Local news for local people...

I had a meeting at Trinity School yesterday, which involved getting up slightly earlier than I probably would have done after a mega-day like Wednesday. I was pretty tired all day as a result, but I've realised that if life isn't about adventures and new experiences, you're utterly lost. The moment you start to fear tiredness is the moment you need to start reappraising life itself.

I reached Greenwich a bit early, so took myself down to the River Thames to see if it would inspire my Nene composition. Obviously the Thames pales into deep insignificance when compared to the Nene, but it is a sweepingly beautiful and deeply epic river, especially up towards Greenwich. It was a beautiful day, the tide was out, and a great beach on the southern bank revealed the wooden and stone foundations of long gone piers and jetties. I sat on a bench writing in the soft spring air, the smell of freshly mown grass filling my nostrils, and the sound of a trumpeter at the academy echoing in the distance.

The meeting was fine. We were talking about the mentoring project I did with the Trinity students some weeks back. Various other mentors were there, and we were all crammed around a giant table in a tiny room. It was very hot in there. As I left, I realised that there was a thin film of sweat on my forehead.

On my way home, I read a couple of articles in the Metro, somewhat amused by a new journalistic phrase which appears to be reserved for non London-centric stories. So, for example, if someone in Birmingham has been stabbed and killed, they'll talk about, "the victim, named locally, as John Smith." Named locally? It strikes me that the word "locally" is entirely irrelevant in this context. Are "local" people so profoundly stupid that they can't be relied on to tell the truth when it comes to someone's name? If it's possible to be named locally, can one also be named nationally? Or globally? Will someone's name change under different naming circumstances? If the truth is simply that some of the neighbours have suggested a name which hasn't yet been confirmed by police, a) don't name him in the bloody press and run the risk of relatives hearing devastating news in the cruelest manner or b) say "the victim, said to be John Smith..." I read two articles and both used this somewhat bizarre turn of phrase. This is local news for local people...

I worked through the afternoon and into the evening, forcing myself to stop for a bath and my tea at 8.30pm. The forensic work on the Nene piece seems to be taking forever!