AS I was reading last week’s Chron letters page looking for what to write about this week, in my brain I was thinking: ‘Oooh, the lefties lot won’t like that’, ‘Ooh the righties lot won’t like that’ and it struck me, again, that’s the way a newspaper should be run – letting everyone have their say, because a Kevin McGuire/Andrew Pierce-run paper would filter out what it didn’t agree with.
It’s rare to get unbias these days because even newsreaders feel obliged to roll their eyes to show where they stand on matters when they read out the day’s disasters.
Oh for the good old days with the news delivered automaton by Richard Baker, but that ship has long sailed.
No wonder we now have to go searching for the alternative face of any contentious story on the dark web (YouTube) because you need to look at all sides of it to get the true shape.
I’ll give you a prime example of why you shouldn’t take everything you read in the paper as gospel. I naively did a couple of interviews for the Mail in the past and they distort things so they’re often barely recognisable.
I had a headline attached to an interview that declared I had ‘lost the plot with wild and extravagant spending’. I could have died.
No pension, no savings, my single big ticket item was a second-hand car. The actor the previous week had bought a house in Monaco with the change from his a**e pocket.
Never mind, I would be ready for the next time they came a-calling, as they did for an article about cruising holidays.
The reporter asked: ‘How much have you spent on cruise holidays in your lifetime?’ Well, I’d only actually bought two, because I worked onboard lecturing.
I didn’t take a fee but instead I would stay on for the duration with my little boys. That obviously wasn’t meaty enough for them. ‘So how much would it have cost you if you had bought them all yourself?’ they asked.
Fell right into the trap, didn’t I. Probably about £50k, IF I’d bought them – which I didn’t, I stressed.
So what did the article headline shout? That I’d ‘blown £60k on holidays’. They even added a bit on. And that was used by a jumped-up journo once to demonstrate how un-working class I wasn’t.
Positively bourgeois with my Smart car on the drive. Ironic seeing as the house I was brought up in would have fitted about eight times into the one she lived in with mama and papa (who paid for their family cruises together – ironically). Next time the Mail came a-calling, I put the phone down.
Anyway, just thought I’d point that out. I think it’s important to realise you are holding a rarity in your hands as you read this. I just hope the headline creators are kind to me.
After my column piece last week about buggering about with food perfection: original hot cross buns, original Christmas puddings, let me add another to the list after trying a biscuit/cake that must have been created in the devil’s kitchen. Hot Honey Jaffa Cakes.
Prepare to have your head blown off with their satanic honey and chilli filling. Someone at McVities is obviously angry with the world. The stuff of nightmares.
In the past we’ve had cherry, pineapple, lemon and lime, passion fruit, raspberry, cola bottle (dear God!) but this is the worst of them all. Avoid. There is only one Jaffa cake worth having and it’s got Jaffa in it.
