ATHLETICS:If you haven't noticed already, we're all being forced to conform to the same old blockbuster material

LOOK! YOU FOOLS! You're in danger! Can't you see? They're after you! They're after all of us! Our wives . . . our children . . . they're here already! You're next!

The pod people are indeed back, and over 50 years since Dr Miles Bennell cried out those words, his last attempt to warn us of our pending vegetable-like state of mindless degeneration, we're all in danger of being lost to the dredge of conformity. There is an eerie sense of futility not felt since the original release of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

The pod people have taken many different forms in the years since, from cute politicians to raging terrorists, but this time come in a far more subtle yet widespread guise. You may not even know if you've become one of them unless you switch on your television and realise something is amiss.

Just like George Orwell's 1984, the idea of Invasion of the Body Snatchers was thought to address the big questions of the time - and likewise the big questions of the present. Jack Finney could not have imagined the enduring relevance when he wrote the story in 1954, nor could Don Siegel, who directed the film two years later. It's still rated in the top-10 science fiction films, partly because the truth, as we know, can be stranger than fiction.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers was ahead of its time. When it hit American cinemas in 1956 it was widely viewed as a thinly-veiled commentary on the political paranoia sweeping the country during the 1950s, especially the threat of Communist subversion and infiltration.

When the pod people invade from outer space, they seem, on one level, just like Senator McCarthy and the other red-baiters. They appear fine, upstanding Americans, but soon search out rebels like Dr Bennell, who refuse to conform to the "American Way".

Even if that paranoia has long passed, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is still viewed as a symbol of any great threat to our very humanity - everything from the spread of disease to the new world enemies of post 9/11. It's just that neither Finney nor Siegel had any political or even visceral motives. Their only threat to humanity was basic conformity, no matter what shape, size or colour it took.

It's about the clothes we wear, the music we listen to, the food we eat - and the sport we get to watch on television. Or indeed the sport we read about in the newspapers or listen to on the radio. Because, if you haven't noticed already, we're all being forced to conform to the same old blockbuster material. If you aren't already brain-washed by it all, it shouldn't be long until you are.

Like a scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, try talking sport to a random person these days - without it involving either a round or oval ball - and you may as well be talking to a complete alien. The pod people will tell you all about how "we" played last night, what they thought of "the" match on Saturday, or what Ronaldo is "really" worth.

But probe them beyond that and chances are you'll be met with an empty stare.

The pod people, for instance, wouldn't have a clue about who is running in tomorrow's Golden League meeting in Berlin - the venue for the World Athletics Championships in August. They'd be completely mystified if you asked them what they thought of Usain Bolt in Toronto on Thursday night or what chances Tyson Gay has of chasing down his records.

Of course, the pod people aren't to blame for this. They're simply succumbing to the new world order when it comes to the powers of the sporting media, where, in this part of that world, it's all about premiership soccer and professional rugby and our natural fascination with all things GAA. Some other sports, such as golf, horse racing, tennis and cricket (yes!), still get the odd look in, but you'd have to wonder for how much longer.

What is certain is that you won't see any international athletics on Irish television this summer. RTÉ won't be covering the World Championships in Berlin, and you won't see any of the Golden League meetings either unless you have a subscription to Setanta Sports. And that might not last much longer.

RTÉ put their reasons for not covering Berlin down to "tough financial decisions" in the "current economic climate" - and that's hard to argue with. They do promise to focus on some domestic events and European championships, where they feel "Irish athletes are more likely to feature prominently".

In order words, when money is tight the headline sports will always get preference, and hard luck on the rest. And more so when the medal-winning prospects Sonia O'Sullivan once offered are a thing of the past.

That may be the bottom line - money and demand dictate which sports make it into the mainstream media - but once a sport like athletics disappears off the media radar it's hard to see it making it back on in one piece.

It could also be argued that athletics just doesn't make for good television anymore. Meetings can be drawn-out affairs, the all-conquering African distance runners have become largely indistinguishable. And there's the problem with drugs, which depending on whom you believe is either killing the sport or has killed it off already. Either way, athletics has become a once-every-four-years spectacle.

But the big fear is not that athletics and its great tradition is being vacuumed from the public psyche. The big fear is that the pod people don't seem to care, that it's already too late for them to question why the sporting media has become such a platform of conformity. Am I watching this because I want to? Am I reading this because I care? Am I listening to this because I should be?

For Jack Finney, the pod people were meant simply to symbolise an increasingly regimented society - where everyone is as alike as "two peas in a pod".

Sapped of their emotional individuality, the pod people are innocent victims of a "rush to modernise, bureaucratise, streamline and cellophane-wrap".

If that sounds like someone you know, Don Siegel reckoned it is: "People are pods. Many of my associates are certainly pods. They have no feelings. They exist, breathe, sleep. To be a pod means that you have no passion, no anger, the spark has left you . . . It happens to leave you in a very dull world, but that, by the way, is the world that most of us live in. People are becoming vegetables. I don't know what the answer is except an awareness of it."

It may be that when the economic climate improves and we somehow produce another Sonia O'Sullivan, then athletics as we used to know it will return to our televisions screens and newspapers - but the danger is that by then we'll have all turned into pod people.

Can't you see? You're next!