news gathering

I often think it's the small items of news that say more about the state of the world than than the leader articles...take this for example

"A man has been prosecuted for attempting to smuggle an iguana into the US inside a secret compartment in his prosthetic leg."

Now whatever happened to ferrets and moleskins?

US Elections

Why is the UK media so obsessed with every little detail in the run-up to the Presidential elections in the USA? The elections don't even take place until the end of the year.

Granted that the US President is an important figure in international politics, and the World will be very glad to see the back of Dubya and his cronies in November, but we in the UK have absolutely no influence on the outcome of these elections. Let's face it: the American people don't have much. We're talking about the politics of a Plutocracy, not a real Democracy.

courtesy

Whenever news programmes want to run a predictable item on obesity they then settle for the predictable background footage in some shopping mall, showing various citizens with corpulent spreads and large behinds. But do they ask these people's permission to photograph them at such a disadvantage? And if not isn't the whole process incredibly rude? It maybe that if the PC Republic is ever declared we'll find that simple old-fashioned courtesy is a thing of the past.

Headlines

Remind me of what a headline is supposed to do..........this grabbed my attention alright but as for giving me any clue as to the contents of the article........

"Pop goes chance of Beckham hit with Haircut 100" Daily Telegraph, last week.

Any guesses? Answers on a postcard please....

Healthy? You're a burden on the state

I've always instinctively known this, but am glad that there's finally research to prove it. Dutch researchers have proven that healthy people are a greater burden on the state than smokers and the fat. A person of normal weight costs an average £210,000 over their lifetime whereas a smoker costs up to £165,000 and the obese about £187,000 each. So if you're a fat smoker, the government should be paying you to stay that way. It'll be cheaper in the long run!

Valentine

Administrative Shortcomings

Administrative shortcomings? Apologies? Ten days suspension? If you're going to be a benefit fraudster, you should know which benefit to defraud. Derek Conway certainly does.

Creative Writing

Overheard on the radio - politician unknown.

"Ticking boxes is so yesterday's story..."

I wonder what kind of story that would be? I thought politicians told the truth? And I didn't know they ticked boxes, either? Saying they think outside the box, yes, in a transparent kind of way but all the time sending out strong signals in a robust fashion as they float off their raft of measures on their level playing fields....sorry, getting carried away with my own story....

ID Cards

How could an MOD car containing a laptop computer with the personal details of 600,000 people be left in a car park overnight for anyone to steal? Thank goodness our ID Card data will be in safer hands. What was that? You're a cynic, you are.

Words

I may not do this, for I feel it would surely characterize me as something of an Anorak, but I should love to sit through next year's final of the BBC's 'Strictly Come Dancing' and actually count the number of times judges and commentators use the word "fantastic". I suspect that this year's count would have run into several dozen.

Words

A few months ago, the England football captain, Steven Gerrard, looking for reasons why his side lost 3-2 to Croatia, "pinpointed" the fact that they had conceded two goals early on. Sounds like shrewd analysis.

Mobile Madness

Mobile phones have made people careless about making private phone calls in public places. Even so, I thought the lady I heard on a crowded bus shouting her credit card details down her handset must have been very trusting.

Words

Is any term in the arts (and in literature in particular) now used as relentlessly as the ubiquitous "innovative"?

Preaching Politicians

A few mornings ago I heard David Cameron bleating on the radio about 'performance related pay' for NHS staff. What about chronic patients, the elderly etc?

Words

Acknowledging that he was on dangerous ground, Bill Oddie said on the radio that ‘only civilised people care for wildlife’. This raises complex questions, but in a very narrow sense what he says is worth considering: ‘civilised’ originally meant ‘city-dwelling’ (from ‘civitas’, Latin for ‘city’). It’s often interesting to know the roots of words: ‘entrepreneur’ literally means ‘between-taker; ‘egregious’ comes from ‘grex gregious’ - ‘standing out from the flock’; and so on.

Preaching Politicians

Headline news in The Observer was ‘All Children Must Read by Six, says Cameron’. The Government and politicians should concentrate on providing good facilties, not preaching to us, weighing children and the like.