I first saw the Guardian Weekly, then in its smaller and lightweight paper format, back in the mid-1960s while a graduate student. It wasn’t until a couple of decades later, after we had settled in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, that I was presented with an occasion to read a copy from cover to cover and first realised what a fine newspaper it was.
On visiting one of my wife’s cousins, I chanced upon an issue in which there was a news article on the 1980s Iranian blockade of the Straits of Hormuz then in progress. I was impressed with the analysis of the situation. On returning home, I immediately took out a subscription and I’ve maintained one ever since. Each year, our son receives a subscription as his birthday present.
On receiving each issue, I immediately turn to Notes & Queries in anticipation of wry humour. After years of following others’ contributions, I enjoy seeing their names and geographical locales. What a wonderful menagerie of interesting minds! I then move on to the Sudoku and Quick crossword.
The above being out of the way early, I then spend the rest of the week reading the various items and articles in a rather haphazard order. I always maintain a small stack of past issues beside my chair for ready reference when subsequent articles or items in the Reply section require me to backtrack to something I’d missed earlier.
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