‘Coming to you live from Downing Street!’ Why?
THERE are certain tasks in life that I consider pointless – like mowing the lawn. As spring arrives, out comes the mower to be plugged in or filled with petrol if you have a couple of acres. Please! No mucky ‘farmer with two acres’ jokes here, thank you very much!
You cut the grass, place the cuttings in your recycle bin and when you’re finished, you clean the mower and put it away safely. Job done! Except of course it isn’t! Because a couple of weeks later you go through exactly the same ritual all over again. And again two weeks later and so on all the way through to November.
Actually, I’m certain I heard the sound of a mower coming from two doors down last Christmas morning. Or perhaps my neighbour was using a powerful electric carving knife on a tough old bird.
Sounds like a storyline from Midsomer Murders!
What’s more pointless than a TV reporter standing outside No. 10 Downing Street at half past six in the morning, talking about something that happened in Parliament the day before?
That time of day there’s no one around to interview other than the policeman guarding the door to ensure the PM doesn’t get out.
The presenters in the studio could provide the same information without the need for a news crew to stand around in the cold for hours in order to broadcast ‘live’ for a few minutes.
Have you noticed that whenever a Royal Family story breaks, all the broadcasters deem it necessary to send news crews down to Buckingham Palace?
In fact, the closest they’re allowed to get to the Royal residence without causing a traffic hazard is the pavement outside Green Park, a few hundred yards across the road from Buck House.
Again, these stories could just as easily be delivered by presenters in the studio.
TV news bosses either think viewers can’t recall what Downing Street or Buckingham Palace look like or that we can’t absorb news without it being accompanied by ‘live’ pictures from famous landmarks.
Either way, if you prefer to be well informed while not having your intelligence insulted, stick to a newspaper like this one!