This Mail headline and article is similar to yesterday's swimming pool story. A few mildly critical comments from a few users of a facility is turned into general 'fury' (such an overused word) and the changes being made are on a much smaller scale than is implied.
Jaya Narain's article begins:
Located in the middle of a beautiful national park, Mount Snowdon is one of the most awesome natural wonders of Great Britain.
The wild slopes, steep ridges and treacherous screes of the second highest mountain in the UK attract experienced mountaineers from across the world who want to pit their climbing skills against its rugged routes.
But now the 3,560ft mountain just got a whole lot tamer after a tarmac pathway was laid on one of the ancient routes.
'A tarmac pathway'. But in the next sentence:
The work to level and partly tarmac a mile-and-a-half of the Miners' Track has been carried out to encourage more people onto the mountain.
Ah, now it's only 'partly tarmac'.
Perhaps we better skip to the end of the article and find out what the official spokesman has to say about what's really happened:
Emyr Williams, director of land management at the SNPA, said: 'The path stretches for two and a half kilometres and the only part which has been tarmacked is three separate stretches totalling only 100 metres.
So it's not exactly a 'tarmac path up Snowdon' then.
And are these people really in a 'fury' about three bits of tarmac totalling 100m out of two-and-a-half kilometers (around 4% of the path)? Especially when, Williams adds, the tarmac:
has then been topped with crushed stone to make it look like the rest of the path which has been levelled because it had become badly eroded.'
He said: 'There are five paths up Snowdon and this is one that goes to about halfway up the mountain. We do not carry out works like this lightly and believe it was the correct decision to allow those with physical disabilities a chance to enjoy the mountain.'
And it's not just people with physical disabilities, or parents with pushchairs, who will benefit from the changes to the path:
mountain rescuers say the newly-surfaced Miners' Track...will make their job much easier.
It's political correctness gone mad...
(Hat-tip to BarnetAkela)
There is also a Train which takes you to the top of the mountain. Also a bloody Cafe at the top.
ReplyDeleteNone of which is mentioned in this article about 100 meters of Tarmac.
Err it isn't the second highest mountain in the UK either! Apart from that it is clearly all true!
ReplyDeleteYou do a great job Tabloid watch, perhaps even a crucial one given the distortions, mis-truths and outright lies the media are so quick to use that have already led us to immoral wars and left the power of Government unchecked.
ReplyDeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteOff topic butI was just wondering what has happened to the post relating to the Scotsman et al plagiarising articles from The Local?
The piece seems to have vanished from your blog, as has the original article on The Local. Can you provide some insight into what changed?
Liz - Can't say too much about it at the moment but I'm confident it will be back!
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of banging my own drum, grough had its own take on the Mail treatment at http://www.grough.co.uk/magazine/2010/07/06/anger-and-fury-the-noise-from-the-black-stuff-on-snowdon.
ReplyDeleteAnd since then, our prediction about others picking up the Mail's baton and running has proved accurate, with the Telegraph covering it in almost identical fashion.
Bob Smith
Editor, grough
I assume that there is a glitch in the basic program the Mail subs use which automatically puts up 'fury' in every headline and it has to be positively deleted. What other reason can there be?
ReplyDelete