News Channel of the Year?

Sky News has become obsessed with describing itself as ‘the news channel of the year’. They love nothing more than announcing that they’ve won another award for news coverage and animating their latest trophy in lovely shiny 3D graphics. Sky News are great at self-promotion. Perhaps it's the reporting of that sort of news which wins them all the awards. The other news – you know, about the things that actually affect those of us in the UK – is all a bit below them now they’ve streamlined and have their own helicopter.

It’s probably a question of money. Sky News has been something of a loss leader for News Corporation. Last year, Sky News sacked many of their staff, reducing their workforce as part of a relaunch of the channel. The same relaunch brought in the promise of a 15 minute news cycle and the Sky News Helicopter, which they said would help them bring us the news as soon as it happens. They haven’t failed to live up to either of their promises.

This morning I’ve watched an hour of news coverage, including forty minutes of an SUV going down a road. The McCann’s had arrived back in the UK at noon. An EasyJet plane landed in the East Midlands, an event that the Sky News anchor described as an ‘extraordinary moment’. Then came the SUV carrying them home. It was like watching a police chase but without the element of the chase. It certainly was the latest news but only in the way that standing on a street corner watching traffic pass by is the 'lastest news' about something happen to someone.

There was a time when Sky News deserved all their accolades. They were, head and shoulders, the best news channel in the UK. The BBC had lagged behind (as they usually do) in investing in a rolling news channel. Then the BBC caught up and (as they usually do) with the full resources of the license fee behind them, provided the best service that money can buy. They’ve done the same on their website. Slow to respond but unbeatable once they get going, the BBC now provide the sort of news coverage that Sky News invented. They report a wide range of subjects, have a good variety of special features, and their anchors have lost the stuffiness that was once their biggest problem. They now chat casually between themselves, giving the news a welcome bit of unscripted humour. It was precisely this kind of casual reporting of the news that made Sky News so watchable in the days of the great Bob Friend.

Now Sky have streamlined their schedule and the whole operation has the stench of professionalism. They now report less news, do so in a totally scripted and unedifying way, and have become the most boring news channel. I’ve give them an award only I’d worry that they’d turn up to accept it.

Grooming Tips of the Bored and Restless

I found myself at a bit of a loose end last night. I’d finished watching the final episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm’s second series. Gabby was at a meeting of the local amateur dramatic society who had offered her the lead role in their upcoming musical version of The Importance of Being Ernest. It meant that I was left alone, sitting watching Sky News and the same headlines cycle around for the third or fourth time. I was also doing so much sighing and general moping that I really don’t know how I came to have an electric razor in my hand. I do know I was soon running it over my arms, my chest, my legs… All pretty futile and a measure of how bored I’d become.

Years of waxings and electrolysis mean that there’s less hair on my body than on a lizard’s belly. But being bored, I carried on and even shaved the tops of my toes for the first time in my life. That’s when I began to get a bit wistful, making raspberry noises with my lips, and singing ‘hair free’ to the tune of 'Born Free'. It was when I became distracted watching the lovely Anna Jones on Sky News that I began to run the shaver over my chin, across my upper lip, and then up the side of my jaw. And before I knew what I was doing, I had shaved off my right eyebrow.

I think I'd intended to trim a few of the longer hairs which I could see out of the corner of my eye. Only the blades had grabbed hold and the whole hairy mess went gzzzzzrrrrrrrrr and I felt my eyebrow vanish.

At first I panicked, cursing Sky News and Anna Jones for taking my mind off the eyebrow at hand. I rushed to the bathroom mirror to see the damage. Nine tenths of the eyebrow had gone, with only a bit remaining in tact on the right. It made me look like something from Chinese opera, so I had no choice. I shaved that bit off.

What could I do? I decided to be bold and not to hesitate. It was clear that I looked ridiculous with just one eyebrow so I acted with the kind of firm decision that we’re lacking in these sad days: I shaved my other eyebrow off too.

So now I’m typing without eyebrows. It’s an odd sensation. I’ve already discovered that without eyebrows, sweat hardly stops dripping into my eyes. I couldn't exercise this afternoon until I’d sellotapes two pieces of sponge where my eyebrows once sat. I’m also finding it quite difficult to express surprise or to otherwise frown, though the sponges also help here too.

But enough of all this: does anybody know how long it takes for eyebrows to grow back?