How to fold it - the art of reading FT Weekend
Speakers at the FT Weekend Festival show they fold the Life & Arts section of the newspaper and read it.
Produced by Natalie Whittle. Filmed by Petros Gioumpasis. Edited by Oli McGuirk and Josh de la Mare.
Transcript
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So.
Just literally sort of how you fold it out.
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OK?
I believe that if this newspaper was designed to be folded, the market would have folded it in the appropriate way. So I'm going to leave it untouched.
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Obviously, I'd be turning straight to the style pages, which I will do with a brisk turn and flip. Straighten it up and fold it over. And then flip down to the end, and then you have a certain amount of faffing where you've got the bit in the middle, which sort of like takes the other one round.
But it's that, I think it's to do with the brisk snap when you turn the page though. But quickly turning back to the style page, because there's a few features here I might have missed.
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I like to read it with one hand.
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No one I know on the front page. And I can't find me anywhere.
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Thank you.
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Well, I guess I've got to turn to the Lunch with the FT. And then I'm going to move round like this. And I'll start like that. And if I'm bored, I'm going to come around here to the diary. And maybe just a little bit round there to make it easier.
What I like is, which is mostly done by old men on the tube, is this clever way of folding where you fold it in half on the front page like this. And then you fold this bit in half here, because you obviously don't want to cause a scandal of etiquette by knocking it into the face of the person next to you.
And then you can fold it over here to read this excellent article. And that here to read this one. And then it's simply a case of doing the same thing to get an excellent little A4 unit here. Here. What could be better?
What I do is, I'm very boring. I start at the beginning and I read all the way through. And last but not least, the fact you carry around the pink like this, salmon pink, shows the cache of the FT.
I don't like people reading over my shoulder. So then I start to fold it over, because I don't him to see anything else. I've now done some horrible folding. Because I don't want anybody else to have the enjoyment of a fresh paper when they get to it.
OK, well, is that OK?
What I really need to do is to get as quick as possible to [INAUDIBLE] for the song, which is typically three or four in from the back. Then, this is the tricky part, you have to fold it in one swift move like that. Take it down, fold it over, and there you are. If you're somewhere crowded, of course, you can then do the second fold kind of like that. Job done.
I usually go straight away to the Lunch. My husband says I've got to read the newspaper before you get into the bath.
When I re-fold it is the disastrous time. And actually that was quite good for me.
I read life and arts like this, on my phone. And I flick through it. Occasionally I'll read it on my tablet, which is a bigger and broader experience. Even occasionally on my laptop. There are all those odd days when you have no signal and you're forced to rely on this very beautiful, but old fashioned way of doing it.
In which case, I would read it in pretty much the same way as anybody else. Flick through till I find something I like, fold it over. Look how fussy this is compared to this. And try to hold it like this and imagine it's a phone.
OK, I just hold it like this and I put it under my arm and I walk.
The chances are I will actually sit and read the paper just like this.
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