IMS_Blog

Ah, the wonderful special offers of newspapers, particularly local ones. The Newcastle (and Gateshead) version of such a rag is the Evening Chronicle (note the word Evening there). Today it proudly proclaims on its front page “Free sausage roll for every reader”. Seeing this I made the oh so comical pantomime of looking through it to find where they’d taped this free sausage roll. Of course they haven’t really, but instead supply some form of coupon to redeem in exchange for the snackish item. Out of curiosity, rather than any actual desire to claim such a prize, I leafed through to find the coupon. It is at this point that I will remind the dear reader that this is an evening newspaper. Whilst early additions are indeed available mid-afternoon it is the sort of thing is which most likely to be purchased by people returning home from the days activities, or even be delivered to await their arrival (there is a morning sister paper as well, so it’s not as if this whole evening thing goes unacknowledged). So it’s interesting that the delicious coupon is valid for today only, which isn’t much use when the chain of bakeries at which it is valid are almost certainly all closed by the time you read it. Indeed, selling this at around six in the evening (a far from inconceivable concept) would seem to make the phrase “for every reader” not so much misleading as more damn right lying.

And the worst thing is, I’ve went from a not caring less moment of humour to actually wanting my sausage roll, just for the hell of it.