Pick up my guitar and play

New Guardian? Plenty of them left at my local convenience store tonight. I thought there'd be more interest "up the hill". The size is just plain weird. It reminds me of 'The Weekly Reader' but the Brits amongst you won't get that.

The articles are annoying, but you already know I've got it in for misrepresented statistics. The 'Arms Trade' double page spread with graphics in G2 has got a few doozys. Whoever was editing this ran out of steam at point 6. Which you won't know about because you didn't buy it today either. There's no reason to buy a paper these days unless you're a blogger and enjoy sneering. But it's just too easy!

What's good is the chart with the national newspaper circulation figures on page 9 of the media Guardian section.
Dailies % change:

- 4.98 Daily Record -- however, not as big a decline as the LA Times (-6%)
- 4.00 Guardian -- that's gotta hurt
- 3.46 Independent - so size didn't matter
- 2.82 Daily Mirror - maybe the Sun's more fun?
- 2.79 Daily Star - sorry, don't know this paper
- 2.28 Daily Telegraph - good writing, terrible old fashioned image
- 1.90 Daily Express - who reads the Express? no really
- 1.37 Daily Mail - effectively still holding at 2.3 million
- 0.07 Sun - the biggest paper in the UK at 3.4 million
+ 0.39 Financial Times
+ 5.62 The Times - what could be the reason for this impressive increase?

It makes me sad to live in a country with such a vibrant newspaper culture and watch as the papers lose their way. Truth and accuracy are important, especially now that the internet supplies all the "shock horror" the papers used to supply. Plus the internet supplies the unvarnished, unedited truth from sources you figure out you can trust.

As Julia Roberts said so endearingly fifteen years ago: "big mistake".