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.
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