I’m not a great fan of the news in general. It’s usually bad, frequently reflects editorial decisions I wouldn’t have made and is extremely repetitive. It’s also highly addictive, which is why I treat it somewhat like alcohol – fine in small doses, but leading to mental and physical breakdown if strict limits aren’t applied. And it’s so slow. If you had stopped reading and listening to Brexit news from the day the UK voted to leave the European Union on 23 June 2016 to the day we officially left on 31 January 2020, you’d probably have known about as much on the subject as any avid news consumer, and would likely have been much calmer.
In my view, history is much better. It’s like a speeded-up version of the news, leaving out all the tedious day-to-day developments. History doesn’t concern itself with what the UK Brexit negotiator had for breakfast and whether his French counterpart responded by aggressively eating a croissant. History is above such things and it also tells a good story, with a beginning, a middle and an end. We know how history turns out, which, even if it’s bad, is so much more comforting than hourly news snippets. Certainty is much easier to deal with than the limbo we’re currently experiencing.
You’re probably wondering what all this has to do with animals and I don’t blame you. Stick with me. Despite my reservations about the news I do love newspapers and read them daily, but it’s the so-called soft news that I like. The stories and photos I am particularly enjoying at the moment are about the animals who are making themselves at home in urban areas that would normally be full of people. Goats have been seen on the streets of Llandudno in Wales, peacocks in Ronda in Spain and monkeys in New Delhi, while deer have been spotted happily grazing on the lawns of a housing estate in London. It puts a smile on my face in the way that few other news stories do.
It’s quite reassuring to see the natural world going about its daily business when the human world has changed so dramatically. Not only is nature carrying on as usual, it’s advancing while we’re retreating. When you think how people have been encroaching on nature for so long, it feels like a sort of natural justice that the animals are finally getting a bit of their own back. And they seem so comfortable with it, like they were born to roam the streets and eat the flowers in people’s gardens. I can’t help but cheer them on, but whether I’ll be so calm when the local Muntjac deer come looking for my geraniums, I don’t know. And what our cat will have to say about it, I can’t imagine.
Another thought provoking & sensitive blog, Sheridan. Thank you! 😊
Thank you. It seems like they’re getting more serious with every passing week of lockdown. I think I’ll go and sit in the sunshine to write the next one.