Reading the paper

is part of the breakfast ritual for my father. We get two newspapers. We get the state newspaper and the national newspaper. They are both from the Murdoch stable.
We get the state newspaper simply because my father likes to keep up with the local news. He refuses to watch the television news services any more, even the Australian Broadcasting Commission's Channel 2 or the SBS service. The ABC will put sports headlines before international affairs or even local affairs and the SBS now has advertising - although not as much as the truly commercial stations. All that irritates him. The bad news which makes headlines also bothers him. At 88 he has been through WWII, the Korean and Vietnam wars and now Afghanistan and other places. It is not that he does not care. He probably cares too much.
Reading the paper means that he can take his time over the news. He can avoid the parts he does not wish to read. He does not need to dwell on what distresses him. If he needs to know more he can ask me.
There is a good deal of any paper which remains unread by both of us. We do not read the sports section or the racing guide. We do not read the real estate or employment sections. We barely glance at the business section. It would save a great many trees if newspapers could be divided into sections and one could just have the part(s) one actually read. My father gets irritated with the extra pages and threatens to stop having the papers delivered. He never quite gets around to it. Breakfast time is newspaper time. It takes time too.
This morning however no newspaper reading is being read. The papers have not arrived for some reason. Breakfast will take even longer this morning. My father is reading a book.