Free Newspapers

This blog has become a bit like Quentin Tarantino films. Less and less frequent, with each one appearing to be more obviously a rehash of someone else's work, and more often than not itself. Sure there's always been violence, but now it appears to be a substitute for the intelligent writing that created all the fuss in the first place. Exactly like this blog.

But now I have a new laptop. In my lounge. This turn of events has already shown itself to be a dangerous situation.

Ebay is no longer a trip up the stairs. You no longer are accused of being anti-social by shopping for three hours in a distant room on Amazon. And those moments when you think "I'll look that up on the Internet" no longer drift harmlessly off into the ether, but can materialise into real purchases from the comfort of your Ikea sofa. Hence my current obsession with watches that you can't really tell the time on: TokyoFlash.

To aid in the fight against possible financial ruin, I've returned to my old blogging ground, with the hope of keeping my busy hands, er, busy.

In the time between my last post in August and now, much has happened. Much has been baby related. Alas, I don't care for baby blogs, so there isn't much there in the way of material for SYi2. Out of the past 20 weeks, the least baby of them was my 5-day course in London. There were highlights (meeting uni friends I hadn't seen in 6 years; catching up with San Fran ex-pats; learning about the joys of VBScript, ADSI and WMI), but undoubtedly the best bit was rediscovering that the Spanish for "Do Not Disturb" is "No Moleste". Ho Ho Ho.

The thing that stood out most about this trip to London though was the number of free newspapers. They carpet the streets. At the end of the day they sit bundled in corners and doorways like hunched homeless. Distributors stand outside tube stations, thrusting them into your midriff like quarterbacks off-loading to a backfield rusher (NFL references anyone?).

But you know all this. That was 3-months ago and for all I know they've been replaced with free podcasts downloaded straight into your brain. I just wanted to get in the "No Moleste" door sign and link it to the thing I was actually going to blog about.

For we get a free newspaper in Crediton, the Mid Devon Star. To call it a newspaper is maybe pushing the definition slightly. It is more of a wrapper for a big wad of advertising pamphlets. The paper itself is more advertising. It's a bit like if QVC started putting out 5min news bulletins every 20mins or so. However, it is a newspaper, so it does contain articles that at least attempt to contain some element of news.

As it is published weekly, you might think that it would be able to find something of interest to write about in the 40mile area from Crediton to Tiverton to Honiton. However they fail. Rather than having a number of stories from which they choose the most pertinent and interesting, the MDS appears to only ever have stories relating to minor crime or planning.

Take today's edition. The front-page consists of four stories: CCTV being installed at a primary school, police in Tiverton getting a new speed-gun and the Mid Devon Council's new website publishing planning details on play areas and road works. Another page to add to my daily checked favourites.

The final frontpage story related to Crediton. But not any old part of Crediton, but my part. The toilets by the War Memorial opposite:

Public Loos Fire

Two fire crews were called out to extinguish a fire in the public toilets in union Road, Crediton, on Monday night. The crews arrived just before 8pm and extinguished a small fire involving a toilet roll.

It's not a big write-up, and I think that the MDS might have missed the bigger picture. How much does it cost to callout two fire-engines? I'm thinking the fire could have been quenched with a small extinguisher or maybe a damp tea-towel. Perhaps an interesting discussion could be drawn, what with the threats of cuts to fire services.

In fact there are four more fire related stories including blazes in a Clothes Bank (the big page 3 story) and a fire in a microwave. And that's kind of weird because until tonight I hadn't ever read a single page of the paper, but had used it regularly as a fire-lighter. And there's a kind of warming irony in that.