Bullshit by any other name

Fed up with murder, terrorist atrocity and killer viruses? Well, it could be worse. You could read a 'lifestyle' piece in the Sunday newspapers. Feelings of revulsion, disgust and misery might be expected when reading of the genocide of a whole people but it's something of a shock to find these feelings replicated when you stumble across a seemingly trivial article in your Sunday paper.

Yesterday the Observer spread word of a revolutionary new social phenomenon. The article told us that Britons now spend a lot of time with their friends and that Britons may be closer to friends than some of their family.

Well, thank you Observer! What an amazing revelation. My whole world's been turned upside-down. I am going to quit my job and join a circus.

The article in question even told us that this radical social transformation had heralded the invention of a new social group - the 'framily'.

Oh, purleaze. FFS!

If you were at a pub when a mate embarked on this little discourse you'd rightly denounce the validity of their opinion, question their parentage, and order them to get the next couple of rounds in as penance. Instead, you have to resort to clubbing yourself about the head with the paper and telling yourself that you'll never buy it again. Until next week that is when that film you never wanted to see is given away free on DVD.

This outstanding work of social history is clearly written from a corporate press release ; Dolmio, the widely respected international think-tank, commissioned the 'research' for this one. It also panders to the assumption common in these pieces that all Britons are in their 20s/early 30s, and live in a flat-share in Clapham with Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston.

So, please, please, no more of this rubbish. Give me tales of Amazonian rain forests the size of Wales being destroyed by a cabal of flu-stricken swans and evil Western corporations and I'll be happy....


(Pic left: The Last Supper - the first recorded 'framily dinner')