GMTV

At times I wonder why I watch GMTV in a morning, after all if we rate Channel 4 news as a thick juicy steak then GMTV falls into the category of chicken nuggets - bland, inoffensive and nutritionally void.

Then a moment of clarity descends and I realise - it's to prime my s**t detectors.

So this morning we get the 'news' that relevant crime rates have increased since the 24-hour drinking laws, this is then linked to youth binge drinking, which in turn is linked to youth violence. To 'debate' this we get a guy who probably thought he was here to defend the 24-hour laws, and a women whose son was killed by drunken youths. Oh yeah that's fair.

As has been pointed out in several other places the rise in crime rates was expected. Instead of police attempting to be in multiple places at once come chucking out time, they can attend different locations and arrest/detain more people. It's a similar argument to noting that crimes go up in proportion to the number of police officers on the force - perhaps if we fire them all then crime will cease to exist?

We then get my favourite Fiona introducing a piece about getting kids to "eat healthy"... eat healthy what? You can be healthy, eat healthy foods, drink healthy drinks, do healthy exercises; but you can't eat healthy, or exercise healthy you do that healthily.

Anyway the women that followed I ignored as yesterday she was espousing the benefits of home-made granola - "Simply put in the oven for 40-45 minutes" she said to the 5-minute cereal/toast munching audience as they tried to do ten things at once because they were running late.

Are you paying too much council tax? Well in startling news in turns out that houses were assigned their Band categories in 1991 and they haven't been revised since, you might belong in a lower Band. Well at least the advisor stressed three times that if you force an assessment it might turn out you belong in a higher Band and have to start paying more. I loved the bit where he tells us if we think our property has been undervalued we shouldn't mention it, yeah damn right if they made a mistake that means we're paying less money then it's their own fault... of course if we've been paying too much money then I demand it refunded.

Hah the VOA now have a big fat box on their site entitled "Got a query about your Council Tax Band?" impressive.

Onto the American primaries, well the Democrat ones anyway, and Hilary trying to gain ground in Texas. Support for her was demonstrated by a crowd chanting Hil-ar-y. Breaking news - Texas supporters of Hilary Clinton support Hilary Clinton; which I find odd because O-barm-a has a much nicer cadence.

Anyway Fiona mentions "Wouldn't it be nice for the United States to have a female President"
"or Black" points out Ben. Forgetting about the Republicans, but they too run the gamut of selection from Elderly White Male all the way through to Not-quite-so-Elderly White Male; so there's a lot of choice there too. Personally I hope the voters pick the best candidate for the job regardless of party, race, or sex; then again if you believe the reports we are dealing with a nation that seems to vote for the tallest candidate with the nicest hair.