The Indescribablyboring

Politaholic only made it to the newsagent around 6 p.m. yesterday. There was no Observer left so I had to settle for an Independent. God, was that a mistake. Page 3 was about the fashion industry. Page 4 and 5 were about Princess Di. Page 13 was about Alex James of Blur. Page 21 had Janet Street Porter's gossip column, mostly, so far as I could tell at a quick glance, about Posh Spice. Pages 24 and 25 were about Madonna. Page 26 was about some celebrity chef. Pages 42 and 43 were about Audrey Hepburn. There were news stories about Pete Doherty (page 34), Wesley Snipes (page 51) and Mel Gibson (page 51). Pages 54-55 were about Elton John. Page 58 was about a surrogate mother and page 59 had an article entitled "How to buy a present for a man". Pages 60 and 61 had Peter York talking about television adverts. Worse of all - unless part of the paper was missing (which sometimes happens) - so far as I could see there were no book reviews. And there were pages and pages and more pages of advertisements. Pity poor Politaholic standing at the bar of his local pub, forlornly turning the pages desperately looking for something to read and finding very little: Alan Watkins going through the motions, John Rentoul, an article on institutional racism in schools, but little else. I thought the Independent was supposed to be a serious newspaper? Instead what I find is a dreary rag obsessed with what Peter Hennessy calls "the celebocracy". I would probably have been better off with the Telegraph. Only trouble is I wasn't wearing my rubber gloves.