Every year I make a conscientious list of people to write thank-you letters to, and always lose it. By the time I apply myself to the task, round about now, I am racked with doubt about who sent the small, fat herbal pillow or the ribboned crate of fragrant tea that's far too upmarket for this house, where we swig only dark-brown "builders" tea (as it used snobbishly to be called).

A safe approach to mystery gifts, I have concluded, is the generalised warm response. "The whole family was bowled over by the unbelievably fab and imaginative, um, thoughtfulness!" Being more specific is just too risky. Here's one of the week's not atypical e-mail exchanges:

ME: "Dear Rebecca, how could you possibly know I wanted those red suede gloves with the fox fur trim? Were you hovering behind me in Saks when I was looking at them hungrily and decided they were much too expensive to buy for myself? What a genius you are!"

HER: "Tina, darling, the gloves sound divine but they aren't from me. I sent you the far less glamorous make-up purse with a tube of that glittery sun stuff to slather on. Have had to be a bit budget-conscious this year, but I figured great for the Bahamas!"

ME: "Darling Rebecca! I knew you could never have given me those hooker's gloves! No one would ever wear them unless they were auditioning for Chicago! Hope you got the little care package from me." (A pair of fluffy, designer earmuffs.)

HER: "Tina, darling, they were delicious. I am still eating them."

Ha! At least now that she's busted too, I feel a bit less of a fraud.

I HAVE saved all the newspapers while I was away, rather than having them cancelled. I am far too much of a news junkie ever to completely unplug. Now I am glad of the stack because I didn't take a laptop and there wasn't a newspaper, not even a yellowing Herald Trib, to be had on the island, unless you counted the Island Gazette and its constant updates on plans for New Year's "junkanoo" costume parade. After three days of this my psyche was seriously under-caffeinated. I fell hungrily on a news summary from the New York Times fax service that the hotel makes available to guests at breakfast. The NY Times fax is supposed to be a lively zoom through the first ten paragraphs of a hand-picked menu of the day's top stories, but whoever is picking them has an unerring eye for any story I would normally skip.

On vacation, I will never read any story that has the word "broadband" in it. Acronyms are another slide-by (except the FBI, but then only if the word "handcuffs" is attached). Batch reviews of first novels, paedophilia in the Catholic Church (I am tapped out with being shocked, shocked) and any "probe" that has gone on longer than three news cycles also has me turning the page. So do trios of swarthy men arrested at airports for indeterminate and unproven crimes, and pundit round-ups mispredicting swings in the financial markets. Unfortunately this is the story mix on any given day in The New York Times's fax. But then again, only a monopoly newspaper could afford to come up with the headline "Energy-Rich Kazakhstan is Suffering Growing Pains" on a despatch that was defiantly interesting.

Last summer I was a guest on a media mogul's boat trip on the Mediterranean. Instead of the NY Times service, he has the luxury of a bespoke cull of all the newspapers and websites, prepared by his office and satellite-faxed to the high seas. Naturally the news selection reflects his interests, which are business, media and politics. Every morning a huge pile of inside dope from the Beltway, Hollywood and Wall Street would appear with the breakfast cantaloupe, filleted to exclude the faintest whiff of irrelevant human interest. By the end of the week I was informed on every nuance of the ailments of the telecommunications industry (yes, "broadband") and the sequel to campaign finance reform, but knew absolutely nothing about a story that had mesmerised America for four days when nine miners were trapped underground in rising water. It was wonderfully liberating on one level - media intake free of homicides in the outer boroughs, manufactured heroism and updates on episodes of American Idol. But it also felt oddly disquieting, as if the excision of all unwanted, messy human news was the first step towards some kind of spooky Faustian hubris.

The NY Times fax is too democratically dull to stir these feelings. But it does make me feel that the relentless churn of American media dross is an essential part of feeling alive in the 21st century.

I shake the sand out of my shoes, turn on cable news and the computer and wade into the mountain of newsprint sitting outside the door on the landing. It's great to be defenceless and assailed at the start of a new year.

tina.brown@thetimes.co.uk