Friday 12 February 2016

The Old Man Loses His "Independent"

The Old Man is bereft. The days are counting down (end of March) to the loss of his beloved "Independent" print-copy newspaper. The thing he adores most in his life. The thing that puts structure into his days. The thing he drives a six-mile round trip each morning to collect. The thing that accompanies him on shopping trips, into doctor's and dentist's waiting rooms, on long drives and the occasional forays into pastures new. The thing that dictates where he lives and stays... "Where can I get my paper?"

The answer my dear, I'm afraid, will be ... on the internet. And the Internet be a place that The Old Man do rarely visit. Hard-wired as it is into a cold and cheerless room in our granite cottage in the Far West whose reluctant wi-fi do not penetrate its interior granite walls.... whose mobile phone reception be limited to whatever inconvenient spot within the house or the garden a bar of signal can be obtained....

It is no good telling him that he will still have the i - albeit under new ownership. He has only ever bought this paper as a "completist" gesture. (See previous post). He cannot read any other newspaper... they are all dross as far as he is concerned or else owned by unspeakables.The man is genuinely bereft. He do feel he will be deprived of news of the modern world: politics, economics, the arts, society ... and I do feel for him. I too do worry that we are slipping away from an informed view of the wider world (by the time the Govt will have done for the BBC and flogged off Channel Four, us traditional, Murdoch Empire-avoiding couple be scuppered....)

And of course I do wonder what else I can use to mop up the gales of rainwater what do sweep under the back door on a regular basis.

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