Newsies sell papes.

I'm developing another strange habit. That of buying a newspaper each Friday night (not strange) at 3am (strange). The newspaper is the Guardian Weekend Edition. It's so terrific.

I tend to gloss over the world and UK news, which I usually track real-time during the week through the "Internets". What the Guardian is really great for is irreverent sports reporting, the travel section, a weekend magazine, and -- a must have -- The Guide. Also a really good color scheme and layout format. 

Irreverent sports reporting comes care of Barney Ronay's column and Russell Brand's back page editorial. These are both so consistently brilliant that they cause me to contemplate quitting with the blog and never writing anything ever again: I just can't measure up. Sports are covered tongue-in-cheek throughout the Sport section which puts things into proper context, I think. I wish US papers could be so smart. And I also wish US papers could get away with the occasional swear word and lewd reference. If you're reading a newspaper you're either an adult or at least precocious. 

The travel section is an obvious one -- good coverage of travel deals and how to get places and where those places are that are worth getting to and other various tips and tricks and such.

The weekend magazine is called Weekend. There's another gem of a column written by Tim Dowling which usually consists of anecdotes from Tim on how his wife has managed to belittle him to their friends, colleagues and children during the past week. Weekend is also good for at least one good article.

The Guide lists out London's next week of events -- film, exhibits, clubs, live music, theatre. It provides an endless to-do list. They also profile different media each week (games, internet, etc.). The Internet page points out interesting new memes, sites and virals. There's always a gem there somewhere. For example, this week I found out that (by one measure) Iceland is the world's most peaceful nation and also why the urinals at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport are so clean. 

(A picture of a fly ... we are so simple.)