No, sorry Steve, wrong! I used to read the Mail for a while back in the 50s for Wally Fawkes' brilliant 'Rufus' [later renamed 'Flook'] strip, but never bought it -- it would be in college reading room or such that I would read it. But my regular papers over the years have fluctuated between The Guardian, for which I wrote regular E.Anglian theatre & folk reviews for ¼C or so, & The Times, whose degeneration under Charlie Gorbals & subsequently I much deplore, but whose crossword, as a dedicated lifelong cruciverbalist, I have always preferred. At one time, before early retirement, I even afforded both.

Might be of driftish interest to know that Maurice Rosenbaum, the Daily Telegraph's long time folk critic, was a member of the Communist Party, while I, as will be patent to my regular readers, er, wasn't. At one Cambridge Fest when he was there for Tele & I for the Gdn, we gravely agreed that if there was any sense or justice in the world, we'd simply swap papers; but alas that is not the way the world is constituted!

≈M≈