With zero football news at the moment, The Captain has a few questions to ask of these games of the so-called ‘Commonwealth’:

Does Australia even need to be in this thing? No-one cares, and the only reason it rates so well on television is because it’s something different. If my daily choices come down to ‘Judge Judy’, ‘Deal or No Deal’, or ‘Huey’s Cooking Adventures’, then yeah, I might flick over to see what’s happening in the Women’s mountain-biking.

Do you think they just wanted to host it one more time, win everything and then leave the Commonwealth for good? They don’t have any real competition; did you see the opening ceremony? It’s a parade of all these countries you’ve never heard of – “And here comes Bucknell Island… Up next, the Republic on Danzig….” They’ll have like 3 people marching; the athlete, his coach and the Prime Minister, waving the flag.

And they’re always competing in the most obscure events, like the Steeple Chase. Have you seen this? The competitors run a 3000m race with regularly spaced, extra high hurdles that land in a water trap. But why stop there? I say make it a true obstacle course, with rope swings and floating pontoons, you know, get the people from ‘It’s a Knockout’ involved.

And what about walking? Is that seriously any kind of athletic event? It’s ridiculous, the commentators say things like, “he’s walked the race of his life.” Do we really need a competition to establish who is the fastest at going slow? If I was in it, I couldn’t help it, I’d just break into a full sprint and pass everybody screaming, “Running you idiots, its called running!”

You like the walk? Well, how ‘bout a jogging event? How about an event where you start to walk across the street, realise an oncoming car is a little close for comfort, break into a short kind of ‘canter’, realise the car is still far away and you would have made it comfortably by maintaining the original walking pace, contemplate returning to the walk, but then you’re almost on the other side of the road, so what’s the point? Can I try out for that?

Can I please get some originality in the diving events? Diving should be judged like the dunk comp; if we’ve seen it already, you’re getting marked down. Give me something new, give me something from the street – give me ghetto diving. Can you imagine that, a guy in baggy shorts standing at the top of the platform holding his nuts, just stepping off and staring at the judges the whole way down?

Did anyone know Tony Ronaldson was still playing for the Boomers? They interviewed him at halftime and I thought he was an assistant coach or something. I just felt sorry for the people with HD TV.

The only good event still left at these things is the 100m sprint. That’s all anyone wants to see, who’s the fastest. But of all the people who went to the 100m final, someone had to miss it, right? There must have been one guy who got up to get a coke and came back going, “What? What? Why is everyone cheering?” It’s a 10 second event; it wouldn’t be hard to do, you bend down to tie up your shoelace and BANG, the things over. They should condense it down to this one event though, really. It’d be great, there’d be a 4 hour opening ceremony, a 10 second event and then the closing ceremony before anyone has moved. Ladies & Gentleman, the games of the Commonwealth!