February 19th, 2009

I have been asked a number of times to write something for this blog. Not because my offerings are particularly deep, but simply because I have been promising to make a contribution since the idea of the Green Shoots Blog was first discussed but have failed to deliver. There is a reason for this. Despite the fact I absolutely agree that it is high time somebody (the press) attempted to write something positive about what is going on in the world and despite spending the last couple of weekends trying to find something uplifting, there is so little to grab hold of. I see the army is sending gaff prone Prince Harry on an equality course and Jeremy Clarkson has apologised for his comments about Gordon Brown’s ability to see things clearly. Maybe this should raise a smile but all I can take from this is that the country has gone beyond political correctness to a new era of “gagging just in case”. What else is there? The gaff prone bankers have been made to apologise to a committee of self-righteous MPs and have shown some degree of remorse – although I am not sure they showed signs of accepting any blame. There where some green shoots in England’s performance against Wales at the weekend – although they lost and did not slow down Wales’ march towards a second Grand Slam. Come on the Irish. But none of this really does the job, so I decided to do what I always do when I need information and can’t be bothered to dig it up for myself – ask Google.  And I found something there – there is a website called the Good News Network which offers a little bit of a lift but third on Google’s top ten is a 6 year old article from BBC.com which tells us that research in Australia has found that masturbation can reduce the risk of prostate cancer. So there you have it, even the great Google can only offer some light relief from the gloom but I suppose with so many merchant bankers having too much time on their hands, any news is good news, even if it is a bit old.

Author: Matthew Brown

BBC, Good News Network