From Sea to Shining Coast

When you're alone
And life is making you lonely,
You can always go downtown
When you've got worries,
All the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know, down town - from "Downtown", sung by Petula Clark, lyrics Tony Hatch 1964

America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea! - from "America the Beautiful", Katharine Lee Bates 1894

When I'm alone and lonely, when I'm depressed, out-of-sorts, anxious or blue, I don't need to listen to Petula Clark singing "Downtown". I don't even need to go - "Downtown".

I just need to tune in to Piers Morgan on CNN.

So therapeutic is Mr Piers Morgan, that I am prepared to wait until 9:00 at night to get my fix. And then, all annoyances, outrages, petty gripes, all things negative - disappear - drowned into insignificance by Piers and his in-depth look at American society and politics.

Take today for instance. Everything was going down. Going "south" as they say in America. Do things "go north" in OZ? Whatever.

They were certainly going south for me today. All was lost. I was going to have to blot out my entire life with the oblivion of SLEEP.

And then perchance I turned on the telly and for some bizarre reason - I certainly hadn't programmed the TV to do so - CNN came full-blast into my living room, anchored by none other than Piers Morgan, America's token Englishman.

It is times like this that I am SO GLAD I am not English. Imagine being represented by such a token as Piers.

Piers Morgan - I suspect my fellow Australians are ignorant in bliss of this person. But we New Yorkers see him on our TVs - and regardless of nationality, birth, race, socioeconomic status - we shudder.

Tonight Piers excelled himself.

For starters, or as we say in America, "for appetizers", this evening Piers had as a guest some old guy by the name of "Welch". I use the last name only because the ticker only told me "Welch". Along side Mr Welch was a younger person, though not really "young" - a woman, whose name wasn't on the ticker. I suspect she was a "minder". Or perhaps a "carer". She didn't speak. Perhaps she was a blow-up doll. I mention her only because she was there and therefore I assume she had a ROLE, though what it was, was not apparent.

East Coast Patriot

Piers was rattling on in his English accent which is becoming more pronounced by the sound-bite, about President Obama taking off Al Green's "Let's Stay Together".

Then, in a rare moment of impartial anchor-ism, Piers ventured to compare Obama's rendition of "Let's Stay Together" with Mitt Romney singing "America the Beautiful".

And, stating the obvious, Piers said that Obama's Al Green impersonation was better that Romney's "America the Beautiful".

Well we knew that already. I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for the old guy - the Welch fellow. The camera panned onto him to see his reaction to Piers' uncharacteristic display of certitude. Welch was not a happy camper. But still I felt for him, Welch that is. After all, I'm old myself and I probably like "Walzing Matilda" renditions better than "Stormy Weather". Well I don't. But I could understand it if someone did.

"Wasn't Obama better?" Piers asked, looking as is his wont, INNOCENT? "Well it depends," said Mr Welch, and his toy doll nodded in empathy. "One song is better than the other - 'America the Beautiful'" is a better song."

"Oh," countered Piers, in an uncharacteristic display of independence, "It all depends if you live on the coast or not; is that it?"

At which I did a delayed reaction thing. "Huh?"

Ah yes, he must have been referring to the coasts in "From sea to shining sea".

Or am I giving Piers more credit than he deserves?

Is such a thing possible?

Stay tuned!