Toytown goes tits up

I was amused by a story in this week’s Courier accompanied by a picture of Sentamu’s Apprentice driving one of our trains (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/All-aboard-for-the-Sunday.5655524.jp.
It’s all a bit too close to Thomas the Tank Engine for comfort. Toytown bishop driving a train that only runs for tourists, and even then not that well or often.
For a second I was indignant that this shameless religionist marketing made the front page, and that a government department had connived in the creation of it. This even though the Courier isn’t a newspaper, just a freesheet that allows Johnston Press to run a second set of government and business public announcements.
In case nobody has twigged, this allows aforesaid businesses and government to meet legal requirements to publish such notices in two different publications. It also explains why the ‘news’ is almost entirely made up of items written by either official press officers of government departments or PR hacks indirectly employed by government via the Freedom to Flourish scam. That includes most of the charity and community news, by the way.
So, toy clergyman, toy trains, toy newspaper full of bogus news concocted by what you’d have to term ‘the Establishment’ to feed the illusion that we’re living in a real democratic country where we run our own affairs and things only happen because we chose for them to happen.
Problem is, unlike Thomas the Tank Engine, you can’t just turn this crap off and get on with real life instead. In fact, it’s more evidence that even Toytown is going tits up.