London free papers

T

tryptych

waiting for a time
Whats going on with the new load of free London papers and their ever spiralling crapness? First Metro (bad), then City AM (terrible), and then in the last couple of weeks London Lite and The London Paper have both been launched.

I was around the City during rush hour the other day for the first time in months, and witnessed a few spats between the guys selling the ES and the free paper handout chaps, over who had best spots.

And the quality is so appaling... I though Metro was bad, but London Lite makes it look like the FT or something.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
I guess it's News International vs Associated Press or whatever they're called - I hope that they both lose. I haven't read them but according to the previews they are going to concentrate more on lifestyle, entertainment etc than "hard" news. I think that the newspaper industry is in real trouble at the moment for obvious reasons and they are desperately flailing around trying to find some way to stay relevant. I'm not sure that this is it.
Are all of those guys and girls dressed in purple with umbrellas and sofas and whatnot something to do with this?
 
swears

swears

preppy-kei
We get Metro on public transport up here (Liverpool) too, very light reading. Good for cinema listings/TV guide, not much else.
 
B

boomnoise

♫
semi digested, regurgitated, low-brow content recontextualised and dumbed down for cash rich time poor young urbanites. great.

but still challenging Associated Newpapers' monopoly has to be a good thing.
 
matt b

matt b

Indexing all opinion
shouldn't that read 'cash rich, mind poor', boom?

i love the metro's claim that it 'has no political axe to grind' and serves up news in an objective fashion.
 
N

Ness Rowlah

Norwegian Wood
Metro - best bit is 60 Seconds and the cartoons
LondonLite - shite, a total waste of paper
thelondonpaper - better than Lite, at least there is the odd bit to read in there
 
T

Tweak Head

Well-known member
... and those guys with the papers are pretty aggresive - just step off a bus at Waterloo and they're all over you, one from each of the new papers, both wearing purple. Get out of my way - i don't want it. It's all crap. Pisses me off when I see so many people reading Metro in the morning too. Are they too mean to spend 50p to buy a paper, or does the dumbed down pseudo-news and celebrity gossip really hit the spot for them? I'd rather people bought the Sun.

And breathe.
 
N

Ned

Ruby Tuesday
I like Pet of the Day in the London Paper. I have as much contempt as anyone for the readers of these things but admittedly if they just filled them full of pictures of puppies with hats on I'd never miss an issue.
 
B

boomnoise

♫
i find the london paper to be ripping off a lot of berliner guardian style and guardian style content.

the lite hasn't really grabbed me in anyway at all. i almost said to one of the distributors: 'why would i want to read a paper that can't even spell light correctly. but i didn't.
 
M

mms

sometimes
i'm just trying to ignore all this.
presumably the london lite is for people who find reading a bit taxing?
 
U

UFO over easy

online mahjong
I'm not sure if this is true, but I heard somewhere that Metro is a subsidiary of the Daily Mail? It advertises the paper all the time so it seems feasible.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
"... and those guys with the papers are pretty aggresive - just step off a bus at Waterloo and they're all over you, one from each of the new papers, both wearing purple."
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Yeah, I've even seen them getting on to buses and trying to force them into the bus driver's hands. The other day I walked from Charing Cross Road to the NFT and I had to fend them off every ten yards, it's like that scene at the start of Airplane when he fights off all the religious nuts. It's probably worth prominently carrying one of each newspaper to avoid getting hassled.
What's the business plan anyway? For how long can they afford to put a person every ten yards throughout central London to give away a free paper?
 
M

martin

----
IdleRich said:
It's probably worth prominently carrying one of each newspaper to avoid getting hassled.
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Why don't we just lamp them one instead? Or take a copy and then chuck it at their feet, so they look like incompetent litter louts. Sorry, but there's no excuse for such bad manners.
 
B

bassnation

the abyss
martin said:
Why don't we just lamp them one instead? Or take a copy and then chuck it at their feet, so they look like incompetent litter louts. Sorry, but there's no excuse for such bad manners.
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yeah, damn them for having the temerity to do their shitty working class jobs, eh?

and those fuckers who work in call centres - they just need a gobful of artfully-worded abuse to remind them of their place in this world.

why don't you take out your ire on the people actually responsible for the situation instead of the poor bastards trying to scrape a living?
 
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M

mms

sometimes
bassnation said:
yeah, damn them for having the temerity to do their shitty working class jobs, eh?

and those fuckers who work in call centres - they just need a gobful of artfully-worded abuse to remind them of their place in this world.

why don't you take out your ire on the people actually responsible for the situation instead of the poor bastards trying to scrape a living?
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yeah its hard work being a recent arts graduate.
 
B

boomnoise

♫
not sure how city-wide this is but in holborn today they had pretty girls selling standards instead of the usual fat/bearded old men. that puts a whole new spin on the paperwars.
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
boomnoise said:
not sure how city-wide this is but in holborn today they had pretty girls selling standards instead of the usual fat/bearded old men. that puts a whole new spin on the paperwars.
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what have they done with the usual fat/bearded old men? :(

I like them!
 
B

bassnation

the abyss
mms said:
yeah its hard work being a recent arts graduate.
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what, all of them? i don't believe you.

those of you who think people who do these shitty mcjobs are deserving of your vitriol should try standing about in all weather, getting abuse from the public for fuck all money and see how you like it.
 
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M

mms

sometimes
bassnation said:
what, all of them? i don't believe you.
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so you don't think it's hard being a recent arts graduate?
or is it worse to be doing a job like that if you are working class or a recent arts graduate?
what if you are both, is that really really bad?
 
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