h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Back when I used to post here (and *really* I don't. Promise! ), The Grauniad was known as The House Journal. Is this still the case? What papers/ other media are we getting our facts and opinions from? In these days, when we can pic'n'mix, what journos do you like?

Me?

The National (Dead trees and http://www.thenational.scot/)

The Sunday Herald (Dead trees. Paywalled).

Commonspace (Professional crowdfunded channel https://commonspace.scot/)

Al Jazeera (http://www.aljazeera.com/)

STV.

Can't bear the BBC. It's ridiculous. Special ire for John Harrumphries.

And Journos who I immediately read when they come up on my F/b or Tw:
Lesley Riddoch
Ruth Wishart
Ian McWhirter
Robin 'The Boy Wonder' McAlpine
Gerry Hassan
Alex Massie. (The Spectator. An absolute hoot!)

I *was* a lifelong Guardianista. Jonathan Freedland and Polly Toynbee lost me last year. Their paper just didn't reflect the reality I was seeing with my own eyes. I will, however, read pieces by Zoe Williams, Gary Younge (essential on Baltimore, Ferguson and the presidential race), John Harris, Kevin McKenna, Ian Jack. Libby Brooks, who I met last week, (namedrop? much?) is rather poor.

Oh...and @TariqAli_News.

I read the Boston Globe. Every November, I read the New York Times's list of the 100 best books of the year.

You mentioned an H2G2 journal, and I was puzzled that you didn't mean The Post.

I'm reading Azimov's "Foundation." It's funny how fifty years could be seen as a short period of time. In politics, fifty seconds is enough to change things irrevocably. The media's talking heads seize on any issue and race on as if speculation was the same thing as fact -- the facts themselves all too often turn out to be far different form what they seemed to be at the onset. Do the talking heads apologize for jumping to conclusions? rarely.

Cool old Guy skim reading anything watching all available tele channel- news shows
"But to start with I do not trust any of those for beeing good informed The CNN reporter stated this morning (Philadelphia train accident) the railroad curved right and the train tumbled to the right. For what I see the curve was to the left and the train tumbled right.

As well is there a current CNN story about the dead of 'Bin Laden' about the raid being potentially a set up. This was and is indeed a possibility as no-one but the US military had the chance to identify.

I take any news as potential true, but complete or impartial has to be seen and confirmed by opposing sources. == "

Fall out from that raid? Polio on the rise in Pakistan. A mobile vaccination centre was used as cover for Intel.

Whit? No WingsOverScotland or BellaCaledonia? Where's your sense of balance man?

Hi, Alan. How are you, My daughter's fine. Thankyou for asking. She's moved on from Wilde, Fitzgerald and Dulgakov to Calvino and Beckkett in the original.

Wings is godawful, but. Almost as ridiculous as that horrible Guido you take your lead from.

Bulgakov, even.

And Beckett, obviously. 'Fail again. Fail better.'

Is Guido still going? Can't say I've taken any interest in politics for years.

Becket with only one T could be a play by Ionesco. I think I read it, in French, in college.

Calvino in the original Italian? I read "Name of the Rose," in translation, earlier this year.

Samuel Beckett, of course, wrote plays, some in English and some in French. If you wanted to read his plays in the language he wrote them in, and you were not multilingual, you could choose just the ones in the language you understood.

Among French p[lays that I read in college, "La guerre de Troi m'aura pas lieu" by Giraudoux stands out in my memory for some reason.

In Germany, the newspaper system is different. There are a few national newspapers, but mainly people will rely on their local papers. (AFAIK this decentralisation was a introduced by the Allies as a way of preventing huge Republics forming, as they had in the latter 19th, and of course, early 20th Century. It also applies to the radio and to some extent to the TV stations, as well as to most government departments.)

There are the weekly broadsheets Die Zeit, Die Welt, Frankfurter Allgemeine (although the name implies that it is regional) and, Bild-Zeitung (tabloid, with all that that entails).

We take Die Zeit, because we can still get it at student price whilst our youngest is still registered at a University. I think it's vaguely left-orientated, but I honestly don't know. Politics have always confused me, and I can't tell by reading an article what point of view it actually represents.

So I don't read any of them. Not even our local (daily) paper. If ever there is a report on something I know about in that, they get all the facts wrong, so how can I believe anything they write about something I don't know about? And lately the spelling, typing and semantic errors in the headings alone make me want to chuck it straight in the dustbin.

I reckon that if the world stopped turning on its axis, I'd get to hear about it one way or the other.

Having said that, Edward will now probably be less pleased to hear that I think it's great to see his name again in these parts.

TC. I'm outta here soon.

Scotland has always been more German, I guess. As well as Scottish additions of some of the more popular UK papers, we have our own quality press. Just before the referendum, one quality Sunday paper came out for Independence (its weekday sister title didn't) - and since the referendum a quality pro-Independence paper has launched. This is indigenous. The Scotsman (right wing, anti-Indy) is older than The Times.

Before that, all my side had was a hail of negativity, bias and inaccuracy, like the one we still get from BBC London and BBC Scotland. I'm no conspiracy theorist and don't imagine it's all deliberate in-yer-face Nick Robinson bias. Although some is. Some is English haven't-a-clue-what-this-is-about bias, and *tons* is Scottish I-know-which-side-my-bread-is-buttered bias.

Plus we now have lots of alternative media, of varying quality. (http://commonspace.scot is excellent)

The contrast with The English Bubble is stark. I've been enjoying winding English people up (moi? surely not? ) by telling them *It's almost as if we were two separate countries.*

"Scotland has always been more German, I guess" [Edward the Bonobo]

And Scandinavian. Glenn Gould, the Canadian pianist of Scottish ancestry, was a distant relative of Edvard Grieg. But there were also notable English families [the Harveys, for instance] that became personae non gratae in England and migrated en masse to Scotland to wait for friendlier times. The Keith clan descended from the Harveys, or maybe the two clans intermarried. Northern Ireland was partly settled by Scottish settlers, some of whose descendants then migrated to mostly southern U.S. states, thenceforth known as Scots-Irish.

If you go back far enough, it's hard *not* to be distantly related to at least a few Scottish people.

Well. quite, When I was trying to learn Swedish, I was helped in equal measure by my German and my Scots.

I *insist* that none of this is about heritage or ethnicity (hell - I'm English...with a Norse surname) - but on the other hand, the Game Plan is to run ourselves something like a Nordic Social Democracy.

Good luck with that!