Here Isn't The News
I go over to my see my mother and find her distraught.
It's something she's heard on the news - - Gordon Brown. President Bush. Iraq.
The natural disasters she can just about cope with. It's the things politicians do that make her apoplectic with rage.
"Mum, " I say, "there's a way to stop this. Don't watch the news on television. Don't read about it in the paper."
But she can't stop. They've always had newspapers: always The Guardian (loved by my mother: despised by the Communist) and the Morning Star (the Communist paper and the only one that the Communist really likes).
The Communist, of course, despises all other newspapers, such as the Telegraph, the Mail, the Express - - but he reserves his special contempt for The Guardian, because he feels it is trying, but failing.
Although it makes me feel a bit of a fraud as a Communist's daughter, I like The Times. Sorry, but I do: I like its style and its layout and although I don't believe everything I read in it, I like the way it's written.
So of recent years, in our house it's been The Times that has arrived every day. For the past couple of years, we've been buying it under a pre-paid voucher system which should make it cheaper. But, sadly, it confuses the life out of the newsagent and I'm convinced that, some of the time at least, we end up paying for it twice.
So, last weekend, we cancelled it. I will, of course, sneak out and buy it from time to time, but meanwhile I am going to read some more books and watch some films. Don't ask me who's Prime Minister, because I won't know. It's a rather exhilarating feeling.
It's something she's heard on the news - - Gordon Brown. President Bush. Iraq.
The natural disasters she can just about cope with. It's the things politicians do that make her apoplectic with rage.
"Mum, " I say, "there's a way to stop this. Don't watch the news on television. Don't read about it in the paper."
But she can't stop. They've always had newspapers: always The Guardian (loved by my mother: despised by the Communist) and the Morning Star (the Communist paper and the only one that the Communist really likes).
The Communist, of course, despises all other newspapers, such as the Telegraph, the Mail, the Express - - but he reserves his special contempt for The Guardian, because he feels it is trying, but failing.
Although it makes me feel a bit of a fraud as a Communist's daughter, I like The Times. Sorry, but I do: I like its style and its layout and although I don't believe everything I read in it, I like the way it's written.
So of recent years, in our house it's been The Times that has arrived every day. For the past couple of years, we've been buying it under a pre-paid voucher system which should make it cheaper. But, sadly, it confuses the life out of the newsagent and I'm convinced that, some of the time at least, we end up paying for it twice.
So, last weekend, we cancelled it. I will, of course, sneak out and buy it from time to time, but meanwhile I am going to read some more books and watch some films. Don't ask me who's Prime Minister, because I won't know. It's a rather exhilarating feeling.
posted by Daphne at 5:52 pm
6 Comments:
I'm with The Communist about the Guardian - the honourable exceptions being Steve Bell's cartoons and Frank Keating's sports writing. I flirt with the Independent and The Scotsman from time to time, but always find myself reading the Telegraph sports pages and feeling dead guilty.
I'm with your mother re: being distraught by Gordon Brown. Can't stand him.
Philistine that I am, I don't read any newspapers. I worked at The Guardian years ago (crappy low paid job in the advertising department, but it was quite a fun place to work at) and so I read it as it was on hand each day.
These days I quite like The Times which we get at work and I'll browse through it. 'A' buys and reads The Telegraph every day.
I've not bought a newspaper since a one off purchase the day after 9/11 (saved it for posterity) and before then it had been many many years.
Teletext signalled the beginning of the end of newspapers as far as I was concerned and whetted my appetite for instantly accessible news.
T'internet has taken that to new levels and I see no point in the newspaper industry except to provide the first level of wrapping for my fish and chips.
Hmmmmmmmm fish and chips.
I know "apologist" is a word bandied about a lot by the Right, but the Guardian deserves its use... a left-wing paper that's nicer about Ahmadinejad than it is about Bush (for e.g.) rather worries me.
Distraught by Brown? I was more distraught that nobody voted for him... now I'm more cross than distraught. The headline today is that cannabis will be reclassified to class B.
Jails full of potheads, too, as well as grannies who can't afford his taxes ARGH!!!*collapses in incoherent rage*.
(and I bet the Scots will get Government-issue free cannabis)
I maded a political post, but I eated it.
I can't say I've bought a newspaper in years or watched the news on the telly.
I get all my uptodate news and current affairs straight from the radio on my way into work of a morning, either Classic FM or Radio 4's Today programme.
I think I've only ever looked at the free Metro if I've caught the tram in Sheffield.
Judging by this statistically significant sample of all the best people on t'interclacker, it's no wonder that newspaper sales figures are in decline!
Thank you all for your comments, as always.
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