Harry Rose

One thing I love about Economist covers is that they know when to park the conceptual ideas and just go with a photo.

Wait until Spurs fans realise that their manager next season will be Scott Parker.

What sort of away ticket allocation do we think Spurs will offer in the Championship? Quite fancy it.

Think it’s a free book voucher now, but I haven’t been home yet to see what mine have brought home.

Do any other countries actually celebrate World Book Day? Or is it a sham propagated by UK primary schools and Big Donaldson?

I’m currently sitting in a pub on my own waiting for a train. I’ve got a new issue of The Economist plus three newspaper subscriptions on my phone. Yet I’m on here. It’s hard to shake the habit!

But also, why has Kevin McCloud never done one of these? I want him giving tortured monologues from the back of a tuktuk while inexplicably wearing four Patagonia jackets.

Fair enough, did feel like I was responding a bit earnestly to a joke.

He discusses this exact point in the piece! Key distinction being that magazines are coordinated, commissioned as one thing and have a brand, none of which would apply to a bundle of newsletters.

They did OK in the last one. Won a game and everything. Probably better than the US cricket team.

No probs, didn't think you were having a go. I guess there is just a lack of alternative baskets. Most indy newsagents have drastically reduced what they sell (ironically it's the kids' mags that endure). Supermarkets have reduced shelf space. Subscription-only will be the future for most mags.

Yeah, I'm not really commenting on the business viability of Smiths selling magazines. I'm saying that from the perspective of someone who works in magazines, and loves them, the demise of Smiths is sad and a problem for the magazine industry.

As the ed of a subscription-only mag, can confirm that the postage is the vast majority of the production costs. But a bit of a red herring because the distribution costs of newsstand sales are prohibitive anyway - only really works as a shop window/advert to sell subs.

Clearly postal subs and newspaper deliveries are good options. But a bit like with record shops, half the fun of the newsstand is in the browsing/discovery and low-commitment option to buy a mag as a one off.

Yeah, I'm not sure this is appreciated by people who are big news consumers but have gone fully digital. I live in a semi-rural village. If I want to buy a print copy of, say, The Economist, I can only get it from a Smiths in the nearest town. None of the supermarkets or newsagents will sell it.

I’ll mourn it as the last place with a decent magazine selection in most cities and towns.

Been thinking about this as my 6 year old keeps asking me for my phone so he can look at football results and league tables on the BBC Sport app. I need to buy more papers so he can read the sports pages.

Me too. It was like a Python sketch.

Amazing vox pop on the 6 o’clock news. Woman buying fish in Waitrose: ‘I won’t buy mackerel if it’s being overfished’. Reporter: ‘But you’re buying it now’. Woman: ‘Well, it’s already dead’

As the analysis starts of the Gorton and Denton result, I wanted to flag some aspects that my experience yesterday suggests are being over or under-played

(Caveats - I went to Longsight, Gorton and Denton town centres and spoke to as many people as I could, but it was mostly during the working day)

They are and they're excellent.

Egg and Cornish Cruncher sandwich please. And that chocolate bar with the bits of pretzel in it.

Just popped in to a Lululemon shop as I was passing and...£68 for a basic gym t-shirt or £48 for a pair of shorts. Hard nope.

A faff? On the British railways?

You also wouldn't get reward points, which is meaningful for someone like me who commutes often. Still, what a shambles!

You mean I can use the ScotRail app to buy a ticket on a GWR train?

The plot thickens. Shocking, but not surprising, incompetence from a major rail operator.

This is the best argument yet for just using Trainline and sucking it up with the booking fee. For all its faults, can't imagine it just deleting all your tickets.

Slow handclap for GWR, which has managed to lose all pre-booked tickets in an app update, which means I'll be faffing around with PDFs at the ticket gates between now and mid-April.

Good thread