It's my website, so I get to bitch about stuff that doesn't matter.

Harry Potter

Harry Potter is all very well. In fact it's rather good. But it shouldn't be seen as the great white hope of reading. People need to graduate to something a bit meatier, rather than just more of the same. Obviously the classics spring to mind.
People, at least in the UK, are getting less literate year on year. There are plenty of students at Oxford who honestly don't know when to use "their" instead of "there," and the only way this is going to get better is if people read more, and better, books.
Thanks to Howard Jacobson for the seeds of this rant.

TV

At least 5 channels, spewing 24/7, and what proportion of it is worth watching? In fact, what proportion of it doesn't make me want to throw one or both shoes at the screen?
This is not entirely fair, as there is some great TV around, I just can't understand the lowest-common-denominator mentality that even the BBC seems enslaved to. Do people really want to watch more and more vapid quizzes for the stupid (Headjam) and unutterably bland fly-on-the-wall docusoaps (Airport et al), not to mention the explosion of junk-auction and property related programmes.
Long live BBCs 3 and 4 -- oh wait, BBC3 isn't covering its costs and BBC4 is "too middle class." I weep for the future. Throw away your box before the only thing left worth watching is News 24.