Sunday newspaper ritual hits the bin
May 15 2008 By Chris Upton
When friends from Wolverhampton used to come over to visit me at university (most of them having chosen the "earnings today" route to personal advancement, rather than a degree in Classics with its prospect of no earnings at any point), they used to tease me about what they called my "paper round".
What happened was that, breakfast over, off I went round the corner to Silver Street to collect great swathes of Sunday papers. Broadsheets under each arm, I staggered back to what Cambridge students termed their "rooms", but only ever seemed to consist of one, and spread newspapers all over the floor. The rest of daylight hours were then fully taken care of.
There were supplements to scrutinize, a veneer of sophistication to gather, new books, plays and films to internalize. Since attending lectures on Roman elegiac poetry hardly kept my finger on the pulse of modern life, I had to get my polish elsewhere.
There was a comforting ritual in all of this, and the streets of Cambridge were full of folk making the same weekly pilgrimage, empty-handed on the way out, weighed down with paper on the way back. For many, it was the only journey they ever made on Sundays, and the only exercise they ever got any time.
This habit I maintained for years, despite the fact that I only ever got through a fraction of the newsprint on offer. Articles and supplements were cut out and put aside for later reading, and went yellow and brittle before that day arrived.
Many of those cuttings stayed with me when I rejoined the human race four years later, and so did the Sunday papers habit.
Some years later, I discovered the merits of filleting. As there is almost always a waste-paper bin outside a newsagent's shop, filleting could be done on the spot, saving considerable time and effort in carrying the heavy burden home. In went the business section, the sports section (there was hardly ever a report on the Wolves), the children's comic section, the 100 richest lists (never anyone I knew in those), the lifestyle section, the property section (only ever houses in Surrey and Knightsbridge), a magazine that consisted solely of adverts, another magazine full of furniture adverts and always a section on independent schools.
Out too went the week's TV listings, since I always bought The Radio Times.
After a moment's thought the news review went into the bin as well, since I knew I would never find the time to read it. And even if I did, the news would have moved on anyway. Next to go was the arts section, since all the reviews were of plays recently opened in London.
Eventually the only part which survived the cull was the newspaper itself.
Finally, I discovered the most streamlined system of all. I would stroll down to the newsagent, buy the paper or papers and then put the whole lot in the bin.
Thus I retained the satisfying ritual of Sunday paper-buying, without needing to clutter up the house with them. It was the perfect solution.
No doubt I would still be doing this had I not developed a conscience about recycling. The bin outside the paper shop was clearly not designed for this purpose.
Faced with the decisive choice between global-warming and carrying the Sundays home, I stopped buying them altogether. At least I'm doing something for the environment.
* Dr Chris Upton is back to reading Roman elegiac poetry at Newman University College in Birmingham.
