Comments on: Fluffy Links – April 10th 2007

By: Damien B

Damien B — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 21:24:46 +0000

I’ve always meant to subscribe to that too, but it tends to appear on the same day as a few of our local papers (apparently there’s twenty-two in Mid/North Donegal, and we’ve one a day except Saturday in Letterkenny) so it’s easy enough to pick up.

I enjoy the Phoenix, but like anything it loses a certain mystique when you see how it works!

By: Damien

Damien — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 10:57:50 +0000

Not yet Damien, but I’m enjoying the different opinions about what to read. I subbed to the Phoenix a while back and so far have read about 2.5 issues. Maybe I need to bring them on my travels a bit more.

By: Damien B

Damien B — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 10:39:04 +0000

Did you go for any of these options in the end?

By: Tipster

Tipster — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 11:06:27 +0000

My approach is to rotate across a set of magazines: The Economist once in six or seven weeks, New York Review of Books maybe one in every four or five issues, New Scientist less frequently, New Left Review once (maybe twice) a year, New Internationalist every other month (there’s a lot of “New”s in my magazine titles!), Scientific American once a year, Prospect once a year, Granta when it does a political issue.

(Oh, and mulley.net at least once a week )

By: bernard

bernard — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 14:08:14 +0000

Get yourself a subscription to the Economist, and maybe New Scientist (if you swing that way).

I started reading it the same way as Damien did – that and Newsweek (it didn’t take me long to figure the differences out).

4 years later I actually enjoy it arriving in the letterbox-the opposite feeling I have to Wired (Note to self: cancel it next year)

Simon, I would say the complete opposite. It is much more indepth than any newspaper I read (or don’t as the way it goes now).

I agree with you about the unsigned writing (tbh, I don’t have a problem with it, but my girlfriend, as an ex-journalist-can you say that?- has a big problem.). Funnily enough their Economist Review magazine is not unsigned.

WRT the FF DVDs – well as a collector of 1990s Irish ISP CDs, they will be a welcome addition to my coaster and clay-pidgeon shooting trips.

By: Damien B

Damien B — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 09:21:12 +0000

I’d accept what Simon says a bit – it’s only when you see reports on Ireland (or particularly the North) that you see the shortcomings in some of the pieces. Simon hits the nail on the head with “superficial”. Still accurate, just not always very probing.

I must say, though, that I appreciate the introduction it gives to so many global topics in a short sitting. And the reporting on business/finance and UK/US issues is very good.

By: Simon McGarr

Simon McGarr — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 19:30:41 +0000

I’d skip the Economist. It provides a superficial gloss of information to its readers (and I was a subscriber for a good few years) but in the end it isn’t worth the time it takes to read. Also, I don’t really like the unsigned writing.

Get a subscription to the New York Review of Books instead. I look forward to it every fortnight- instead of the feeling I got with the Economist that I’d been delivered a chore.

By: Mark Dowling

Mark Dowling — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 13:06:54 +0000

FF DVDs – well I suppose they’re good as coasters. At least leaflets can be recycled (like FF/FG/Lab etc policies)

By: Damien B

Damien B — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 09:28:17 +0000

I’ve just started my second year as an economist subscriber. It’s a great magazine (they only thing I try to deliberately set time aside to read) but I’ll say two things:

1) There’s far too much in it. The articles are all of a readable length, but there’s so many articles in so many sections that it is difficult to finish one before the next arrives.

2) I started reading The Economist by buying it in the airport on the way out on weekend breaks. The problem with subscribing is that you receive the magazine on the Monday or Tuesday after the Friday of publication- meaning when I’m going through the airport on a Friday I can either read last week’s edition or spend ~E6 on a magazine that I’ll be getting a new copy of as soon as I get home. Fair enough, this is less of a problem now as I Haven’t been in an airport since starting the mortgage payments

So, enjoy. I’m sure you’ll find time for a few articles every week. The Economist have a few good blogs as well. I’m assuming someone who reads The Economist is also reading MarginalRevolution.com and the Freakonomics blog?