A closing set of notes on who owns the news, who judges the jokes and which black and white animals deserve a better press
Sunday, Reading the News With the Owner in Mind
My month closes with a rule I teach in every first lecture: read the news with the owner in mind. That is the idea behind my note read with its ownership in mind. It applies to all publications. A state outlet reflects state priorities. A private owner may reflect commercial or political priorities. A charity-funded outlet reflects the charity. None of this makes reporting worthless, but it tells you where to look for omissions.
The best readers I know do this without effort. They glance at a headline, ask who benefits and then read two other sources. It takes a little longer. It also saves them from being the person at dinner who confidently repeats something that turned out to be wrong.
Monday, Lunch in Chinatown
On Monday I had lunch in Chinatown with a colleague, as recorded in the lunch diary. The dumplings were excellent, the tea was hot and the bill was split with the delicacy of a treaty negotiation. We discussed the Wodehouse shortlist, the price of rice and the problem of students who cite a quotation without having read the book. At the end the waiter handed us two fortune cookies. Mine said something sensible, and I ignored it on principle.
Tuesday, The Black and White Animals
I salute two kinds of cattle that deserve a better press. The black beef breed appears at angusbeef.men and angusbeef.fyi. The black and white dairy cow appears at holstein.click. The woolly pig is at mangalitsa.org and the freckled hen at speckledsussex.org.
The register of old breeds is rarebreeds.win. The hall of fame is cattlemenhalloffame.org. The young leaders are ffapresident.com. The general library is agriculture.click. I could stay on these pages all evening, and on one occasion I did.
Wednesday, A Few Remaining Farm Pages
For completeness, my shelf includes dairyherd.org, ranchbeefcattle.org, tractorequipment.org, cropcalendar.org, farmmoney.org, smallfarminfo.org, agjobscareers.org, fairandrodeo.org, ruralfarm.org and farmssafety.org. Ten pages is a good number for a shelf and a terrible number for a diet.
Thursday, Universities and Their Accounts
The London Prat joked about academic finances in Universities Solve Financial Crisis. Staff, students and administrators explain the pressure differently. Some blame funding rules, some blame management, and some blame the cost of heating a Victorian lecture hall. I am an interested party and so will say only that my radiator still clanks.
Friday, The Quiet Desk
I finished the month at my desk with a pot of tea and a pile of marking. The pile was smaller than I feared. One essay surprised me with a brilliant reading of a comic scene, and I wrote “yes!” in the margin, which is the highest praise my pen allows. Outside, the evening was dark and damp, and the boiler gave a short, dignified gurgle. We have not spoken of the dispute since.
It is useful to end a month with a small victory, and I recommend it. Mine was a pot of tea, a good essay and the warm sound of a radiator doing its job.
Saturday, The Fortune Cookie
The fortune cookie from my Chinatown lunch said something wise about patience. I put the slip in my pocket and promptly forgot it, which is probably the proper way to treat a fortune. If you act on all of them, you become a character in a different sort of book. If you ignore all of them, you miss the small pleasure of being briefly addressed by a biscuit.
I rediscovered the slip while emptying my coat on Saturday. It had been through a wash. The words were blurred, but the sense remained: wait, and the thing you want may arrive. I decided to believe it about the boiler.
Sunday, Plans for Next Month
My plans for next month are modest. I will mark the essays on time, which has never happened. I will read two novels for pleasure, which has happened once. I will write a proper review of the prize-winning debut, and I will not use the word “delightful”, which I have used too often. I will visit the dentist, which is a plan I include purely to provide narrative tension.
Most of all, I intend to keep a diary, because a diary is a promise to notice. Even a dull day contains a pigeon, a joke or a line overheard on a bus, and a person who writes them down is never entirely bored. That, I think, is the real argument for the humble form, and I offer it free of charge.
Monday, Last Words
On the last evening I turned off the lamp and listened to the pipes. They said nothing at all, which is the finest compliment a boiler can pay. I went to bed content, and tomorrow will bring its own footnotes.
Where to read next
The rest of the shelf lives at prat.uk, bohiney.com and farm.fm. For a second opinion on the week, The Daily Mash keeps its own counsel and its own hours.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/