Is it me, or has something happened to the news?

I’m not expecting sympathy. Really, I’m not. But there was a time, and really not so long ago, when you knew where you were with news. Day one, thing happens. Day two, thing gets in the papers. Then, on day three, the parasites like me weigh in.

That’s how it worked back in the distant time of, say, February. Since then, though, that tried and tested old model seems to have gone out the window. And it’s not simply that old media can’t cope, because new media copes even worse. BBC news hacks used to joke that their rivals at Sky ought to have the motto ‘never wrong for long’, but even that is an aspiration too far for the sprawling chaos of internet punditry. On Twitter, for example, you can be wrong for ever. Thoughts settle upon each other like the sediment of ages, with the earliest — the wrongest — fast buried and forgotten.

I’d like, you see, to be writing about these riots. Are there still riots? Maybe that’s a stupid question. Maybe you’re reading this sheltered in the burned-out husk of your local newsagent, while cannibalistic youths outside play an impromptu game of cricket with the shopkeeper’s head as a ball and the stiffened corpse of your neighbour’s dog as a bat. Or, maybe you’re reading it at home, thinking, ‘Yeah, I remember the riots. But wasn’t that ages ago?’

I don’t think I’m imagining it. News is happening differently. Each story comes with a thump, and then hangs around for ages. Before the riots there was phone hacking, which lingered on for a fortnight, delivering a new front-page-demanding kick to the belly every night at 5.45 p.m. That wasn’t even a month ago, and already I’m buggered if I can remember what they all were.