Sometimes it must be great to be a Radio news presenter, you just get those days when there is so much going on. Today we have England failing to beat Montenegro, Liverpool FC’s chairmen being ousted from the club, and the biggest story of all, the Chilean miners being rescued from seven hundred metres below the ground (I didn’t know it was Christmas already).

To be stuck down there for all that time must have been a living hell for those chaps, and I am generally pleased to see they are okay. However I am not really that bothered about the whole thing if I am brutally honest, the cynic in me is already telling me this is turning in to a load of over hyped, stage managed bollocks. Victoria Derbyshire on Radio Five was gushing on so much this morning I thought that she was witnessing the rescue of her Father. It bought back harrowing memories of Princess Diana’s funeral when people chucked roses at a black car with a wooden box in it. Quite why people feel compelled to show emotion to individuals who they don’t know will never cease to amaze me. Each to their own I suppose.

I tried to watch the rescue this morning (it’s being shown live on just about ever news station), and I attempted to cry with emotion with the rest of the world as the men surfaced, because I thought that’s what I should be doing, but it just didn’t happen, they all looked like extras from Planet of The Apes. I am sure if it was my girlfriend, my sons, certain family members, or one of my good friends, I would be overcome with emotion as they surfaced, but I don’t know anyone called Mario or Pedro (unless you include a chap I know in the local pub who is called Peter but nicknamed Pedro) and I certainly don’t know any of the miners. For all I know half of them might be rapists or wife beaters, so as I don’t know them, I can’t emotional about them.

These lads are now being treated as heroes, but they are not really are they? The people who designed the drill and lift to get them out are possibly heroes, especially to those who they rescued, but getting trapped in a mine is not really the act of hero, not unless you were trapped trying to save someone else. If that was me stuck down there I would have probably been a terrible coward, but it is likely I would have survived once I had calmed down, then I would have carried the mental scars and post trauma forever, and I guess it is the same for a good percentage of those trapped. That’s not being a hero, I would call that being a victim. A proper hero is an English footballer who puts himself on the line to scrape a draw against Austin Montenegro.

Anyway, if we are to spare a thought for anyone, it has to be Yonni Barrios (did he used to play for Liverpool?) who’s wife turned up to pray for him only to find another lady who had been having an affair with him for ten years also praying…………..ooops! I wonder if he has been told what awaits him when he gets out? If so he might just decide to stay put. Imagine if he got to the top and discovered that as well as being caught cheating, he had also forgot to clock on. That would be enough to wipe the smile off any ones face!