A Sign of the Times

I keep buying the Sunday paper week on week. It's become a habit I'm not sure I can break. I enjoy the property pages despite the smug couples standing in front of bijou cottages with straplines declaring how much money they've made, and minimalist interiors only the seriously depressed could enjoy (It's got to be tidy! It's got to be clean!). I like the review of the week even though my favourite coloumnist stopped being funny quite a long time ago. I keep reading in hope that the cutting edge humour re-emerges from the grumpiness. The main news is always interesting and so is the colour supplement. This still leaves quite a lot of dross. I once tried to dispose of this at the bin outside the newsagent, but wrestling with the polythene packets and leaflets, advertising fitted library furnishings, in a strong wind turned into a muddle like that party game you used to play putting the pages back in order (still don't quite get where the fun was in that). So as soon as I get back home and settled onto the settee - cup of tea at the ready - I fling onto the floor the what-to-do-with-all-your-money pages (too depressing if you haven't got any), the job ads (I don't want to be the CEO of a multinational - possibly why I don't need to read the money management section), the what's on guide (I'll only end up wanting to watch something on a channel the aerial last picked up two storms ago), the petrol head pages, the geeky techy news and the travel advice (more smug people, only this time tanned, thin, and in white bikinis). I would like sections on travel featuring more 'comfortably' proportioned people with cellulite, someone featuring a house that looks really loved and lived in, jobs you can apply for without a perma-tan and a Jag, and money advice for the financially disadvantaged. Oh, I'd like the colour supplement to demonstrate gender equality, and every time there is an 'arty' photo of a woman with few or no clothes on, they feature a man in the same satorial state. It's not a lot to ask is it?