I ain't saying yo' momma's fat, but....

....when she just bent down I thought I was in the Tate Modern.

Rolling news gathers no moss

There’s a famous episode of ‘The Likely Lads’ where the two chaps spend an afternoon attempting to avoid the result of an England football game so that they can watch it on TV that night. I was thinking about this recently while queuing in the local Sainsbury's. If it was hard to achieve the task then, it’d be practically bloody impossible now: the shop in question has recently installed a load of monitors above the queue. These are constantly – and noisily – displaying a mixture of weather updates and music videos along with a continual news ticker thing. Keeping up to date with events is all very well, but what about those of us who don’t actually want to know if Brad Pitt has pulled out of a movie, or the latest non-story from Praia de Luz?

A few days after grumbling to myself in the Sainsbury’s queue, I was on a train in Birmingham. The local train company have installed TV monitors in every carriage. Again, they display Sky News updates and announce the news – loudly – to everyone in the carriage, whether they want to hear it or not. Am I alone in not being totally happy with these developments? I’d like to watch the news when it suits me. I want to get a train or go shopping safe in the knowledge that I won’t be forced to listen to rubbish music or have to avert my eyes from news about celebrities.

There are two parallel processes going on, that to some extent conflict. While our surroundings become ever more loud and demanding of our attention, as individuals we are increasingly likely to try and drown out the noise and preserve our own environment. Instead of appreciating Sainsbury’s attempts to provide me with a relaxing and enjoyable shopping experience, I just turn my ipod up louder. I also need to do this on the bus to combat the antisocial idiots blasting out tunes from their mobile phones. Why is it always bloody Akon?? There was a feature on the local news recently about new technology that would allow moving video advertisements on the walls along tube platforms, gradually replacing the posters that are there at the moment (it’s already happening on the escalators). Advertisers must be rubbing their hands with glee, but for me it just signals yet another type of intrusive pollution to try and ignore on a daily basis.

Meandering further down this particular cul-de-sac, the insatiable demand to know EVERYTHING and know it NOW is removing the element of surprise from our lives. An example from last week: the BBC had plastered over its website that a past character was returning to the next series of Dr Who (if you don’t know who it is, I’m not going to be the one to spoil it, although there’s not a chance in hell you’ll make it as far as the broadcast date without finding out). Being a fan of Dr Who, I was initially quite excited by this development. Later in the day though, I realised that I was sad to have that surprise spoiled: it would have been far more exciting to have watched the show with no prior knowledge and then got a real shock as the story developed. I know TV companies etc. want to build interest and ensure high ratings, but I wish they would step back sometimes and think about keeping things under wraps a little more. Trailers are exactly the same: you can watch a trailer for a film or for the next episode of a TV show and completely ruin it for yourself.

I’m tired with the obsession with breaking news. Sky News proudly announce that they have won an award for ‘breaking news’. Well done them. My favourite type of breaking news right now would be when I put my foot through the TV.


A related PS
One Grand National day a couple of years ago, I was on the bus back home from watching the mighty Manchester City pulverise some unfortunate team [just looked it up: 2005, we beat Liverpool 1-0 with a great late goal from Kiki Musampa] and I wanted to get home and watch the National re-run without knowing the result. I had managed to avert my eyes when they put the result on the big screen at City and was hoping to get home and see if I had backed a winner. But the bus was packed and surely someone would spoil it for me, talking to mate or on the phone or something? The only device I had to block out the noise was my mobile phone and radio attachment kit. But it would have been very risky to put the radio on so I couldn’t do that either. A frantic search through my phone (all the while trying to block out all conversations around me) revealed that it had come with a sample piece of music to reveal its music-playing capabilities. Result! The song? “Strange Transmissions” by The Peter Malick Group featuring Norah Jones. Oh well, it would have to do. The bus took about 45 minutes to get home meaning that I must have listened to that song about 15-20 times along the way. On something approaching full volume. Nobody needs that. I doubt even Norah herself has done that. Every time it drew to a close, I would panic as the voices grew louder, hurriedly fumble for the restart button and relax once more into its aural duvet.