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The race is on to be the first journalist to claim to have read all 2.3 million words of the Chilcot report, with reporters across the country keen to take the honour.
‘Journalist’, James Matthews, told us, “2.3 million words should take about nine days to read if you read at an average rate of 250 words a minute, which gives you a comprehension of about 85% – but this is well above the average tabloid reader.
“But if you’re looking for a salacious headline, which let’s be honest, we all are – then I reckon you can do 2.3 million words in about fifteen minutes, particularly if you have an electronic copy and use the CTRL+F ‘Tony Blair’ function.
“I’m guessing there’ll be a couple of thousand mentions of Tony Blair, so I’m going to find the good ones by combining it with a search for ‘war crime’.”
Many other reporters are keen to have the honour of being the first to publish a hot take on the full report, even though it takes more than a week to read properly.
Newspaper reader Simon Williams told us, “It’s exciting, but that’s a lot of words to read. It’s a bit like when you had to read a big book at school, like when we were given Great Expectations.
“So you could read it if you want, or, like me, you could rely on the heavy smoker in the year above who skim-read it during detention before churning out an essay that got an ‘F’ – and then base your opinions on that, instead.”
“Which is why I still think it’s about an old lady called Miss Haversham who won the lottery and some kid from the local council estate called Pip who wanted to shag her daughter.
“Remember, this is modern Britain; we don’t do experts anymore. If we need an opinion, the media will give us one.”
