Teenager killed in Ecuador coach crash - So What?

It has been a lovely few spring days in England yet some papers are printing the "last email of " a girl killed in some crash while she was on holiday.

I know its a sad time for her family, but I never knew the girl, so excuse me if I don't so much as sniff back one tear. There is certainly no point publishing the last email she wrote to here parents, what possible use is it to me, to anyone. It was never meant to be published and reading it does nothing for anyone except her parents.

In the UK each week about 9,000 people pop their clogs. Yet papers decide that some deaths are more important than others, how do they do that and why.

Now and again you might know one of the 9000 so you can grieve a bit, miss them and do all the things one does when someone dies. But the papers seem to want us to grieve more and more deaths so why not grieve for them all. It means you have just over a minute to grieve for each.

OK, that's not realistic is it, the girl died in a crash so maybe just grieve for people killed in crashes and to make it easier lets just keep it to the UK . That's better you only have 9 a day to worry about so you can give each one at least 2 hours, hardly time to really revel in the grief but better than nothing and should give you time to read the "last email" from each one.

While on the subject of death, today I was driving when coming from the other direction was a funeral cortege being led at walking pace.

For some reason, I know not what, the people in front of me all slowed to walking pace too. Behind the funeral were hundreds of drivers being made to drive at 4mph because of someone most never knew. Yet the family of the dead person felt it was their right to make everyone slow down regardless. In the queue were lorries, vans, old and young people and presumably some of the queue had places they needed to be, maybe a doctor on his way to a patient, maybe even an ambulance driver or other emergency worker on their way to work. But that's OK they can sit in a mile long queue for someone they never met.

Have some respect for the dead you say. Oh please, get a life!

A pedophile on every street corner!

These days certain news papers seem to drum up mass support for anything they like by printing one word "pedophile".
If they want to shut down a web site, want their readers to hate someone or want to make the government back a new law, then they simply print the "P" word. Anyone who is against their idea should be stoned to death and is probably a pedophile.
It evokes such strength of feeling by its use that when the police can't solve a crime all they have to do is grab a computer from a suspect, upload a few images onto it and who cares if the person abducted anyone or not they are a pedophile what jury will fail to convict them.

You might remember a few years back, the readers of one of these papers attacked a pediatrician and drove her from her home. Well they are not used to words of more than 4 letters and it did look similar.

More and more people who may come into contact with children have to be "police checked". One pressure group suggested people working in shops near to schools need to be checked and a childminder I know had to have her mother checked because she sometimes helps if the children in her care go out in the car.

But hold on a second, there is one group of people that seems to have been overlooked.
Everyone who ever goes on holiday.
Imagine the horror, you have booked your holiday at Centre Parks and you head off there. On the way you should be safe the man in the Dartford Toll booth will be checked in case he smiles at any children in the back of cars. The man operating the tax disc check at the side of the road, he must surely be checked after all he has a camera in a public place. If you stop on the way then all the Mac Donald's staff, well they will obviously be checked because they hand out toys to small children. So if your lucky you get to Center Parks and your children have made it.

You book into your accommodation, the people on the desk will have been checked for sure. Then suddenly it hits you. There are other people staying here. Hundreds of them.
"Excuse me" you ask the lady on the desk, "Have you checked the police records of all the guests who might be in the pool, the entertainment hall, walking through the woods or sitting near the play area at the same time as my children".
You get a puzzled look, you take that as a no.
"Come on kids back in the car its far too dangerous here, we are going home"