No news is... bliss

I wasn't going to post today.

Technically I am still on hols. Back in the UK and at home (no thanks to the joys of charter flying and the M25) after two weeks in SW Turkey of sun, sea and, well not much else. Certainly news. There were papers each day of course, at silly prices, but they were all tabloids so I paid little heed (and even if I had I suspect I might have remained none the wiser on most issues of import). And hence the economy, Olympics... even that small war... all passed me by. And I felt a lot better for it.

So why I made the mistake of switching on the BBC news just now escapes me.

In just two slots our esteemed national broadcaster had me climbing the wall. Already. Again.

First up was some awful family tragedy playing out where again it seems the odd and frightening new notion of dealing with failure is to compound it with infanticide followed by suicide. So I was treated to some reporterette rushing around trying to find out again how another community 'feels', and if they fail to come up trumps insert some utter tosh to fill a few minutes. We had a murder near here once, a 'crime passionelle'. As it was more than the end of my road way I had no clue who the protagonists were, and though sad to find those who are close can so violently be driven apart would have had little if anything to opine on the matter if asked. However I am readying my best yokel vox pop in case of the next within a few hundred square miles, as it seems a crew will be sent to fill a day trying to fill the airwaves with nothing very much that helps around the 'story': 'Ar... not the the best murder we've had in the village but we're giving it a 5 out of ten for style, a six for effort and a definite ten for slow news top billing quality, my duck'.

Then we lurched on to pictures of a hurricane hitting the US near where Katrina had wreaked her havoc. Thing is, it looked windy and wet, but that was about it. And the interviewees didn't seem to be cooperating either by pointing out that hurricanes have happened there before and they weren't too fussed so far. But the studio double act blonde and bouffant seemed almost to be willing levees to burst and scenes of carnage to unfold again. As far as I could make out the theory was that the last one was good for media stories, so this one could be made to be as well. Only, so far, it's... well, weather.

Having had the seductions of warm, balmy Turkey to seduce me, along with the cold variety of no actual intrusion of any 'news' to catch my jaundiced eye, I can only hope I might find the strength to resist the 24/7 drivel that is pumped out here under the 'news' banner these days.

Yeah, right.