If you sat in front of a news channel (and could filter out the repetition) for 24 hours, you would probably never want to leave the house again and I can't help feeling if the sole purpose of broadcasters, or the media in general, is to scare us so much that we don't want to be involved, that we end up switching the television or radio off and stop buying newspapers or looking at on line news.
At a certain point yesterday, I made a mental note of how much the so-called left-wing BBC made of the rather triumphant third PMQs for Jeremy Corbyn - doing a Paxman - and how all the headlines appeared to focus on Cameron saying how good everything will be rather than the fact he obfuscated six times and didn't answer the actual question. The lack of coverage of this in the right wing media was almost conspicuous by its absence and must be extremely depressing for anyone with a moral conscience when the rich do everything they can - quite shamelessly - to punish the poor people who will never vote for them.
But it wasn't just that. There was a report from an island paradise in the south Pacific which has essentially been ripped apart by the discovery of gold. I've always had a small hankering to live on a warm pacific island, but this showed me that soon there will be nowhere that is safe from the scourge of the planet - greed.
Standing in Sainsbury's today, shopping more and more on a budget and hardly ever buying treats or even something that I consider extravagant, I passed a woman with two children standing in front of the bottled water area. I heard her say, "It's no good they don't have what we want we'll have to go elsewhere." And I kind of realised that in that sentence is all the reasons why people don't care about the effect tax credits will have on the poor, or the long-term effect of allowing the Chinese and French to build and mainly own our nuclear power stations, or the devastating effect that money and the desire for more is having on the entire planet, the eco-systems and the future of even the richest peoples' children or grandchildren.
That woman couldn't get the bottled water she wanted, so instead of buying any one of the 30 other varieties, she'll drag her two kids around in her gas-guzzling 4x4 to whatever supermarket that has the trendy label she thinks will make her friends think she's cool and hip. The same way we've allowed a huge proportion of our children to become asthmatic because we'd rather drive them to and from school, because the media has made us terrified of allowing our children to actually walk to school for fear that the streets, that are now teaming with paedophiles, Muslim fundamentalists and child slavery salesmen, will have away with them. Or they might get run over because of all ... the cars... on the road... doh!
The other day, while sitting in the 3.15 traffic jam of the 2nd school run of the day, I was at a set of lights and unlikely to get over on the first, possibly even the second, attempt. It was my fault for being late, so I was surprisingly sanguine about it. Being an observant kind of bloke, I happened to notice a woman, probably in her 40s, come out of the front entrance of the Cynthia Spencer hospice and get into her car - one of those sporty Audis. I didn't get over the lights and sat at the front of the new queue as the ones opposite me changed to green. The woman in the Audi drove over the main road, slowed down next to me, indicated and turned into the slip road where the precinct of shops is (this is Spinney Hill/Kettering Road for those who know Shoesville).
I had a hunch and watched her turn into the road and then... PARK. She got out of the car and walked over to the Tesco Express. She could have walked there with a Zimmer frame in half the time. We are talking less than 150 metres - I could run it and I can't run any more!
This can only be described as the utmost in selfishness and the footprint that woman left was unnecessary and unbelievably pathetic and there you have it. Selfishness in its most basic form (and, it was that really mild day, when the sun was shining and it was like Spain, so she couldn't even blame it on the rain).
We had famous Tory peers fly back to the UK to try and sway the vote in the Lords from preventing an abuse that probably would have tarnished the UK's wonderful human rights record. Famous rich people with peerages trying to help the government target the lowest earning 20% of people in receipt of tax credits with changes that would possibly mean their children going without essential food and heat and probably all because these people wouldn't ever vote Tory.
Remember, the Tory party promote food banks as an alternative to benefits.
What a fantastic world we live in, eh? A world where Jeremy Corbyn is called a red, commie-loving threat to National Security while would-be future PM Gideon Osborne is signing your kids' future away to... the Chinese and the right wing media can't (or won't) see the irony.
I'm kind of glad I won't be around in 30 years when all those pensioners, or not as the case may be, in their 70s are looking at their grandchildren and wishing they hadn't been so selfish back in 2015.
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