GRUMBLE ALERT!

[Karan]:  I'm going to have a grumble.  I've worked for it, I've earned it and nobody's going to stop me!  Are you ready?  Here goes:

What exactly is the fascination with misery?  How is it allowed to pervade almost every aspect of our lives?  The reason I ask is manifold.  I stopped tuning into EastEnders over ten years ago because watching people arguing, fighting and screaming and each other doesn't entertain me.  I can't bear X Factor for all the (fake) tears and the supposedly broken dreams of teenagers, who have their whole lives ahead of them to still achieve everything they want to.  And as for the news, urghh.

The news in particular is a huge bugbear of mine.  I used to be glued to the Channel 4 News and the BBC's Newsnight almost every night, but then the recession hit and I switched off.  All the media seemed intent on doing was running things even further down and, arguably, making things appear worse than they really were.  The TV journalist Robert Peston, who specialised in the economy's descent was even touted as a main cause of the recession, because of the determined pessimism pervading his bulletins.  I don't watch the news now and I'm about to cancel my newspaper subscription.

I get that bad news sells papers and airtime etc, but let's have an equal - or at least a representative proportion - of good news, because it is out there.  It completely baffles me why people want, after a hard day at work and/or looking after the kids etc, would want to relax in front of "gritty" and "realistic" soaps.  I've never been to the East End of London, but the people I know who have say the soap bears little relation to the actual place or the population.  Likewise the now defunct The Bill: very little comparison could be made to the real police force.

As camp and glitzy as it may be, Strictly Come Dancing gets our vote on a Saturday night because it can change the contestant's lives, fitness, self-esteem and even body shape for the better.  I would rather my kids learn that hard work, concentrated effort and determined application is what is going to help them achieve, over how hard they can cry, what they look like and who happens to like them.  Why can't we have more balance with the original educate, inform and entertain mantra of a free media?

Our own situation is a classic case in point.  We're a small local business who is working through the recession.  It's not been easy, we've had our problems and continue to work extremely hard to make a success of our family business.  We opened our kitchen showroom in August and invited the local press to write an article and take some photographs, but they weren't sufficiently interested, even after several repeated invitations.  It seems they wish to focus more on job losses and the negative news, which of course needs to be reported, but I go back to my original point about balance.  Yes, there are many job losses and crime etc in and around Kettering, but there is positive and good news out there too, and it may just inspire other people if they were able to learn what it is.  Our local paper is losing readers hand over fist and is gradually becoming thinner and thinner with every issue - and is it any wonder?!  Why not celebrate what's great about Kettering and highlight who's doing well and what the town can be proud of?  Do you really want to spend your life in a dark vicious circle going downwards, or would you like to come up for air and into the sunshine from time to time?

With the obvious exceptions of death, divorce, redundancy and illness etc, a great deal of what happens to us can be made better or worse simply by how we choose to respond to it.  And it is always your choice.  So ask yourself when watching Phil Mitchell smoking crack cocaine on EastEnders (pre-watershed!) if this is really entertaining you, and if it isn't switch it off or at least over!  Why not watch your all time favourite feel good movie, talk to your best friend or read a great book instead?  Life's too short to spend it in the company of misery and determined negativity.  Break free and smile, because it increases your face value!