Endgame
Goodbye
I've made a momentous, hopefully life-changing decision. I have cancelled my subscription to the Guardian. Today's shall be the last to stick out of my letterbox. The only daily newspaper I have read faithfully in my adult life, it's time to move on. I came to the realisation, like a diamond bullet in the forehead, that it lies at the root of a lot of my anger. So I'm no longer having it delivered. This will, I think, greatly improve my health. Barely a day goes by without something in it that makes me cross and winds me up.
Yesterday's piece about complementary treatments for babies in G2 was typical: Risky Alternatives was its fair and balanced headline. In the piece, it was stated that "more and more infants" are being given complementary treatments "as many parents abandon long waits at the doctor's surgery in favour of costly visits to alternative practitioners." (Note: costly.) We're mainly talking about massage and yoga, or acupressure, which is acupuncture without the needles (pressure points are massaged using a toy tractor) - nothing too extreme or nutty. A bit of homeopathy but if critics are convinced it doesn't work, they can't have any trouble with a baby taking the remedies. However, after relating a couple of actual cases where complementary treatments seemed effective against babies with whooping cough and eczema, a sceptical paediatrician appeared, to give the opposite view: "My antagonism is proportional to the degree of harm they can do. At best they are benign and, at worst, can do an awful lot of harm." If this is the case, neither example given involved any harm. As for the lack of research into such practices, it was explained by a paediatric acupuncturist that drug companies aren't interested in funding such research. Then we had the inevitable appearance of Edzard Ernst, "professor of complementary medicine at the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter", whose Medicine Man column, dropped (thank God) when the newspaper switched format, routinely took complementary medicine apart using scientific testing for the benefit of undecided Guardian readers. Ernst says, with the concrete certainty that we have come to recognise, that "kinesiology is nonsense." Thanks. We won't go down that route then. I understand that any journalistic report must present a balanced argument, and it's up to individual parents whether they're swayed by the two positive case studies, or frightened off by the medical establishment, but it's typical of the Guardian's conventional response to unconventional practices: here's a baby having a toy rubbed on his back, and here's a man in a white coat telling you to look away now. It would have been interesting to note, perhaps, that conventional medicines are not tested on babies, only on adults, after which they are passed for use, merely dose-adjusted for weight and age. You see, knowing that untested drugs are routinely prescribed for infants, my antagonism is proportional to the degree of harm they can do. At best they are benign and, at worst, can do an awful lot of harm.
In the same issue of G2, we had Grumpy Old Woman Michele Hanson having a go at Gwyneth Paltrow for planning to feed her children only "biological food, whatever that is, because she believes that such a diet will prevent them from developing cancerous tumours." This is apparently the thinking of a dangerous nutter (spotting any themes here?) - "nobody is absolutely certain about the relationship between food and cancer," she writes. True enough, but why knock someone else for playing it safe, following their instinct and adopting a preventative approach? Anyway, it turns out that far from not being "absolutely certain", Michele Hanson is, well, absolutely fucking certain! "To think you can definitely stop tumours through diet is a load of old rubbish. And the idea of fighting cancer is a pernicious little argument. It makes people think it's their fault for not fighting hard enough, and it's nobody's fault, ever. Not even a smoker's fault. Yes, you should give up smoking if you can but some people are susceptible, some people aren't. We have enough to feel guilty about, without blaming ourselves for cancer." All this from the news that an actress is trying to feed her babies healthily. Yet again, the same message pumps through. Cancer is a lottery, don't bother doing anything to try and prevent it, it's coming to get us and the drugs and the surgeons are standing by.
I have had my fill. No more Ben Goldacre. No more Edzard Ernst. No more George Monbiot, who seems to have actually gone a bit mad, devoting two entire columns to 9/11 conspiracy theorists, rubbishing them in such an immovable way you wonder if he's forgotten what it was like to be an ardent environmentalist before the mainstream caught on. Anyway, the Guardian will survive without me, just as Starbucks do. It feels great to have made this admittedly miniscule gesture. I realise it won't even be a blip on the Guardian's circulation radar, but my life will be greatly improved and I'm hoping that peace and calm will descend upon me, as I read about the end of the world every day in the Independent.
And I can always read Peter Bradshaw online.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 12:03 PM
23 Comments
Contact
Andrew at
23 Comments:
I read both the Independent and the Guardian every week, and I think they're generally quite similar. Although I do get some stick from some of my more right wing friends who argue its coverage veers towards the environment and poverty in Africa.
The benefit of not buying the Guardian is that you can still read all its articles online, and I do find that even with its slightly smaller Berliner size its a bit difficult to read on the tube.
I think one of the best pieces the Independent did recently was a cover story last July about illegal drugs, where they used a ranking showing that Alcohol is more dangerous than a lot of illegal drugs (link
here ) Thought provoking stuff.
I guess not reading the Guardian now means you can't be accused of being a Guardian reading liberal.
I often read Melanie Phillips' column which is written in the Daily Mail (and found here), just because I enjoy the challenge of reading something I completely disagree with.
I find reading anything about music in OMM or the Guardian's Film and Music section on a Friday to be a complete waste of time.
It's like watching Popworld with your Mum, except your ma would probably have more insight than that bunch of wannabes. Alexis Petridis is so assured of his understanding of the zeitgeist, that he fails to recognise the fact he's about two months behind everyone else.
This attitude also applies to their take on fashion and film.
It's not so much that they ar frequently inaccurate in their reportage, it's more the fact that they somehow manage to bloat a simple press release to a couple of pages of editorial, week in, week out.
And then they'll run with a headline like 'The 50 Best Bands You've Never Heard Of'. I'm sorry? I HAVE heard of over half these bands you feckless, smug morons.
I fear this has hit a nerve. I may need to have a quick sit down.
A good decision Andrew and one I've been considering for the last year or so, for different reasons to yourself.
I have never regularly bought a newspaper. Luckily, we get them all delivered to work then collated, so I can pick through everything at my leisure. They may wind you up, but it's only fleeting. Heat magazine winds me up just as much, but I can't and won't let it ruin my life.
Good for you, Andrew. Anything that's beneficial to the health must be a bonus.
Andrew
I too think you have made the right decision. At the end of the day your health is the most important thing. Hopefully your blood pressure will return to normal and you will feel all the better for it. Wiser people than me have said - "Read the papers by all means but don't take all you read too seriously. The only opinion that truly matters for you is your own."
Papers know that controversy sells so of course they go out of their way to provide us with some.
There might be another blog entry in there on waiting times but - for now - Take Care.
Don't know why it matters, but just intrigued to know if that means no more Observer for you either?
Lyman, I find Sunday papers very different to dailies. They serve a separate purpose. They're "something to look at", rather than "something to read", a sort of digest of the week. As such The Observer is far less likely to get my blood boiling. (I stopped buying it when they came out in support of the Iraq war, but went back last year, as it's still the best designed of the Sundays and aesthetics counts for a lot when you're spreading the sections out over the kitchen table.)
I'm with Mike, I quite enjoy reading things that get me into a mild froth of rage, I like visiting my gran and reading her Daily Mail for this purpose. Plus it's probably not a good thing to just read things that reinforce your own prejudices.
I'm tempted to reply to some of Andrews other comments but it's probably just retreading ground covered in the Mckeith post so i'm going to step away from the keyboard.
I sat behind Peter Bradshaw on the W5 bus the other day, so I get the chance to read his film reviews over his shoulder while he pores over them, without having to buy a Grauniad.
I recently cancelled my subscription to Uncut, which has descended from great to god-awful in space of the past few years. I ended up only reading the reviews section and nothing else. There was a great sense of relief when I did it too, plus I have more time to read books!
I don't read any newspapers now either, and have learned that ignorance is indeed bliss. I imagine after a while, Andrew, the Indie will rile you as much as the Guardian did... Get rid of them all and the world immediately seems a brighter place.
I realise this is ostrich like, but it makes me happier...
Although it doesn't take the place of a daily newspaper, I find the New Statesman an essential read and find it more in tune with my views than the Guardian. (It makes no apologies for Labour, which many of the Guardian's columnists do - Toynbee, Ashley, step forward.) Add to that The Ecologist every month and the New Yorker for a liberal American persective and I'm all set. What keeps me reading a daily newspaper is the woeful state of most television news.
Oh, and I appreciate your restraint, Some Guy. Really.
Hear hear re. the sorry state of TV news. Going to the gym pre-work used to be a useful chance to catch up on news, and with a choice between BBC, ITV and Sky (OK, so a no-brainer on which one to watch then). What's even more disappointing than the low standards set by the latter two is the rate at which the BBC news seems to be mutating into a clone of them.
To paraphrase Victor Kiam, I liked it so much, I bought an i-Pod.
I tried chucking the Grauniad for the Indescribablyboring about two years ago, and I lasted a month. There was much I didn't miss - Polly Toynbee and Catherine 'Moaner' Bennett for two - but the Indie was so utterly bloodless, and no Steve Bell or Nancy Banks-Smith... so I went back, and I just cherry-pick what I choose to read.
I've always relied more on BBC Radio for news (partial to Eddie Mair, and Nick Clarke is much missed). Agree with AC that the New Statesman is a lively and pertinent read these days (having recovered from a lengthy fallow period), but it still doesn't satisfy the same need as my daily paper. Though clivepounds is bang on the money about Alex Petrides - he's even less "down wit' da kidz' than I am!
Anyway, if AC caves in after a few weeks, as I did, at least he can say he was only giving it up for Lent.
George Monboit did seem a little prickly, but then I read the comments on his "Loose Change" piece - about 700, most of them accusing him of being a CIA spy enslaved to Bush or something.
I'm not surprised he had a go at them at the next opportunity.
Andrew, if you really want to up the liberal American material - and solve your news problem at the same time - why not start to podcast the Daily Shuffle on NPR which is available on itunes (think of it as 'Talk of the Town' for your ears) and then watch Jon Stewart's Daily Show in the evening?
I'm left a bit confused as to why you cancelled The Guardian.
It does sound like you're getting a little bit obsessed with complementary medicine.
I was interested to discover recently from the polling agency BMRB that only 11% of the British population currently believe in the efficacy of complementary medicine -- i.e. 89% don't believe it works.
If the Guardian is just playing to the crowd / reflecting the opinions of the population rather than giving a 'balanced' view then they are doing a pretty good job of it.
Who knows? Perhaps they are biased.
Nigel, if I seem "obsessed" with complementary medicine it's because complementary medicine has been under fire over the last week round here and I've had to defend it almost singlehandedly! Certainly, you might say that I brought this upon myself by writing about the subject in the first place, but remember, that entry was a reaction to the McKeith piece in my newspaper (as was). It was my right of reply.
However, the experience is a positive one in that it has galvanised my beliefs and made me realise that I need to get less angry less often if my heart isn't going to explode out of my chest.
Hence the decision to stop reading a paper that happens also to be the best designed of all the dailies and with the best cartoons. I had to do something!
I'm glad you're keeping up with The Observer though because, as far as I'm concerned, The Obsever is the Sunday papers.....
Thanks for the reply Andrew. I missed all the prior debate about McKeith and was basing my comment largely on this post.
stella-k said;
you won't last without the grauniad.
These other newspapers are fundamentally tedious or owned by the murdoch empire. There is no alternative to the G.
I'd read the best bits online and then run away to other sources for knowledge. Will you start subscribing to the new statesman or the spectator now?
This is a bad business, Andrew. You have left the mother church. And yet, Lord Marchmain at the end of Brideshead Revisited movingly accepted the sacrament on his deathbed after a lifetime's disavowal of the faith. So when you are in extremis in a Venetian palazzo, I like to think your last act will be to raise a frail and papery hand and signal to a manservant to bring forward a copy of The Guardian, and you will listen with an expression of beatific calm as he reads aloud an article by Martin Kettle.
RE: Peter Bradshaw's eloquent post - that's the kind of writing I'll miss!
I've already bookmarked the daily Guardian cartoon on Guardian Unlimited. It already works for me.
Stella, as stated on another thread I think, I am a long-time susbscriber to the New Statesman. I wouldn't be without it.
Post a Comment
<< Home