The Guardian

--THE GUARDIAN---

When I buy a paper I want one that offers great all round content. I really look forward to Saturday when I purchase the Guardian. It's just really good value. I don't really get much time these days to actually read a newspaper during the week, as I am so busy writing all the time, but I still try to find time to read a few newspapers at the weekends. My newspaper of choice for Saturday is the Guardian broadsheet.

Sister newspaper to the Observer, the Guardian has been in business as a daily newspaper following the early success of the Manchester Guardian. The Guardian is quite simply great news with in depth analysis. What I find useful about the Guardian is its sectioning of content. It's a good value read with intelligent comment and Saturdays just wouldn't be the same without it for me. Awarded 'National Newspaper of the Year' in 2006 by the British Press Awards and joint winner for 'Worlds best designed newspaper' 2006. The papers quality speaks for itself. -

When I buy a newspaper I like to be informed, challenged and posed different points of view other than my own. The Guardian delivers all this to me and more. For my meagre £1.50 I have actually bought something that will enlighten and entertain and it is very much a part of my Saturday's reading.

---THE GUARDIAN---
The Guardian has 6 sections this week. The first outer newspaper which contains the subsequent individual sections deals with the main points of the news which deal with the Political issues of the day, and all other major news stories. The Guardian pulls news from other sources that they are affiliated with. The overview news is punchy, well written and with hard hitting photography accompanying political and war issues. It is extremely well designed, colourful and with a good clear lay-out. -

---SPORT---
The sport section is informative, relevant and features club news, football squad sheets, league tables and even the mischievous Russell Brand giving his own views on football on the back pages. There is good space allocated to the cricket, golf, motor racing and horse racing and fixtures, news, interviews and analysis. There is a small section devoted to Chess and the grand masters, equestrian and other lesser sports. But an all round good sports coverage and a very good read.-

---TRAVEL---
The travel broadsheet pull-out is excellent. There are wonderful articles on far away and isolated places, with the easiest way to travel there, and the best places to stay, accompanied with amazing full colour photography of the regions in question. They are running a photography competition at the moment on travel photographs at guardian.co.uk/beenthere. There are reviews on the 'in' places to eat and drink, and giving the best Alfresco tables in the UK. They cover the cultures of the regions shown and they offer features on current world wide achievements for mountain climbing etc.

---WORK---
The work section is brilliant. It features true life stories of people who have escaped the rat race to start up their own small business, what is involved and how they are finding business after a few years trading. The paper advises on career change and offers suggestions for alternatives. There is a vast job section offering many posts for many levels of employment. The paper gives information on courses and education, and a graduate career section also. The Guardian work offers Marketing and PR, IT &T, TEFL, Creative and Media, plus much more. -

---FAMILY---
Family is great. It features generations of families, the formative years, research into child growth and parenthood. Family relationships and how they cope with failure and bad communication. This issue covers all the summer festivals, and has a regular spot for sudoku, spot the difference and crossword. There is a regular 'Family forum', letters and living with a teenager and it also features places of interest to go for family days out. I'd say that this is probably the lightest of the pull-outs but an interesting section nonetheless.-

---REVIEW---
Review covers writers, books and literature, fiction and non fiction. It has articles on the newly released, book of the week, cultural studies, and children's fiction. It features Poetry, which is my forte and something which I am very much interested in. It also has the Saturday Poem. It lists the Classical Music Guide of London. The progression from book to TV and how one author looks on. Writer's rooms, letters, Psychology, and off-beat literature. There is diary, writers on writers and the latest news from the publishing industry. This really is a very interesting pull-out and just one of the many reasons why I think this broadsheet is such great value.-

---MONEY---
Money covers anything financial, from mortgage, pension, and insurance. This week concentrates on the collapse of the property boom abroad. The money paper offers advice on banking, building societies, savings, insurance, bonds and ISA's. It shows examples of differing energy suppliers and which are the best ones in their opinion. This is a useful guide and the money paper features a section on the back page, of all the different types of mortgages and the best performers from each bank and building society. It also lists the best rates of interest for differing savings accounts from selected banks and building societies.-

---THE GUARDIAN WEEKEND---
The Guardian Weekend is the pull-out colour magazine which is fantastic. This is a weighty read and this week offers 120 pages crammed full of a really interesting cross section of features and articles. Also including places to eat, crosswords, photography competition, fashion, beauty, food and recipe and lots more, all displayed in full colour illustration. This is a great mag that is worth the £1.50 alone.-

---THE GUARDIAN GUIDE---
This is a small, but thick 98 page guide to your week ahead TV, plus feature articles. There is the regular information on Film ( Including listings and brief write-ups) - Music (All genres) Including Opera and Classical - Entertainment - Clubs - Theatre - Exhibitions - Dance - Comedy - Family. This is an invaluable little guide with so much useful information to what's going on. -

---SUMMARY---
The Saturday Guardian is a brilliant read. I like the way it is sectioned out. So if you don't want to read a certain pull-out you can just discard it. Each pull-out is interesting and being fairly slim individual papers, they are brief enough to hold your interest without you being visually accosted by reams of writing and text. Their layout is superb, neatly sectioned out with fantastic journalism and photography, and their clear headings make for easy access of story, or feature. I would highly recommend the Guardian as good, honest reporting and in depth analysis of story.

Also take a look at their award winning website for the past three years, at http://www.guardian.co.uk It is a great site with loads of terrific content and brilliant sports commentary to boot. For £1.50 the Guardian is a serious, quality, National broadsheet that is more than worth its money. -

Thank you for reading
Electra May 2008*