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Exclusive! Daily Mail talks B*****cks shock!


 YCCMB
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Yes, it's official!

Some of you may know that we're in the middle of being flooded in our little village...[:D] ...and, as my B-I-L phoned earlier and made some mention of us being writ large across the pages of the Daily Mail, I thought I'd just have a look online and see what they were saying.

I've lived here for over 20 years. Apparently, according to the DM, we've been flooded - and here I quote - "Three times in just over  decade". Well, we haven't.

Also, we're all currently "walking around in raw sewage" - we aren't.

AND (my sense of smell isn't that great, but no-one I've met or spoken to has mentioned it) there's "the occasional whiff of effluent".

Little wonder, then, that the "typical villager" they've chosen to interview is portrayed as follows:

The Thurner family set sail from the

front steps of their Victorian home in glorious midday sunshine,

stepping into a small kayak that had been rowed up the high street of

the normally idyllic commuter village of Datchet.

Daughters

Beatrix, Scarlet and Marina were lifted carefully into the

precariously-bobbing vessel, before a bowl of Pedigree Chum was placed

inside the hull to convince Ruby, a young boxer dog, to join them.

Last

of all came mum Sian and dad Robert, carrying suitcases which contain

the provisions which must sustain them until the murky flood waters

covering half of Berkshire subside.

I bought this canoe so we could go up

and down the Thames at weekends, and have the occasional picnic,’ said

Robert, a marketing consultant. ‘I never realised I’d be using it to

evacuate my home.

‘We’re

getting out because this house has no back door and the front is going

to be inaccessible pretty soon, which will leave us with no way in or

out. So for safety’s sake, we’ve decided to make a move.’

Before rowing away from the home they

have owned since 2003, Mr Thurner, 46, had moved furniture upstairs,

emptied the wine cellar, and built a wall of orange sandbags across his

front door.

I don't think it's anything to do with the whiff of effluent (most of which seems to be emanating from the above article) nor the fact that I'm apparently walking around up to my welly-tops in "raw sewage"....but something is now giving me the urge to vomit.....

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Betty I took your advice when I looked at a news article with a photo of a canoe, think it was the mail, 3 kids in it maybe the ones you refer to being towed by a man but you could see the crowns of his wellies above the water which must have been all of 3" deep and the canoe, clearly a flat bottomed one must have been firmly beached.
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TBH, Chancer, the Mail claims they canoed up the "High Street"....only our High Street (conveniently called "High Street", lest there be any confusion) is still bone dry. The village centre, yesterday, was chocka with canoes that were being dragged along the tarmac for the benefit of the media circus. Today it's a different matter, as the water IS deep enough. In fact, at teatime, I saw a shortish bloke walking through the water in chest waders which were only just high enough to prevent him getting waterlogged and rooted to the spot!

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Welcome to the world of media reporting Betty.

In a previous life I was occasionally involved in rescues underground - employed purely as a pack animal. The media reporting had to be seen to be (not) believed - wrong location, wrong names given to the cave and victim, wrong account of incident, the list is almost endless.

And every paper was as bad as the next, with just once exception - the FT - who would not report such an incident unless there were to be a financial implication.

If they don't know they make it up. And if they make it up for trivial stuff, what about serious stories?.......................................
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Betty ...........

I've been waiting for a resident in your village to be interviewed.

Q. "So you've lived here for a number of years and your name is?

A. "Mrs Bloggs, but you can call me Betty".

It hasn't happened yet though.[:(]

I saw yesterday that the BBC's 'George' had been sent down to the scene. Serious stuff !!  

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Just remembered, my OH once had a flatmate who was a reporter on the local rag and one of her jobs was to write the restaurant reviews. She did not always feel like going to the restaurant so would get the menu and wirte about the fabulous meal that she had not had.

Perhaps Drop The Dead Donkey was accurate - you can imagine the Damien Days of todays media saying 'look there is a puddle, open that fire hydrant for some more water'.

Having said that some of the aerial photos do show that a large number of properties are floodied.
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[quote user="Gardian"]

Betty ...........

I've been waiting for a resident in your village to be interviewed.

Q. "So you've lived here for a number of years and your name is?

A. "Mrs Bloggs, but you can call me Betty".

It hasn't happened yet though.[:(]

I saw yesterday that the BBC's 'George' had been sent down to the scene. Serious stuff !!  

[/quote]

Ha! George has been moved to Wraysbury. Last night we had Jon Snow for Channel 4 news, and my claim to fame was that I knew everyone he interviewed except the fireman! One of them lives next door but 4.

Missed our big chance only this very morning. Only we're now only page 2 news, so the media presence was entirely made up of Dutch and Belgian TV vans. The Belgians must've seriously rushed to get here: they still had their Eurotunnel "coathanger" letter hanging off the rear view mirror!

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I'm not leaving the house in any less than 4 layers, Cendrillon! In fact...right now, looking out of the window...I'm not leaving the house full stop. It's raining (again) and the 7cm drop in the upstream water level at Old Windsor lock looks like it's going to be negated pretty quickly.

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Even the BBC is not above dramatising events in the flooded areas of the Thames. Maybe they think that the facts about height of the river, water coming up through the road etc need to be spiced up by the "human interest" angle, so they stage interviews and rehearse scenarios.

Even if we didn't live in Datchet, I'm pretty sure we watch and read with a cynical eye what is presented to us by the media.

Less rain forecast for tomorrow, Betty. Hope there'll be another drop in that water level at Old Windsor Lock. 

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Just come back from a meeting in our village hall with council, parish council, fire service, army. We left as it began to degenerate.

Water level in our bit of the Thames has dropped 10 inches, ground water has nowhere to go and our neighbour immediately opposite popped by a short while ago to advise he's got 2" of water under his floorboards, so we're probably the same or soon will be. Ground water, the unseen threat, is now looking like it may be what gets us in the end.

Still not looking good, but, hey ho...we've got two divisions (or platoons, or whatever they call it) of the Household Cavalry now, and they've had top resort to delivering sandbags in a Morrison's lorry! I just wish they'd told the army that turning up to a flood zone in desert camouflage is sending out some very mixed messages!!

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Just watching Newsnight, I've seen my local councillor and next-door-but 4 neighbour again. He's turning up everywhere, and accomplishing sweet FA. I can't believe he's been on the scene of every single media opportunity available (and he's the former Mayor) yet I don't think I've seen him knock on a single local door to check if the people inside are OK, or engage with anyone to find out how they are, or anything else!

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