Thanks to the marvellous half-hour long advertisements on late night television, in particular DanozDirect, I am so bloody tempted to whip out my already-maxed-out credit card and buy this thing called ‘9 Minute Marinator’, a kitchen gadget that promises ‘Moist, Plump & Flavorful foods in 9 minutes!’ Even Beth on the site loves it because she has a very small kitchen and - get this - a lot of people running through it. I know marathons can make you hungry but this is ridiculous. As for Chef Stacey, she says that they do a lot of experimenting and it has been wonderful. Well, I am glad to hear that, because I’ve been getting none whatsoever.

I don’t really need it, especially since lately I’ve been taking the easy option of getting takeaway on my way home from work instead of cooking.

But OH! How cool is this gadget?! NINE MINUTES!!! It means that I could marinate stuff and STILL cook my dinner within an hour at most. It means that I might stop getting takeaway. It means that I’ll save money on all the takeaway I don’t buy. It means that my food will be tasty and delicious, thus reducing the need for takeaway. It means that I will have finally grown up and become a responsible, practical adult, instead of a lazy git who wastes money on fast food.

Hold on. Grown up? Responsible? Practical? Adult?

Oh, goody. I’ve just talked myself out of buying it. Phew. That was precariously close. Who would wanna be a grown up? They are such boring fuddy duddies.

Additional thought: Perhaps Craig could use this gadget in his next cooking instalment? God only knows, his culinary possibilities could be endless.

While working as an editor in commercial television news I became aware of the phenomenon of the recurring news story (RNS). These are events that occur annually and will go to air each year virtually unchanged from last year save for fresh pictures and the odd random word change in the voiceover script. They represent everything wrong with television news, being the pinnacle of lazy journalism and easy airtime filler. You know an RNS when you see one: ANZAC day, Moomba parade, World’s Longest Lunch, Good Friday Appeal etc. I was reminded of this phenomenon on Friday while watching ABC news which contained a story about the AFL grand final parade and a story about the killed-in-the-line-of-duty police commemoration.

About 100,000 people lined the streets of Melbourne today to cheer on the teams competing in tomorrow’s AFL grand final. The parade route was awash with (insert grand final competitor #1’s colours) and (insert grand final competitor #2’s colours). Kids came face-to-face with their footballing heroes etc.

Melburnians dug deep today to give money to sick kids etc.

What happens on the day of an RNS is the newsroom chief-of-staff will allocate the piece to either the channel’s newest or most jaded journo – there is no middle ground here. The new journo will get the story because they are at the bottom of the pecking order. The experienced and jaded journo will get the story because they pissed the chief-of-staff off last week. The selected journo will hit the road with a jaded camera crew (there’s no other kind) to shoot some fresh vision to lay over the top of last year’s voiceover script, extracted from the news archive. They will then hit the edit suite manned by a jaded editor (there’s no other kind) and the new journo will micro-mange the story’s assembly while the jaded journo will barely stay long enough to hand over the camera tapes before hitting the pub.

When the RNS goes to air the autocue-bot will read the intro in a knowing voice, with just that right amount of cheese, cynicism and resignation.

And we will sit at home watching, content to consume such crap.

Bagging Today Tonight and A Current Affair for shoddy journalism is a national sport. It’s the mainstay of Media Watch’s weekly schedule. The latest controversy about Papuan Kid Soup has spawned a fresh round of attacks on the soap opera that is commercial consumer current affairs.

But look at it objectively for a minute and things aren’t quite so cut-and-dry. Critiquing the quality of “journalism” on these programs is like shooting fish in a barrel. It’s so obviously not journalism that it basically defeats the purpose of exposing it as unethical sensationalism. That’s what got GrodsCorp thinking and today I can reveal the resuts of our EXCLUSIVE investigation.

Networks Nine and Seven are working together — Naomi and Tracey serve the same master.

That’s right, readers; their latest Papuan cannibal adventure has given the game away. There are no legal battles, no crisis meetings, no angry airport encounters. Only two networks who collude in order to orchestrate the most ridiculous and trainwreck-like coverage across their respective television channels.

It’s all too perfect: the duelling heads of news and current affairs, the pathetic autocue reader desperately chasing credibility, the bemused naked kid from some stone age tribe that is (apparently) destined to become casserole. Rob Sitch and the Working Dog crew couldn’t script this any better.

If you’re still a doubter, just watch for both programs’ ratings for this week just gone and this week coming. Far from being swathes of partisan TT or ACA devotees out there, cheering their favourite host on in the Wa-Wa Wars™, there are simply a couple of million suckers who continue to fall for the current affairs cartel’s offerings and mindlessly tune in for a fix of scripted, sensationalist TV.