An appeal for sanity...

The Lock-in is the place for drunken rants. While the sun is not yet over the yard-arm (well, we'll give it a couple more minutes), I am ready to rant about the London free newspaper war.

In a bid to walk off at least one or two of the beer-related calories, I am now walking from Liverpool Street to Regulator Towers each morning and back again in the evening. The morning stroll is pleasant enough, but the afternoon jaunt is now a constant fight against distributors of London Lite and the rival thelondonpaper trying to thrust their wares into your hands. Now, I'm all for something for nothing, and I don't actually mind thelondonpaper, despite its hilarious Pete Doherty/P Diddy confusion. But the distributors, particularly around Bank station, are literally on every corner. On Friday, I counted them, and in my twenty minute walk, there were twelve free newspaper people. And that's not counting the suicidal looking Evening Standard (50p!) vendors... It's got to the point where I'm missing being harrassed by the chuggers at London Bridge tube.

So, an open appeal to Associated and NewsCorp: while I applaud the thorough nature of your distribution plans, please stop this freebie madness!