Stuff What I Think

Sailing a cheeseburger over the Grand Canyon, with a monkey co-pilot

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Emotive bullshit

How much of a story is it that people get stuck in European airports at holiday time?  Sure, it's massively frustrating for those involved, and I'm sure the backlog could have been cleared a bit sooner than it was.  But really, you take your chances travelling through the world's busiest airport during Christmas and in the middle of a cold snap.

And then you get this sort of pathetic journalism that attempts to manufacture a beat up, by tugging at heart strings:

It was not the first Christmas holiday little George Painter was hoping for.


The 10-month-old spent six hours stranded with his parents on the tarmac at Heathrow Airport after the family's QF32 flight to Sydney, via Singapore, was cancelled.

Now I'm not a parent, but I am fairly sure that a 10-month old's expectations for Christmas are pretty low.    In fact, I would say that little George Painter spent those 6 hours at Heathrow doing exactly what he would have done at home- sleeping, feeding and shitting himself.
 
That's some quality journalism.