It was Good Friday today 88 years ago today. As everybody gathered around the wireless to listen to the BBC’s 20:45 news bulletin, they heard the newsreader saying:

“Good evening. Today is Good Friday. There is no news.”

That update was followed by 15 minutes of piano music.

Today’s New York Times mentions this in their Back Story and add that “there was some major world news that day, including a typhoon in the Philippines and an attempted raid on an armory by Indian revolutionaries demanding independence from Britain, but it happened too late for the BBC”. They then provide a few headlines from the NYTimes of that day including one about Prohibition violations and another one on gas masks for horses that were doing well in military testing.

(I had heard this story from someone I usually trust a lot, but had not believed that this one wasn’t part of popular folklore.)

Back to the Future – Just heard on the News that last year one quarter of Ireland’s economic growth was based on the sale of iPhones. There are times when you wonder whether the ‘news’ themselves aren’t simply folklore.

In other news…

Pádraig spend a couple of hours today in the Trinity Hotel with a crew filming clips for a campaign to inform about the Assisted Decision Making Act 2015 – which will be enacted some time soon. It assumes that everybody is assumed to have capacity unless proven otherwise. It means that it will be Pádraig, not the HSE who will take decisions on their future, legally, and that others like him will no longer be made wards of court. A huge development that Pádraig will help to promote. Another really important role in his life.

The NY Times concluded with their review of past news of today by saying: “These days, it can seem as if the amount of news is limited only by the time you have available to consume it. But if you need a break, here’s some classical piano.