Holly, Christmas Decorations and Tea Time
HOLLY has been sold from Anglesey House for a number of years and I have always
been amazed by the variety of people who come for a bunch. Many who you think
would come do not, and others surprisingly do.
There is no pattern to the people who decorate their homes with holly or ivy at Christmas. Age, wealth, literary pretensions, sex, drinking habits, colour of hair, make of car, sporting activity, religious beliefs, etc.— none of these appear to have any influence on the decision to buy a bunch of holly. There are people who are surprised that anyone clutters up the home with the stuff, and others who have always put up the odd sprig or two.
It is the same with tea making. Some people use tea bags and put the teapot in the dishwasher everyday. Others build up a fine tannin within the teapot, only use leaf tea, and reluctantly scour out the pot every nine months or so. Who is right? Probably just a question of taste.
And so it is with newspapers—or so we thought until very recently—that is until The Times insisted on becoming a tabloid. To a large extent a choice of newspaper represents not only a sharing of views but also how the readers see themselves. The Times has always had a loyal following which is now faced with a dilemma. Most of the readers to whom I have spoken don’t like the tabloid format yet The Times management disregarded their views because the new tabloid format has attracted new readers from a different source. From whence have these new readers come? It won’t be from the broadsheets.
Thomas Stuttaford medical journalist of The Times is also into circulation and in a November article “Look after your circulation” he ends by reminding us that “Once jeans become waterlogged, or even damp, they chill rather than warm the body. The fashion for short as opposed to knee-length coats doesn’t only result in chilling but also increases the layer of subcutaneous fat so that women develop thick thighs.” Well, who would have thought that!