"AUTUMN is a second spring when every leaf is a flower." Not one of mine, Albert Camus, no less. There is a fundamental truth to it. It is a season when we reset. The balmy days of summer are over, but we need not mourn their passing. There is much to appreciate in this new season.
Autumn officially began on Wednesday. You will have noticed the leaves starting to fall, the evenings getting longer, the television schedules improving. We have just had the reliable markers: Strictly Come Dancing and the Great British Bake-off are back; people are moaning about mince pies appearing on supermarket shelves (even if very little else is). Politicians have returned to their desks, and the conference party season has begun (in its new virtual form, more with a whimper than bang).
Sharp-eyed readers will notice changes in the newspaper, too. The silly season is well and truly over; there is much of import to report, analyse and discuss. The winter crisis for the NHS looks to be starting early this year; already we have had talk of the possibility of Christmas being cancelled once more; government ministers on both sides of the Border seem to be lurching from crisis to crisis. We have international standoffs, trade squabbles, soaring energy prices, looming food shortages and much more with which to fill our pages.
Autumn brings other changes, too. There is a constant need in newspapers to source standalone pictures: images that can carry a page on their own without being attached to a news story; there is, after all, a limit to the number of shots of politicians the average reader can stand. (Incidentally, the lead picture on a page is referred to in the trade as the bull image; this actually has nothing to do with our esteemed elected leaders.)
Through the summer months, often the cry from the Picture Editor will be: get me a weather pic! This will normally involve toddlers with ice cream in one hand and bucket and spade in the other, or attractive 18-30-somethings sunbathing in not very much attire. Soon you will be able to spot those aforementioned toddlers kicking up piles of leaves, or dressed in Halloween costumes. The bright young sun-worshippers will be photographed during Freshers Weeks or returning to nightclubs.
We will have pictures of pumpkin farms, and we will lament the passing of the humble neep. We will have letters complaining about the Americanisation of our traditions, bemoaning the prevalence of trick and treating and asking: what happened to guising? We will complain about fireworks, and we will focus fully on COP26.
We will put away the sunhats, and put on our thinking caps.
We won't miss the silly season one bit.
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