If you’re old enough to remember The Magic Roundabout, you might recall the odd occasion when someone (usually Dougal) would look at the camera and deadpan ‘Waiting for the news, are you?’ The Magic Roundabout was a slightly trippy product of a gloriously anarchic age of children’s programmes; it was not so much translated from the French as made up on the spot as they didn’t have the transcript and couldn’t understand the original. Written and told by Emma Thompson’s father Eric, it’s a joyous romp through a bizarre and anarchic landscape where nothing makes sense but it doesn’t matter. Here’s an episode to gladden your heart – and don’t mention the updated CGI version. Sanitised pap, if you ask me. Not that anyone does.
I’m never waiting for the news these days though – partly because it’s all on line, but partly because I don’t watch it any more. Watching the news – or listening, which is almost as bad – is an overwhelmingly negative experience, notwithstanding the odd water-skiing budgerigar they stick in at the end to cheer people up. So like many people my desire to be well-informed is at odds with my desire to stay sane, meaning that some days I don’t even look at the headlines.
It’s a fine judgment; sometimes I’ll look at one story but not another and usually I avoid any details about the Gaza or Ukraine wars, preferring just to skim the headlines. It’s important to be informed I guess – though whether the main news outlets are actually informing us is another question – but there is a limit to how much a person needs to know on a daily basis. To that end, discursive articles and debates are often a better way of understanding what’s going on; news stories can give you the what, where and when but rarely even think about the why, let alone what led up to this and where we can expect to go now.
Yesterday I decided to get the bus to Leicester, partly to save money but also to reduce emissions. Many of Leicester’s buses are now electric and whilst I realise that electric vehicles are not a magic bullet, they are at least a step in the right direction. You know what would be another step in the right direction? Call a ****ing election!!! OK rant over. So, I got to the bus stop where the electronic indicator board was helpfully out of action (this reminds me of smart motorways but I’ll save that rant for another day) but a bus was timetabled to arrive at nine minutes past twelve. I’d arrived at about five past. The bus turned up promptly at around half past twelve by which time the entire square was dark with waiting passengers. It’s the airport bus and it goes quite fast once it gets out of town, so it’s worth waiting for as the other service goes through all the villages – but it was very full. Anyway, I got to Leicester and managed to hop on my other bus just as it was about to leave. Incidentally Leicester Cathedral have a webcam trained on a nest of peregrine falcons; these are well worth a look if you’re interested in birds; yesterday the mother had killed a pigeon and was plucking it and feeding bits to the chicks.
http://leicesterperegrines.org.uk/streaming/
On the way back I once again caught the local bus fairly quickly but then had to wait nearly half an hour for the Skylink. At the bus station you pretty much have to stand in the queue or you might not get on, so I had to stand there and wait. To be fair, it’s not a bad route; there’s a dual carriageway most of the way and some bus lanes on more crowded roads, so it’s not usually too bad. Thankfully I got out of Leicester just in time to escape the rush hour. And that was yesterday.
I used to have a little Dougal dog that sat on my desk as a mascot. And I once knew someone whose nickname was ‘Said Dougal’ because of his long fringe.
Kirk out
Sarada Gray 