The video here is the latest innovation from the Barcelona World Race, daily video conferencing, and until today I had not quite appreciated how pointless it would be.

I just can’t see how watching a grainy talking head speaking out of synch on a low bandwidth connection adds to our enjoyment of fast-paced ocean racing. Why watch a video of someone describing things you can’t see? It underscores the lack of interesting imagery and distracts us by showing something that looks completely static and will be exactly the same, day after day, no matter what.

This is a bit like buying a ticket for Die Hard for the car chases only to get a Samuel Beckett play featuring a soliloquy from someone buried up to their neck in sand.