WASHED AND READY TO EAT

Forget the Daily Mail . For a serious read, it’s the Daily Express you need to seek out at your local newsagent’s. The masthead screams 10p, which seems just about acceptable, but the small print dashes our hopes immediately. “10p cheaper than the Daily Mail and ten times better!” The cover price is, in fact, an exorbitant 80p. In the interest of investigative journalism and a strong desire to understand what makes the typical Express reader tick, Washed and Ready to Eat made a decision to shell out. Three key themes tend dominate the paper: Princess Diana, prevailing weather conditions and rising house prices. Although one of these topics might temporarily bump the others off the front page, the relegated topics are never completely forgotten. Take the edition published on Saturday 7th September 2013, for instance. The lead story is the conspiracy theory about the death of the Queen of Hearts in Paris back in the 1990s, but we learn that first-time buyers are returning to the...

Although Nice Airport is France's second biggest, the facilities beyond passport control are a little on the limited side. In terms of eating and drinking, passengers have a choice between a small convenience store which rejoices in the name of Ouishop and an Irish bar called Murphy's. The two establishments interconnect through supermarket-style gates that swing open and shut, so perhaps it should have dawned on me that the shop and the pub were, despite very different facades, one-and-the-same business. In fact, this connection only became clear when I looked at my receipt and saw that it was headed Murphy's-Ouishop. I feel Murphy's-Ouishop is a brand name with real potential for extension across multiple markets. Irish enough for Dublin and French enough for Paris. A place you might expect to find crackers, as well as a healthy serving of craic. To be sure, it has a je ne sais quoi about it.