I started reading the Guardian Weekly when I did my degree in International Relations because the paper provided reliable, trustworthy insight into the subjects I required that not many other current sources could.
I left behind the idea of a career in diplomacy and traded it for a life as a bushman. For almost 20 years now I have spent nearly all my time doing two- or three-week stints of ecology work in the New Zealand forest, summer and winter, and for much of that time my only company has been a copy or two of the GW.
The GW excels at telling the real news, so reading the woes of the world is enlightening though always thoroughly dismal, and I enjoy the fact that the only nasty thing that can really happen to me in the bush is a tree falling on my head.
By the end of the trip, I’ve read everything twice (except the articles about theatre) and failed at getting anywhere in the cryptic crossword. The paper is tattered and starting to go mouldy, so it ends its life as a half-pie firelighter and helps to ensure my socks and undies are dry for the next day. Then when I’m out, I’ll go straight to the shop for the latest copy, and the horror and mayhem I have missed acts as a driver for me to head back in.
So the question is: If a tree falls in the forest and the Guardian never existed, would I be there to know I’d been crushed?
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