A picture says a thousand words...

This rather amazing picture, courtesy of the guardian, shows oil from the gulf of Mexico oil 'spill'. I saw it on a lunchbreak, on the frontpage of a newspaper lying casually on the staffroom table. It was the first thing which made me really take note of the oil crisis in the Gulf of Mexico.

I know that sounds bad, but to be honest it seems like it's only recently it's become 'frontpage' here in the Uk, and for me certainly all I'd seen up to that point was acouple of shots of burning oil on the ocean and some clips of the webcam gushing grey liquid from a pipe.

When the leak happened, the Uk and Europe were eclipsed, literally and media-ly, in the ashcloud phenomena. We heard about the 'oil spill', but it was a sideline to the ashcloud chaos and the bickering of pre-election political parties. This eclipse continued past the Icelandic volcano event, past the media intensity of the political debates, the election and then the ensuing political chaos around the hung parliament. As a result what we got only a subconscious level of information about the spill.

It was always a sideline, and if there was anything at all it was essentially "it happened but BP are dealing with it" - which essentially meant it could be mentally dismissed as 'bad but being taken care of'.

It was only when the political situation calmed down, and the media emerged out of the very Uk-centred goggles it had been wearing, that it moved to concentrate on other events.

Somehow the saturation which happens, sadly, in todays media had already happened. The shock and attention which would have occurred had we been presented with the oil spill at the beginning of June was dulled by peripheral exposure. We hadn't been inundated with the dramatic, traumatic pictures of oil-damaged wildlife and devastated beaches. We'd just got a filtered account through media outlets focussed on other things.

In my own defence, intense work, moving house and losing the internet for the two weeks straddling the transition from May to June meant I had a significant hole in my following of world events in general. A continuing hectic work schedule meant it has taken me a while to catch up.

So now, with the sudden revelation of all the power of this gentle yet devastating image, I have decided to fill in the missing gaps. My brief foray into Twitter in May, when this blog began, had ended as soon as I realised how easy it was to be diverted from whatever else I was meant to be doing at the time. But missing such an important event made me realise how important it is to keep connected to the realtime currents of the internet - not just those chosen by various media outlets. I intend to follow more closely the events of the world, from as many angles as I can... It's quite scary what you could be missing.