I have my Sunday morning routine. I tend to rise from bed earlier than Mrs P, who prefers a lie in. I need my first cup of coffee more than I need a lie in. I brew a half carafe, serve myself a large mug – milk and a good dollop of salted caramel syrup – and crash on the sofa with my iPad.
There’s just the one app I need on a Sunday morning. I pay a monthly subscription for the Times newspaper digital edition. The Sunday Times is my favourite of the week. This hasn’t always been the case. Back in my retailing days, the Sunday Times was a monumental pain. It was a huge broadsheet with multiple inserts to be collated by hand. And there were dozens of them to do. From fifty to a hundred, depending on the store.
These days, as the reader, those inserts add value. And the whole thing weighs a lot less too, now that it’s digital. I can picture myself enjoying my Sunday paper routine for decades to come. Indeed, it can only get better still. I look forward to swapping my sofa on the south coast of England for a hammock on a roof terrace, gently swaying in the early morning Mexican sun.
The Times allows me to share articles. Sometimes I do, through WhatsApp or Messenger. Maybe you’ve gotten one. You don’t need to be a subscriber. You should be able to read articles that I’ve shared. Would you like a run through of my Sunday Times reading this week? Great. Grab yourself a coffee and a comfy seat.
One of the inevitable post election stories that will run and run, is just what the new US President thinks of the UK. The British media will for several months display its true schizophrenic nature. It’s as predictable as guessing the next uttering from a young girl as she dismembers a daisy – he loves me, he loves me not. Today, he loves us. Apparently.
Next up is an article by Matthew Sayed. It’s about the intelligence services opening up their ranks to foreign born Brits. Naturally, James Bond features in the title. But Mr Sayed always produces thought provoking essays.
Let’s move on to an interview with my favourite Tory MP, Neil O’Brien. He’s smart, grounded and taking no prisoners. We have a high profile cult of Covid deniers in the UK that feed the burgeoning conspiracy theory market through their columns in the Telegraph and slots on Talk Radio. Their patter is filled with demonstrable falsehoods, misleading talking points and narcissistic self promotion. O’Brien is keeping records and holding feet to the fires.
Jenny Coad reports on the latest Netflix hit, The Dig, and how she can relate to the starring role played by Ralph Fiennes. Then we return once again to the story of our generation, the novel coronavirus. The Foreign Secretary suggests we may need vaccine passports to go shopping. He’s an idiot, and I can tell you that we won’t. The government can’t even properly enforce mask wearing, let alone vaccine passports.
The Times then makes space for their own Covid denier, Rod Liddell, who attempts to argue that we don’t need lockdowns for a disease which is only twice as bad as the worst flu season. He seems to have missed the point that we had lockdowns to limit the disease to a death tally only twice as bad as a flu season. Still, he otherwise has a reasonable sense of humour.
We’re now at my favourite part of the Sunday paper, Jeremy Clarkson’s column. Often controversial, sometimes wrong, but always entertaining. And we normally get a double dose of Clarkson, with a second article (on either his exploits as a farmer or a motoring review) in the Magazine. This must be a literary vaccine for some ailment or other.
I then read all about a somewhat mean spirited parking baron, a somewhat controversial book about recent British military defeats before being drawn in by an article promising to tell me exactly what it is that women think about during sex. Which turned out to be entirely different reading to what I had rather anticipated.
Which brings us neatly back to the novel coronavirus and how the nasty bug is absolutely trashing the commercial property sector. Frankly I’ve long though that commercial property was due for a day of reckoning. The virus has simply brought that day forward.
I make no attempt to read every word in the paper. It would take forever, and then a couple more days after that. I carefully pick out the bits and pieces I find interesting, and do my best to get through them before Mrs P decides that she’s had enough laying in and that’s it’s time to start finding me chores.
So I must put my digital paper down. But not before reading one last article for hints and clues as to when we might be able to jet off somewhere warm again. I’m almost tempted to bag some cheap flights from Bournemouth to Bergerac at the end of June. But I suspect I’m being far too hopeful. So perhaps I’ll hold fire.
Did anything amongst all that interest you? I hope at least that the articles opened up and were readable. Let me know. I’ll leave you with one last shared item. It is another of my weekly treats. The Week in Pictures. Have a great day.
The Mexile 
It’s all firewalled for me. I get a lot of forwards from The Times, they cut my freebies off long ago. The curse of having literate friends…
My routine is similar to yours. Linda is sort of up, she is meditating, sleeping more than meditating-it is before 6AM so I get it. I’ll read the online news on the amalgamator services first, some blogs , then go to the local paper that is dropped in a paper tube next to my mail box. It is a short read but I get the local color and a weather map. Once the gas station down the hill by the river opens, I’ll warm the car up, ,drive the mile or so and pick up The New York Times. I’ll gas the car, buy a national lotto ticket(hundreds of millions could maybe change one’s life), read the National Paper while getting breakfast on. Today is breakfast with my Mom so the ‘big paper’ will have to wait.
Oh-and a vat of coffee as well.
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I guessed there were a few potential stumbling blocks to the links. I wonder if a VPN is a way round it? I know a person who might be able to check…
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Guy sends be stuff that is ‘firewall’ proof but he has to send it in a PDF.
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In our household, my husband gets the paper versions read before I emerge from my morning browse at all the online “stuff”… we then share info and opinions. A good way to cover all bases. Sunday’s Valentines Day showed a marked change in the propriety of the local rags and their “paid advertising. panned as editorial”.. unless you feel that near-naked women in provocative poses constitutes the general consensus of “love”. I remember that when I came to live here, no women even went to the beach without a cover-up … and once we had gotten wet, it was back for a change… in case the swimsuit material might “aclarar” Have the tides ever turned…
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The tides certainly have turned!
I don’t know why your comment went to spam. The spam filter has been playing up. Hopefully a few changed settings have fixed it.
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I am pleased to know this. I worried that for some reason you had no interest in my commentary. I think you are among the best of the bloggers and am greatly pleased that you are back at it. Your wit and humour remind me so much of my mother’s family (Powell). And of course your feelings for Mexico mirror mine. Thank you for writing and I hope the settings tweaks have settled things.
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I went to the first article, and had to agree to cookies, which I reluctantly did. Then I was able to read the first few paragraphs, and I was asked to accept a free one month subscription in order to continue. At that point I simply left.
Now that I have a new laptop I no longer have to sign in with a WordPress account to comment here.
Greetings from the Retired Teacher!
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Shame…that’s clearly not how I hoped the sharing feature would (or rather wouldn’t…) work.
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So funny! As a former commercial property manager I clicked on the article about it and received instead a story about what women think about when they’re having sex. Being a woman I already know these things so I clicked away.
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I clearly got my links mixed up!!
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Similar routine for me. But in my case it’s the New York Times. I use a lot of material from it for my posts on Facebook. The coffee too but I like mine strong and with diet sugar. Good post but I have yet to try the links.
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Diet sugar?! Begads, what horror product is that?
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Another very thought provoking article Gary and of all the links I was really saddened by the women’s article mainly because it’s probably true. When I think of all the girls I knew and worked with I often wished they had worthy partners and lovers. I had friends and relations that had tragic relationships and abuse was rife. I suppose the best we can do is respect the one we are with and try to do better.
On another tack altogether, I feel that biding your time for another year might be more favourable in the long run where travelling is concerned. England is still not out of the woods and other countries have yet to climax. Brexit will be causing all sorts of havoc until everything settles down, we just have to wait it out and hopefully come out the other side with our health.
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Funny thing is, I rarely read the newspaper for any news. It’s the comments and miscellaneous articles I enjoy. Such as the one about women, which was indeed rather sad in places.
As for travel. My feet itch. My head says wait a little longer. I’ll likely not do anything terribly rash. But as ever, I’ll be pragmatic. We’ll see how things go.
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By the way, I take it the links worked for you ok. Do you use a VPN?
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