Something I’ve really disliked (I almost used “hated”, but this is such a strong emotion and it’s such an overused word that I’ve kept it toned down) for a long, long time is when people say things like “Everybody likes …” or “The nation mourns …”.

Quite frankly, such people, who are usually members of the Press, have no knowledge of what’s in everybody’s minds, and have no right to attempt to speak for “everybody”.

I think my feelings on this really hit home when Princess Diana was killed in 1997, and all of the media was full of people saying things such as “the nation mourns the loss of England’s favourite royal”, for example.

While I wouldn’t wish anybody dead (well, most people, at least), and I certainly wouldn’t wish her two sons to be without a mother, I know that I wasn’t mourning her. In fact, her funeral cortege literally passed right by my house, and I never even bothered to join the throngs outside watching the hearse drive past.

You know what they say … when you’ve seen one hearse, you’ve seen them all!

I guess these reporter types make these types of statement because they believe it adds some weight or credibility to what they’re saying, but it comes over to me as them trying to make their own opinions sound more important than they really are.

So, please don’t speak on my behalf – nobody knows what’s going on inside my head (even me, sometimes), I’ve a brain and a mouth and I am quite capable of telling people how I feel about any given situation.