LESS NEWS WOULD BE GOOD NEWS
Breaking news!
I’m joking!
I just wanted to grab your attention . . . like rolling TV news presenters do when the male and female duo (was that format hammered out through an act of Parliament?) become as bored with noodling around with a news story as viewers are of listening to it.
First, the presenters selflessly give you their thoughts on a news story, then bring in an expert to give their six penn’orth, then, in the interest of ‘balance’, bring in someone with an opposing view. And on it goes . . .
Before those of you who ‘Work’ (forgive my loud sniggering!) from home know it, breakfast TV has finished and it’s time for ‘Elevenses’!
Aware they’ve probably sent viewers who aren’t (‘Cough’!)‘Working’ from home into a glassy-eyed zombie state, the presenters suddenly announce, “We have breaking news!”
This causes non-home workers to pay attention and ‘home workers’ to drop their digestive biscuit into their third mug of coffee of the morning, splashing supermarket-brand Latte down the front of their dressing gowns.
Yes, there are occasions when that ‘Breaking News’ is important.
But nine times out of 10, it’s not.
Stories about court cases involving reality TV ‘celebs’ or which football players have been dropped from Saturday’s match trivialise the intended impact of ‘Breaking News’.
The early evening news on BBC TV and ITV, including UK news, World news, sport and the weather is done and dusted in 30 minutes. That’s pretty much how it’s been for decades.
Look through old editions of the Radio Times and you’ll see some teatime news bulletins only lasted 15 minutes, as did regional news.
People also got their news from their papers and the radio – just as we are today.
Nobody thought, “I’m not well-informed enough. Gimme news 24 hours a day!”
I realise it’s much too late now, but I question the need for several TV news channels and wouldn’t miss them if they were all taken off the air so we didn’t have to hear the self-important views of presenters and pundits.
Because I’m old enough to remember when newsreaders just read the news.
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TAKING STEPS TO GET FIT
Last autumn, a friend of mine who (shall we say *****) was “a little overweight” and told me he’d decided to do something about it.
His timing wasn’t perfect as we were enjoying a meal of chicken tikka masala, onion bhajis, poppadoms and garlic naans.
It was the weirdest Italian restaurant I’ve ever eaten in.
Rather than take out a gym membership or sign-up for the London Marathon he was going to follow the World Health Organisation’s recommendation of walking 10,000 steps a day.
Last week, I saw him strolling along Fabian Way, Swansea, and it was obvious he’d put on weight rather than lost any, so I decided to attract his attention in my usual subtle, diplomatic manner.
“Oi! Chubster!” I shouted – and, fair dos, his head spun around in my direction.
I couldn’t shake his right hand as it was gripped around a half-eaten Greggs pastie – and my right hand contained a half-eaten Greggs sausage roll.
I said, “I thought you were going to walk 10,000 steps a day?” as l brushed little flakes of pastry from my chin.
He explained, “I intended to. But I couldn’t find one building in this city with 10,000 steps to walk up and down.”
Which sort of made sense…
I did some research into this ‘10,000 steps a day’ idea to see if it was another number randomly picked out of the air like the ‘Five pieces of fruit a day’ advice of a few years back.
It started in 1964 when the Kyushu University Of Health And Welfare in Japan discovered that by walking 10,000 steps a day, a person could walk off 20% of their daily calorie intake.
So…if we took 50,000 steps a day we could walk off 100% of our daily calorie intake.
Trouble is, if we walked 50,000 steps every day, at the end of the first week we’d end up in Hereford.
I wonder if there’s a Greggs there?
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