Has the world gone completely mad?

What do these things have in common?

John Grisham's novel The Associate
Sit-com Modern Family
Irish folk-pop duo The Lost Brothers

Answer?

I have no idea what the basis of their popularity is.

The Associate is the only Grisham novel I've read so I can't be harsh about his whole back catalogue. But this book goes nowhere. It has no end and it's a deliberate non-ending in an attempt to be threatening. However, it's just plain pointless. Mind you, I stopped caring a long time before. There were no reasons to emphasise with the protagonist in the first place.

But maybe that was the point. Somehow, I don't think he's that clever.

Modern Family. Over-acted. Under-written. Very well marketed. But I've written about that before.

The Lost Brothers are a new one for me. Last Friday, Diana and I went to see a band called the Swell Season. They were perfectly fine. It was a good night. However, one of the support acts were a, gulp, wannabe Proclaimers. Two guys, guitars, harmonies and truly awful lyrics with rhymes straight out of the advanced Noel Gallagher series of look/book/cook.

It was funny. Simple melodies, very simple lyrics and seemingly synchronised movements.

And lo and behold, they only closed the Culture Show on BBC2 tonight. What is going on?

Yet another instalment of:

Has the world gone completely mad?

Postscript
Oh, by the way, this is a little unfortunate.

Heard on radio this afternoon.

A BBC reporter in Haiti was talking about the huge number of amputations the doctors are getting through. He described the number as "staggering".