The demise of an insitution....

Ok, so maybe the title's a tad melodramatic (and, well, untrue), but it was with a fair degree of sadness I read the other day that London freesheet 'The Londonpaper' is to be closed down as it's not making enough money.

Putting aside the bare fact that I think it shits all over its tabloid comic rival, 'London Lite', I do have a personal reason for lamenting its demise - this is the rag that, in its infinite wisdom, decided to publish not one, but two of my attempts at journalism.

It'd be a good story to be sat here looking back on the 9th of December 2006 and getting nostalgic about 'the first day of the rest of my life', but as you probably know it wasn't the launchpad to a career entertaining and enthralling the nation with my pithy and astute observations on life. My second column, written about 9 months later in a drunken haze wasn't a patch on the first if I do say so myself and since then I'm stuggling to come up with blog posts, never mind 400 words. The fact is, after being able to write a first column when there was no pressure on, I couldn't follow it up once there was even a modicum of expectation.

So, column writing is quite difficult. I realise this now. The Londonpaper gave me the opportunity to test out my writing, they felt it was worth sharing with the rest of London and my fellow citizens gave me their feedback on how good it was. Had I been built for this kind of thing, or even made more of an effort, I might have done something more with it. But I didn't (yet), and that's fine. But thanks to them I'm not sitting here lamenting the fact that I'd love to be able to do something like that if only I had a chance. I have no idea how many people actually used it as a launchpad to bigger and better things, but judging by the amount of times contributors claimed to be "freelance writers", I would imagine at least a couple were bolshei enough to make it through.

Farewell Londonpaper. I shall miss reading you on my way home from work. And I shall miss Em, the cartoon character intended for girls but who I secretly have a bit of a crush on. Without realising it, picking up a copy from a friendly purple-clad distributor on the way out of the office had become part of life and my trip home won't be the same without it.