Tuesday 11 March 2008

No time for news

Here's the way it used to be... here's how I used to find out what was going on in the world.

Firstly, I used to listen to the radio... which of course would give me a news bulletin once an hour. Since the advent of iPod and iTunes and other such things I don't really listen to the radio. Very occasionally if I am in the car I will have the radio on, but as you can get gadgets that let the iPod play through the car stereo I don't even do that much any more.

Secondly, I used to watch the news on TV. We hardly ever watch TV in the evenings (opting instead for DVDs or movies) and if we do it isn't generally a terrestrial channel, so no news bulletins anyway. I also used to watch breakfast news, but now I generally spend that time with my laptop.

Lastly, I used to read the free newspapers that litter the Underground. I do still sometimes pick these up, but I can usually find something else I'd rather do on my tube journey than read the Lite, the Metro or the London Paper.

So, what would I rather spend my time on the Tube doing? What do I do with my laptop when I could be watching breakfast news?

It's that interactive internet again. I subscribe to about a dozen blogs - most of which are updated daily, so I usually read those in the morning. I also subscribe to a fair few podcasts - again most of which are updated daily, so I have to download them... which I then listen to on my journey to and from work. I suppose that I could add a news update podcast?

I work on the basis that if there is anything going on in the world that I really need to know about, somebody will tell me... and otherwise, well most of the so called news is just celebrity watching and the like - and that I can live without!