Paper Monitor
11:26 UK time, Monday, 1 September 2008
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Cough, splutter, grimace - the Aldi of the quality newspaper world, the Times, has suddenly gone all reassuringly expensive, adding 10p to its cover price. At a credit crunch-unfriendly 80p there's now nothing to choose between it and the other qualities... in monetary terms at least.
There's just a merest whisper of this hike at the very foot of page two, in shrunk-down text - and no grandiose explanation about maintaining high editorial standards amid a climate of rising costs. Somewhat more in your face, though, is the full-page ad further in which advises how to "Freeze the price of your papers" - yup, it's the Times bigging up its annual subscription and home delivery service.
A prudent financial move perhaps, until you get to p10 of the Mail. "Are we on the eve of destruction?" Yikes. Just when you though Mondays couldn't get any worse, the Mail wades in with the theory that when the European Organization for Nuclear Research switches on its giant underground collider in nine days time, this "man-made black hole 'could swallow the Earth'".
It's the sort of story that could leave the likes of Ryanair, with its "3 million seats from £15 - travel in October" ad on the opposite page, feeling rather like the British public do about their government, if you believe the Alistair Darling.
Talking of which, here's a list of which newspapers printed Darling's two-word frank assessment in full on Saturday: Guardian, Daily Star, Independent, Financial Times...
...while the Express, Telegraph, Mirror and Times opted for some judicious use of asterisks.
Finally, just time to mention an interview in the Mail with the new president of the Budgerigar Society - an unlikely one at that: former world's strongest man Geoff Capes.
Which is a convenient opportunity to remind one and all of the merits of signing up for the Magazine Twitter feed. (More details)
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