If there is a place where the Evening Standard is read, that is the tube. I must say that I find fascinating the fact that, in the multicultural great city of London, all kinds of peoples, in type and number, sniff their daily doses of information out of the same, few sources: Metro, Evening Standard and BBC Ten o’clock news, in the morning, evening and night, respectively. I guess it won’t be all but, at least in the tube, all sophistication becomes sucked up into a single pattern of curiosity satisfaction.
Within the last years I have learned to be skeptical to free stuff. The ideal situation for me is when people pay for something you offer: it means that it matters to them. There is something about free-stuff that makes you not to take it seriously. Something taken for granted will not make any impression, I reckon. Free, unconsidered and irrelevant: three points that determines the plane of spiritless journalism.
The creased exemplars of the paper lay often forsaken after they have been used in seats or the windowsills beneath. I don’t think it is a case of drop-and-read kind of initiative. Obviously, not all with The Evening must work this way: I read it, try to learn something from it and normally bring it home with me. Even Agatha Christie used it to create tension as part of The Mousetrap!
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I am curious at how the (still) tube drivers might have felt today when piles and tons of The Evening have been delivered with the following front-page: “Tube trains with no drivers by 2021. Exclusive: secret blueprint will close ticket offices and axe jobs”. One could draw a story out of it.
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The voting tonight in the House of Commons has yielded 111 in favor to a referendum to review the position of the UK in Europe. BBC Nick Robinson’s predicted about 80 (without confirmation), voting against Cameron instructions, which is unseen.
I know not much about this, but Cameron’s position sounds reasonable: play smart and use the situation to negotiate a better dear for UK interests. This is what a politician should do.
I can see in this story of Europe two main groups of countries. On one side, Germany, France and the UK have not lost sight of their interests as sovereign countries and disputes the consequences of Europe and its burdens against their national positions. On the other side, countries like Spain behave as the mediocre student or professional whose only ambition is to perform at the level required by someone else, so the latter is calmed down and the former can dedicate to his internal affairs, which are not Europe, anyhow.
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On an even page of The Evening Standard, we find this piece of news: “Libya bows to pressure and agrees to probe ‘execution’ of Gaddafi”. The whole story stinks. I will avoid the easy joke by linking my last sentence with the stench of the body (that of Gaddafi, we supposed), long queued by “thousands”. I have said it before and I say it now: democracy won’t come. Significantly enough, on the very same page of The Evening there is a small column of the size of a business card rotated to the upright position with the following piece of news: “Islamic party leads in first Tunisian poll”. I would not expect something different. Remember: these “wars” in the North of Africa this year started out in Tunisia from, apparently, an unrelated incident.
The photograph of a young girl next to the small column supporting the Islamic Ennahda party is significant. Obviously, her parents (the whole family and clan, I would say) are behind. That's all democracy you will get.
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Tomorrow, perhaps, more.
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