1. A woman sitting on someone's shoulder at a rock festival:
The woman will invariably be someone who looks as if they normally work in HR. Indeed, most of the people who appear in these crowd scenes look like nice, middle class people who went to good schools and don't have a criminal record. Whatever happened to Hells Angels, nudity and hard drugs?2. Some girls in bikinis on Brighton or Bournemouth beach:
Apparently yesterday was hotter than somewhere a lot further south that's normally much hotter than here. Or something like that. Anyway, it's a good excuse for newspapers to have a large photo of girls in bikinis.3. A group of young women receiving their A Level results:
Apparently, all ugly people leave school at 16, leaving the higher education system exclusively for the use of beautiful people with good hair. Every year, the papers publish photos of pretty teenage girls opening their "A" level results.
Sometimes the girls are so excited by the results, they decide to celebrate with some hot lesbian sex (or is it just me who sees this particular subtext?)Anyway, it's all very annoying. I want to see more people with acne and greasy hair. Also, I'd like to see someone really disappointed with their results. But no-one ever is, which neatly leads into the next news story:
4. Some students being shown to be demonstrably cleverer than ever before:
Look at these lads. They've all got straight As. My spindly, malnourished generation were happy if we got a C and scraped through to East Anglia or Kent. And when we got there we never said we went to university, because that would have been lording it above the people in polytechnics and colleges. Now, everyone's much cleverer and they all go to uni.5. A photo of students in gowns accompanying an alarmist article about the lack of university places:
Apparently the Government didn't know that we were all becoming more intelligent and failed to expand the higher education system to accommodate the extra A grade students. The Daily Mail, which one week earlier implied that these exam results weren't worth the paper they're printed on, will now happily take the Government to task for failing our young.6. Some British holidaymakers stranded somewhere abroad:
It used to be French air traffic control, but now we have terrorism, volcanic dust and bankrupt tour operators to contend with. Wouldn't it be easier to stay at home?These tired clichés are wheeled out every year, accompanied by articles that probably come from a template somewhere. Unless something interesting happens, I shall be avoiding the news until September.
