One of the main reasons why this blog has been so quiet for a while is that I'm no longer exposed to the things that make me so angry. I'm not going to read things in the paper or see things on TV that make me angry, as they probably would do on an hourly basis, because I don't read papers or watch TV at all. It's great, I can't recommend it enough.
Today, however, I was stuck in the gym in front of the TV sets as usual, and worst of all they've started putting subtitles up on the screen, so even if you have wisely plugged your earphones into Megadeth's 1990 opus "Rust In Peace" instead, you can't escape. So I was trying to ignore The Alan Titchmarsh show on whatever crappy channel that is on, and failing when onto the screen walks Carol Thatcher.
Now, as I said, I was mostly unaware of this but it turns out that the Mrs Thatch we loved to hate has basically gone, she's not there any more, that's what Alzheimer's does to you, it's not nice. Now her awful offspring has written a book going into some detail about the effects of the disease and the pathetic shell that remains. As she said on the subtitles in front of me, "I could have left it out, and got shot at, or put it in and still got shot at so what could I do ?". To which the correct answer is "You could have not written the book at all, you greedy cow". But of course Alan fucking Titchmarsh isn't going to blast that one down the tramlines, he's going to lob the next question over the net in the loopiest of arcs. Neither is he going to put the very obvious point that there must be a fair chance that Carol Thatcher herself is going to fall into the same decline in her later years, and how does she feel about the prospect of her own children writing books about how she's chewing the curtains. Which is a question I would dearly love to have seen asked, as it might have wiped the smug grin off her face for two seconds.
In the end, this is why television in particular has become so worthless. Maybe it always was, but the thing is that they feel they need to have "controversial" people on the show but then they're too scared to ask pertinent questions that might upset them (or possibly even too stupid to think of them). It's a total waste of time. And as for Mrs Thatch, while I wouldn't wish Alzheimer's on anybody, maybe there's a hint of karma at work here - be a total bitch who cares about nothing other than yourself and fuck anyone less fortunate, and you end up siring a daughter who is also a total bitch who cares about nothing other than herself and fuck anyone less fortunate, which in this case is you.
