Sometimes members of the media remind me of a person who is so full of themselves they’ll say something outlandish, or, in more common parlance, stupid, and not even realize it.

I was recently reading about Paul Potts, a very special 36-year-old Welshman, who won first prize in this year’s Britain’s Got Talent show, when I ran across a November 17, 2007 article in England’s Daily Mail. Reporters Helen Minsky and Clemmie Moodie reported that actress Amanda Holden, one of the three BGT judges, ran across the body of a dead man when she was out running with her personal trainer. The body was hanging from a tree.

Personally, I hate when that happens.

Anyway, I went on to read the following passage and, believe me, I quote.

“Last night a Scotland Yard spokesman confirmed that an unnamed man had been found dead, suspended from a tree and added that ‘there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death’,” wrote Holden and Moodie.

What?! The guy is hanging from a tree with a noose around his neck and you don’t think , oh I don’t know, there’s something unusual about this? If you’ll allow me to go out on a limb here (sorry), do you think maybe, just maybe he hung himself?

Then again, what do I know? I’m only an American and not familiar with English culture. Perhaps somewhere in England there is a tree climbers club that likes to lace rope around the mid to lower tree branches as a kind of safety net so when this poor man fell…well, you get my point.

No suspicious circumstances…really now.