A wet breakfast.

I’ve got up early, put a wash on and made Wifey a spot of breakfast. That could potentially be all I’ll achieve today and so in an effort to remedy such a depressing prospect the least I can do is throw a few words together for you. In the time it takes to boil an egg you can easily switch on the TV and see what’s happening at 6:55am, and I had almost forgotten that at 6:55am there is next to nothing on TV worth watching. I’m exaggerating: at 6:55am there is absolutely nothing worth watching, and that definitely includes the news. I refuse to believe that not a single soul has drifted through the BBC building that someone might have thought could do a better job than Charlie Stayt. I have come across defecating lunatics, shouting at their own feet, in the crisps aisle of Sainsbury’s that could out-perform Charlie Stayt at his job. I’ve eaten budget oatcakes with more charisma than that man. He is an embarrassment to broadcasting and when the news is this miserable already he really isn’t the tonic that anyone is looking for. Perhaps his family are proud of him, though I can’t imagine why.

The news this morning was exactly the same as the news last night. Repetition, repetition, repetition; the most obvious ingredients of a plate of common sense served up with a ladle of primary school drama production that rarely seems appropriate. Endless unprecedentedness (because, still, no one can be bothered to even try to use an alternative word) and interviews with members of the human race who are either stupid beyond words or have been called on for an expertise they either do not have or which they are thoroughly incapable of articulating once the camera is rolling. And then along comes Charlie Stayt to rephrase the last article in his own words, and with such a graceless lack of intelligence it makes me have to look away just so I can catch my breath. If the BBC intended to dumb down the breakfast news then his employment contract was step one. Has it ever occurred to anyone that perhaps if the morning news was delivered with a splash more wit and heft then people might benefit from it instead of making them slightly thicker by default?

Ultimately the news should make you think and make you want to ask more questions. Instead it just makes me want to get up off the sofa, smother myself with salmon paste and wander into the nearest cave of hungry bears. Whether it’s global warming, job losses or Covid 19 the news these days has made me give up on it, and so when once upon a time I followed it closely I now can only bring myself to dip in and then quickly retreat, as if testing the temperature of a fresh cup of tea using my willy. This post was meant to be a review of some stuff I’ve recently watched (which will follow shortly, don’t panic) but it has been hijacked by the bottomless stupidity of the BBC news and the eternally gormless non-event that is Charlie Stayt. Is is news like this delivered by people like that which made me want to weep onto Wifey’s breakfast as I made it, and I doubt she would have appreciated soggy toast at 6:55 in the morning.

G B Hewitt. 16.07.2020