Sunday in the Pub

For the vast majority of my drinking life Sunday lunchtime has been somewhat sacrosanct. Debriefs of Saturday excesses, discussions of yesterdays game, discourse on the day's sport. Today was no different. Except, that the people I used to spend Sunday with are dispersed. Dispersed nationally, globally and personally.

Tired, the cat woke me late. Very nearly 8:30, but having been to bed by 10:30 I was almost rested. There were plenty of adult things to do; put the dhobi away, do some washing up, you know the things. I fed the fleabag, checked the electronic incomings, had tea and breakfast before returning to the affection of the duvet. A cold January day with an unaccustomed blue sky, a plan evolved . Walk to the pub, picking up money and papers on the way. Beer and newsprint, what's not to like?

Bathed, dressed and out the door, I am late. Only in the terms of Mr A H Wright am I late but it is burned in my psyche. You wouldn't turn up at a gig after the start, why would you do it to a pub? An old friend is in the pub and buys me a beer. Sunday chat and banter puts the paper beneath the chair only picked up as a prop for an embarrassing football result.

The pub shuts at 2pm in a throwback to my youth. Drinkers disperse, home to Sunday lunches or other, less wondrous, establishments. I start the walk home but divert to another pub. Might as well peruse the paper on a big table, sat on a sofa with beer close by, undisturbed, as on my lap at home with the delicate soundtrack of the cat washing its' arse. A good and well executed plan.

Buying the papers hasn't happened much of late as they weren't getting read and £40 a month is an expensive recycling habit. Also, of late, my dislike of the Dirty Digger has outgrown my want to spend money on his publications. Since a Damascene revelation in the '90s that The Wail, both Daily and Sunday, was a fascist misery rag that I disagreed with from the heart of my bottom I have pretty much been a Times reader. Since my withdrawal from print I've taken my media from a variety of online sources from all sides of political input. I bought the Sunday Times today for the first time in, possibly, six months.

One of two things has happened. Either, in an effort to pay the lawyers to keep the family out of jail the Digger has stopped employing journalists, or the news office has disappeared up its' own fundement. It appears to be a whine on the failings of right wing politics that still realises that, this side of North Korea, socialism has been buried by Maggies love child, Blair. If it had the grace to make a stance I might have not been so disappointed but it's just whiny north London dinner party chat from people who couldn't spell conscience without spellcheck much less understand the idea.

Happily the photo journalism in the magazine appears to be holding its' own as does the shrunken arts section. Part of today's whine has been my total agreement with Clarkson on the reasons to pay for exploration. For rice cakes, I'm agreeing with Clarkson! AA Gill was his normal self (sanity returns) Now off to read the food and drink bit before dinner.