Oh For Heavens Sake!

There are times when I want to take a big stick and club the British Press to death like a baby seal. And take a few of the Great British Public with them. This is one of them.

When on Saturday I saw the first stirrings of the Brand/Ross/Sachs story I had a sharp intake of breath but immediately discounted it as a storm in a teacup; now the whole thing is the top of the news, front page of the all papers and 27,000 people felt compelled to ring in to complain to the BBC.

Why? Because the press have decided that the financial woes of the world are no longer interesting enough, so they take a fairly minor story of someone upsetting another person on national radio and turning it into a major story.

I hate it when this happens - the story should have died a death at the weekend but instead we have this press witchhunt whipping up people into a "outraged of st albans" frenzy. So 27,000 have complained and Russell Brand resigns - surely that mean that 59,973,000 haven't complained so he should keep his job?

I'll be interested to see how long it will be before a few people start putting their heads above the parapet and saying "actually, it was quite funny"....

(for the record, I thought the phone calls were a bit juvenile and not particularly funny, but the apology song "we're sorry for the attacks, Andrew Sachs" is now making me snort with laughter every time I hear it on the news).

Another Rant

Actually, I typed up a whole post ranting about Royal Mail, but by the end, I realised that I'd got it out of my system and deleted the original contents of the post.

Blogging as therapy? :)

Fountains Abbey

Occasionally, just occasionally, the Yorkshire sky is blue. Not as warm as the weather in Cahors, Adrian, but the sky can get just as blue:-


We hadn't been to Fountains Abbey since we first moved up here, so it seemed a good way to spend a nice Sunday in October- the kids were having a great time even before they got down to the ruins, courtesy of the splendid visitors centre/restaurant complete with a good selection of indoor and outdoor toys. In fact, Jacob took quite some coaxing to get down to the actual abbey site especially as they've now built a childrens play area about half way down to the ruins.

However, its worth pointing out that a combination of stone ruins that you can climb on:-



and muddy puddles:-


make a winning combination for small boys, and having finally got them down to the ruins, it was quite a job to get them back out again :-)

Full Time Mum

I picked up Jacob from Nursery yesterday to hear him tell me all about the Harvest Festival Assembly that he'd attended; rather guiltily I remembered that all parents had been invited to this and although I'd put it on the calendar, I'd forgotten about it on the day. I'd also forgotten to take in any tinned goods for distribution to the needy of Acomb. This follows on from forgetting all about the coffee afternoon for the parents of prospective school pupils on the Wednesday afternoon. They were all on the kitchen calendar, I just forgot to do anything about them.

However, having spoken to my neighbour and fellow parent, Rachel, I now feel less guilty about my utter crapness. According to Rachel, even though her oldest child is now in Year 2, she has only now got her head round the endless onslaught of school activities.

Anyway, I must get my act together; its not like I've got a job or any other valid excuse for failing to remember these things. So, I shall remember that its the Opening of the new Children's Centre on Friday afternoon and that there are two AGMs for playgroup/school the week after; one of the AGMs is followed by a Body Shop party, which might focus my mind somewhat.

Sheepdog

I'm in two minds about Ian Blair resigning; on the one hand, I think he should have resigned long since, but on the other hand, I dislike Boris Johnson's role in all this. In all probability, what I really dislike about this is the fact that it shows just how much the Tories are in ascendancy atm; you couldn't imagine them getting away with this at any point in the past eight years.

What it does illustrate, however, is that Boris isn't quite the buffoon he allows himself to be portrayed as; this is him flexing his political muscle and doing what some argue the Home Secretary should have done a couple of years ago.

Whenever I see him, I always think of a rather shambling Old English Sheepdog - and then he goes and does something like scrap the plans for a higher congestion charge on Chelsea Tractors, because Hey Presto! everyone can just get on their bike or a bus to help the environment instead, and this way he won't offend any of his posh pals in Kensington - and then I realise what an utter cnut he really is. A cnut in sheep(dog)'s clothing perhaps?