I think I’ve been insulted. I went down to buy the paper in the local shop this morning and bought The Observer and the Woman’s Weekly Fiction Special, as shown in the photo.
Yes, it’s true, I read women’s magazine fiction. It’s light – actual weight-wise, not simply ‘light reading’, it comes in a disposable format, and it’s particularly suitable for travel reading. (I also like to know what’s being published these days, in case I feel inspired to turn my hand to fiction.)
But it’s not the only thing I read.
So when the woman in the shop asked – His reading and your reading? – I was rather taken aback. Do I really look as if I’m incapable of reading a broadsheet newspaper?
I wonder what she’d have made of my purchases yesterday, which included The Spectator, Prospect and The Guardian. I doubt she’d have understood that they were bought en route to visit my 86-year-old mother, knowing full well that she’d enjoy reading them all. (She’ll read the WW, too, no doubt, but it will be the last that she’ll pick up.)
don't confuse the narrator 
I think I’d rather read a new Peter Lovesey story in Woman’s Weekly than anything I’m likely to find in The Observer, and I was certainly male last time anybody looked, so perhaps I’d confuse the newsagent too[*].
I did stay up until 4am watching the Election coverage, but that was only because I had some stockings to darn urgently.
[*]But not with the author.
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I don’t know Peter Lovesey – at least not yet – but the WW fiction special has printed some good classical fiction.
As for the Observer, well, there’s a limit to what’s available in the local shop and we like something with a doable crossword.
So you stayed up till 4am, and four days later there is still no result? (except for some darned stockings, perhaps.)
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Carnally speaking, I don’t know Peter Lovesey either – whatever the gutter press may claim.
The best crosswords are, of course, the dartboard-shaped ones in /The Spectator/.
Rumours that Peter Lovesey and I are negotiating a coalition in order to squeeze the poor until their pips squeak are somewhat exaggerated.
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I don’t often read the gutter press, despite rumours to the contrary.
Did you see last week’s Spectator? The crossword instructions include the delightful: ‘Elsewhere, ignore a grave accent.’ So I was busy ignoring all the political and financial correspondents earlier in the week, though they mostly lacked the gravitas to be described as more than ‘worried’ or ‘serious’. (With politicians barely out of short trousers, what can we expect of the commentators?)
As for the phrase “until the pips squeak”, I have always expected it to end “and Wilfred.”
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