For me Barack Obama's election was a milestone of the most extraordinary kind. On the day he was elected I felt such hope in my heart. I thought we were seeing the beginning of a new era of equal opportunity across race and gender such as America had never known before.

I think what coaching is all about is taking players and analyzing there ability put them in a position where they can excel within the framework of the team winning. And I hope that I've done that in my 33 years as a head coach.

Hope of ill gain is the beginning of loss.

If you start in the pit of despair with these profane awful things even a glimmer of hope or awareness is going to occur that's much brighter coming from this dark awful beginning.

To the former child migrants who came to Australia from a home far away led to believe this land would be a new beginning when only to find it was not a beginning but an end an end of innocence - we apologise and we are sorry. To the mothers who lost the maternal right to love and care for their child - we apologise and we are sorry.

The relevance for 9/11 is that what 9/11 marked was the beginning of a struggle in which the terrorists come at us and strike us here on our home territory. And it's a global operation. It doesn't know national boundaries or national borders.

We have to judge politicians by their cumulative score. In one innings they make a great catch in another they drop the ball. In one they score a home run in another they strike out. But it is their cumulative batting average that we are interested in.

The most compelling reason for most people to buy a computer for the home will be to link it to a nationwide communications network. We're just in the beginning stages of what will be a truly remarkable breakthrough for most people - as remarkable as the telephone.

Since I was there in the very beginning I know the history of the characters. So I make comments about the tone and sometimes remind the writers that we've done that before.

If I were beginning my career today I don't think I would take the same direction. Television is at a crossroads at the moment. And although I am not up to date technologically I suspect that somewhere out there people are conveying things about natural history by means other than television and I think if I were beginning today I'd be there.