Funny you should say that because I made similar remarks earlier today. Many things change into 'all new improved' versions and almost always they have actually got worse, but the Observer has definitely improved. I even got to write the Barnsley match summary in it last week! Hopefully it can keep going.

when I looked at it last week. If a paper like The Independent does get sold and undergoes a much touted relaunch in much the same way - taking it back to its original concept - I would be very happy. At the moment, there clearly is room for a proper daily newspaper of record. I have been forced into reading The Times at the moment, which irritatingly allows a clear News International agenda to creep into its news content, instead of quarantining in opinion pieces.

I last bought The Observer on Sunday 22nd October 2006: I can be that precise because a quick Google tells me that was the Sunday when the editor apparently thought his readership wanted the whole of Page 3 devoted to the wedding of Liz Hurley - including an analysis of how it would compare to the weddings of the Beckhams, Jordan and Peter Andre, and Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas. The big issues of the day.

Call me an intellectual snob, but I thought this suggested that they saw their readers, myself included, as the sort of people who didn't want to be seen buying Heat, but still craved their fix of celebrity gossip, and secretly enjoyed getting it wrapped in a respectable veneer - "The Observer? Well, yes, it's a bit embarrassing, but I only buy it for the Will Hutton articles, you understand".

As it turned out, stopping the Sunday habit felt very liberating. In these days when every weekend broadsheet seems to have at least seven sections, I find one Saturday paper is more than enough reading for a weekend.