The best thing about commuting is having time to read the paper.
The worst thing about commuting is commuting.

Apparently, Alan Rusbridger would like us to “email” theguardian with opinions on its new Berliner format. Get with the programme daddy-o! No-one emails anymore. Don’tcha know it’s the blogs where it’s @ now?

<cough>

All in all, I think the new Guardian is pretty good. Yes, and pretty. (I was a mite touched that Saturday’s paper concluded with “The End”, sensitive soul that I am.) The size is much better and just right for folding on the train without bashing the person next to meyou in the face.

There are, of course, some ways it could be improved, and I sense a blogosphere consensus on some of these. There seems to be little enthusiasm for the new masthead, with its rather passé combined lower case words, and there are concerns about the use of white space and the rather large drop caps.

My wishlist

• Less white space under headlines and in the Comment section
• Footnotes are a good idea, but not when tackily designed to look like hyperlinks
• Restructure the crossword so that it fits in a quarter of the page (so that the paper can be folded comfortably behind it) and move the setter’s pseudonym back above the grid

G2 is a handy size now, and although the terrestrial TV listings have been relegated to the inside, they do now have digital listings located more conveniently alongside. There is also a kakuro puzzle, the rather more mathematical cousin of sudoku.

See also: doctorvee, Chris A, Mike.

I was, perhaps, insufficiently geeky.

Cataloguing and classifying may have a certain bibliogeek chic to them, but I have spurned Scott Walker’s demands and chosen the best of both worlds. As I mentioned a few weeks back, I was until last week seconded to work on the systems side of the library. Following a successful application and interview, I am, as of today, permanently assigned to the techy side of things. Job title and money are the same but I have shifted desks, which proves it’s a different job. Unix, XSLT, SQL, HTML – with MARC21 and DDC thrown in for good measure. Hurrah for acronyms. Not including BOFH, of course 🙂

Sky News tells it like it is.