Finding myself up by London Bridge at lunchtime yesterday, I spotted that they were giving out copies of the new free lunchtime version of the Evening Standard (inexplicably, Standard Lite: what was wrong with Lunchtime Standard?)
I’m not quite sure what game Associated is playing here: will saturating London’s commuters with free papers at all times of the day really encourage those same commuters to go out and pay money for the evening edition? (“Finished your free morning version of the Daily Mail have we sir? Go on, have a free lunchtime paper! Oh, you will pop back in a couple of hours and give us 35p for a slightly bigger version of the same thing, now won’t you?”)
Anyway, so I picked one up, purely for curiosity value you understand. I don’t think I’ll make the same mistake again. It’s not just the shabby right-wing undertones. Or overtones most of the time actually–cf. front page story about Shell’s huge profits (“£300 a second”) is, of course tackled not from the obvious environmental angle, but with crushing inevitability under the subheading “Motorists’ fury at £9 billion bonanza”.
No, I expected as much from the London Daily Mail, but the reason I won’t be back is the grammar. Dear God, I was appalled. Take for example the fluff piece (by the delightfully-named Nigel Rosser) about 64 year old Patrick Stewart and his new young, attractive actress girlfriend, who is almost 40 years his junior (“So, Lisa, what first attracted you to multimillionaire actor Patrick…?)
According to the article, “the couple have been inseparable since the actor announced the end of his second marriage to television producer Wendy Neuss 18 months ago”. His second marriage to Wendy Neuss? How many times was he married to her? Would a comma have killed you Nige?
Later on, we are told that the couple “poised for the camera”. Well I’m sure they were…
Honestly. It’s enough to make me reach for the Grauniad.
* If you’d like a slightly longer version of this post, why not insert 35p into your computer anytime after 4pm.
As fellow technical author, I concur completely. I once saw a quote about the Grauniad that made me chuckle: “It’s hopeless. They can’t even use a spill-chicken-…”
-mel