Thursday 31 May 2007

Where has all the news gone...

I didn't even bother to pick up a Metro (free newspaper) this morning. Reason: I know that Big Brother started on TV (again) last night - and therefore I held out very little hope of getting any real news at all. I caught my nearly-mother-in-law watching it on TV... when I asked her why she told me that she wanted to "see the people arriving". I asked why it mattered seeing as how they are just a bunch of nobodies after their 15 minutes of fame... As you might have guessed - I cannot stand that show. I find it drivel of the lowest order. I've probably mentioned before that I am utterly against all breeds of 'reality' TV and 'docusoaps'. I don't know why it's called 'reality' TV... the situations aren't very real - and I don't suppose that people would act the way that they do if there wasn't a TV camera trained on them. Bring back real TV. Bring back well written drama... comedy that makes you laugh... I'm still absolutlely certain that in the future social commentators will look back and wonder what an earth the people of the early 21st Century were on when they chose to watch TV!!!

I saw an interesting headline on the Evening Standard billboard - something about a Whitehall bid to block Beckham Knighthood. Would love to have read the whole story - but it appears to be an Evening Standard exclusive (no sign on the Internet) and I'm not buying the early edition of the Standard (or the late edition if it comes to that). I'm sure that I'll agree with the sentiment of whoever is trying to block this idea. Nonsense I think. I'm not sure that most people who receive honours really deserve them anymore - most were originally designed to recognize civilian valour after the 1914-18 war. I can't see that footballers, actors or musicians (save a few who have really done more than just entertain people) deserve that sort of recognition. This country have turned into fame junkies. The appetite for self-promotion and scandal is endless. All the free papers now have gossip sections (which I skip)... and even the news falls onto these stories.

This is a good thing about the ever customisable internet... you can fetch RSS feeds and so forth which cater to your appetite for news - and you can screen out the idle gossip!

OK. Rant over, climbing down off my soapbox now!