No more cars?

Every now and then some daft politician or politico will declare that we should all give up our cars to "protect the environ-ment" or "get more exercise" or whatever. It doesn't seem to occur to them that for a lot of people cars are absolutely essential.

We don't use our car very often -  mainly for the weekly supermarket shop - but there are many things a car is vital for, especially if you're in a family.

If public transport is poor or non-existent, if you need to move something heavy and bulky, if you're taking your kids to school or to out-of-school activities, if you're visiting your parents or relatives in some out-of-the-way location, if you're visiting someone in hospital, and for all sorts of other awkward journeys, how would you get by without a car?

Taxis are okay for short journeys, but too dear for long journeys. You could cadge lifts but you can't do that too often.

We've used our car to take things to the recycling centre, to get to beauty spots, to bring home large purchases like furniture and plants, to take visitors for an outing or to the airport, to give people lifts in bad weather, to look at property for sale, and numerous other purposes.

It could be of course that the anti-car politicians don't seriously want us all to give up our cars. They're just looking for cheap headlines to keep them in the public eye. But most people will simply snort with disbelief and ask what planet they're living on.

Always a journo

Kylie reckons I'm "ever in journalist mode". Which is surely an awful thing to be, but she might be right. After all, I spent six years as a journalist, so some of the journalist culture must have rubbed off on me, like it or not.

Jenny thinks there's still a bit of the journalist in me. I like inventing spoof tabloid headlines ("Refund joy for tearful Belfast couple"), and I do tend to over-react to a dramatic piece of news.

But despite the residual journalistic quirks, I'm still very critical of journalism and the way it distorts, trivialises and sensationalises important issues. I've never regretted leaving journalism for bookselling, even though many people thought I was crazy.

Apart from anything else, journalism nowadays is hard work. Long hours, low salaries, unpaid internships, constant redundancies. It's a far cry from the well-paid, leisurely, drunken activity it was in the sixties.

But I've never properly explained why I left journalism. Just a few of the reasons:

• So often it never gets to the heart of an issue. It trots out a few basic facts and seldom digs deeper or asks awkward questions.
• It spreads rumours and gossip about celebrities and public figures, much of it malicious and untrue.
• It encourages prejudice of all kinds - racism, sexism, xenophobia, hatred of welfare "scroungers" etc.
• It turns minor incidents into huge controversies (famous actress has wardrobe malfunction)
• It's hypocritical. For example, it laments climate breakdown, but welcomes consumerism and long-distance travel.
• It runs with every fad and fashion, however absurd or irresponsible or pointless.

In the end I just felt uncomfortable as a journalist. There were so many dubious practices I simply couldn't buy into. Bookselling by comparison suited me down to the ground. All I had to do was sell interesting books to interesting people. Nothing uncomfortable there. It kept me happy for 23 highly enjoyable years.

But I still admire a clever tabloid headline.