Every Saturday, absolute top of my "To-Do" list is to buy The Times newspaper, maybe cook up a bit of breakfast, sit back with a glass of pulped orange juice, or tropicana, and read the paper and associated magazines.
Pure English.
Pure Saturday.
Pure bliss.
And for all of those of us that are not lefty or righty enough, but like our news given to us roughly somewhere in the middle - are we not all aggrieved at the new layout of The Times on a Saturday?
Is this protest of one or have I got a following?
The Times has a beautiful paper on a Saturday, which I consider to be far better than the famed Sunday Times. The latter is a bulky, overwrought waste of paper with sections for every walk of life (Travel, Driving!!, Money, Life & Style!!!, Country Walking, Origami). We don't need all of these things and we certainly don't read them. Instead, we need all of the best bits condensed into one easy newspaper, giving us a slice of the news pie which we haven't been able to scoff during the week. That's what a Saturday paper is. Or at least, should be.
The Times had a great thing going on with their Saturday magazine. ALL of my favorite columnists - Giles Coren, Bob Crampton, Kate Muir - they were the super team or journalists - the J-MEN if you will. And it was all so cool - great words with great pictures backed up by sublime art direction.
Now it's all gone, and my Saturday morning newspaper pleasure has gone into the shredder with it. They've changed the font and the layout completely - giving it an overall stench of (cough cough) Guardian. A lot of my friends and their families are Guardian readers - there's something wonderful and hippy about the liberal fonts of a Guardian arts & film supplement. There's nothing wrong with it - it's just an acquired read. Instead, I need something in between the stoic Telegraph and the whimsy Observer, something serious but which doesn't take itself seriously.
That was The Times. But all it takes is a font change, a three-column layout preferred over a two-column, and black and white portrait pictures for each journalist so we know just how they artsy they look. Not even Coren and the J-MEN can save this mess.
Does anyone know what i'm talking about? I feel as if i'm on my own with this one.
2 comments:
Good one, Bugs, I am TOTALLY with you. Those scroudrels with their typographical daredevilry have ruined not only my weekend, and, i am pleased to read, yours (you know what i mean), but i fear perhaps Saturdays more generally.
The small, well-yes-actually-i-am-quite-culutural, Guardian-esque tv guide really pissed me off.
Thanks for writing that, Bugs, and especially for pointing out the ghastly similarity of the new format to the Guardian, that darling of the pretentious mee-dee-yah dinner party.
Let us unite and march forth, to a place where the Times still looks like a serious, cold grey slab of Britain. To Sunday, my friend. At least Giles Coren will be there.
Yo- i dont know about the times new look, but i definitely like the blog's new look. Awesome header-- isnt that from the coldplay concert in paris??
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