Eat Your Carrots

Boiling Blood

This made my blood boil. Has the world gone mad? I think that I too deserve special payments for working unsiciable hours, even though, like the women in question, I don't actually work any. Surely by not having the opportunity to work unsociable hours I am being discriminated against in some way?
I tell you, someone somewhere wants a good slap on the back of the head (although strictly speaking that's not allowed these days either) and be told to stop being so bloody stupid!

Inflatable Tragedy

Two people were killed in my hometown yesterday when an inflatable "artwork" took to the air with people inside it. The artwork, a kind of maze that you wander around inside, somehow became airborn and several people were injured by the fall from it and, as I said, two were killed. What gets my goat, once again, is the tabloids which lead with the headlines "Women Killed By Bouncy Castle".
It's NOT a bouncy castle, it doesn't resemble one in any way. Do they ignore facts in order to make a more sensational headline, or are their journalistic standards just so low that they really did think it's a bouncy castle?

The News As It Happens

There was an article on the news this morning about the JetBlue plane that had to make an emergency landing at LAX. One of the things that struck me was that the landing was shown live on American TV. To quote the TV news report "the nation held its breath as they watched the plane touch down on live TV".
Is it all OK with you that they show stuff like this live? It strikes me as being ever so slightly sick. I'm all for "the news as it happens", but that doesn't mean we have to have the pictures beamed into our living rooms, especially when it could mean witnessing the deaths of 100s of people. Even more bizarrely, because the plane had seat-back TVs, the passengers were able to watch their own plight on live TV. I guess it helped to fill the time (3 hours) while they circled LAX burning off fuel. How cruel is that, knowing that in 3 hours you may die of be seriously injured, and just having to pass the time waiting for it to happen.
To add to the sensationalism that infects most journalism these days, the news report that I watched said that "the plane was engulfed in flame and smoke as it touched down". That was rubbish. There were some smoke, sparks and a small plume of flame from the broken wheel. At no time did it "engulf the plane".
Whatever happened to just reporting the facts?

Bomb Scare

Darlington town centre was sealed off last night after a couple of bomb scares. It turns out that they were only "scares" too - one a rucksack of clothes left in a phone box, the other "two men behaving suspiciously". In both cases the bomb squad performed controlled explosions and the town centre was closed until about 3am! SIL couldn't get home from York because of train cancellations, though I'm not sure if that was because of this or some other scare.
And this is how it's going to be for months to come. People getting jumpy at the slightest thing, things that last week wouldn't have bothered us. And people have to stop being careless (or thoughtless) too - innocently leaving your rucksack on the station platform while you go into Smiths for a magazine is no longer an option. Adding people's jumpiness to people's carelessness and yet other people's malicious "pranks" means there's going to a lot of disruption for many of us for months to come.

Brad & Jenn

I had Brad & Jenn on the phone at the weekend, each explaining the reasons why they've split up and each trying to get me to be their friend when it's all over and not the others. Pathetic really.
Jenn told me that Brad just wants her to become a baby machine but she wants to make movies - great movies. She doesn't want to be remembered just as the airhead out of Friends, she wants to be known as the one who won the Oscar for... Like she said, "who remembers Robin Williams from Mork & Mindy"? I didn't like to tell her that I do, and still regard that as his finest work and think of Pam Dawber as one of the finest comic actresses of the 20th century. But maybe that's just my nostalgic streak coming out again.
I did tell her though that maybe she wouldn't like to be remembered as the airhead from friends who appeared in turkey after turkey proving that she can't really act well. That's when she hung up on me.
Maybe its because I'm just a mediocre person with a mediocre job, but I can't understand people like that. If I had 100 million in the bank, I wouldn't be thinking of working ever again, let alone be turning my nose up at the way I earned that money. I think I'd be really rather proud of it.

Cancel The Papers

When you go away on holiday most people cancel the papers. And while we're away, we don't worry about the news at home. We may buy a paper once or twice, but more for something to read than a desperate desire to keep up with news.
My Sister's In-Laws though are different. They ask them to buy them the local paper each day while they're away, so they can catch up on everything when they get back! It surely can't be a desire to keep up with all of the local news - nothing much happens around here that I can't live without knowing, at least for a couple of weeks! Mind you, they also get them to tape Stars In Their Eyes (Kids and Celebrity Specials), so say no more.

Intent To Annoy

I read with a little amusement today of the bloke in Devon who was piping gas into the holiday cottage next door in order to scare away the holiday makers.
Not really an amusing story in itself, the thing that got me was that he was found guilty of "unlawfully administering butane gas with intent to annoy". Is there really such a charge, or are charges simply made up to suit the situation? I'm thinking of having Wife arrested for "looking at me with intent to annoy". Look, she just did it again!
The other thing that amused me was the irony. He was convinced the holidaymakers were trying to force him from his home. As a result of his conviction he has an exclusion order that forbids him to return to his home for three years!