What the Papers Say

Rushes and reeds highlighted in the low autumnal sun

The first real signs of winter may be coming to the UK next week around Tuesday with more widespread snow. The Scottish highlands, as would be expected have already had some - the rest of us are getting some of our own. Oh joy and it's still only November; having said that, snow here at this time of the year is not as rare as people think.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to review the Sunday papers on BBC Radio Humberside this morning on Andy Comfort's Sunday Brunch from 10 am to midday. It's something I am invited to so occasionally and it's thoroughly enjoyable. Andy is a wonderful host and professional presenter who engenders a relaxed atmosphere mixed with great music and a bit of fun.

The secret to reviewing papers is picking a story about which you are interested - not necessarily knowledgeable about, and treat the whole thing like a chat with a mate over a cuppa. Pick a mix of serious and off beat stories of broad interest as possible. Give a precis of the story, give an opinion if you have one and don't swear! I always go fairly early to give myself plenty of time to read the eight or nine papers that are presented to me and I scan them all from front to back looking for headlines and stories that people may be interested in.

Local tree with leaves highlighted by the low powerful autumn sun

I have no idea what the demographics are of the audience to this station nowadays, but they are not at all young I guess, but they are knowledgeable about music and local issues and are very loyal listeners. The radio station recently won the Sony Radio Station of the Year (300K to 1M listeners) award. No mean feat.

My stories today were:

Sunday Telegraph - Children in Need

£31 million raised for good causes and although I never saw it, the writer comments that it was one of the best Children in Need BBC shows she had seen.

Independent on Sunday - Superbugs

This was a disturbing story based on a report in the Lancet that we as a race of people facing having infections which are resistant to antibiotics because we use them too much. An unnamed doctor is quoted as saying the public and doctors need educating - "...just because you're ill, do you need a pill?"

Sunday Times - Pricier Christmas menus in the home

Based on 15 items average price across four supermarkets, some items have gone up 125% over last years prices and the 15 items in total have gone up 17%. Higher animal feed and imports as well as a lack of supermarket promotions are blamed.

Mail on Sunday - Stamp of honour for literary giant Trollope

Anthony Trollope is to be honoured with a set of stamps to commemorate him. This literary giant also had local East Yorkshire connections because he worked for the Post Office in Hull for a short while and initiated a failed bid to become an MP in the 1860s for Beverley, when the campaign he fought in was riddled with corruption and it was investigated. He was also responsible for the introduction of the Post Box in the UK. 

Sunday People - Jimmy Greaves top 50 all time footballers

This famous footballer rated John Charles as his all time number one footballer who in 1957 was sold to Juventus by Leeds United, one of the first foreign transfers, for the princely and record sum of £62,000. George Best, Booby Moore, Bobby Charlton and Stanley Matthews also appeared in his top five. 

Sunday Express - Doctor Who's 50th anniversary

The paper listed all of the Doctors and a brief history of each although they forgot to name Peter Cushing as the Doctor in two films.

A bit of fun to lighten a Sunday followed by a lovely lunch with a friend. Christmas card writing  tonight and perhaps wrapping a couple of presents.

Chat soon

Ta-ra.

Reviewing the Papers

Today I went on one of my quarterly jaunts to the local radio station BBC Radio Humberside to review the papers for the breakfast show hosted by the experienced and long serving senior broadcast journalist Andy Comfort. The atmosphere is relaxed and it ends up a bit of a natter really and very enjoyable. 

I stayed away from the main story of the Conservative party conference - too much rhetoric, not enough substance for me so I reviewed and said a few words about the following stories:

I started at 07.21 with The Sun: The front page had a story about the arrest of a Coronation Street actor for an alleged serious offence. He has not been charged but when he was arrested, the case became 'active' in the eyes of the law and to protect a miscarriage of justice and to prevent him not having a fair trial, the media is very restricted as to what it can say at this stage. This, in my view was the paper committing contempt of court and said so in no uncertain terms. Only a matter of opinion of course, but it was there to be said.

My second story in the second slot after the news at 07.41 from the Independent: TUC urges the Government to be flexible over the pension cuts. Listed was a huge number of public sector professionals who are going to go on strike on 30 November and I made comment about the story and the fact that I could remember the winter of discontent of the early 1970s and how uncomfortable a time was that.

The third story from the Yorkshire Post revolved around the Football League Chairman's view that football was about to go bankrupt if it wasn't careful. I agree and commented that perhaps wages  and the recent court case over satellite fees for football were a serious issue for the game.

The next story was from The Times about the pending announcement about BBC cuts and stated that BBC were planning repeat programmes and cuts including selling off buildings and making staff redundant. How right they were. I discussed, among other things that I wondered (although I don't like it) whether or not the BBC should consider advertising.

The final story is always a light one from me and as reported in the Daily Telegraph, it concerns a group of motorists from Cumbria who were in a car park but because of some unknown electrical interference, could not get into their cars because their car key fobs couldn't transmit the signal to unlock their cars. My point of this story was that when I first got a car in the mid seventies, I serviced it myself, changed the plugs, altered the timings and the distributor cap points and changed the oils etc. Just a key in the lock then, not even central locking! Now of course the ability of the ordinary car owner to service their own car is no longer possible because of the car's complex computer driven systems thereby leaving us at the mercy of garages.

I then travelled to Leeds for a meeting and I am now weary at the end of a long day. Going to see my son in Liverpool this weekend. I'll report on the trip.

Have a great weekend

Chat soon

Ta-ra.

Believe everything you read in the papers!

I had a ridiculously early start to the day today - well for me anyway. I tend not to be much of a morning person and although I do my best work in the morning, sometimes I have to work harder at the thinking bit.

I drove into the centre of Hull in thick dense fog.

I was asked to review the papers this morning on BBC Radio Humberside for the brilliant breakfast show presenter, the very professional Andy Comfort. I've done it a few times now but it never gets any easier. I arrived at the studio around 7 am which is about quarter of an hour later than I like for me and that gave me twenty minutes to go through the papers and pick five stories to mention and give a personal view or comment upon.

I try to pick things I'm interested in or know a little about and perhaps have an opinion about. It helps I suppose that I like keeping abreast of the news, more from a national perspective than a local one these days - I tend to be a bit jaundiced about the quality of some of the local news output. In any case, politically, I have to keep a weather eye out for what's happening which might affect my work.

This morning I picked:

• Energy (mentioned in yesterday's blog) and the need to secure it for the future;
• The national debt of £1,485 billion debt (equates to £56,000 per household);
• Cuts in public spending after the next election;
• The recall of faulty Toyota cars (180,000 in the UK and 5 million worldwide);
• The castle built by Mr Fidler in Surrey without planning permission.

I try to pick a fun story and the last one I mentioned was the castle - I find it hilarious, but I guess Mr Fidler is less than impressed. It all seemed to go okay, Andy is a great conversationalist who puts everyone at ease and I was well looked after by Clare the producer and stand-in helper, the versatile Steve Redgrave with a cuppa and a water before I went on air to ease the sore throat.

I had finished by 7.45 am and just avoiding the need to buy a parking ticket, drove off to work.

Instead of doing my usual exercise tonight, my other half suggested we go for a walk. Off we set and arrived home 45 minutes later. We debated how far we'd walked and we couldn't make our minds up so we got in the car and measured it! How sad is that? We walked 2.5 miles. Despite the grey damp winter night, it was a pleasant walk none-the-less.

Today's story has a journalistic theme.

A local sports reporter was covering a local Sunday League derby match and noticed that one of the teams was fielding an incredibly wizened looking old man. The reporter thought that he might be in the presence of the oldest player in the country, so keen to find out something about the old man to help make the lead story in Monday's paper, he asked, "Tell me, do you have a special diet?"
"Oh yes," the man replied, "Every day I drink eight pints of strong lager and a bottle of Scotch, I smoke about 40 cigarettes a day and all I eat is chips."
"That's incredible," said the reporter, "How old are you?"
"Twenty eight."

Chat soon

Ta-ra.