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A little thread (a polite term for an extended rant) about reading, or accessing reading material, in Gibraltar.
Since the pandemic started affecting flights and certain suppliers, the two quality English language broadsheets that we used to get in Gibraltar (The Times and the FT) no longer arrive.
I don’t know why this ended or whether deliveries will restart soon but, since March, it has not been possible to buy these papers (or The Economist, for that matter) on the Rock.
Bizarrely, a kiosk in La Linea sells the FT. My dad actually crosses over every Saturday to get the weekend edition.
On the books front, things are even worse. Despite hosting an annual literary festival, Gibraltar no longer has a bookshop. Some shops have book sections and some charity shops can yield the odd cheap find but there is no dedicated bookshop.
Undoubtedly there are unique commercial pressures faced by anyone who wants to run a business like this - businesses that are even struggling in meccas of culture and literary activity like London and New York.
So, until now, if you wanted to buy a book in Gibraltar, you’d buy it online. This comes with its own set of problems: Amazon stopped delivering, promised postage times are never met, the parcel post is chaotic and stressful.
To make matters worse, as from next week, anybody picking up a parcel whose contents exceed £25 in value (quite common for hardbacks or an order containing several books) will have to pay a new £8 “import handling fee”.
Presumably, the new charge (like the 10% import duty also introduced recently [from which books are thankfully exempt]) is partly designed to protect local businesses from the effects of online shopping.
But, because Gibraltar doesn’t have any bookshops, NO local business is harmed if you order your books online.
So, in order to avoid this charge, many are now shipping to Spanish addresses - in particular “pick up locations” across the border in La Linea and Campamento.
So we have the following absurd situation: in order to cheaply access reading material in a British Overseas Territory (be it the UK press or books) you have to cross the border into Spain.
In November 2017, at the closing dinner of the @GibraltarLitFes, the Chief Minister said: “...it is clear to me that the 'Digital Rock' of Block Chain and Crypto Currencies is also the ‘Literate Rock’ of poetry and prose, learning and friendly discourse.”
This ideal of a “Literate Rock” is, through unavoidable pandemic disruption, commercial pressure and postal charges, ever further from our grasp today.
ENDS
P.S: These are my concerns as a reader and lover of books - please do not hijack them to make a political point.
P.S: These are my concerns as a reader and lover of books - please do not hijack them to make a political point.
