If you want to be happy, avoid news

I tried an experiment today. I picked up a broadsheet and looked for a positive news story. I got to page 11 without finding a single one. Susan Boyle doesn’t count.

I gave up. Looking for a good news story is a bit like trying to find an unbiased approach to reporting on Israel. Apart from Fox News, it doesn’t exist.

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Young need hope, not judgment

Worryingly, I have recently found myself spiritually in tune with Daily Mail readers. I tut at the sight of young people on the streets. I sigh at the hopelessness of hoodies and their anti-social behaviour. I despair at 14-year-old fathers and even younger “baby mothers”. Oy, what sort of society is this when children have no respect for adults? This week I left my judgmental comfort zone and went to Pelton, County Durham, where my prejudices were severely challenged.

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Outraged by the world? My tips…

Some things are just wrong in the world.

Last night I was struck by this thought when watching the Oscar-nominated film, Milk. Whatever your opinions on homosexuality, it is simply wrong to have a law that bans homosexuals — and their friends — from teaching in schools. This was what Proposition 6 intended to do in Southern California in the 1970s. Harvey Milk, a mild mannered, apolitical, in-the-closet gay man decided to stand up and be counted against the establishment.

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So Israel isn’t trendy this year

I mark the passing of the years by the reaction of secular folk to news of my holidaying in Israel. In the mid-1970s, school friends would be wide eyed at the exotic holidays taken by my family. In those days, travelling further than Spain was unheard of in my neck of the woods, so to fly to a tiny country in  the Middle East was the equivalent of back-packing in the Himalayas today.

In the ’80s, when I said I was going to Israel, university acquaintances eyed me accusingly as if I was a war criminal for even contemplating such a holiday destination. Tut tut.

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