International Obituary

When I was a kid, I had a paper round.  Well, I had two, actually - one after-school round (to deliver the Swindon Evening Advertiser, fact-fans) and one Sunday morning round, to deliver the national Sundays. I really enjoyed the Sunday round, despite have to get up every Sunday at 5:00 am, come rain, snow or shine, because it gave me the chance to read the papers and I love newspapers.

Like the radio (and shortwave radio, especially) newspapers have a certain romance about them.  I love the look and feel of a fresh, crisp, unread newspaper, folded neatly just so.  I remember liking The Independent when it first came out for the length of its articles and its defiant lack of royal coverage, despite the paper being as dull as dishwater.  I loved The European for making me feel so... well, european, as I checked the news in Zagreb and the weather in Nice.  I was interested in Today's experiment with colour, even though for me newspapers will always be best in black and white.  I loved The Guardian's change of size to Berliner and lamented The Times' change of size to tabloid.

Newspapers took me out of the dull little town in which I lived my dull little life and into the big, wide world.  When friends and family went abroad, I would ask them to bring back a newspaper as a souvenir.  The American papers were the best: think, heavy, multi-sectioned beasts they were, full of advertisements for products I couldn't buy but divided into mini-papers based on subject.  Is there a more exciting prospect than sitting down with the Metro section?  I imagine doing so on my balcony, looking out over Central Park, while my espresso cools on the glass table before me and the breeze softly moves the leaves of the house-plants in the apartment.

The best newspaper, for me, was the International Herald Tribune.  Savour the name.  Was there a National Herald Tribune, I sometimes wondered? I didn't really care; the international version was the one for me.  The IHT was a newspaper that was infused with the romance of travel.  A newspaper read by men in sharp grey suits with box-pleats and turn-ups as they waited to catch a Dakota to far-away climes.  Men who were fluent, or at least conversational, in the language of the country they travelled to.  Confident men, men able to talk to the glamorous women they met on their travels while they drank their martinis.  Men who probably wore hats and looked sharp in them.  

It was a newspaper read, I imagined, by Roger Thornhill or Thomas Jerome Newton, the twin stars of my adolescence. On the rare occasions I travelled, I always bought a copy of the IHT, not just to read but as a prop, carried - carefully folded - under my arm or placed casually the table before me in a restaurant or coffee shop. A badge, a symbol.  This is who I am: I am a traveller who reads the IHT. I need to know about events in Ulan Bator or Reykjavik, should I find myself in those places and called upon for an opinion.

The IHT is no more - it passed away a few weeks ago.  The newspaper still exists but renamed as the International New York Times.  I'm sad about its passing but in some way it's fitting.  The IHT (even the arrangement of the initials are beautiful) was redolent of a bygone age, when travel was glamorous and so were travellers.  Now, travel is commonplace and such a commonplace event deserves a commonplace newspaper.  The International Herald Tribune belongs alongside a compass and a map, or tucked into the top of a weekender bag, made of leather worn soft and supple by use.  The International New York Times belongs in the pocket of an anonymous Airbus.

The world changes and moves on, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Travel is easier now but while something is gained, something else is lost.  I mourn, in a quiet small way, for the IHT.  My journeys will never quite be the same again.

  

 

Customs...

You might imagine it would be difficult to get in to China and you'd be right. But any difficulties you experience getting in to China are nothing compared to how difficult it is to get out of China. That, believe me, takes real persistence. 

Take Beijing Capital airport, for instance. First of all, you have to get to the airport - given the... improvisational, shall we say, state of driving in Beijing, that's easier said than done. Once you get there and check in - pretty much the same as every other airport - you have to get a train to the terminal (terminal 3 for international flights). This train is automatically controlled and has been carefully programmed to speed up and slow down at random intervals, and to brake as hard as possible, to ensure that as many people as possible stumble and tread on each other's toes. 

Once you arrive and stagger out of the train, freshly shaken, you negotiate the temperature check (which normally consists of one person taking full advantage of the opportunity to catch up on some sleep) and reach the passport control, where the queues match Disneyland on a national holiday for length, only without the fun ride waiting for you at the end. You queue (seemingly endlessly - these queues move very slowly) until a usually unsmiling young man or woman scrutinises you and your passport thoroughly before (if you're lucky) stamping everything in sight three times and taking your departure card. 

(You did remember your departure card, didn't you? Because if you didn't, in a life-sized version of life-sized snakes and ladders, you might well find yourself back at square one, at the start of the queue once again.)

Having had everything stamped, you move on to the next stage of the process, where you queue (at length - these queues are usually even slower than the previous queues) until a usually unsmiling young man or woman scrutinises you and your passport before (if you're lucky) stamping everything in sight a further three times. If that sounds a little like déjà vu, you're not going mad: you are repeating the process you've just been through but there are a lot of people in China and they all have to have a job doing something. 

Anyway, this deposits you into a further queue, this time for the x-ray machines. Now, the Chinese don't seem to put much faith in x-ray machines because everyone who goes through the scanner needs to be frisked and scanned with a hand-held machine. And I mean everyone. But not before a usually unsmiling young man or woman scrutinises you and your passport one more time, for luck. 

Of course, the problem is, the unsmiling young man or woman who checks and stamps your passport (young man or woman number two, that is) processes people at a much fast rate than unsmiling man or woman number three can x-ray them, leading to the inevitable bottle neck and interminable queues as you wait your turn to put all your stuff into gray plastic trays and get it irradiated. 

The good news is, once you've been given a rub-down by the x-ray man (or, if you're lucky, x-ray woman) you are free to find your gate and board your plane. Assuming, of course, it hasn't been delayed or cancelled which, in Beijing, is almost inevitable. And not before someone checks your boarding pass just one more time...