BBC TV News Review - Sunday 9th July

We started with Terror again on the BBC News at 7pm.

Seemingly, the terrorism threat is greater than ever. Furthmore, Admiral Sir Alan West , the new UK security minister, has warned that we face a 15 year battle against Islamism. So, according to Alan we should be ready to inform on our neighbours. Images of the burning car from Glasgow were shown again and a further attack is "highly likely". So we need to do something.

As already mentioned, we were told to "snitch your pal" before they "destroy your way of life". Just in case you thought this only referred to our brown skinned brothers, think again. We saw images of praying within a mosque, a white man was the main focus. Again we were told of the "battle to win hearts and minds".

This is a bit worrying, to be quite honest. It is being almost implied that we should trust no one within our world and to treat everyone with the presumption of guilt. For instance, if you see some shady movements at a lock up garage, the jist seems to be that you report this. You never know what might be happening, better to be safe than sorry etc etc. And white people can be Islamic terrorists too.

Australia next - they believe that an attack is imminent too.

Iraq - soldier killed, named and photographic image shown

Iraq again - 150 dead in a suicide bombing

The conservatives next, they want to raise the tax on alcohol. It appears that they have noticed that alcohol has become a severe social problem so they want to end the "culture of binge drinking". We were told of an "epidemic of alcoholism" and we saw images of some young binge drinkers, staggering about. Apparently the questions are why they are binge drinking? and how will we solve Britain's drink problem? The conservatives see price as the answer.

As a man with rather too fond a taste for the demon drink, let me explain it from my point of view. Drink is an temporary escape from reality; in one's mind. It seems to me that, in small doses, it is a beneficial tonic, it allows one some internal peace from the maddening torture of some sort of constant, internal, battle, within the mind. The problem is for me; and I suspect most other "problem" drinkers, is that alcohol is just too good. So your brain gets a wee taste and wants more. If I even have one can of lager then I dont have the self control to stop. This has got nothing to do with cost though and more with what would be called perhaps, a mental disorder.

So, is it not that our society is suffering from a collective mental disorder. We can all see deep down what is wrong with this world, some care about it more than others. We are all different after all. So some, internally distraught at the state of humanity and our totalitarian state future (which is in fact almost here), seek solace in drink and drugs, because, simply, in the words of John Lydon of the Sex Pistols - "There is no future". Not for the part of you that matters anyway. Is that not more like the terrible truth ?

Anyway, we moved on to five middle aged men who jumped off a pier. We were told they did this deliberately. It appeared that they had been drinking all day though.

Alistair Campbell next. He has written a book about his times as press advisor for Tony Blair. Cant wait. We saw images of Alistair, Tony and Gordon Brown.

Sport next - Hamilton at Silverstone, we saw Posh 'n Becks.

Some Wimbledon

To close, the Tour De France, the cyclists snaking through historic Canterbury. The distance of this stage was given as 126 miles. My obsessive, compulsive, arithmetic streak tells me to add this, 1+2+6, giving 9, 3 squared. A surprise ?

cheers