I read the news today, oh boy

I was looking for a copy of the Guardian in a local newsagent today. Could I find one? Well, it was lunchtime and in this particular part of South-West London, Britain's favourite lefty daily sells out quicker than all the other titles. Disappointed, I had one last rummage. Acting on impulse, I turned over a copy of the FT and there - sure enough - was one solitary edition of my number one paper. Elated, I offered my 70p to the lady behind the counter.

"Where did you find that?" she enquired.

"It was down there, underneath the Financial Times."

"You were lucky. Someone was asking for it earlier."

One of life's small victories, although tinged with sadness at the the thought of another, less dedicated, shopper deprived of his Polly Toynbee and George Monbiot fix.

I headed over to the local caf and sat myself down.

I glanced at the Guardian and saw that it was covering the Chelsea v Forest game from Saturday. A little odd, I thought, as we were now in the middle of Tuesday.

Yes, blog reader, you've guessed it. I'd bought Monday's paper. It did cross my mind to go back, but hunger got the better of me. I just pretended I was a time traveller and caught up on important news about Big Brother in the Media section.

Comments

A Fawlty Towers script? Si, senor!

Ok, so I gave ChatGPT the following scenario: "Imagine a theatrical script for a situation comedy set in a hotel in Torquay, England. The proprietor is called Basil, an eccentric man who believes the calibre of guests to be low. His wife, Sybil, is often frustrated by Basil's incompetence. They employ a Spanish waiter called Manuel, who struggles to understand English. Basil suspects that two guests, who claim to be married, may be lying." Here's what our favourite AI came up with: Scene: The hotel lobby in Torquay, England. Basil is standing behind the reception desk, looking at a piece of paper. Sybil is standing next to him, looking annoyed. Manuel is hovering nearby, trying to look busy. Basil: (to Sybil) I don't know why we get such low-calibre guests at this hotel. Look at these two - Mr. and Mrs. Smith. They claim to be married, but I suspect they might be lying. Sybil: (sighing) Basil, it's not our job to judge the marital status of our guests. Just m...

Becoming a Twister board

I spent yesterday evening in an old factory building off Brick Lane playing kids' games with an organisation called Fun Fed. The idea is that a bunch of adults get together and act like children for a couple of hours. We played tag and stuck big coloured discs on ourselves so that we could become human Twister mats. There was an awful lot of running around and I was thinking that I ought to get to aikido a bit more often. Being a child is very hard work.

It's been a tough year. Let's give ourselves a clap.

If something didn’t smell right about the UK handling of the pandemic, the British public was never going to notice. But they knew that if they couldn’t smell something, they really ought to get a Covid test sent to them in the post. There has been something incredibly British about the DIY swabs and their delivery via the gig-economy workers of Amazon, hasn’t there? Touch of corona? I’ll pop something in the post to you. Should be with you tomorrow. I suppose it was inevitable that we’d need some new kind of system. After all, the coronavirus outbreak was the first thing in the history of the NHS that couldn’t be cured by paracetamol, rest and plenty of fluids. This understandably left GPs flummoxed and anxious. The UK decided pretty early on that if you were ill with a novel pathogen – which proved deadly in maybe 1% of cases – you really shouldn’t go to the doctor. You should STAY AT HOME and spread it quickly to your flatmates or family members. And because they were now at ...

WASHED AND READY TO EAT

Search This Blog