Azed But Not Confused (The Observer)

Member Name: pje

Product:	The Observer
Date:	09/07/01 (164 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent coverage of politics and the Arts., Superb monthly magazines devoted to Sport and Food. , The AZED Crossword.

Disadvantages: Only published once a week.

First published on December 4th 1791, The Observer is the UK's oldest Sunday newspaper, and is now linked with the Guardian
in a sort of liberal alliance. So if you're after xenophobia, homophobia, or anyonewhodisagreeswithusophobia you should stick to reading the Mail, Sun, Telegraph or your local paper.


Main Section - 32 pages A2
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The news section covers stories in reasonable detail with the emphasis on making those stories interesting to the reader. "Focus" gives more in depth coverage of a current issue and "Profile" provides a detailed background on someone in the news
And there is a surprisingly readable World News section (and that means half a dozen pages or so, not just a column on page five.)
There is nothing boring about this broadsheet.

Columnists are vital to any newspaper, especially on a Sunday. The Observer's regular columnists include:

• Will Hutton: Pragmatic, forward-looking and free from dogma.
As well as being a former editor of The Observer he is the author of "The State We're In" a compelling analysis of the UK economy post-Thatcherism.

• Andrew Rawnsley: Columnist of the Year (and the author of "Servants of the People" - an inside view of New Labour which really set the cat among the political pigeons - see my last op!)
Rawnsley is essential reading for anyone interested in UK politics.
• Nick Cohen: There is no mistaking this guy for a New Labour croney. His "Without Prejudice" column must be the bete noire
of a few ministers. No punches are pulled as he tackles the effects of government policy at the grass roots level of society.

• Richard Ingrams: the curmudgeonly former Private Eye editor, and founder of The Oldie" is still ther
e moaning on, debunking many topical issues (and everything new).

• Mary Riddell: A rising star I think. Full of common sense,
she makes intelligent and incisive observations on topical issues.


Sport - 16 pages A2 + pull-out sections for major sporting events
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Lots of big pictures and statistics, and not just f***b***.
Good, in-depth coverage of Rugby, Cricket and other sports too.
If you're wondering whatever happened to Mike Brearley,
you will find him here, offering his observations on the Tests.


Sport Monthly Magazine - 68 pages A3 --- MONTHLY ---
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Only the cover is glossy, but the content is superb, it usually appears on the first Sunday of the month (but don't quote me
on that) and it's worth waiting for. It was voted the Supplement of the Year 2001 at the UK Press Gazette Awards, and rightly so.
I'd like to tell you what's in today's magazine, but it was missing from my copy this week. <Long rant about hopeless newsagents removed for legal reasons.>


Food Monthly Magazine - 68 pages A3 --- MONTHLY ---
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Appearing around the second Sunday of the month (again don't quote me on that) it has the same format as the Sport monthly magazine and is a delightful and stylish addition to the paper.


Life magazine - 64 pages A3
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39;'''''''''& #39;'''''' ;''
Colour (but not glossy) magazine.
Look, I'm a bloke, I don't really understand magazines like this...

It starts interestingly enough, with columns by Barbara Ellen and Phil Hogan, plus a "Loafer's Guide to..." But then it's all interviews with people I've usually never heard of, lots of big posed photos, full page ads, then fashion, food & drink, restaurants, cars, gardens, "interiors" and a horoscope of course (apparently Mercury will arrive on Thursday to give me a double whammy
of help.) Nothing much you can actually read in other words.


Review ("People Music Film Arts Books") - 20 pages A2
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An excellent supplement. (I only realised how good when I was lured into looking at a couple of other Sunday papers recently.)
The coverage of films and books is particularly good with plenty
of reviews, interviews, and gossip. Plus the current best-selling books listed by paperback and hardback, fiction and non-fiction, including sales figures. (Nick Hornby's new book sold 4,534 copies last week, outselling Tony Parsons by a margin of two-to-one.)

Review also includes the enjoyably difficult Everyman crossword, and Sue Arnold is still there reviewing the week's radio. Although she only ventures away from the safety of Radio 4 when pushed.


TV guide - 40 pages < A5
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A handy pint-sized TV and Radio guide. An excellent layout,
but the Observer has never been very good at regionalisation,
so it sometimes has the wrong ITV region. More often than that
it is nowhere to be found. <Another long rant about hopeless newsagents removed for legal reasons.>


Bu
siness section - 24 pages A2
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Here, William Keegan offers his blunt, good-humoured Keynesian take on the economic climate. I always try to read this but often fail (I feel that if they can give a Nobel Prize for Economics they may as well give one for Meteorology too.) Instead I always head straight for The Networker - John Naughton's column on the Internet and its effect on society. It is very informative and never dull, and often has to chide those net-know-nowt politicians.


Cash - 16 pages A3
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No interest to me as I never have any. But if you do, and need help working out what to do with it, there are lots of ideas here.


Escape - 20 pages A3
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What can I say? I'm a lousy traveller, so holiday sections exist only to be recycled as far as I'm concerned, but not before the puzzle page has been removed. (I'm sure they deliberately secrete the puzzle page near the back of this section to force people to search through the rest of the paper for it.)
The puzzle page (or rather "Games") consists of the following:-

• Chess by British Grandmaster Jon Speelman.

• Bridge by Omar Sharif (yes, old Dr. Zhivago himself!)

and...

• The Azed crossword by Jonathan Crowther.

I can't help wondering to what extent The Observer's sales figures are dependent on the Azed crossword.

To quote Inspector Morse, it is:
"the best crossword puzzle in the world, no question about that."
Full of unlikely looking words trawled from the immense depths
of the Chambers Dictionary, it was my childhood ambition to be
able to do this puzzle. For many years solving a single clue was beyond me. Then about three years ago I finally managed to complete one. I used to crack it most weeks, after much mind-twisting, but since I started spending so much time on the net,
I never seem to get round to it. Well, that's my excuse anyway.



N.B.

If some of this op sounds familiar, it's because it's been posted
here on dooyoo before, by someone who 'borrowed' it from Ciao (where I posted the original version.) The less said about that person the better, suffice it to say that the culprit has been sent away on his/her bike.

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