I start my Guardian Weekly by getting two annoyances out of the way: checking the Quick crossword for answers I failed to get, and snorting at the insufferable Pedanticus. Then there is the cheer of Notes & Queries (as others have noted, the populations of New Zealand and Australia seem to be employed full-time on this column), the voyeurism of What I’m really thinking, the conciseness of Shortcuts, and so on until I’ve read the whole paper.
I was born in England; I inherited my devotion to the Guardian from my father. His three sons converted him to Labour, and so he changed his daily to the Guardian.
He was a slow reader; by the time he died he was several years behind in his Guardian Weekly issues. That did not matter. He read the paper not to keep up with the news but to sharpen his mind and learn beyond his own country.
I do the same, though I keep up with every issue. I left England in 1965, first for Ireland, then Sweden, and finally, for most of my life, the United States.
The Guardian Weekly is the only paper I read regularly. It is a wonderful antidote to the manufactured sensationalism of 24-hour news and the fast-food addictions of social media.
It is also a lifeline to the earth of my motherland. Each week I leave Nature watch until last. Its lyric prose wrings the heart.
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