Be careful what you wish for....

‘Why are there only bad things on the news? I wish these people would report happy stories for a change.’

I’d bet my 42” LCD that anyone who has a television has said something similar to this at one time or another. Well never again for me thank you very much. I’ve said it for the last time because today I finally got my wish. I sat down to eat my sandwich in front of the lunchtime news just in time to see the tail end of some black and white footage of Mount Everest, a tall bloke and a small Asian fella, both stood grinning in big coats.

‘Looks like Sir Edmund Hilary dead or dying. Shame that.’ I said, took another bite and waited for the next story.

Some woman in Ireland had found her dog. This feature is on for over two minutes; a woman finding her dog. And I think I know why it ran away too. The owner wouldn’t stop rubbing it. You could see the dog straining to get away from her pampering, see the discomfort in its eyes, eyes that also resolved to hide better next time or die tryin’. Next there’s a picture of the Liver Building in Liverpool. I know what’s coming; the European city of culture starts today so I’m happy to go and slap some more ham on my bread knowing that I’m not going to miss anything. I return four minutes later to a picture of a monkey. It’s been found too. Now I know that we humans sometimes make the mistake of personifying these little furry people but I swear that as the monkey squealed and pointed off camera, it was blaming the dog. Guess we’ll never know. The monkey feature closed and the ‘news’ wrapped up with some entertainment ‘news’ about the premiere of Depp’s musical mistake, Sweeny Todd. The link girl smiles, promises that she’ll be back later to keep me up to date with everything and the program finishes leaving me wondering what the hell it was all about. I felt like I’d just watched an episode of Blue Peter; absolutely no adult content whatsoever.

It turns out that ‘good news’ is in fact ‘bad news’ after all. No news would have been better.

Recycling Jimmy