Mr. Waffle has a subscription to the Economist [that’s even worse than it sounds, I got it for him for Christmas, it was that or more socks]. It lies around the house but I am never really tempted to pick it up. Daniel, on the other hand, is rivetted. He firmly believes Macron will save Europe, just so’s you know. I was talking about this unusual choice of reading material with my friend from Belfast, “I mean,” I said, “I didn’t even watch the news growing up, let alone read the Economist. Did you?” “Well,” he said, “it was the 70s and I was growing up in North Belfast so much of the news was very local, so yeah, all the time.” Well, circumstances alter cases.
I asked Michael and Daniel whether they had seen Trump and the orb. “No,” said Michael peering over my shoulder on to twitter which is now my source of all news. “Do you want to see, Daniel?” I asked. “No thanks,” he said, “I saw it in the Economist”
I’ve had an on-off subscription to the Economist for most of my adult life – I like the fact that it covers bits of the world (like Africa) not just when it’s kicking off with some disaster but actual life-goes-on politics as well. And you always know who the prime minister of Japan is. But mainly because it’s an excellent way to get to sleep at night. The problem is you never then have time to read anything else.
Yes, it arrives with monotonous regularity and remember all those years of information about the Japanese banking system?