Daily writing prompt

Scour the news for an entirely uninteresting story. Consider how it connects to your life. Write about that.

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Scour the news for an entirely uninteresting story. Consider how it connects to your life. Write about that.

Scour the news – what on earth does that mean? Let’s begin with scour – If you scour something such as a place or a book, you make a thorough search of it to try to find what you are looking for. Rescue crews had scoured an area of 30 square miles. Synonyms: search, hunt, comb, ransack. Search, hunt, scour, ransack – well? Which one are you after? And how long have I got? Question: what am I looking for? Answer: an entirely uninteresting story. What a tremendous waste of my time. And, when you get to my age, time is precious.

As for the news, well, what on earth do you mean by that? I speak several languages fluently. Am I looking for an entirely uninteresting piece of news in all of them? As one of the Two Ronnies used to say “You’re having me on, aren’t you? You’re having me on.” Let’s just stick to one language – English. Then let us ponder for a moment the meaning of the news. How many newspapers do you wish me to purchase and peruse? I am not a millionaire, you know. Or do you want me to listen to the news on the radio or the television? If so, how many channels? How about sending me online? I love the thought of that. There are thousands of websites out there filled with all kinds of news, good bad, indifferent, fake, artificial? And you want me to scour them all in search of, and I quote “an entirely uninteresting story”! Pull the other one, as the old comedians used to say, ‘”it’s got bells on”.

I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll scour your prompt, that’s what I’ll do. Having given it a brief analysis, I declare it entirely uninteresting. Next I’ll consider how it links to my life. Well, sorry, it doesn’t. If I were to follow it through, I’d be sitting here for hours, wearing my fingers out on the keyboard. So, what’s the link between your prompt and my life? A total waste of time, that’s what. Sorry, I have better things to do with my life. Like reading Shakespeare – “Friends, Romans, Countrymen, and prompt readers, lend me your shovels. I come to bury this prompt, not to praise it.”

Here endeth the lesson and the prompt.