It was Pope-mania the past couple of weeks. News reports were filled with stories of Catholic priests' 'inappropriate touching' scandals, Sydney was flooded with pilgrims and the pope had announced that he would make a public apology for victims of sex-abuse by clergy.
While I was on the plane taking off from Melbourne Airport, my in-flight screen was showing live coverage of how the pope was leaving Australia. From the point of the pope being sent off by Kevin Rudd and company, to the pope's plane actually taxi-ing on the runway, and.. I kid you not, for at least a full minute after the plane actually took off.
If you've ever watched a Royal event live on TV, you know how hard it is to commentate and keep the spectators interested, particularly on such a boring subject like the pope's plane taking off. It's not like the picture zooms in dramatically to show the pope waving through the window, or they cut to first-person view from the perspective of the cockpit.
I couldn't hear the audio feed coming through (to be honest, I didn't think I wanted to), but I'd imagine it must be a painful job being the commentator for that particular stretch of the event.
Commentator 1: Yes folks, the pope is on the plane. I repeat, the pope is on the plane. The doors have been locked and armed, and his holiness is (probably) making his way to his specially designed pope-seat. We're just waiting for all final inspections to be completed and the pope will be on his way in just another 10 minutes.
Commentator 2: Bob, what do you think is happening, right now, on that plane.
Commentator 1: Well Jim, I can't say I've been on Air Pope One before but we've had some sources suggest that the pope is being briefed on safety procedures at the moment, after which, his holiness will bless the plane and its crew, stow away his tray altar, and return his pope-seat to the divine and right position.
OK ok. That's enough. It's getting silly. But the media got into the spirit of things in a typical aussie fashion.
"Mikey Robins was set a radio task to come up with as many Papal puns as possible within 30 seconds. This babble emerged from his mouth: "He won't go out because he's scared of the pope-arazzi. He's been known to pope around the house. He's doing atomic research into isopopes.
"The pope mobile smells good because it's filled with pope-pouri. When he jumps in the shower he uses soap on a pope. On a hot summer's day he's been know to lick a pope-cicle. His favourite song is Land of Pope and Glory. He once got busted for growing pope plants. His evil twin is his pople-ganger. His favourite drink is popa-colada but he's also been known to enjoy an alco-pope."
Alrighty then. Back to your regularly scheduled lives.
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