Daryl's Blog

This is good news for me, but perhaps less so for the newspaper industry, for which this could be the last straw. I found myself recently on a cruise to the Arctic (more on that in my next confession). I've been on cruises before and always managed to stay pretty well in touch with the news of what's going on at home in the UK. However, this was an Italian ship and very few concessions were made to the modest group of Brits on board; so for 2 weeks I had very little news coming through, nothing in the way of TV channels even to keep me in touch. Now I am a man who has taken the Daily Telegraph for 48 years missing hardly a day.

The result of this deprivation is that I'm suddenly freed up from the compulsion of having to watch the news or read a daily paper. When I now make the morning tea, the TV doesn't get switched on for news of the latest scandal or disaster; once a week is quite sufficient. If it's important it will still be there in a week. Do I really need a daily paper? I get very few snippets for my bulletin from the papers, so I can't use that as an excuse. Who knows! I might even manage to get some Bible reading in with the time that I save.

The only problem now, is that to save money I tied myself into buying these blocks of discounted vouchers, which means I will have to work out how to stop my payments; and we all know how tricky that can be.

I wrote this 6 weeks ago. Since then I sent back my vouchers, the relief of not having to read a paper every day is palpable. I'm not missing it all. (I cheat when I'm in Costa's). Now let's get that Bible dusted off!