London Lite Cleans up Messy Business

I read London Lite the other day (Free sheet from the Evening Standard, handed out on weekdays in Central London).

It was my first read. I admit I’m a bit late in catching up. But when you’re surrounded by news and read all the nationals everyday, there’s often no room for another newspaper to get a look in.

Actually, there's always room for paper in my life. Truth is I've been reading the London Paper (launched by Rupert Murdoch aka proprietor of the Times/Sun) instead, because that’s what was handed to me often enough to become habit forming.

Picture the scene: Friday night on the tube homeward bound, someone has left a copy of said free sheet on a nearby seat. You reach, rifle, read, rifle some more then fold and go to put it in your bag. And this is where you notice the strap-line above the headline. “Printed with ink that won’t come off on your hands” it says.

I’m sure non-journalists, who form the bulk readership of London Lite probably appreciate the thought. To me it didn’t make sense.

The smell, ink, grain of paper, the fact that you can tear it in a dead straight horizontal line, is what I love about newsprint. The familiarity of news writing style and the quality of snatched pictures that can’t afford as much time as long-drawn photo-shoots.

I understand that when we live in the Big Smoke its all so filthy, keeping people’s hands clean might prove a good move.

But as a die-hard traditionalist at heart, I do feel printing with non-budge ink seems to sterilise a bit that illicit stain of grubbiness on your fingers that's left behind after a gloriously greedy read.