I know it’s bad form to talk about what you donate to charity but I need to touch on that so that I can have my rant of the day. It’s possible I have had this little rant before as well but after three years it’s sometimes hard to remember! So - eyes. I have this - probably irrational - fear of losing my sight. Take a leg, an arm even, let me go deaf but please leave my eyes alone. I know that if I ever need eye surgery I will need to ask to be kept anaesthetised for a week before and a week after as any thought of anything being done to my eyes will induce a hurricane force panic attack.

So it’s not unreasonable that when it comes to supporting charities I tend to favour those concerned with helping the blind here at home and preventing unnecessary blindness in the third world. So every month one small donation goes to the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association. This works on the principle that you are a co-sponsor of a particular dog during its long period of training and as it costs around £10 a day per puppy and takes around 20 months to train, it comes down to one hell of a lot of money and a large number of sponsors.

What angers me is that every now and then, but at least four times a year, I get a progress update in the mail. This is not a simple letter telling me that things are going well and reminding me that I could always increase my donation. I’d be happy with that - actually, I’d be happy with nothing or maybe just a quick note that the dog I co-sponsor has gone to a home. No - this is a glossy, full colour leaflet dedicated to my sponsored dog with pictures of it looking happy and a report on it’s progress. And they do this for every dog in training.

As someone that was once a graphic designer working within the print industry, this sort of thing is not cheap. It’s not just the print and mail costs either, there is the design and production cost and there are people involved who need to be paid. And it is totally unnecessary. I know why they do it - the theory is that the more you ‘involve’ the donors and make them feel a part of the process the more likely you are to keep their regular donation. But the question they should be asking is ‘if we don’t send you glossy leaflets and picture postcards of your dog and don’t waste time writing it all up and getting it printed then we can invest that saving in training more dogs. Are you happy with that?‘. And I bet the vast majority would say yes. That is, after all, why we make the donation in the first place.

I was skimming the BBC news website this lunchtime when a headline caught my eye. The average home, it said, owns 4.7 televisions. On reading the item it isn’t about television ownership at all - it’s an interesting piece about the links between consumerism, social attitudes and the new “therapy culture” which promotes simple misery to depression and mental ill-health.

If I am supposed to feel miserable because instead of 4.7 televisions in my house I have just the one then I am obviously missing something. To be honest, I sometimes feel miserable because I’ve got one at all. If you sit in front of the bloody thing on an average evening, switch on Sky and browse through the programme guide, the feeling of misery gets more intense with each passing page. It’s not just because absolutely none of it is worth wasting my time on. It’s more that as a so-called civilized society we have become so culturally bankrupt. The vapid output dreamed up, no doubt, by the vacuous legion of first generation media studies graduates is so stunningly awful, unengaging, uninspired and dumbed down that I am surprised the whole country isn’t on Prozac. Or perhaps it is and I didn’t notice. Prozac just might make ‘Deal Or No Deal’ bearable.

I recall, a long time ago, reading that the average household owns just 11 books. At the time we owned around a couple of thousand which equated to a large village full of houses where no books would be found at all to maintain the balance. Our single television suggests that the guy down the road must have at least 8.

I am beginning to think there is no hope.

Sacked Conservative candidate Nigel Hastilow may, for all I know, be a thoroughly decent chap or he may be a raving right-wing BNP sympathiser. Either way, the moment he invoked the name of Enoch Powell and uttered that taboo phrase “Rivers of Blood” his fate was irrevocably sealed. There was, let’s face it, no possible way that the modern Tory party or our lame, pathetic media, steeped as they are in the fear of political correctness, could tolerate this reawakening of such an embarrassing skeleton in their collective cupboard.

The real truth, of course, is that I would take bets that almost to a man every member of the Tory Party along with the vast majority of their constituents across the country, cannot but agree with Hastilow’s assertion that Powell was at least correct in his prediction that unchecked immigration into the UK would change the face of our country beyond recognition. They agree but they are unable to publicly say this because they fear the consequences. Hastilow was, on one hand, foolish in the extreme. On the other hand, he was totally honest and spoke the mind of the average Englishman.

I was just 16 when Powell made the famous speech that both shot him to enormous and unprecedented popularity (surprisingly so amongst the traditional left wing working class) and blighted his future political career. Any review of this man’s life reveals many things. He was a brilliant scholar with an immense intelligence; he was a fierce defender of his country; he was politically astute. He was, above all, perhaps the most honest politician you could hope to find who steadfastly refused to place party considerations above those of the people he represented. One thing he clearly was not was racist. Lost in the furore his speech caused amongst the small but growing first generation of PC advocates, was the reason he gave the speech in the first place. It was true that he was appalled at the apparent unchecked immigration that was taking place and feared for the fabric of the country he loved beyond all else. But the real target of his speech was the introduction by the Labour Government of anti-discrimination legislation that was the first Race Relations Act. He foresaw the approach of such policies as positive discrimination and a future where today’s failed and disastrous policy of multiculturalism could take root.

But as other people have later found to their cost - the latest being Nigel Hastilow - once the apologists and PC crowd shout ‘racist’ the term sticks and everyone else becomes too frightened to simply say - “no he isn’t”. Powell was, perhaps, the first victim of political correctness. Hastilow is the latest. It is just another dark and sad day when our politicians bury the truth and their beliefs because they fear the consequences of stating them. They are cowed by the beast of PC which they themselves allowed to get loose in the first place. The Conservative Party, had they supported Hastilow, would have at the very least earned some respect from the people of this country. Instead they have shown they are scared of their own shadows.

Footnote: I was quietly pleased to read respected and Right Wing ‘blogger’ Iain Dale make the following comment today:

The Party acted quickly and Caroline Spelman summoned him (Hastilow) for a meeting yesterday . Whether he jumped or was pushed is immaterial. The fact is he is gone. There will be two side effects from this. Firstly it sends a signal to all candidates that their public utterances will be scrutinised as closely as those of MPs, and secondly it may well inhibit them from saying anything at all which can be considered as deviating even slightly from the party line. If that is indeed the effect, it may well give CCHQ fewer sleepless nights, but it will mean we are developing a factory line of androgynous politicians.

Leaving aside the questionable use of the word ‘androgynous‘, I have to take him to task on his fear that we “are developing a factory line of androgynous politicians”. Sorry Iain - this process started a long time ago. Today’s clutch are the result.

Whilst the unnecessary death of anyone, anywhere, is a tragedy, the four news workers who died when their helicopters collided over Phoenix, Arizona were a part of a more serious tragedy than many, which is the state and quality of American news coverage.

Anyone who habitually watches news coverage in Europe - or like me was weaned on the BBC and ITN - can remember that moment when they first sat in a hotel room in the USA and watched one of the network news programmes. If they were like me their jaws would have been sagging in amazement and they would have been slowly shaking their head in disbelief.

Don’t get me wrong. I am aware that news broadcasting in England has also taken a qualitative dive in recent years. But much of that, I believe, was caused by the arrival of Sky News and Mr. Murdoch. At the same time, US news broadcasting dived even lower when the same organisation launched Fox.

That being said, US news has always, as far as I can remember, been far more sensationalist and more moralistic and preachy than it has about calmly reporting world, national and local events. When it really matters it can be just as good as anywhere else - I watched much of the US reporting on Hurricane Katrina for example and much of it was admirable. But they also spend a lot of coverage on events that don’t matter. The four people who tragically died were covering nothing more important than a police car chase. And for this, there were no fewer than five news helicopters overhead. I can only assume that they all hoped to sell their footage later to be compiled into one of those dreary reality TV cop shows that litter the TV schedules on satellite and cable.

It is, in fact, a wonder that such a collision has never happened before.

It comes as no real surprise - he is, after all, 72 years old now - but the announcement that the Autumn run of chat show ‘Parkinson’ will be the last still heralds the end of an era.

I don’t catch it that regularly these days but that is largely because the guests are so often ’second-raters’. I recall the reason Parkinson no longer has the calibre of guests on his show that he had back in the 1970’s and the show’s heyday. He said that back then, when he invited a current movie star or even movie legend onto the show, they turned up and they talked. But today, everyone has their publicist and minders, the questions have to be vetted in advance and unless the interviewer agrees to what he can and cannot discuss, then no guest. It is all about promotion. And Parkinson refuses to play that game - which probably makes him fairly unique in itself. And it means that the great shows of the 70’s - which were compulsive viewing at the time - are no longer possible.

This is a shame and today’s generation of celebrities, be they from the world of music, film, sport or whatever, are missing the point that talking honestly about yourself to a skilled interviewer can connect far more with the public than the narrow, safe ‘glossy magazine’ soundbites their publicists insist on.

Parkinson is also right, in my opinion anyway, to be critical of the younger generation of chat show hosts. Compare him, for example, to the dire Jonathan Ross or Graham Norton. If you are actually interested to know anything about the guest you are likely to find out with Parky. For Ross and Norton it is all about them, their ego and their appalling jokes. Guests on their shows find it almost impossible to get a word in yet alone complete a sentence.

Parkinson is just another one of those constants that has been a part of my adult life. But I can understand why he is throwing in the towel. And I wish him the very best for his future.

So - the USA is now just a few days away from the launch of the much discussed iPhone from Apple. At last. I already hate the bloody thing.

As an Apple Mac user I do tend to peruse the odd ‘Mac’ website and subscribe to a small handful of Apple related feeds. I like to know what software is being released and pick up the tips that abound at such places. But for the last couple of months it’s been all bloody iPhone this and iPhone that and “I can’t wait to get my iPhone” and I am sick to death of it.

So I figure it goes public on the 29th June. Let’s say another 5 or 6 days of people publishing gushing stories of what they did with their new toy. Then there will be two or three weeks of horror stories as the truth sets in.

And then perhaps things can get back to normal.