Matt’s Beagle Training Tips, a how to book designed for the novice beagle owner, was the first book I ever read cover to cover and will probably remain the last. It’s not that I don’t like to read – quite the opposite really – it’s just that I don’t find books to be a particularly strong medium for the written word. For one thing, books are too long and the words are often too small. I find myself straining my eyes and struggling to hold my attention to the story fumbling as it unfolds before me.

For me, there’s no better way to read than in short informative bursts. As such, I’m much more of a newspaper or magazine guy and I go through three newspapers on an average work day and five every Sunday. If I travel I read all the local dailies to acclimate myself to my new surroundings and, as someone with a short attention span, I think there’s no better medium than the internet for reading news and short ideas. For all the people who say books are the only way to read properly I’d like to know how they find the time for that much leisure reading and how they can afford handovers that often cost thirty bucks a pop.