Save me from the news

We have a newspaper delivered every day. I know, how quaint! I love getting the paper, but I have only limited interest in the news. Nearly all of it is bad and I find politics boring and too slow-moving to hold my attention for long. Harold Wilson, the British Prime Minister, is credited with the astute observation that a week is a long time in politics and I agree. If I paid too much attention to all the dreary back-biting, back-pedalling, posturing, blaming, denying and grandstanding that regularly seeps out of Parliament, I know that a week would feel like a month at least and probably longer.

I don’t mean to tar all politicians with the same brush. [I have just looked up this expression and concluded that it has no racist connotations and probably refers either to someone being tarred and feathered or to sheep being dabbed with tar for some vague reason. I’m relieved because it’s such a wonderful phrase and brings to mind some very pleasing images in this case.] There are some terrific politicians, like Jess Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, who talks like a real person and makes perfect sense, unlike some politicians who waffle on endlessly, but still manage to say nothing at all. It’s all the inefficient time-wasting I can’t bear. For instance, on 23 June 2016 this country voted to leave the European Union, and if you had devoured every single piece of related news you wouldn’t have been any the wiser than the person who had ignored the lot until 31 January 2021, the day a withdrawal agreement was reached with the EU and we all finally knew what Brexit would look like. A bit of a shemozzle as it turned out. And think of the time you’d have saved. You could have written your memoirs instead, which I’m sure would be much more readable than some of those political tomes. Do people actually read them? Maybe they use them to press flowers. Or to look learned on Zoom.

My mother has cancelled her newspaper altogether. She used to read a conservative-leaning one, then tried a more liberal paper, but has now given up on them all. She says the news was just too depressing, she was tired of reading about the pandemic and the opinions in the letters page were getting on her nerves. But what about the puzzles, I wanted to know, wouldn’t she miss them? No, she has a puzzle book. I think she might be on to something.

So, if I find the news too gloomy and the politics too dry, why do I still get a paper every day? Why don’t I just buy a book of Sudokus and have done? There are those who use the paper to line their hamster cages, make pots for their seedlings or even to wipe their bottoms, but I’m not one of them. I do skim the headlines, but try not to dwell on the catalogue of disasters. What I really like is all the rest: the columns written about normal life; the readers’ letters (the sillier the better); the TV listings; the puzzle section; the travel news (such as it is) and the arts pages. I even look at the daily recipe, although the very last thing I need in my life is another recipe to add to the pile. Also, if you roll up a full sheet on the diagonal and then twist it into a pretzel, it makes a wonderful firelighter. You’re welcome.