One thing the British do not whinge about – unlike Australians — is their newspapers.
And why would they? The British Press is a wonderful beast, or should I say beasts. And there is another reason for the lack of whinge which will I explain anon.
For the past couple of weeks, I have been sampling the best and the worst of it. Some days, I am sure, I was the only person in Britain to have bought a copy of both The Times and the Daily Star – the opposite ends of the British national press.
Britain has 10 national dailies: five broadsheet, serious papers; two midbrow tabloids; and three red-top shocker tabloids.
The Daily Star, was called, by someone I knew who worked on it, the Daily Bonk. (He was a football writer.) The Bonk does not even have a veneer of news. Rather it has some splinters and chaff of news inside; the veneer is the smooth semi-clad woman on the front cover who sells the paper.
The bits of news inside give the Daily Star sufficient respectability for nearly a million people to buy it. If anyone wants porn there is any amount of it on the internet and in cling-wrapped magazines in newsagents. But that is a different market. There is still a very large market in “respectable”, soft porn bought under the guise of a daily paper which can be read – or ogled at – in public and in, at least some, family homes.
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