What's the story with Liz Jones?

I'm taking a break today and I'm sitting here with laptop on lap, four-year-old grand-daughter cuddling in to the left of me, black cat Lou-Lou curled up next to us on the sofa. Balamory is on the television and we're thrilled because today's main character is Archie the Inventor. He has red curly hair and sideburns, a posh English voice, wears spectacles, a pink jumper and a kilt and lives in a pink castle. He's our favourite even though the things he tends to invite are pretty rubbish. He has just given Pocket from the shop a rope to help her swing around. Duh. He then made a telephone out of a polystyrene cup and a piece of string. Clearly no Alexander Graham Bell.

Watching Archie made me wonder about the actor who plays him. The beauty of the internet is you can find out all sorts of things, some more useful than others. So I have just googled Archie and found an interview with Miles Jupp. The article from The Scotsman is five years old but the actor comes across as a very good egg, whose feet are very firmly on the ground. He does not take himself too seriously.

He is such a contrast to the clearly mentally ill writer Liz Jones who is interviewed by Rachel Cooke in the Observer. Rachel asks 'Is Liz Jones mad?' I think the answer to that is quite obvious.

Exmoor Jane, one of my blogging friends, frequently rants about this terrible woman, who has moved to Devon, gets paid to write a column and all she does is slag off the locals and complain about her situation. This is a woman who blames everyone else for her woes. Unlike the Miles Jupps of this world (and there are many of them, especially here in Blighty), who is confident and humble enough to be self-deprecating, Ms Jones, as Mr Grigg would say, is self-defecating.

Reading about people like Jones annoys me so much it is energy sapping. That's why I try to avoid the Sunday papers, 'lifestyle' articles and women's magazines . My mantra is that you get out of life what you put in.

But I do not have time to ponder the reasons for the existence of people like Liz Jones (even wasps and slugs have a purpose). This morning, the grandchild and I have work to do. Cleaning off the fox poo from the spaniels for a start, before wandering down to see Pelly and the hens and then checking up on Number One Son, who is about to find out if he has broken his ankle after falling down stairs on his nearly-brother-in-law's stag trip.

That's about it.

Love Maddie x