There was only one copy of The Spectator magazine left on the shelf. And it was in a crumpled state. It was obvious that it had been leafed through many times. The browsers that had violently flipped through the magazine had no consideration for the eventual buyer, if there were to be one, of said magazine. The pages were deformed and the cover had a huge fold mark on it.
Two choices were left to me. Buy this unsold second-hand copy or walk to the other side of town to purchase The Spectator in the only other shop that stocked it. There was a queue at the counter. I don’t like queues. I walked.
It was an uneventful walk. I tried to take a short cut through the sewers but was chased out of there by an angry crocodile. On the way I popped into smaller newsstands on the off chance the outlet had taken a gamble and ordered a Spectator. In some of these establishments you couldn’t swing a tiger. Scanning the limited shelves, just as I expected no Spectator, especially on the picturesque top shelf. To paraphrase one of Obi-Wan’s “These aren’t the glossies I’m looking for”.
Reaching the other store that was a regular stockist I was dismayed to find that they too had only one issue left. And it was in a more bedraggled state than the other one. This one had been round the block a few times. Propped up by neighbouring magazines it teetered like a drunken, gnarled branch that had been to the party of all parties. I half-expected it to vomit on the floor. I felt sorry for the poor thing. It wasn’t The Spectator’s fault it was in rags, it was the viewers that done it. They should outlaw browsing. Having to pick the best of a bad bunch I had to return to the first shop I was in.
Another uneventful walk with the addition of rainfall to keep me company. I considered entering a coffee house then remembered I don’t like the stuff. Oh, forgot to tell you about the pterodactyl attack. A deranged horde of them swooped down on me but I managed to beat them off. And Tippi Hedren thought she had it bad.
On re-entering the newsagent I saw that there was a large queue lined up at the checkout. This is bad. I looked for The Spectator that was here earlier. Fraser Nelson! It was gone. It had found a buyer. I eyed the queue to see if any one had The Spectator in their hands. I didn’t see it and even if someone had it, there was nothing I could do, except maybe hit the fire alarm. I went back to the shelves and considered turning up the corners of the many copies of The New Statesman that were not taken.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two Spectators were up for grabs, and I,
I shilly-shallied and let them pass by,
A Spectator-less week is a lonely existence
Boadicea's Chariot 
Très amusant! The Spectator is a terrific magazine even though I frequently disagree with the outpourings of its various contributors.
You could of course have it delivered to your Kindle, though I know it is not quite the same thing.
Always a priv- (OK, enough, I’ve done that one to death).
Good morning Sipu,
All my blogs have a necessary degree of poetic license in them to protect the guilty: me. In this one I changed the name of the magazine, though I do browse The Spectator website from time to time. Leaving it just as I found it, of course.
The thrust of the essay (hark at me) was non-buyers being reckless with magazines. Me, I love the smell of a fresh unopened magazine in the morning untouched by human hands. Just as I am careful when turning the pages of a book so as not to break the spine, I am gentle with my magazines.
Furthermore, I get my wife to iron my daily newspaper. This dries the ink and stops my hands from getting newsprint.
I was cured for life from buying magazines when I worked a couple of years for the National Magazine Company!
And HAD to read everyone of their blessed titles published every month from cover to cover for my job.
Thus magazines are now in the same category as apples. I cannot actually bring myself to part with money for these items, they should be free!
(I grew up with a three acre apple orchard, was there ever any other winter pudding? Not in my childhood!
I have never been able to bring myself to pick up magazines in doctor’s offices. I sit there looking at them imagining all the loathsome diseased occupants dripping AIDS, Lassar fever, incurable TB, etc, etc. all over the pages. Does wonders for the blood pressure!
You’re not going to like this, Christina, but I go the whole hog and order the binders too! Once the binder is full it is sealed and goes straight up into the loft. Never to be read or seen again.
I am an infrequent visitor to doctor’s surgeries though I experience the same fear of germs you mention when I am in the library. You never know who has been sneezing over the previously hired books. For that reason, I try and take out new books only. Sometimes this is not possible as there might be a title I want that has been “around the block” with multiple stampings; I read it at arms length.
I hereby declare binders for magazines are totally anal!
I expect they make good insulation before the ceiling totally collapses!
Re the library books, here they are so clean it isn’t true, they sell them off regularly. Terribly expensive way of going about things. A couple of years back when money was getting tight the County wanted to give less to the library system. People were given the choice on a County wide plebiscite to choose whether or not to pay an extra levy on the property tax to ensure money for the library system. It passed by about 80%!!!
People are very very supportive of the whole system here and they lend DVDs free too. They offer so many programmes and fun classes to kids in the holidays to increase literacy and hold books in both Spanish and Russian here as that is the nationality of so many of the immigrants in the County.
Quite amazing. Really one of the most efficient systems I have ever seen. I rather think people would prefer to close the schools first, they come in for serious flak.
Due to an overspill of binders I have to use my mother’s loft. It’s worrying because my ailing dad still smokes like a chimney. We fear the house burning down. I always joke that if that happens I’ll shout to the firemen “Get the American Marvels first!”
That is one great library system you’ve got. Ours is going to the dogs. The venerable Mitchell reference library allows the students/readers to eat and drink!!! (definitely deserved three marks, don’t you think?) The smaller local ones have limited stock though you can reserve books online. It rankles that in all of them there is a section devoted to books in Polish. Takes up valuable space and I presume, finances.
Your mention of a surfeit of apples in your childhood, Christina, reminded me of the surfeit of fruit I suffered from as a child. In my case it was blackcurrants. I don’t like blackcurrants, though I do now accept that a drop of Crème de Cassis is necessary to make my kir. But when I was ill with a cold or sore throat or other childhood ailment, my mother’s remedy was hot blackcurrant drink, made from homemade blackcurrant jelly. I used to tip it out of my bedroom window. This was fine until an illness coincided with a heavy snowfall. Enquiries were made about patches of purple snow and I was forced to confess. My mother accepted that I had done it so as not to hurt her feelings and I was spared further trial by blackcurrant.
Ooh Miss, Miss, Christina Osborne said, plebiscite!
The fruit that did it for me were plums. Over the summer holidays, Christmas time in Rhodesia, bucket loads came from my mum’s garden. She put them in the deep freeze and for the rest of the year we had them several times a week for pudding. plum tart, plum fool, plum ice-cream, or just stewed plums. They were only edible if drowned in sugar an cream. My dad had a go at making plum wine. Even that was undrinkable, despite our enthusiasm for the idea.
Oh I’m so glad that others suffered the surfeit of fruit syndrome! I have never been able to get past thinking apples are weeds!!!
As for plebiscites, they are two a penny round here. Spousal unit is expecting a tome any minute that not only has the political voting for November but all the WA state votes (that are binding) on all sorts of things.
This year there is legalising pot, approval/disapproval of same sex marriage and all sorts of goodies.
Surprise surprise, the State legislature HAS to implement them if they have been approved, none of this claptrap of ignoring the electorate like bloody Cameron. It takes 250,000 signatures to get a plebiscite and the legislature are unable to do a damned thing about it whether they like it or not. The people get to vote en mass.
One of the best things here! Anyway, it has got so complicated that most people vote by post these days where they can sit and read all the pros and cons that come in the tome. It takes spousal unit a week or so to plough through the whole thing.
Christina, that sounds awfully close to democracy! 🙂
I’m almost afraid to post this, but I get the Spectator on my Kindle for £2.99 a month. It’s a pretty cold blooded way of reading it but maybe just what I like about it no advertising or cartoons just the raw text.
Hello Jazz, that’s one way to stop the binders from breeding and save space. Unless you store your issues on a memory stick when you’ve finished with them. In a few decades, you’ll soon have a shoe box full of USB sticks.
Twenty years ago and unknown to me Mrs J planted a quince tree against a wall in the garden. I was unaware of the tree as it was hidden behind a dwarf conifer which became less dwarf like over the years and was eventually (last year) cut down to reveal the quince tree, which not being a gardener I didn’t recognise as it bore no fruit.
However there are now about ten healthy quince, they are just turning yellow. I shall probably pick them in the next couple of weeks and make some quince marmalade and ignore the EU’s latest edict not to use old jam jars.
I haven’t had quince marmalade since I was a child and we had an orchard.
JW, good evening.
Nice one. And, as a bonus, you’ve got your very own Anonymous Liker and very nice she looks too. Still trying to work out which one of your interesting tags tags mothed her to your creative flame.
Also agonising about the difference between a loft and an attic or if there is one at all.
Thanks for the birthday wishes elsewhere. Well remembered and well counted age-wise. The day went well.
jazz, 10 quince are delightful but just try 10 cwt every year!
Gets old PDQ!
Dammit JM do you still have birthdays? Give them up man, too damaging to the psyche.
Hello Jazz. Did you know that the word marmalade derives from the Portuguese word for quince, ‘marmelo’?
And did you know that avon means river? So River Avon is a tautology.
Likewise, in Nyanja, the language of what is now Malawi,, nyasa means lake. So when Livingstone called that body of water Lake Nyasa the natives must have thought him rather silly.
It is late, so you must indulge me.
JM, “Also agonising about the difference between a loft and an attic or if there is one at all.
Ah weel! A loft has a mere ladder but an attic has a proper staircase. In my opinion. I could be wrong.
Janus, You should try and get out more.