How I got my encyclopedic knowledge of current affairs

Seven bells. Pitch dark still. I descend the creaking wooden stairs in the darkness, let the dog out, make tea and toast, put a pan of porridge and the coffee pot on the stove and download the Times newspaper on to the iPad. I read it from cover to cover. Every news story and comment piece, the Nature Notes, Court Circular, the letters and Daily Universal Register, the TV guide and the weather report, in which I look carefully at the daily temperatures in cities around the world. Sometimes I jot down the daily ‘food for thought’ quotation at the foot of the Daily Universal Register. This morning’s, for example, is: ‘The accent of one’s birthplace lingers in the mind and in the heart as it does in one’s speech.’ (Rochefoucauld, Maxims, 1678.) Rarely these days do I deliberately skip an article unless it is about cladding or cricket or written by Sir Max Hastings — though I very much enjoy his history books. That takes me up to about 11 bells.

For background music we have Petroc Trelawny until Catriona goes next door to her studio to paint. Left to my own musical devices I choose the Cerys Matthews Blues Show or the Craig Charles Funk and Soul Show on BBC Sounds. Otherwise it’s Kansas City Blues Radio or Radio Five for the sport.

After reading the Times, I have a gander at The Spectator daily news feed and if there is an Americano podcast I haven’t yet heard I listen to that. Then I look at my emails. I receive about a dozen a day, all from the same familiar names and addresses, all of them calling me cheerfully by my Christian name, all of them junk or scams.