For once SubScribe says "Hurrah for Kate", a bright spot in a bleak landscape
Once upon a time, back in the dear old 90s before every business had introduced 24/7 working, Saturdays were a day of leisure.
At the Times, Peter Stothard decreed that Saturday papers should therefore have a different feel. So different that heads of the news departments were kicked out of the building and a dedicated team ruled. Stories about strikes and politics struggled to find a home between special projects on Big Brother and the upsurge in cheesemaking cottage industries. It wasn't long before the hard-nosed hard-news set were talking disparagingly about "fluffy Friday".
Most papers adopted a similar strategy; all added new supplements, magazines, TV guides, and the Saturday editions became as cumbersome as the Sundays. With so much room elsewhere for fluff and chatter, news reasserted itself in the main books, although the legacy of the long read, the interview, the serialisation, the light spread survived.
Looking at the papers today SubScribe hankered after the old fluffy Friday. There is a superabundance of sex, but it's not cuddly sex or passionate sex, it's predatory paedophilia and drunken fumblings.
At the Times, Peter Stothard decreed that Saturday papers should therefore have a different feel. So different that heads of the news departments were kicked out of the building and a dedicated team ruled. Stories about strikes and politics struggled to find a home between special projects on Big Brother and the upsurge in cheesemaking cottage industries. It wasn't long before the hard-nosed hard-news set were talking disparagingly about "fluffy Friday".
Most papers adopted a similar strategy; all added new supplements, magazines, TV guides, and the Saturday editions became as cumbersome as the Sundays. With so much room elsewhere for fluff and chatter, news reasserted itself in the main books, although the legacy of the long read, the interview, the serialisation, the light spread survived.
Looking at the papers today SubScribe hankered after the old fluffy Friday. There is a superabundance of sex, but it's not cuddly sex or passionate sex, it's predatory paedophilia and drunken fumblings.
The Guardian and the two Independents are still agonising over the fallout from the Nigel Evans trial; the Mail has moved on - or rather back - to the 70s, where it seems to have taken up residence, to make a song and dance about the late Liberal MP Cyril Smith.
For the drugs and rock'n'roll, we turn to the Sun, which has a pop star taking drugs (yawn), and the Star with Simon Cowell's gay sex drug shock. Go on, admit it, you're dying to know. Well, the shock bit comes when Amanda Holden asks him if he is sniffing poppers - the "gay sex drug". The answer was apparently "no". Cowell regularly used smelling salts to clear his head before a show. This is possibly more compelling than the deceit: "bring on the smelling salts", with its delicate Victorian lady connotations, applied to the all-powerful Cowell has a certain je ne sais quoi.
For the drugs and rock'n'roll, we turn to the Sun, which has a pop star taking drugs (yawn), and the Star with Simon Cowell's gay sex drug shock. Go on, admit it, you're dying to know. Well, the shock bit comes when Amanda Holden asks him if he is sniffing poppers - the "gay sex drug". The answer was apparently "no". Cowell regularly used smelling salts to clear his head before a show. This is possibly more compelling than the deceit: "bring on the smelling salts", with its delicate Victorian lady connotations, applied to the all-powerful Cowell has a certain je ne sais quoi.
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OK, Blue and Simon Cowell don't really count as rock'n'roll..but there is also a lot of death to make up for that failing. The millionaire killed by his model lover is still giving good value (funny that we see so many more pictures of her than of him), as is Pistorius with his courtroom histrionics. The Mirror first edition splashed on his latest clash with the prosecutor, but it later changed up to "Mum of two beheaded by her ex". Nothing like a graphic headline to put the kids off their scrambled eggs.
The Telegraph and Times are equally gloomy in their own way - or perhaps lacklustre is a better word - the Telegraph has an archetypal Daily Mail splash on the "unfair" tax burden on families with stay-at-home mums, but without the headline-writing flair of its tabloid role model.
The Telegraph and Times are equally gloomy in their own way - or perhaps lacklustre is a better word - the Telegraph has an archetypal Daily Mail splash on the "unfair" tax burden on families with stay-at-home mums, but without the headline-writing flair of its tabloid role model.
The Times takes the most-boring-front-of-the-day award with its combination of a free First World War poster and a lead on "pointless Liberal Democrats".
The Express should have won for its "black box found" head (because it hasn't been) but the way the Queen is laughing her head off at the very notion makes it a page to treasure.
As we've said before, Saturday papers are huge and juggling the flatplan and the schedule to create a balanced, readable paper is an art. Nowhere is its importance more apparent than in today's Mail, which - unusually - fails to such an extent that the reader loses the will to live halfway through the news section.
The Express should have won for its "black box found" head (because it hasn't been) but the way the Queen is laughing her head off at the very notion makes it a page to treasure.
As we've said before, Saturday papers are huge and juggling the flatplan and the schedule to create a balanced, readable paper is an art. Nowhere is its importance more apparent than in today's Mail, which - unusually - fails to such an extent that the reader loses the will to live halfway through the news section.
The paper leads on the official cover-up of Cyril Smith's rampant paedophilia, with a turn on page 2. Page 3 is showbiz, so it should be light, but it's a 'fakery' story and there's too much black in the picture. A jolly Kate and Wills spread follows, but we're soon back down in the dumps with the Omagh bomb court case and outrage over a head teacher taking a month off in term time to get married.
This prepares us for the nitty gritty - five pages of Cyril Smith (which allows plenty of room to have another bash at the evil trio Hewitt, Dromey and Harman).
This prepares us for the nitty gritty - five pages of Cyril Smith (which allows plenty of room to have another bash at the evil trio Hewitt, Dromey and Harman).
The first spread is certainly well designed. But it's really stretching a point to make the story run to four, let alone five pages as well as the splash. The Harman story on the second righthander is 90% rehash of its campaign earlier this year, and the final page is so short of material that it needs a ginormous puff.
The paper is clearly pleased with its book serialisation and wants to make the most of it. You can't blame it, it's a good story. But how unfortunate that publication should coincide with the end of the Nigel Evans trial. For we have only a moment to fret about our offshore fortunes being taxed and the remember Sue Townsend before we have to face this..
The paper is clearly pleased with its book serialisation and wants to make the most of it. You can't blame it, it's a good story. But how unfortunate that publication should coincide with the end of the Nigel Evans trial. For we have only a moment to fret about our offshore fortunes being taxed and the remember Sue Townsend before we have to face this..
and this...
...and back to the unwelcome sex...
The Amanda Platell column is followed by the beheaded mum we met in the Mirror, a spread on the murdered millionaire and another spread on murdered British soldiers.
It's just all too much in one run. A supplement on baby George can't change it - and there will be many parents who won't want their children picking up their paper today.
That isn't a good idea. Let's bring back good old fluffy Friday.
The Amanda Platell column is followed by the beheaded mum we met in the Mirror, a spread on the murdered millionaire and another spread on murdered British soldiers.
It's just all too much in one run. A supplement on baby George can't change it - and there will be many parents who won't want their children picking up their paper today.
That isn't a good idea. Let's bring back good old fluffy Friday.
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