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Saturday 14 November 2009

No News is No News

Away from home, not constantly connected to the Internet, so am I missing all the happenings in the print media? The question occurs whenever I have the chance to stop by a paper shop, which I did earlier today. It showed that I need not worry about being left behind.

The why-oh-why tabloids were on a health trip: the Daily Mail was considering the plight of what it calls the “Baby Boomer” generation, the currently over 60s, and how so many of them may be blighted by bad diet and lack of exercise. This rather obvious conclusion could be related to the age of the Mail’s legendarily foul mouthed editor, Paul Dacre, who has just turned, er, 60.

The Daily Express, demonstrating that sacking lots of hacks makes your paper into a pisspoor shadow of its former self, leads on the assertion that you can consume more calories than recommended. Hein, rien de merde, M. Holmes! Of course you can – but you’ll get fat (see Daily Mail). Anyone still unsure why the Express is shipping readers should look no further – and ideally read something better, which should not prove too taxing.

The red tops are in minor sleb mode: apparently the supposedly challenging I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here is back, which is a good reason to avoid ITV for the duration. So there is wall to wall coverage of this year’s trawl of the attention seeking and otherwise desperate, which, fortunately for the tabs, includes one Katie Price, aka Jordan, recently parted from the equally vacuous Peter AndrĂ©, and the excuse for plenty of chest shots and boob jokes. Phwhorr!

I’m A Celebrity will presumably be once again brought to the target audience along with Ant and Dec. Which one is which? I’m with the Klingons on this: it’s not important – kill them both. How else to liven up the format?

So is that all? You jest. The X Factor is still going, with the repulsive Simon Cowell snarling all the way to the bank. Who will win? Should I care? There’s more to life than sleb gazing and crummy “talent” shows: for starters, I have to decide where to eat this evening (the choice is good, even with several eateries closed for winter), and need to find the bus station in Lagos tomorrow, as I’ll have to return with Senhora Eva on the allegedly Transrapido. Hopefully this will be better than the similarly branded trip to Faro yesterday, which pitched up at the bus terminal there just quarter of an hour late.

Given the nature of rush hour traffic in that part of the world, I doubt that Simon Cowell’s advocacy and Jordan’s chest could have improved things.

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