Least favourite things

I’ve known I’m getting old for some time because a lot of what is shown on tv disturbs me. I am reminded of my parents, who sniffed in disgust at various things back in their day. Now I find myself doing the same. What sort of things am I thinking of?

So many comedians who are not funny. 

Celebrities who vie with each other to wear the least clothing in public and then put the photograph on social media. 

Reality programmes that use nastiness of one kind or another to grab an audience. 

The way the media supports anyone who knocks the Conservatives but rarely manages to catch anything derogatory or rude about Labour supporters. 

The way someone’s views are routinely shouted down, mocked, talked over or cut off in most tv interviews these days. 

The cowardly people who use Twitter to annoy, vilify and abuse others. 

The obscene amount of money that is bandied around in football and most other sports today. 

Advertising on tv – and anywhere, for that matter - that tempts people in gambling.

The focus on food adverts when the nation already obese. 

The endless cookery competitions where food is wasted and living creatures are killed – there will be a dearth of lobsters soon since so many are  used in cookery competitions.

Blogger thinking I have spelling errors when I am using British English!

Just a few of my least favourite things. Have I mentioned anything that annoys you these days? There must be something!

News is a good thing?

The year is turning down towards winter, and television news does nothing to lift the spirits. Full of doom and gloom; killings, abductions, funerals, missing people, and gloomy economic forecasts. It seems we get nothing else. Surely there must be some good news in the world? I cannot be alone in finding the continual drip of disaster lowers my spirits and leaves me despondent and cynical.

It makes me wonder if 24 hour news is A Good Thing. A decade or two ago, we got the news at 6pm and 9pm and then it really was news. I  listened to snatches of the early morning news on Radio 4 as I got ready for work, but then it was over until the end of the working day. Now it's blasting out all day and most of the night. Fine for shift workers, I grant you, but news presenters must feel they are on the same kind of wheel people put in the cage with a hamster or pet mouse. Endless repetition of the same facts all day long and sometimes spilling over into the next day. Viewers like me groan, but at least we can get up and walk away, do something more interesting. Pity the poor news reader, tied to their chair.

There's also the tendency to make news if it doesn't exist. Those slots have to be filled with something, after all. I'm so tired of these tacky interviews with neighbours and sweetie-shop owners when a child goes missing; they tell us nothing. Likewise asking head teachers to speak to camera about a child who has died - they're so unlikely to say anything really meaningful. One wonders if they actually remember the child as an individual rather than a paper report. They stick to the platitudes, of course; I'm waiting for the day one of them defies convention and says Well, he was a little devil and I told him he'd come to a sticky end. I expect I'll wait a long time.

Late plots

There, he's got the cup, won the match, worn his
Thunderbirds-are-go jacket and it's all over for
another year.

Good thing, too, as we've had horrendous rain today. I am, at last, back to work and wondering why it is I only have INSIGHTS into plot development once I've written the damned chapter. I romp on to chapter Eleven and in the middle of the night realise I should have had Mary turn up at the dance in Chapter Seven and flirt with Holbrook. She is conspicuous only by her absence.
So back I go and insert all the relevant bits, and wonder what I'm going to think about chapter eight, nine and ten once I've reached fifteen, sixteen and seventeen.
I think I'll go for a walk and ponder before I go any further.
There's lots to ponder. Why, for example, the media currently rules the world. Why people seem to go into national hysteria mode when a famous person dies these days. Or perhaps they don't, perhaps I only think they do because the media tells me they do. Was it like this for Valentino? Lennon? Or do the subjects have to be realtively young and goodlooking? I noticed no hoo-ha for Sinatra, but maybe I was looking the other way.
24 hour news on hundreds of channels requires 24 hour stories to tell and there are so many journalists trying to make the grade out there...am I a cynic for thinking that sometimes they well, tweak a story to make it interesting? On the one hand I hope I am; on the other, I'm sure I'm not. I am divided, and let me tell you, it is uncomfortable!