Lost in a news loop of tedium

PAV’S PATCH:

HEARD the one about the chocoholic left in a toffee shop over night? They gorged themselves on sweets to the extent that they never wanted to see another bag of caramels. Well that’s me in terms of news bulletins.

I suppose I used to be a news junkie. I loved to watch — or in my case listen to — as many bulletins as possible and especially during the two Gulf wars or on September 11, 2001.

All that’s changed since a television set was installed above my desk and set to a rolling news channel.

Talk about tedious. There simply isn’t enough new news, as it were, to fill up every minute of the day. The result is that broadcasters either constantly repeat the same stuff, or they make pointless things into a big issue.

Take the fuss involving the Pakistan cricket team last summer. All right, the betting scandal was news but did Sky really have to charter a helicopter to provide live coverage of the team bus as it made its way to Somerset? What on earth was the point in that?

Focus on the ticker at the bottom of the screen and it’ll come up with messages like: “Breaking news, Wayne Rooney opts for marmalade with breakfast toast instead of jam”.

On the other side of the coin, when the Millbank Tower student riot took place the same pictures were shown time, and time and blinkin’ time again.

Although, to be honest, I did learn one thing. All the hard-up radical students who were interviewed had posh accents. None of them struck you as coming from a two-up, two-down in Canal Street. And we never got to hear what course they were on.

Did you know that we export four times more to the Republic of Ireland, a land of four million people, than we do to the so-called BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, Indian and China — combined? That’s a potential market of about 10,000 squintillion.

You see, whereas young Germans are learning skills that make their country the world’s biggest exporter, our students are going in for useful courses like media studies that really generate the foreign exchange.

No wonder we have to admit immigrants — we don’t have British people with the necessary qualifications. Because of this, BMW has to fly in people from Munich to make Minis as our lot are too busy studying interior design.

There again, when the country’s bankrupt, at least the furniture will be nicely set out.

Now, you see, there’s a story rolling news could cover. Perhaps they should make Ann Robinson news editor. At least she’d ask a few awkward questions.