News Addiction Top 10

I'm addicted to news. If I enter a hotel room, I first switch on the telly and tune it to CNN. And at least the first hour of the day is dedicated to reading newspapers (with a mug of coffee Toño brought me to the bed).

I'm subscripted to quite some newspapers and magazines. Here I tried to put some of them into an order. The main criteria was whether I would miss them, if they would not be delivered any more (1: I would jump off a cliff - 10: hums the Great Song of Indifference)



That was easy. Toño works for Vinum (Europe's Wine Magazine), hence it helped to pay the bills if you would also subscribe to it (available in German, French & Spanish). Occasionally, Toño models also for the magazine. It would also help to pay the bills if you ordered a warship. In that case, you would have to send the email too me.



BUTT is a pocket-size, quarterly magazine for and about homosexuals, founded in 2001, published and printed in The Netherlands, available world-wide. I have never read anything alike. It is packed with interviews with the broadest range of homosexuals. They questions don't stop at the waistline. Despite of that it is full of adds of luxury brands.



The Economist does not precisely coincides with my point of view, but at least it has one (which I prefer to the so called nutral). It's an authoritative weekly newspaper focusing on international politics and business news and opinion. The paper is excellently written and covers the world we live on. The leader of the pack!



Monocle is a global briefing covering international affairs, business, culture and design. This basically covers all my interest. And the editor-in-chief is a good looking, dressed and groomed homosexual who used to live in Zürich.



FANTASTIC MAN is the gentlemen's style journal from the editors of BUTT. According to this bi-annual fashion magazine life begins at 30. Targeted at a more mature group of readers, FM's aim is to re-invent the 'gentleman's style journal'. The magazine contains, as the name implies, interviews and fashion features with inspiring men and interesting personalities. It features men in clothes rather than models in fashion.



Yes, I'm one of this frigging pinkos who read this lefty WoZ. It has the only sport section I actually flip through.



The Zürich daily NZZ is brilliant when it comes to foreign affairs, science (Wednesday's) and Feuilleton (which is a rich mine for electronic music). However, the others sections are complete bollocks.



Le Menu is a cooking magazine published by the Swiss dairy farmers, which explains that there are few recipes without any dairy products. We mainly subscribed to it for its well assorted internet data base with almost 5000 recipes. We can search the data base at work for what we would like to have for dinner, print the recipe and pick up the ingredients on the way home. Very convenient indeed.



The Tagi is the other of Zürich's dailies. I mainly read it for the gossip and to be able to keep up with the small talk at the coffee machine. Though its supplementary magazine on Saturday is usually quite entertaining and Constantin Seibt, Switerland's best quill-driver, writes for them.



Is there any good Sunday newspaper in the world?

If we run out of trees and oil-based ink, I'm to blame.

High-Flyer

So far this year, the best page-turner was Der Swissair-Prozess by Constantin Seibt.



As the title might give away, this book is written in German. I doubt that it will ever be translated to English, Russian or what else might be out there. Who else than the Swiss is interested in the hopeless attempt to demand accountability for the biggest bankruptcy in Switzerland's history and the collapse of the flying bank called Swissair. Ignorance and arrogance are just not covered by the law books.

But why do I recommend the book anyway? It's written by Constantin Seibt, the most brilliant living Swiss Journalist. Think of the verve of a teenage Julie Burchill combined with versatile mind of Cicero. Constantin Seibt is one of the few reasons to still read the Tages Anzeiger, a daily newspaper from Zurich with rather little editorial spine.

As I said, the subject is boring. However, Constantin Seibt made me read almost every paragraph twice. If there is one reason to improve your German, it's Constantin Seibt 's eloquence.