Going forward anytime soon?

Do you know what? There are a number of trendy media phrases that really get up my nose.

There's bin a shed-load of them achally.

Where did 'anytime soon' come from? What happened to 'in the future' or 'soon'? 'And do you know what? Gordon Brown isn't planning to step down anytime soon,' said a BBC reporter recently.

His name was Nick Robinson and he's one of the biggest culprits for spreading these annoying expressions. I like Nick's forthright reportage but I don't like the way he peppers everything with the latest buzz-words. I just Googled 'anytime soon' and 'do you know what' and Nick Robinson uses them all over the place - in his broadcasts, political reports, his blogs etc. I bet he puts HP sauce on his jam roly-poly too.

Going forward is another. What happened to the media's favourite link 'moving on'?

And how many times a day do you here the phrase "..but first..."? This usually follows a shopping list of contents given at the head of a TV or radio programme. I always thought that 'meeja' writers were generic creatives. So what about "Let's start with..."? Or "But here's an interesting opener..."?

And do you know what? begs the question "No I (expletive deleted) don't and I don't (expletive deleted) care!"

Not many years ago, I worked with a bloke who interspersed his speech with "D'you understand?" So a conversation would go like this, "There was this guy, d'you understand? He called me this morning to complain - d'you understand?" At each 'do you understand' he'd cock his head and raise a quizzical eyebrow for extra effect.
I felt like saying, "Do you know what, Jeff? I don't understand. The concept of a guy making a phone call is a concept that's FAR TOO COMPLEX for me to understand. Can you run it by me again?"