APOCALYPSE IN MY POCKET

I feel pretty certain that the news was different when I was a kid. It’s mostly today’s feeling of impending doom I don’t remember.

Oh sure the IRA were blowing things up in London. And occasionally an oil tanker spilled or a plane crashed, but those were really rare things. And I didn’t live in London. Once, a nuclear reactor in Ukraine blew up and there was acid rain over most of Europe. We talked about that in class for about two terms afterwards. I think some people are still talking about that.

Anyway, the rest of the news was the usual political back and forth and the occasional surfing hamster. It lasted for thirty minutes at six o’clock in the evening and then if it came on again at nine or even ten, that was a key indication that I was already up too late. Maybe that’s when Trevor McDonald brought out the Really Serious News, too scary for the likes of us. Though, I doubt it. I do doubt it.

Of course these days, the Really Serious News is on all the time, and it’s on everywhere - plus, I really think it’s far worse than it was before it went all 24-hourish. There’s an apocalypse in our pocket.

Also, sometimes it feels as though there’s a competition on for Ways in Which The World Might End, and war and greed and climate change are each vying for top spot.

Well. Where are the surfing hamsters, that’s what I want to know. Where are those ‘and finallys’ you got before handing over to John Kettley for the weather forecast?

Anyway. We’re happy. Though to be honest, I did forget to refill the shower gel today, and that was a headline we didn’t need. Guileless and wide-eyed it might be to say so but I kind of wish we lived in a world where that kind of thing really was the worst thing you saw in the news.