Greetings and welcome, let me first of all promise not to hack into your phone. I can, with a clear conscience, state that the only hacking I have ever done is into a handkerchief during a very heavy cold.
When the news is full of news about how the news is made it begins to paint a very strange picture, like a hungry fish who suddenly finds something good to eat only to realise it is eating its own tail - it can't end well.
The News of the World is the most popular Sunday paper, selling about 3 million papers a month - it has seen its circulation drop considerably over the last ten years and this is probably why the staff there stoop as low as they have done - trying to get that scoop story that will stem the haemorrhage of customers.
If they want to listen in to the phone messages of soap stars or sportsmen or politicians to try and find some titillating story then it says something about the people they hope to sell to, as much as it says something about themselves. There is an appetite for gossip, there are many of us who secretly love to hear that someone has been naughty and better than that, they have been caught out.
I have previously written that we don't need a privacy law because if you have done nothing wrong then you have no secrets to be exposed, but now hearing about the hacking of victims families or even worse, of victims themselves - well perhaps I need to rethink my position.
The situation with the hacking of phones belonging to Milly Dowler and the Soham victims families should make us all ashamed. We allow this behaviour and we reward it by continuing to support the perpetrators - I would imagine that people will still be buying the paper this weekend.
Journalists should investigate, but they should have regard for the law of the land and also show some common decency.
As an aside, I don't care if Clarence Mitchell was hacked, the worst we might have heard is him talking to Mr or Mrs McCann about how they can rebuild their image.
It seems there are still greater depths to sink to - the families of the victims of the London Bombing also seem to have been targeted, their phone numbers more than likely sold to the News of the World by corrupt and greedy police officers - the same police who are investigating the phone hacking!
Andy Coulson has been thrown to the wolves by his old employers but Rebekah Brooks hangs on for grim death to the coat tails of Rupert Murdoch, hoping to ride the storm - but surely, she has to go?
Well that's enough about the news now let me change tack and tell you a story....
On Monday I had a funeral service to conduct at Mansfield crematorium, it was at 10:45am so I arrived at 10:15am. I walked around to the chapel where the 10am funeral was in full swing. It was being led by a man I had not seen before, dressed in a scruffy ill fitting blue suit, he appeared to be a Humanist celebrant.
The ceremony ended and he emerged, and when the mourners had dispersed he left without exchanging any greeting, even though I was trying to make myself known to him.
Yesterday I returned to Mansfield Crematorium to officiate at the 10am funeral - I arrived at 9:30am and got all my papers ready and set up on the lectern - you see I always like to arrive half an hour before a ceremony and prepare properly.
At 9:50am, the man in the scruffy blue suit appeared - he again ignored me, walked past me to the lectern and started to check my papers. I said, "Have we double booked"? He ignored me for a while before saying, "I'm here for the ten o'clock". "I think not", said I and after a few more terse words were exchanged, he checked his diary only to then turn into Homer Simpson. He slapped his hand to his forehead and said " I'm in the wrong place!"
Doh!
The man hurried away and we still have yet to be formally introduced - but I already know I don't like him.
Somewhere a family was waiting for a 10am funeral - no doubt they had to wait longer than they expected.
Anyhoo, it has been two years since I started blogging and it would seem I show little signs of giving up - so that's the news...
...and this is The View From The Hill.
