Godspeed

Tomorrow is the initial day of reckoning, before a second day of reckoning comes. The interview I have at The Guardian is with someone in HR and should last about twenty minutes. It's the first interview, the second is likely to be the killer. They'll probably be testing my levels of lentil-eating, sandal-wearing, ethical-living, oh and my journalistic ability and commitment. Some people grow up wanting to see their byline in The Times, I even know someone who's dream was to write for Waitrose Food Illustrated, moi though have dreamed of writing for the Guardian. Since I picked it up in 1998, I've been hooked. During A-levels I used to read the Torygraph and the Times, largely because those were the only newspapers that boarders received. I now see it as a conservative establishment plot to brainwash and indoctrinate me with an alien political bent. I was at LRGS, an all-boys school in the north of England, four black boys in the whole school (I tell a lie, at our peak there were five of us) - I really shouldn't have expected the left leaning Guardian and Indy served with my shepherd's pie, should I?

I always joke about how the Guardian and my Bible jostle for position on my bedside table, the Guardian sometimes winning, and other times, winning still. Some of my friends think the thought in itself is blasphemous. Well, burn me at the stake. I like the writing in Guardian for several simple reasons: it's witty, irreverent (nothing is beyond reproach), has very good coverage of foreign news, and is the only newspaper that regularly deals with black issues in Britain.

The Guardian isn't perfect, no broadsheet is. But it's the best out there. The Indy is just a rabid intelligent people's Daily Mirror, at the forefront of the viewspaper evolution. The Telegraph is just staid and boring, and the Times is smug middle class blandness. Or maybe I'm just bitter that none of them have given me an interview. We shall see what happens, when the day before the day after tomorrow comes. Now for the small matter of ironing my shirt, suit, and tie, and polishing those shoes. As for the hair...