Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Newspapers




impossible songs








impossible songs


A man sits on an aircraft, he is reading a paper. When the plane lands he removes the TV section, folds it up into quarters and puts it in his inside coat pocket for later (one assumes). He discards the rest of the paper, leaving it in a seat pocket. The time is 2035.

Six older people (all in their sixties) are in the lounge of an airport, clearly they have all attended the same funeral that day, possibly a friend or a close family member. They huddle together and all attempt to complete the crossword puzzle from the Daily Mail. One man goes away to the toilet, when he returns 10 minutes later he has one of the answers - the one on which they all had been stuck.

In the bar upstairs a dog eared copy of the current Times is on a radiator, nobody picks it up. It looks dirty.

A man is snoozing in the same area, his newspaper is spread across his lap. He sleeps through his flight announcement and misses it. He does not react when he wakes up and realises what has happened.

A woman reading the Times is also eating crisps, her paper and her fingers smell strongly of cheese and onion.
I keep my distance.

I read the Scotsman almost from cover to cover, I miss most of the ads and a section towards the end. I don't bother with the rugby but I read the football pages. I read all the letters and all the editorials. I like to know what people are thinking. Much of the actual reported news is not news at all but seeing it in print it takes on a strange kind of relevance.

Today has been and ordinary day - most of which was spent in Southampton airport departure lounge.

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