Grumpy Old Man - we have nothing to fear but constant scare campaigns

Its biggest hit was the song For What It's Worth, that included the lyrics, "Paranoia strikes deep, into your life it will creep. It starts when you're always afraid. Step out of line the men come and take you away."

While this song was written the best part of 60 years ago, it seems particularly appropriate for our age, where fear is increasingly used as not only a marketing tool, but something deigned to draw attention to the news.

It seems barely a bulletin goes by without an attempt to whip up fear about something.

We have probably all heard the term heatwave being increasingly bandied about wherever there are a couple of days above 30 degrees, along with dire warnings about the steps we need to take to survive this modern phenomenon that we used to simply call summer.

Heck, I remember when 30 degree days were officially described only as warm, they didn't even crack the barrier to become officially hot.

There was also a time recently when there were desperate warnings for all motorists to fill up immediately, because petrol prices were about to jump dramatically on the following weekend.

So many dutifully raced toward their nearest bowsers, and of course petrol prices remained unchanged in the ensuing days.

It's getting so ridiculous I sometimes wonder if news broadcasters have been taking tips from the people who market makeup and other appearance changing items to women.

You know those people, the ones who try to perpetuate the lie that women are not enough, and need to makeup, shape up, cover up, dress up, style up or whatever to be accepted and loved.

And their reward for instilling unnecessary fear into a large sector of the population is to walk away with bulging bank accounts.

Yes, there's something happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear.

But instead of listening to the prophets of doom maybe we need to start believing in ourselves, seeing what amazing and capable individuals we all are.

Because we are enough, you are enough, regardless of what the people trying to make money off us want to say.

I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound? Everybody look, what's going down?