The London Evening Standard: free for one day only!
Yes, from lunchtime today onwards, distributors in lurid orange t-shirts were distributing free copies of the new-look Evening Standard to Londoners.
Well, all it did for me was convince me not to shell out for the Standard ever again. Why? Well, take a look at the lead story - a city "tycoon" in a divorce case has revealed that he was keeping two families. And this is the biggest story in one of the greatest cities in the world?
And as we move through the paper, it's all celebrity tat, with a smattering of real news. Gordon Ramsey has a new PR person! Wow! Hold the presses! Some banker has had to knock £22m off his house price. What a shame. Duffy has made thousands from a track? Startling stuff.
This is not a newspaper for me. It's full of details of the lives of people far richer than me, whom I'm deeply uninterested in, and celeb gossip that's done better by the magazines. In fact, its content is far too close to that of the evening free sheets for their to be any point in paying for it.
A quick, deeply unscientific poll of the 13 people around me on my train home from Canon Street showed 3 reading the free Standard, 8 reading other free sheets, one reading a book and one reading something on their phone. Not a good omen for tomorrow, when you have to pay for the Standard...
Well, you forgot to mention the Tom Wolfe story. But I agree, not much going on for the Evening Standard.
You're right, I did. I would have said that it seemed interesting enough, but a tabloid newspaper is about the worst format for reading an extended piece of fiction like that.
I managed to pick up the London Evening Standard last night on the tube, and I agree with your analysis. I liked reading the old Evening Standard but was disappointed by the content of last night's paper, although the Robert Clack school story was a pleasent exception.
I also found the ad campaign for the London Evening Standard rather laughable.
Sounds like a tabloid, rather than a newspaper