Reading The Independent this week is a hoot. It is a self-parody of liberal orthodoxy. The best so far: To mark the start of Lent, The Independent made some suggestions about what to give up, like driving, bottled water, shopping at supermarkets and using plastic shopping bags there. Oh, and you now have to toss your iPod:
IPods are everywhere. We listen to them on trains, in the gym, and at home. But while we have been giving the world our very own soundtrack, we have forgotten that the world plays a mean tune itself.
“IPods are another distraction,” says Tom Hodgkinson, editor of the Idler magazine. “They blot out our misery, but the misery is still there. If you are bored on the tube, bus or commuter train, I would recommend carrying around a copy of Blake’s collected poetry.”
“When you’re listening to an iPod,” says the philosopher AC Grayling, “what you’re trying to do is shut out the outside world. … If you take your earphones out you can hear that there is wind in the trees and birds in those trees still.”
