Thursday, August 20, 2009
Thelondonpaper - closure is announced as Arcati predicted ...
... as recently as April 30, 2007. Click here. Private Eye is also to be congratulated on casting doubts on the paper's future in its latest issue. While I am sorry about the job losses, nothing can forgive the openly ageist practices of the publication. So much for giving jobs to babies! More here.
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19 comments:
nevererdovit
London as the World City - can this physical idea survive? Is it not pull-up-the-drawbridge time as far as mass immigration is concerned and do it all electronically? The real world city now sits in cyberspace.
Well I rather regret its closure. First, it was a more substantial and readable freebie than Lite, which is simply full of celebrity photos. Second, it was responsible for kicking the Standard up the arse and forcing it to change. If the result is that the Standard returns to complacency, and the Lite is the only thing to read for free, then we will regret its passing.
I will really miss The London Paper.
I always referred to it as 'the purple one' as I used to avoid 'the yellow one' because it was just rehashes of what was in The Standard. It was designed properly too, it looked like a magazine art director was at the helm with proper consideration of typography and white space. London Lite was a dog's dinner by comparison.
I agree thelondonpaper was true to itself - a disposable rapid read/digest that looked sharp. However I can see that the ageism issue still doesn't register with a lot of people. More fool they.
Now that The London Paper is pissing off, other freebies will follow. DMGT is creaking financially, the whole giveaway revolution is failing propbably because of a glut of publications. Meantime the Evening Standard is trying to give itself away in certain places and at certain times - wrong!
I read this on the Press Gazette comment forum in reply to your message there, Madame:
"Madame, there are plenty of people on our staff in their 40s who have been working here from the start. News and section editors are all in their late 30s, bar our TV editor who's late 20s. I'm 26, but hopefully in a few years I will have grown up enough to enjoy challenging any ageist policy. Oh, except I won't because my lovely paper is closing."
What have you to say to that?
Good to hear if true. However my remarks are and have been in response to Stefano Hatfield's comments in certain interviews where he happily confessed to employing only young people to match his target audience. While there maybe circumstances where youth is imperative - such as babies for nappy ads, etc - the idea that only the young can write for the young is utterly ludicrous, ageist and illegal.
"the idea that only the young can write for the young is utterly ludicrous..."
True - even the young will agree. From the beginning of time they young have look out for (not always up to) the older not just to antagonize them, but to emulate them, even if the older are immature old farts wanting to stay/feel young. The young have always and will always measure themselves by how much smarter, faster, even wiser they are from previous generations and want to read what the older and established have to say even if it's to refute it and are not always looking for people their own age to connect with. If not, please figure out how many under 25 have come up originally with any trend or ideology that other their age and less have followed blindly and let me know. I can only think of a couple of computer game designers that were like 14 when they invented them.
The idea that you must keep your staff young to attract the young to be trendy is doomed to be another Lord of the Flies.
Why do you continue to masquerade as Madame Arcati when your id is now known? Just bung your name at the top and have done with it.
Dame Barry Humphries? Doesn't quite work does it.
"Dame Barry Humphries?"..true..and have you ever had a conversation with Barry?.Trying to work out where Edna ends and Barry begins is most confusing.
I don't even think he knows anymore.
I can assure `Anonymous` that she really IS Madame Arcati. The similarities between MA and Margaret Rutherford`s portrayal is uncanny. Couldn`t resist watching Blythe Spirit again on reading `Anon`s` comment. MA is exciteable, up and down like a yoyo (or a tart`s knickers on VE night), mad as a hatter, oh - and the front door handle also comes off in your hands. Believe me `Anon` the name Madame Arcati is soooo apt and MUST stay.
Flatterer.
I can confirm that Madame Arcati is the perfect name for the writer of this blog. Aside from being a closet "stray" for reasons I still don't understand he is [censored]
MA darling,
Are these quarrels between this Anon and you real or do you have some kind of alter ego that 'posts' comments when you are 'not looking' trying to 'convince you' of giving up your pen name? Are you having some kind of Jekyll & Hide crisis? Are you bored with M. Arcati? Because we're not. You know that, right?
Yes, no, no, no and, if you say so, dearie.
Alright then; just checking...
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.
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But... if you are sure you're not having blackouts and you remember where you've been at all times... this Anon is real!! ... for real??? How many years can one go on with an argument that doesn't matter and takes us nowhere?
Tsk, this is what's wrong with the world. Then people wonder why do people go to war... and blame it on all kinds of crazy reasons. Like it matters! People make up the reasons!
I haven't the faintest idea what you're on about, dearie. Anons come two a penny in this place and I don't ask.
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