February 2017
Enough is enough! After more than 40 years as a Daily Mail reader, 11 of them working at the paper, I have finally cancelled it. It has
been some years in the planning but the Mail’s appallingly biased Brexit campaign finally did it. As a staunch Remainer, and now Remoaner, I found the paper’s hate-mongering anti-European stance a disgrace to journalism. Now I’m a Times reader. Admittedly not as entertaining as the better bits of the Mail but at least its EU coverage was more balanced. While I was in no mood to be trifled with I also stopped listening to The Archers. This after more than 50 years! I remember the night it was announced that President Kennedy had been assassinated in 1963. It was on the 7 o’clock news, straight after The Archers.
Like many people I listened because my mother listened. I could never quite work out why I found it so addictive, with its cringe-worthy dialogue and assortment of cod accents that were anything but the West Midlands where it is supposed be set. I could just about put up with the obviously Government-sponsored product placements, like Pip thinking of joining the RAF and then Daniel joining the Army. But it was the Rob-Helen saga that finally did it. I read somewhere that this storyline was created to highlight a new law on domestic abuse. Fair enough about the need for a law but I don’t need it subliminally implanted by a radio soap opera. I almost began to feel sorry for Rob. Ok he was a control freak but did he really deserve such obloquy? On top of that Helen got off causing GBH. This is girl power gone mad. Enough is enough!
On a sunnier note I’m pleased to see that the daffodils I planted in Piccotts End Road are in full flower and looking a real picture. It has been a mild, frost-free spring so far and I’m hopeful that my apricot tree, which produced a bumper crop the year before last, will do the same again in 2017.
