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The London Paper

Nothing better than a trip home on the tube in the company of respected freebie The London Paper. It made November 6th pass all the quicker.

First of all, we must be looking at the only publication this side of Istanbul to conduct a vox pop survey among young women and find a 2:1 majority in favour of moustaches being sexy.

A few pages earlier, the paper poses the question: "Should young women take more care about how much they drink?" Someone called Jude Akpan replies: "The rate young women indulge in alcoholic beverages is becoming embarrassing indeed. They should place a lid on their excesses."

The bizarre and archaic sentence construction of supposedly real Londoners is clearly becoming embarrassing indeed. They should also place a lid on their excesses when they speak to journalists.

I particularly enjoy the paper's regular Lovestruck column, in which people who've fleetingly flirted on trains and in parks describe their brief encounter. The idea is that the object of their affection might be reading the rag and choose to get in touch with their phone number. Some of the entries, however, are truly bizarre.

"I saw you through the window at King's Cross station at 17.50. Our eyes met. I was the guy with the ponytail. Coffee?"

Do you think their eyes really met? Or did the guy with the ponytail just imagine it? And is "eyes meeting" really enough to justify a letter to a newspaper. I mean, I probably make eye contact with about twenty five good looking girls when I travel on a train to London, but it doesn't mean that Mrs W would expect me to be timing the events and inviting my fellow travellers to Starbucks. I just wonder where it will all end.

"We chatted briefly on the 6.52 from London Victoria. I told you that you looked gorgeous. You spat at me and kneed me in the b*****ks. Coffee?"

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