Why the Tortoise sale may be good for the Observer

Also this week: reminiscing about print’s heyday and leaving technology at the theatre door.

The most fun I had in journalism was in the Sixties as a teen working for the Observer. It was the time of “Swinging London” – as nobody called it. Super-glamorous figures such as Min Hogg, co-founder of World of Interiors, or White Mischief author James Fox would shimmer in and out to launches and lunches. Disappearing down a corridor you would see international gurus like the diplomat Conor Cruise O’Brien heading into the editor’s office to put the world to rights. The woman who would become John Osborne’s fifth (yes, fifth) wife worked two desks down from me. Nik Cohn might pop by to talk about a night out with Pete Townshend in Shepherd’s Bush. Anyone using the word “clicks” would have been assumed to be speaking ancient Etruscan. Different times.

It struck me then that this was the life: I was only paid £15 a week, but you didn’t have to get up too early, and boozing and late nights were normal, if not encouraged. Ever since those days at the Obs I have enjoyed and admired the paper, even through its dizzying changes of ownership, culminating in the Guardian’s purchase of the title in 1993. It was primarily a defensive move to stop the Independent on Sunday buying it and closing it, to give more clout to the daily Independent, the Guardian’s great rival.

Guardians of history

It would be fair to say that today, not even through the most rose-tinted spectacles, could you see the Guardian Media Group (GMG)’s attitude to the paper as anything other than barely concealed dislike. Though in truth, when I was lucky enough to edit the Obs for nearly a decade from 1998, we were given considerable resources and the relationship was amicable (most of the time, anyway). Now it seems the Scott Trust, which owns the GMG, wants to sell or shut down the paper.

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with a sale. It has happened often enough, though across the Atlantic, the Washington Post offers a cautionary tale about the ownership of a maverick billionaire such as Jeff Bezos. The Obs’s putative buyer, Tortoise, is a new-media start-up that has promised to keep the paper going and give it a proper online presence – though some Observer hacks question the depths of Tortoise’s pockets.

But perhaps the Scott Trust should pause to consider the honourable traditions and history of the paper. By all accounts the trust has well over a billion quid in the bank: even if you shoved that into a super-saver account, you could presumably bring in enough to cover any future Obs losses. The media landscape is changing all the time, and papers come and go. I might now be one of the last people alive who buys a print newspaper. It would be outrageous if the Scott Trust contributed to further reducing the number of them. But with a bit of luck and a following wind, maybe Tortoise could give the paper a safe haven.

Grateful for Delayed Gratification

Talking of print and paper, one of the best magazines around (present company excepted) is Delayed Gratification – not a porn site, but a beautiful mag, designed to provide a counterpoint to a clogged news agenda that’s getting ever faster and more overwhelming. “We draw a line in the sand every three months,” says DG’s co-editor Rob Orchard. “Then we cut through the white noise and look back on the big stories to ask what happened next.” Indispensable stuff. It’s also non-partisan, ad-free and filled with super photography.

And for anyone swotting up for the family Christmas quiz, DG has produced a lovely little book called Misc, a fantastic collection of random facts. There are treasures on every page, but here’s just one: a Pokémon card was sold for $5.3m (£4m) in 2021. Why didn’t my daughter have that one in her collection?

Oedipus wrecked

If you get the chance, shift heaven and Earth and your bank manager to buy a couple of tickets for Oedipus at Wyndham’s Theatre in London. Mark Strong and Lesley Manville blow the bloody roof off with simply stupendous performances that leave you gasping for breath at the end. Even so, I counted three mobile phones ringing, two smart watches beeping and the melodic alarm for “Find my AirPods”. To feel immersed in a play, you must leave your sense of disbelief at the door. Maybe best to leave your electronic devices there, too.

Oedipus lasts just over two hours, without an interval, presumably so as not to breach the tension of this masterful reworking of Sophocles. However, for those of us of a certain age, and without a bladder the size of Lake Superior, another tension came from wondering whether we could last out to the end. We could, but next time give us a break.

Roger Alton is the former editor of the “Observer”