Imagine if you were told that the future for British newspapers was a new shape – thinner, longer, like a mini strip of wallpaper.

Yes, it sounds improbable, doesn’t it, but just take a look at the U-T San Diego that I was sent last week.

In the US, their ‘broadsheet’ size has always been relatively narrow, traditionally measuring 15 inches wide by 22¾ inches long.

But in the Americans’ drive to save money, while some papers went tabloid others continuously trimmed the broadsheet; hence the U-T San Diego’s clipped shape now measures just 11 inches wide –  and still 22¾ inches long.

That’s narrower than an Action Man lying down! But, but… I liked the feel of this lanky shape.

The best thing is how you simply fold it once to read the top half like a tablet, then flip it over to read the bottom.

And yes, that might sound like an awkward sequence once you start turning pages, but what becomes an 11 inch-ish square is as easy to manipulate as those paper fortune tellers we created as kids.

So is it time to excite British newspaper readers with shapes again, by converting to what I’d call the ‘bill poster’ format?

Maybe not. But enough about shapes, what was the U-T San Diego like to read – and what’s with the strange title?

The paper was renamed in 2012 from The San Diego Union-Tribune – its new publishers (MLIM Holdings bought it in 2011) feeling the 1992 merger of the San Diego Union and the San Diego Evening Tribune had created too much of a mouthful.

The page one story on Wednesday 8 May was ‘SEX ASSAULTS CLIMB IN THE MILITARY’, reporting a 36pc rise to 26,000 ‘unwanted sexual contacts’.

It was fascinating: not only do the US forces have a Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Unit, but the Lieutenant Colonel heading this has himself now been arrested for “groping a stranger in the park when drunk”.

The main ‘A’ section then wrapped up the major national and international stories, before the ‘B’ section focused on ‘Local’ news.

‘Second chance for rescued seals’ was a great picture story on the front, telling how nine ‘pups’ washed up on beaches in March had been looked after  by Sea World before being returned to the wild.

And I loved ‘Parents of twerking students address board’ – a story I initially read just to find out what ‘twerking’ was.

Apparently, this is “popping hips and buttocks in and out while crouching or doing handstands”, a You Tube phenomenon that saw 33 San Diego students suspended for what Scripps High School superintendant Bill Kowba said was “a deeply offensive production”.

The U-T San Diego, which costs $1, had three other sections – ‘C’ on ‘Business’, ‘D’ on ‘Sports’ and ‘E’ on ‘Food’ – which with ‘A’ and ‘B’ saw 200-plus stories on 40 elongated pages. Other eye-catchers included:

• Around 40 strip cartoons on a double-page spread within the ‘Business’ section, including everything from Doonesbury to Peanuts.
• An entire page devoted to ‘Weather’, covering San Diego in micro detail, a three-day summary of California state, and a two-day summary of the entire USA – plus the top 50 or so world cities.
• Another four-fifths of a page detailing ‘Movie Show Times’, in a way that UK regionals used to before someone in advertising asked them not to; a great service that should be restored.