Good news

I am one of the many people who, from time to time, moan that the media tend to ignore good news.  It is a news editor's mantra that bad news sells papers.  But the late evening national news on television yesterday broke the mould.  Granted, there had been the standard reports about the situation in Syria and in Mali, there was an update on the horrific deaths in a Brazilian nightclub, the route of the new high speed rail track was announced: all pretty routine stuff.  But right at the end was a nugget of gold.

It was reported that a six-month-old baby, strapped into his pushchair, had been blown by a sudden gust of wind off the harbour wall at the small Somerset town of Watchet.  His mother's screams alerted the dockmaster, who raced to the scene only to see the pushchair floating towards the harbour mouth with the baby completely submerged.  The dockmaster dived in and brought the pashchair and child back to the harbour wall where another passer-by threw a rope down.  Once the child was back on the wall, another passer-by performed rescucitation until the paramedics arrived.  The baby was air-lifted to hospital and appears none the worse for his ordeal.

Granted, that was hardly of national importance, but it nonetheless left me with a warm glow.  Then the lead story in this morning's paper reveals that doctors working on cancer research are optimistic that within five to ten years, cancer will be a chronic condition rather than a fatal one. Read the article here.

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A wet, grey, foggy day - and I didn't much enjoy my morning walk with the dog.  But there has to be a positive angle and at least I got some fresh air and gentle exercise.  Today's view from the bedroom: