I suspect I now have your undivided attention.
What I really wanted to talk about was “The Sunday Times”. I have taken it (actually, as we shall see, that is totally the wrong way to say that) for most of my adult life – “The Sunday Times is the Sunday Papers” etc.
This morning, I bought it at the newsagents, making the flippant remark to the girl there – “I don’t suppose, by any chance, they’ve kept the price the same as last week?”, looking for the cheap laugh. She grinned.
“That’ll be £2, Sir.” Last week it was £1.80. Now, I concede that my mind is on the wane, but this ability to keep poking the price higher and higher is truly amazing, and it seems to have been going on for ages. By definition, you don’t keep old newspapers around, so a simple trip to www-land throws up the price in mid 2002 - £1.20. That’s 67% in 4 years – do you know any other business that could get away with that sort of rise?
With a circulation of 1.3 million, that’s nearly £60 million per year – that’ll pay for a bit of increased newsprint cost!
I don’t seem to get anything out of this apart from a slightly larger hole in my wallet each week. So, there’s a deal to be done here. My copy today comes in 14 different Sections, and it’s only as low as that because they’ve combined and rationalised a couple of sections from last week. It also weighs 3lbs 12oz (assuming that the Government still allows me to quote the weight of a Sunday newspaper in Avoirdupois). Yes, I know it’s not a tree in the Amazon, but it’s still a bloody big branch.
What’s the deal then? Now, for reasons I don’t understand, but really am secretly quite pleased about, I can’t stand soccer. And when I want to read about some of the sports which do interest me, I have to flip over what seems like millions, but is really only 20, pages of pictures and stories in the Sports Section, about yesterday’s footy matches. What they should do now is to put all the soccer news in one Easy to Throw Away section just like their sister publication “The Times”, so the 30 seconds I spend each week getting to the Golf bits can be saved in perpetuity.
So, who do I write to?
Oh, and one last thing - about the title of this piece. I was reading about the “Sunday Times” on the internet, and I shamelessly copied the title of one writer’s (phil2001) article for this one, simply because it amused me. He was saying that “The Sunday Times” was the only one big enough to allow him to line the bottom of his girlfriend’s cat’s litter tray for a whole week with - hence the title.
What I really wanted to talk about was “The Sunday Times”. I have taken it (actually, as we shall see, that is totally the wrong way to say that) for most of my adult life – “The Sunday Times is the Sunday Papers” etc.
This morning, I bought it at the newsagents, making the flippant remark to the girl there – “I don’t suppose, by any chance, they’ve kept the price the same as last week?”, looking for the cheap laugh. She grinned.
“That’ll be £2, Sir.” Last week it was £1.80. Now, I concede that my mind is on the wane, but this ability to keep poking the price higher and higher is truly amazing, and it seems to have been going on for ages. By definition, you don’t keep old newspapers around, so a simple trip to www-land throws up the price in mid 2002 - £1.20. That’s 67% in 4 years – do you know any other business that could get away with that sort of rise?
With a circulation of 1.3 million, that’s nearly £60 million per year – that’ll pay for a bit of increased newsprint cost!
I don’t seem to get anything out of this apart from a slightly larger hole in my wallet each week. So, there’s a deal to be done here. My copy today comes in 14 different Sections, and it’s only as low as that because they’ve combined and rationalised a couple of sections from last week. It also weighs 3lbs 12oz (assuming that the Government still allows me to quote the weight of a Sunday newspaper in Avoirdupois). Yes, I know it’s not a tree in the Amazon, but it’s still a bloody big branch.
What’s the deal then? Now, for reasons I don’t understand, but really am secretly quite pleased about, I can’t stand soccer. And when I want to read about some of the sports which do interest me, I have to flip over what seems like millions, but is really only 20, pages of pictures and stories in the Sports Section, about yesterday’s footy matches. What they should do now is to put all the soccer news in one Easy to Throw Away section just like their sister publication “The Times”, so the 30 seconds I spend each week getting to the Golf bits can be saved in perpetuity.
So, who do I write to?
Oh, and one last thing - about the title of this piece. I was reading about the “Sunday Times” on the internet, and I shamelessly copied the title of one writer’s (phil2001) article for this one, simply because it amused me. He was saying that “The Sunday Times” was the only one big enough to allow him to line the bottom of his girlfriend’s cat’s litter tray for a whole week with - hence the title.
2 comments:
Roger, Thanks for telling me about your blog. Naturally, I read this one first.
It is all great, keep it flowing! Being a 42 year old, I am still too busy to write much, but glad that you do.
Cheers, Tony
Tony, I hope the maths you use in your risk assessments is on a slightly higher plane than you age calculation! Or is it rounding?
Thanks for the call.
Cheers, Roger
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