I may be biting the hand that feeds me, but why another London paper? Why are there so many of the goddam things? Why, when I am still carrying around a London paper from two days ago because I hadn't quite finished the film review section, have I got two more?
It's bad enough having fortnight-old Sunday papers in my bag (because I really am going to read the personal finance special on ISAs), along with a hardback library copy of The Da Vinci Code (because I refuse to admit it's rubbish even by page 27) without having to fend off the free papers that are thrust at me. Of course, no-one really forces me to take them. I mean, there's not a sign on the 159 bus that says: 'pick up this free paper or you'll have to pay the non-Oyster fare'. I am addicted to newspapers and now my habit is being fed for free.
Of course, with addiction comes the inevitable guilt. Why haven't I booked tickets for the mini-film-festival at Riverside Studios featuring documentaries from Slovakia and Slovenia? (hmm, so they're not the same country…) Why haven't I booked a table at Tamarai, the new pan-Asian-fusion restaurant in Covent Garden? Why haven't I got any bottles in my wine rack? Oh, sorry, that's my other addiction…
The thing is, London is a fantastic place to live and there's loads going on, but free papers that highlight this wonderfulness, well, they're not helping. If you're like me and at the end of the working day, you can barely muster the strength (and the cash) to buy a ready-made meal at Sainsburys, photos and snippets of gossip about bolshie babes and beautiful boys falling out of the Cuckoo Club don't do much for your self-esteem. Look, the pages screech, there's an absolutely fabulous city out there, having the time of its life, without you.
So I read about the nu-cabaret with the transvestite mime in the clubs section knowing I'll never go because I don't have the clothes. And I know I don't have them because I read in the fashion section that fluffy shrugs and silk bustiers are in style and I don't even know what they are. Even if I stay in, I'll feel utterly un-cool because I won't be watching the director's cut DVD of The Ring (Japanese version) or I won't be listening to the alt-punk/emo CD by that band from Wisconsin. Or wherever.
So I am going cold turkey. No more free papers about mad-for-it London telling me to get a life. Even if you print this column, I will not read it. Honestly. Don't even tell me what day it will run. (Next Tuesday is good for me.)
