I find it terribly annoying the way that news shows are so terribly biased towards trying to push "exclusive" footage.  Recently when a small aircraft crash landed into a single house in the UK killing five people the story was run almost constantly on and off for over 6 hours solid on a certain UK news channel. 

There was nothing really to see, just footage from the news helicopter of the burning building sandwiched between multiple statements from any person in the vicinity of the area at the time of the crash.  One of the people interviewed was just some guy who was driving past who stopped to watch the house burning!  I cannot really work out why he warranted a ten minute interview.  Because the police had released no official information about the plane or it's passengers there was nothing to report about!  So all the information the newsreaders could disclose was about was an empty house that was burning down! 

A good quarter an hour of the news show was spent showing Google Earth maps of the area with little comments like "oh there's that blue car that was parked there on the last map" etc.  For the sake of one house destroyed, one small plane and the five people who died in the crash I really don't think it was an appropriate use of broadcast time.  What really annoyed me was that when it turned dark and the house fire was put out and it wasn't possible to get any more live footage the official information about the victims who died in the aeroplane was released. There names, their occupations and I think the brand of aircraft was mentioned too briefly before they ran back to analysing the footage of the burning building and Google Earth maps from previously.  I KNOW helicopter footage can be expensive but it's taking the piss to wring it THAT much.

I haven't really read much about it, but some scheme for everyone to switch off their lights at the same time for a set period for the environment is a bit of a dumb idea.  I always had the understanding that the worst thing about energy consumption with light bulbs was the power surge that occurred as soon as you switched them on. That's why light bulbs generally blow up when you switch them on and not just blow up after hours of being on.

1 - So........when this measure of time when light bulbs is over.....most people will put the lights back on again about the same time, which although not at the precise exact time will cause a power surge like at the end of a TV show when everyone runs off to put the kettle on, the National Grid does not like this because it needs to import power from other grids ie France........VIVA LE NUKES!

2 - The energy used by having the lights on for an hour is maybe more than switching the lights back on after the hour is up, since a load of energy is used to get the light switched on.

3 - Environmental gimmicks DON'T WORK.  Enforcement does and so does the easy way out such as making sure cheap ass energy leeching 100W lightblubs are not there for the public to buy.  Small changes are the only way things change, because for the vast majority they can't be bothered or think someone else will do the job for them.  I like to think I pull my weight but I do despair at the fruitless attempts and wasted money spent by stupid government thinktank propelled schemes.

4 - My neighbour Gillian who has never switched her mobile phone charger and laptop plug (even when the laptop is not plugged in she leaves the cable switched on and live!)  is an utter tool because she can't be bothered to push aside the magazine rack to turn the plug off when she isn't using it.  Stop these kind of people wasting electricity through pure laziness and ignorance and then progress will be made