What is up with car drivers or in a lot of cases, van drivers? Where does all that aggression come from? A few weeks ago a taxi drove towards me at speed on a pedestrianized roadway and then proceeded to abuse me. A few days ago I got two fingers from a white van driver who was driving in thick fog with no lights and talking on his mobile. I have recently been almost run over by a Fed Ex van driver.

Apparently a law has been passed which allows van and taxi drivers to drive however they like.

Don't news reports love stories about the weather? The main headline on on countless BBC news reports is the "Big Freeze". It is reported as if we aren't aware of it. Called me old fashioned but isn't news supposed to INFORM us? I haven't seen the historical records but I do believe that it has snowed in the UK before. It snows at least once every winter. Yes, it has generally been heavier this year but should it really dominate the news? Do they say, for example,

"Something which happens every year has just happened again in parts of the UK."

I recently watched the superb satire of Chris Morris and his show "Brass Eye" from the late 90's. It was a fantastic portrayal of news obsessed with having correspondents "on the scene" that just repeat what we have just been told by someone in the studio; the childish use of graphics to illustrate the simple points; and the journalists as actors when they do their walks to camera. If you watched it now without knowing what it was it would probably look more like the actual news that the so-called serious journalism of the BBC and others.

I am not a journalist but I simply have to look out the window to see what the news is telling me. And I would be aware that it going to cause disruption. The "mainstream" news has reached the point of self-parody. The best satirists in the world couldn't do as good a job as the news itself.

Treasury memorandum, 1945:

"We have to devise techniques for bringing influence to bear upon other countries' internal decisions."

British Government's Definition of Terrorism:

"Terrorism is the use, or threat, of action which is violent, damaging or disrupting and is intended to influence the government or intimidate the public and is for for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause."



Tony Blair, 12 April, 1999, talking about NATO's actions in Kosovo.

"We will carry on pounding day after day, until our objectives are secured."