We currently subscribe to 5 magazine titles:
The Spectator - consistently brilliantly written, but has recently caved in and introduced lifestyle and food sections which I simply don't understand
The New Statesman - broad content and very much a refreshing alternative agenda, but there's too much of it
Private Eye - consistently makes me laugh and always read from cover to cover
Time Out - A remnant of the past. Makes us feel like we still go out, when actually we hardly ever do. Having said that the editorial content is always good and it also always makes me proud to be a Londoner
The Week - The best concept for a magazine for the past 20 years. Nicky wanted to get it so that she didn't fall behind on the news and it does keep you abreast of everything in a mere hour and a half.
The reason I post this is I was challenged by a very good friend of mine as to why I bother and he said he'd get bored of reading about current affairs all the time. I take completely the opposite view from Finn in that I can't get enough news and my response was that I always felt I wanted to learn more which he just 'paaahed' at and said 'you don't need to know all that stuff'. Which I was really surprised at initially, but then I got to thinking. Keeping abreast of current affairs is really just a hobby in many resepcts. My friend has a big corporate job, he moves in corporate circles and his main focus is business, which requires a very light touch on current affairs and in many ways his job is his hobby as well.
Funny, I didn't realise I had a hobby.
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8 comments:
Corder Predicts...
...that within the next 18 months you will stand for election locally. You will be totally disillusioned with the party system but persist, getting elected as a Conservative. Six months in you will resign the whip and become an independent.
The Group will collectively froth and foam at the mouth via the local rag's letters' page that you have used their Association's organisation and volunteer network to get yourself elected and should have resigned and precipitated a bye-election so they could have got rid of you...
It's a slippery slope! Are you sure you shouldn't ration yourself to a weekly dose of Question Time?
I'm far too lazy to get in to local politics.
That was FAR too quick a response!
You can talk
Be careful though Six, America has proved that you can have too much information - in the end you become jaded and frustrated at the lack of any inertia in politics and spend all day on messageboards.
As somebody who was involved in politics at a low level many years ago I would say two things, 1)yes you can make a difference 2)you feel like Sisyphus whilst trying.
Glad The Week is getting more people reading it, Janis started subscribing about eight years ago because she didn't like reading newspapers - now she can't stop reading them.
The only Magazine I subscribe to is "Your Cat" (puts tin hat on and runs for it)
hahaha, curmy! Brave of you to admit that :-)
I used to get the Spectator and read my brother's The Week and Private Eye. Now I subscribe to none - obviously online news is easier for me - as you say it IS a hobby and a frustrating one but I would also say keep it as a hobby and never let it be more important than your family (scoff at that if you like but it is very easy and yet another slippery slope,adding to Gavin's), for instance you may (MAY!)already have been short or sharp with your wife or kids to just wait while you finish reading the mag/article/whatever.
I have found that a week or a month without the news is actually a blessing and that nothing changes anyway...and you won't miss it.
Here are some links that I believe will be interested
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