Saturday 27 January 2007

New York Times ONLINE

One of my favourite things to do used to be to pick up the NY Times at the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver, CO USA on a Sunday morning, get my weekly workout carrying it home and spend the next week catching up on all the news in all the world (and dream of the day when I could live in NYC and the lifestyle I would have). The website for the bookstore is not as appealing as the store with its big overstuffed chairs and more books than the public library. This bookstore was the model on which all the new Barnes & Noble were designed and they still fell short. It felt like your own living room only bigger. I would curl up in chair, take off my shoes, and browse the books I'd collected.

But one of the things I missed most when I moved to the UK wasn't the bookstore. It was the NY Times. I couldn't quite get to grips with the newspapers in the UK and there was very little news about the USA unless it was presidential news. I tried to get it delivered to my home but gave up once I found out it wouldn't be delivered until Monday and it was going to cost me an arm and a leg. In the aftermath of 9/11, the NY Times was offered online at a subscription fee. But the technology let me down and neither my dial up connection or the subscription software worked reliably and I struggled to read the paper more than once/month.

Imagine my excitement when I found out that you can now get the paper on line NYTimes. OK, this isn't the same as hefting the huge paper, sifting through all the inserts, lounging about on the sofa, getting black ink on your fingers but I can dismiss almost all of those objections with the justification that it is certainly better for the environment. And I can afford it! And I can read it every day! If I can find the time......

No comments: