would proceed might have abruptly altered. Queen Vic's "what do I say" plea is even more apt for TV sports commentators who ought to be asking themselves what precisely their role is when, thanks to the wonders of TV, we at home are able to follow the action for ourselves - or at least that part of it which the TV producer with his half-a-dozen live cameras chooses to convey. This issue was scathingly addressed in a recent blog by Mike Wells. Apologies, if you also read the Hebrew Haaretz since the sports editor did a good job a few days ago translating the original Guardian article in full. Here's the gist of Wells' complaint: "It's dawned on me that not only do some sports thrive in silence, but indeed they flourish. They become things of grace and beauty. Stripped of the chatter - most of which is gaudily decorative rather than utilitarian anyway - we see the sports in their naked state. And they are beautiful. Is it time for the sports commentator to hang up his threadbare sheepskin coat? I think so. He only emerged because of radio, where exponents like Ronald Reagan (once a top baseball commentator) would lie through their teeth about plays they were getting third-hand over the news wires. "What is the purpose of the TV commentator? To hold the viewer's hands lest they become lost in the action? The commentator has become a distraction, an irritant, as parasitic and irrelevant to the actual action as those retina-raping electronic advertising hoardings, yet another symptom of sport's patronizing terror of letting the game actually speak for itself. "There are no doubt readers possessed of space age televisions that allow the elimination of commentators while retaining the howler monkey screams of the crowd and the pitiful whining of the players. You lucky, lucky bastards. "It's true our fondest sports memories nearly all come with a spoken soundtrack. But there is so much sport on TV now that the journeymen have crowded out the poets. Endless combinations of some grotty hack teamed up with some former Premier League makeweight, both of whom seem to think that their sobered-up saloon room banter, their stating of the bleeding obvious, their second-guessing of officials and their soul-numbing parroting of the commonsense consensus is a vital addition to the action on the field. "I just can't stand it any more. From now on I watch in silence." Launched into such strident mood, I was glad to recall a great passage from the essayist D.J. Taylor: "Sport is essentially a romantic activity: The act of pulling on a pair of football boots may double up as a search for companionship or better health, or half a dozen other localized amenities, but it is also the pursuit of a certain kind of abstracted interior glory in which what happens to you is in the end much less important than what you think happens to you, or perhaps more vitally, what other people think." As we watch others living out their, and our, glories on the pitch, that's the heights to which the great commentators need to help us aspire. Commentating, or announcing as American English would have it, used to be a noble pursuit - the ability to come up with a relevant remark, naturally and instantaneously. The TV commentator, however, has neither to formulate nor convey a word picture. Many thus resort to telling us precisely what we see on the screen - perhaps the most annoying of all the worst commentary types who are calculated to drive us crazy. Others include: ? The Predictable: You know what they are going to say, how they are going to say it and when they will say it. And, they do. ? The Ignorant: who simply don't know the sport they are covering. ? The "Better than Thou" types: constantly down on the performers simply because they can do things they could never have dreamt of doing themselves. ? The Super Patriot: We've already knocked them for their lack pf perspective. ? The "Knock-the-Ref" types: Enjoying the benefits of television, they rely on hindsight and always castigate the hapless official for his "blindness in missing so obvious a trip." Then there are the lesser but equally annoying menaces: The "evil eye" commentators who, having pronounced a player the best thing since sliced bread, inevitably lands up condemning the poor fellow to an entire afternoon of mis-kicks. Or, the pedant who insists on keeping us bang up to date with all the wonderful statistics and records that have been fed into his computer, and doesn't know when to break off because a goal is about to be scored. And, perhaps the most irritating of all: The results-driven commentator who rates the merit of a game according to the result. A match can be an absolutely humdinger, end-to-end stuff full of action, but just because there aren't any goals, the commentator's solemn conclusion is, "What a bore, an absolute waste of time," etc. etc. With all this bile out of our system, let's get some relief in recalling (thanks to Google) some of the awful gaffes committed by sports commentators down the years - the kind of things which the authors would have done anything to have had their mikes shut at the time so as to keep them out of history: Athletics commentator David Coleman during the Olympic 100m final featuring Carl Lewis, Calvin Smith and Alan Wells: "Lewis is going well, Smith's going well and Wells is going well as well!" Or the motor racing man declaring, "The lead car is absolutely unique, except for the one behind it which is identical;" the dressage commentator who said, "This is a lovely horse. I speak from personal experience since I once mounted her mother;" the boxing analyst: "Sure there have been injuries, and even some deaths in boxing, but none of them really that serious." Then, there's the solemn softball commentator: "If history repeats itself, I should think we can expect the same thing again," the cricket commentator who gave us, "The bowler's Holding the batsman's Willey," and finally the tennis commentator who remarked, "One of the reasons Andy's playing so well is that, before the final round, his wife takes out his balls and kisses them... " and went on to find an immortal place in our hearts when he drew attention to the gaffe by blurting out, "Oh my God, what have I just said?" Bookmark to del.icio.us   A "gesture of dignity" Israeli envoy to Venezuela departs after being expelled by Chavez over Gaza op A voodoo initiative Voodoo priests in Benin pray for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Read & React UN Security Council calls for immediate Gaza truce Responses: 170 UN: IDF officers admit Gaza school shelling was by mistake Responses: 132 Akiva Eldar: Israeli rejection of Gaza deal may topple Abbas Responses: 71 Gideon Levy: Those who justify Gaza war justify all of its crimes Responses: 237 Bernard Avishai, Sam Bahour: Israel playing into Hamas' hands Responses: 66 More Headlines 00:33 Meshal: No Gaza truce until IDF ends offensive, opens border crossings 23:43 IDF: Hamas fighters beginning to desert; army steps up Gaza offensive 23:45 Gaza rocket strikes Ashkelon, injuring 14 Israelis 23:52 Abbas: Israel responsible for 'waterfall of blood' if it rejects Gaza truce 11:13 Israel rejects UN truce resolution, says Gaza operation to continue 23:28 ANALYSIS / Israel should have embraced the UN's Gaza truce proposal 23:29 Pentagon denies arms shipment to Israel linked to Gaza fighting 22:54 Israelis protest Gaza offensive: Our Zionism does not make us crave blood and war 23:07 Protesters turn violent, clash with police at anti-Israel rallies in Europe 22:58 Israel and Hamas are both paying a steep price in Gaza 01:17 IDF uses live ammunition to break up West Bank demonstrations 18:20 Get up to the minute coverage of the warfare in Gaza directly to your email 11:00 EU said readying plan to restore Fatah-led PA rule over Gaza crossings 20:33 7 suspects arrested in Lebanon over rocket fire into northern Israel 22:34 Hamas claims it hit IAF base 27km from Tel Aviv 21:53 Human Rights Watch: Israel using white phosphorus munitions in Gaza 17:19 Yemen begins trial of 3 men accused of spying for Israel 20:54 Voodoo priests in Benin pray for Israeli-Palestinian peace 23:51 Israeli envoy to Venezuela departs after being expelled by Chavez over Gaza op 11:40 Incoming secretary of state Clinton to name Dennis Ross as top adviser on Mideast, Iran 16:02 IDF denies shooting of UN truck in Gaza that killed relief worker 11:18 WATCH: U.S. House passes landslide vote backing Israel in fight against Hamas 21:16 ANALYSIS / Israeli rejection of Gaza deal may topple Abbas 11:20 Obama aide denies report he will launch low-level contact with Hamas 12:23 Text of UN Security Council resolution for Gaza cease-fire 23:38 Syria protests Israel's gift of Golan wine to UN staff Previous Editions Select Day 09 jan 08 jan 07 jan 06 jan 05 jan 04 jan 02 jan 01 jan 31 dec 30 dec 29 dec 28 dec

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