Local Papers National News

Aren't the local papers a wonderful thing - packed with "human interest" stories of every kind. My own favourite was some years ago now when the local paper reported the sad plight of a woman who had been barred from taking her pet duck shopping with her in Sainsbury's.
Yet this effort fails to surpass the efforts that these papers make in trying to link national events to the small area they cover. A recent example is "Former Resident Dies in London Bomb Outrage", yes it's quite true someone who once lived in the area, probably for a very short time, was killed in one of the bombs on the tube. This then gives the editor, grizzled and embittered old hack that he is, the right to give full vent to his spleen in an editorial, usually almost as right wing as Mein Kampf but with even less of the literary ability. Quite what the purpose of this is I don't know but presumably it gives him the justification of being a responsible journalist - a phrase that to me makes as much sense as "military intelligence" and "The War on Terror"
I'm off to read more of a letter from the third cousin once removed of a man who parked his car in almost the same spot the Queen Mother looked at when she visited the town during the blitz however many years ago and therefore has the right to talk about banning Islamic groups from using the meeting room in the local library every thursday to plot the fouling of the pavement by dogs rant rant etc etc etc.....