Hero is an overused word.

If I hear the word 'hero' used inappropriately by the media again, I will scream.

The most recent occasion was, believe it or not, in relation to a golfer (yes, a golfer) who had won some trophy or other (being one of those people that think golf is a silly game that only spoils a good walk, I have no idea what tournament has been going on recently). Previous to that, the word was overused and abused during the Olympics with regard to our gold medallists.

Let's be clear on this, shall we? A hero is someone who puts his life on the line at extreme risk for the safety and security of others. Real heroes are selfless, brave and unassuming. Very often, the extreme bravery and courage they show is instinctive and if they had stopped to think about what they were doing, they probably wouldn't have gone there. Real heroes are rare things.

This eulogising by the media and in particular by TV journalists is quite simply a travesty of the English language. Top sportsmen and women are certainly tough and for many of their sports exhibit courage, but they fail on every other aspect of my definition of a hero. They certainly aren't self effacing or unassuming (quite a significant number of them court the media and make an absolute packet out of it), what they do is for themselves and let's not kid ourselves it's for "their country", and they aren't putting themselves on the line for others.

It's interesting that we very rarely hear the word 'hero' used about people that it might actually genuinely apply to - members of our armed forces on active service across the world, the police and ambulance service and the fire service all regularly face situations where they put themselves at risk for the sake of others and sometimes tragically lose their lives in doing so. But the term 'hero' isn't often used when these things are reported; instead we hear "s/he was a brave officer" or "s/he often put others before her/himself" even after the individual in question has died in pursuit of their duties. It's as though the press are afraid of using it in those situations, for some weird reason I can't fathom. But for some self promoting cyclist, male or female, who has enjoyed a modicum of success it's OK for some reason.

A while back I resolved to stop reading the papers because all they did was wind me up, and for a while I succeeded. then I slipped back into old ways and of course, it's impossible to avoid news reporting altogether; I am surrounded by TV, radio and trains full of commuters reading newspapers and I can't help but see it. And it still irritates me.

Perhaps the answer is to become a journalist myself and sell a freelance column with a slightly subversive view of the world to a local or national paper. Certainly the quality of writing could do with improvement. Hmmm, could be a new career path!