I was delighted to see Taylor Swift and Cardi B at the top of my news app today.
I generally avoid checking the news more than once a day, and have done for quite some time now as there’s never anything good. I keep in touch just enough to know the main issues but I try to avoid delving too deeply into what is generally a bombardment of sensationalist prattle and stories that aim to make you fear stepping outside your own home.
There’s usually a distinct feeling of flavour of the month, in a world where there is always something horrendous happening, the media gurus generally keep things fairly on theme because they know people will always want to read more about the things that matter right now, and the things that matter right now are the things that the media are reporting on.
The consequence of course for all this is that in the past five years we’ve pretty much had a non-stop narrative of Brexit then COVID, with a dash of COVID or Brexit related scandal, and on a particularly exciting day, an issue that is pertinent to both COVID and Brexit.
And so, I read the news today, oh boy, not about a series of depressing occurrences as Mr Lennon did in 1967 (A Day In The Life), but I found not one but two stories about musicians squabbling about things nobody in the real world cares about. First, Taylor Swift is apparently distraught with Damon Albarn (he of Blur and Gorillaz) because a journalist overhead, twisted and paraphrased something that he said suggesting he thinks she doesn’t entirely write all of her own songs, something he’s now profusely apologised for. Then Cardi B has got a ludicrous payout from someone who said some nasty things about her on YouTube.
Addendum: I know about Cardi B because one day a couple of years ago I was singing the I Like It Like That by Pete Rodriguez and my nurse Vicky was astonished to hear me singing a Cardi B song. The additional kudos for being “down with the kids” was short lived when I promptly played the much better 1967 original for her.
It must be a slow news day and I couldn’t be more glad. We’ve spent so long in the depths of despair at national and international crises that I can’t recall the last time I saw such nonsense on the metaphorical front page.
Maybe Ms Taylor and Ms B are the progenitors of a new era where both COVID and Brexit are slightly less of an intrusion into our every day lives.
Maybe, this is the start of the next phase in all our lives.
Maybe, this is hope.
I ain’t happy, I’m feeling glad
I got sunshine in a bag
I’m useless but not for long
My future is coming on……..
Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood (with heavy sampling from the film The Good The Bad and The Ugly, released in, 1967)
Who said these blogs are just thrown together, eh?
Blog: 88