3rd November:

I spent most of yesterday working in London, hence the lack of post. Generally, anyone taking the tube between the hours of 9 and 11am will be familiar with the process of wading ankle-deep through a sea of discarded Metro newspapers. Whilst the idea of a free daily paper paid for exclusively through advertising is intuitively attractive to the paying punter, it does raise interesting questions about the dumbing down of the news and the distillation of important current affairs into snappy soundbites and 60-second 200 word articles.

Two further free newspapers have been launched in London since the summer. I had the ‘London Lite’ paper thrust in my face on no less than 8 (yes, I counted!) separate occasions on a journey from Ealing to King’s X. The question is therefore fixed: putting to one side the impact on the environment of manufacturing and disposing of all this additional newsprint, not to mention the increased requirement for crack teams of Albanian waste relocation consultants to ensure that our tube carriages are maintained in their traditional spotless and hygienic condition, what purpose do these newspapers actually serve?