My bed looks like any one of a million beds across the UK today- newspapers strewn and crumpled,various food recepticles with remnants of tea, danish pastries, and roast beef sandwiches. THere are rizlas, a smelly snoring cat, and laptops. There is a boy occasionally checking his soundcloud account- to see who has played and downloaded the tunes he released. I have punctuated the morning with naps(one took place between writing the first and second paragraph- does that indicate this is a dull dull read?), writing obscenities on Twitter, checking facebook, and browsing through the RSS newsfeeds on my toolbar-which digest the worlds news.
The Sunday papers, is a long held tradition- that I have realised this morning is fading quickly into the past. My dutiful trip to the shop to pick up The Observer, is one that has been repeated since I was 17 years old..but after I had seperated out my sections(Main Paper, Music Monthly, Review, Escape, Business then cherry picking anything I have missed- in that order) consumed my newspaper with inky hands-I realised this ritual was being usurped. I found myself getting confused as I went through my RSS newsfeeds- as I realised I wasnt having deja vu, I was just reading the same article again online, but that with each article I read, I could immediately go to a related article, in another publication. I could respond immediately and directly to the articles which raised my ire, through comment sections- and I could intersperse this with random comment on twitter- and talking to my friends.
I will probably take the papers, as I always do, and put them in the kindling bag next to the fire downstairs. And I daresay, I will continue to buy my paper on a Sunday, for quite a while yet. But today, I have realised this is a relic of a Sunday morning tradition- There was nothing in there, that I couldnt get more effectively anywhere else, and I am sure that at some point I will let go of my need to spend Sunday with inky fingers, and to have actual paper cluttering up my house..and accept that this shiny box I am typing into, has usurped it, as it has usurped my need for a stereo, stacks of cd’s, a television, a phone, and the need to collect endless piles of paper bills/payslips. Which is a shame, as without stacks of newspapers, clunky old media, and paper, I am not sure what my house will look like. Boyfriend has suggested buying a Kindle reader- but if am honest, I am not sure I want overpriced, clunky, paper books, usurped in the same way.
