I don't read newspapers...

I don't read newspapers.

I don't have the time or the inclination. News is so instant now that the papers simply act as a source of conjecture and subjection. I am fully able to achieve such things myself (I don't even enjoy the speculative approach of the BBC and Sky, but there we are).

I have always liked the idea of reading the papers though. This is something that has been formulated by an invisible world I had thought to exist before the realities of life eroded such thoughts away. I had anticipated that I would spend a couple of days a week sitting in the first class carriage of a train resembling a cross between the Hogwarts Express and the Mallard Locomotive from London to Edinburgh (why that particular route, I’m not quite sure), sipping filtered coffee and eating boiled eggs with bread soldiers with a rich quality parchment copy of The Times on my private table (broadsheet of course). Quite whether or not I had envisaged wearing a bowler hat during these excursions, I cannot recall. Those days where I would not be required to make this celebrated journey, I would be sitting in the morning room (yes, that’s right, the morning room) of my self-designed country mansion, where my butler, Hibberd, would fetch me The Times and a plate of fresh kippers.

It still remains an attractive proposition and one that almost leads me to rummage through my old boxes to locate my architectural drawings that I created during Mr Waller's Latin classes. Perhaps if I had paid more attention to Vergil's Aeneid, or whatever it was, I would now be a wealthy barrister with a smidgen of a chance of replicating my quite ludicrous fantasy, but still, I'll keep hammering away on the door of chance...

If I had managed to retain my concentration and had successfully embarked upon a career as a lawyer, or more likely had selected the correct six numbers on the first ticket going, then I do wonder quite what I would have been doing reading The Times in the first place. Not that there is anything wrong with The Times of course. I dare say it is better than it's militant rival The Guardian and more substantial than The Telegraph, not to mention any of the tabloids. It's just that I can’t imagine being bothered to read the thing on a frequent basis. After all, if I had a butler, I would simply ask him to keep me informed of the news (the fantasy was formed long before the internet took off, let alone the powers of social media took precedent) or turn the television on. The distractions strewn throughout my huge estate would be far too great to waste time reading the latest political events of the day when I could be swimming in my indoor pool, or utilising the computerised bowling machine in my cricket nets. You get the idea...

N.B For those of you who are interested in the drawings, I also created an eight-tiered two-hundred thousand all-seater stadium for Tottenham Hotspur in the mid-nineties called "The Octagon" and sent the plans to Alan Sugar. I never did receive a reply...