I feel a bit like Charlie Bucket when he found the golden ticket. For unlike most of the Londoners I have come across this morning, I have a copy of the eagerly anticipated new London freesheet, The London Weekly.

However, the surprise that was to greet my eyes was arguably worse than a crowd of Oompa Loompas coming at me with machetes.

Desperately trying not to use language that even Gordon Ramsay would consider extreme, I can sum this new paper up: CRAP. CRAP. CRAP (yes, I am shouting). I am even going to use exclamation marks!!! And as a sub editor, I hate the damn things.

I can honestly say that I have never seen a publication so atrocious. My university paper was a million times more proficient and professional. Scrap that, this is a paper that makes the London Lite look like a collector's edition. It's made more mistakes than Tiger Woods and John Terry put together.

Seriously, I am struggling to know where to start: the mistakes on the front page; the cut-out that has white lines behind it; the startling grammatical and layout errors; stories that finish mid-sentence; orange headlines; centred capped-up headlines; chasms of white space big enough to play hide and seek in; an album review of an CD released in June 2009; the front page news story that continues on page 31; a phobia of paragraphs; food and drink news on page 8; news that is completely indistinguishable from advertorial.

Who are these jokers? Have they ever written a news story before or laid out a page? Sure, the printing is fine – it's full colour, and boy, do they make use of it. Each page looks like a chameleon's been run over on it by a forklift. I have seen enough orange to feel like I've been Tango-ed repeatedly and I'm only halfway through.

PrintWeek has covered the run-up to The London Weekly's launch before. We revealed that the jokers I mentioned earlier are in fact more formally known as the Global Publishing Group. According to this group, some 250,000 unlucky commuters in the capital will receive their copy today and tomorrow. I for one wish I hadn't been one of them.

While it provided much belly-aching laughter at PrintWeek Towers, there is an odious unease underpinning this new launch.

As newspaper readers, we have seen standards drop in recent years. We've seen the arrival of the London Lite and thelondonpaper, and witnessed their demise. The Evening Standard has gone free and many other nationals have dropped pages, dropped staff and, in many instances, dropped quality.

The all-singing, all-dancing digital era arrived and print began to look like the ugly one at the party that no-one wants to dance with.

And with moves like this paper, can you really blame readers?

Papers like this don't just herald the demise of print, they actually contribute to it. They reinforce the curmudgeonly, mouldy, stale image of static, out-of-date news. This paper could single-handedly turn many people away from the pleasures of reading printed news – me included – I rushed onto the internet as soon as I got into the office to see what other sensibly minded people made of this travesty, hoping to hear that it's just a spoof.

This may well be the work of a team on a budget, but that's no excuse. Working in publishing, we all face dwindling cashpots and have felt the unmistakably cold chill of redundancy's breath on our necks when we go into the boardroom. Yet this only makes us work harder to keep the standards up – spelling mistakes, confusing layout, badly written old news stories – it's plain lazy. In the reviews section, it promises to review five albums. There are only four.

According to the website, GPG plans to add three additional new titles by 2012, with Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham the next target cities.

Someone please start a Facebook group, chain themselves to a railing – do something. This kind of paper cannot be in existence in a country that prides itself on being the organ grinder of news.

On page '04', the soon-to-be shamefaced editor asks us 'Got any news story?' Well when you ask so eloquently…

The paper's tagline is: 'The light hearted paper for light hearted Londoners'.

Or perhaps that should read: 'The light-on-news paper for down-hearted Londoners'?

Imagine a time when banknotes are worth less than paper. No Paperlinx, Arjowiggins and co haven't put up their prices again, we are talking about life in Zimbabwe. The place where you can park your car at the airport for about Z$400bn (that is one US dollar). Sounds like something Ryanair might consider (mental note to email Michael O'Leary).

The country, which takes the world record rate for hyperinflation at 256,000,000%, has sparked outraged headlines around the world, most detailing political unrest, tragedy and the rocketing food prices.

So it makes a welcome change to read some good news coming out of the country. I read today, that the Zimbabwean (a newspaper that challenges Robert Mugabe's dictatorship regime) has scooped the top outdoor advertising award at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

The newspaper, which is published in the UK and South Africa, used a hard-hitting ad campaign to drive sales, which highlighted the ridiculously high inflation rate in the country.

Billboard posters consisting of hundreds of bank notes carried straplines such as: 'Thanks to Mugabe this money is wallpaper', 'Z$250,000,000 cannot buy the paper to print this poster on' and 'It's cheaper to print this on money than on paper'.

The billboards, designed by a South African ad agency, were a direct challenge to the spiralling value of the Zimbabwean dollar and the cost of living in the country under Mugabe's brutal regime. The judges at the festival recognised the campaign's power and handed it the Cannes Lion Grand Prix award for outdoor advertising, as well as another gold in a separate media category.

Unfortunately, most locals in Zimbabwe will not get to see either the adverts or read the newspaper, as the government has imposed a 55% "luxury import" tax on the paper and its editor/publisher has been driven out of the country.

However, the target audience are the 1m Zimbabweans living in the UK and the 2m who reside in South Africa and Botswana. For these people, it is a stark reminder of what remains in the country. For us in the print industry, it is a great example of the huge power of printed advertising, to both boost sales and awareness, in this case of a vitally important political situation unfolding 5,000 miles away.

It may just make us think twice next we have a grumble about suppliers putting up prices in the UK. I can confidently say that, despite the fact that the House of Commons is overrun by the cast of The Muppets, things are never going to get that bad – I bet you Z$400bn…

I popped into Sainsbury's in my lunch break the other day. Not the most thrilling blog you are thinking, but it gets better, so stay with me.

I was looking for milk, so petrified was I that I would have to wake up the next morning without a cup of tea, that I actually gave up my lunch break to brave the hordes of Hammersmith.

It was with some bemusement that I noted a new promotion in the store – milk in a bag. A big, floppy polythene plastic bag filled with two pints of calcium goodness. I picked it up. It felt rather like a giant udder, I would imagine. I wondered how easy it was to pierce, how durable it was, and most importantly, how hard would it be to pour into my teacup with one eye closed at 7am on a weekday morning.

The point of it, I have since discovered, is not to create an edible stress ball, but to cut down on plastic – by as much as 75%. Honourable, but is this really a good way to reduce plastic? How more likely are we to wash out and recycle a big plastic sack, as opposed to a bottle that's easily left in the sink and swirled? And seriously, how will I pour that perfect cup of morning tea with any finesse?

So it was with interest that I read this morning that Sainsbury's is also set to become the first supermarket chain to get rid of cardboard cereal boxes.

Despite the century-old tradition, Sainsbury's is going to rid its shelves of own-brand cereal boxes, replacing them instead with recyclable plastic packets, a bit like those used for crisps. Cereal heavyweight Kellogg's is also said to be considering the idea itself.

Not only is this going to pose problems for transportation (those Coco Pops will look like dust by the time I get them home), but also for marketers. Long have the cut-out pack promotions ruled in cereal-land, for both adults and kids. And I must admit I am faintly nostalgic about those toys/stickers to be found at the bottom of the box which inspired many WWF-style wrestling matches with my brothers.
    
It may seem strange to care at all about cardboard boxes in any form. Yet cereal boxes, I believe, will hold some strange sugar-coated place in our frostie (sorry) hearts. It's like drinking out of a plastic wine glass or dry-slope skiing. A bit naff and unauthentic.

The bright and colourful boxes that line every house in the country would look odd if covered with lots of hard-to-seal bags slouching like teenagers? Plus, plastic bags look messy – this won't do my OCD any good. And will the cornflakes magically last for years like the ones in my house do now?

What with bags of milk and sacks of cereal, the misty world of breakfast time is certainly changing. And with the end result probably being a better attitude towards the environment, I can't complain - it's great that these big companies are prepared to shake things up a bit. And so long as I get my tea in a bag, I won't go getting myself in a stir.

With the fallout of this week's Digital Britain report still being bandied about and the mongers of doom heralding the end of local newspapers, it is easy to think the wind might have changed on the grumpy face of today's media.

Granted, newspapers have a lot to contend with, and no amount of exposing MPs' expenses, or Jordan hitting nightclubs in Ibiza is going to halt what is sure to be a gradual decline in circulation and profits, due in the main, to the rise of digital media.

It therefore was a pleasure to read a news story today (on the internet, I confess) that warmed my print cockles.

The British Library has today put 2m digitised pages from 19th century and early 20th century newspapers online. So rather than continuing to fight like siblings with inferiority complexes, digital and print have shook hands and decided to work together – and to great benefit; their individual strengths complementing each other.

For years, these millions of pages have been gathering dust in the British Library, read by only academics and the odd curious spider. But now, we can all have a look – a rare glimpse into our social history that reveals more than any textbook ever could.

We can read about Jack the Ripper causing mayhem in Whitechapel, the first FA Cup Final in 1872, the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, as well as highwaymen, high drama and high society.

The archive consists of 49 national and regional newspapers, including the Daily News, the Manchester Times and the Penny Illustrated Paper. Searches are free, but most of the articles will charge a download fee.

It will be an invaluable resource for people researching family histories, as well as anyone wanting to find out more about the Britain of old (which saw banking collapses and smoking teenagers – what goes around comes around eh?).

By putting these pages online, we can marvel at the beauty that is printed news in all its glory. It is a reminder that print is something special, to be cherished for future generations.

In today's era, when newspapers are having to fight tooth and nail for their printed lives, it would perhaps do us all good to remember how important a role they have played in our pasts. And something the OFT should have given some thought to when it ruled out a relaxation in the merger laws for local media, effectively condemning many papers (and journalists), not to the dusty, rather romantic, libraries of tomorrow, but to the recycling bin instead.

So even the darlings of the BBC are feeling the pinch, it seems. The BBC held a meeting this week and told the likes of Bruce Forsyth, Sir Terry Wogan and Jonathan Ross that they could expect some zeros to disappear from their pay packets.

And quite rightly so in my book – cuts are too often made from the bottom up and not top down in business. And when you are talking such big salaries, the cuts are surely less noticeable. Wossie's 5% is the difference between a shop doorway and a one-bed in west London to me.

This round of BBC cost-cutting is very public and it is very purposeful – wooing the disillusioned licence payer and saving itself some pounds (£1.9bn to be precise). But I wonder how consistent the cuts are: will all BBC workers face the same percentage cuts in salary? Should they have to or should it just be the big earners? The BBC has said it will negotiate each contract individually, but there are rumours that cuts of 25% or more are likely for those earning £100,000 or more. £100,000 is a very decent salary. However, a 25% cut is a slap in the face to anyone and surely a one-way ticket to insomnia.

I am sure none of us could care less about Sir Terry maybe having to buy a Merc instead of a Maserati, for example, but what about the 'non celebrity' presenters, the cameraman or the runner, the researcher or administrative staff? And what of the freelancers, of which there are many, earning varying rates.

These are dilemmas facing many print companies at this moment in time. We have already seen pay cuts imposed and pay rises frozen, but is there a danger of companies getting too 'cut-happy'?

This is something that Unite's Tony Burke warned about recently – he claimed some companies were "taking advantage" of the recession to enforce pay cuts on staff. This provoked some strong reactions in the printweek.com forums. It seemed a silly statement on the surface – companies are desperate; they are trying to save money, and in turn, save jobs and the future of the business. Often, pay cuts, for both high and low earners, are a painful but necessary last resort that no chief exec would wish upon his or her staff.

Look at the staff at MPGi – 90 out of 120 voted in favour of a three-month 33.3% salary cut in order to save their ailing firm. However, in the long run, even these last-ditch heroics were not enough, with the Chessington-based group eventually succumbing to administration at the end of last month.

But does Mr Burke have a point? Are pay cuts really an effective tool against the cruel bite of a credit crunch? More importantly, how can we tell?

I try to imagine myself in the same situation – taking a fall for the greater good of my company. How would I feel? How much trust would I put in the forces that be? Would I expect the same from my bosses? To answer these questions as briefly as possible: Rubbish; No comment; Yes

Should the pawns have to fall to make way for the king? Morally, probably not, but in the real world, yes.

So that's Ronaldo off to Real Madrid then, for a whopping £80m apparently. As a United fan, I am having minor palpitations at the prospect of a season without him. But at least he has gone abroad, I tell myself, and not to a rival UK club.
 
And it looks like today is the day for big-name news. It seems the print industry is set for a few major transfers itself, with the announcement that Wyndeham Heron is looking to cut three senior members of staff at its Essex site. It is part of a move to consolidate its "publishing-facing sites in the south of England to work together as one business", according to chief exec Paul Utting. Sounds ominous for the staff there.
 
This latest Wyndeham announcement follows some major restructuring at a number of the big players in the print and paper industries: UPM, St Ives, Heidelberg to name just a few.
 
With the recession apparently coming to an end, according to one think-tank, maybe we will have seen the worse of the 'restructuring' and 'reductions of headcounts', but it makes you wonder doesn't it? Who will be waiting to scoop some top-notch summer signings if the trend continues and, more importantly, who will be sidelined and left on the bench?

On the Postscript page of PrintWeek, there's a slot in the top left usually reserved for fairly light-hearted pieces relating to print – a little 'And finally' to leave a sweeter taste in the mouth. However, this week's issue has left me feeling rather bitter. Blue and yellow with rage, in fact.

Ryanair has announced it will start to charge its customers £5 to check in online, a service that has previously been free. As part of plans to abolish all airport check-in desks by October this year, the company will require passengers to pay a £5 check-in charge (each way of course). If, God forbid you forget to do this, Ryanair will charge £40 (yes, £40!!) to print it for you.

Imagine a printer charging this much for what must be around two pieces of A4 b&w print a ticket!! Cheap flights are one thing, but it seems to me that Ryanair's fares just aren't very fair.

I recently had the displeasure of booking some flights to Spain through the airline. Advertised at a meagre £4.99 for a one-way ticket, I found myself asking why I don't go on more holidays. I could buy a Big Mac meal for that price.

Yet, as some of you will probably understand, booking the flights was more tortuous than having to row to Spain myself with my arms tied behind my back. The added extras just kept on coming – booking fees, taxes and airport charges, baggage costs…. I won't even mention 'Priority Boarding' and the charges incurred for families (£20 for taking a baby, £24 for carrying a booster seat, £24 credit card fee for a family of four).

So it was with utter astonishment that I read that the airline was now set to charge customers for using toilets on its planes. A pound a pee, apparently.

But just when you think the charges couldn't become any more ridiculous, I see that airline boss Michael O'Leary may consider charging passengers for sick bags. Now, the way I see it, you will either pay for the privilege of puking, or end up being sick on yourself and having to dig around in your pockets to find another £1 to get a tissue from the toilet. A catch-22, and not a very pleasant one if you happen to suffer with travel sickness or are a nervous flyer.

O'Leary has defended the toilet proposals, claiming it will encourage passengers to use facilities at the airports and will allow Ryanair to have fewer cubicles on its planes – therefore, more seats and cheaper flights for customers.

The company says that despite the extra charges, the basic flights are very cheap and if you are travelling without luggage and extra requirements, you can find great deals. This may be true, but I don't go on holiday without a bag. I don't leave the house without one large enough to not fit in a hold locker most days.

The airline's most recent suggestion, and perhaps the one that I found hardest to believe, is to ask passengers to carry their own luggage to the plane. Pause for a minute and just picture it: hundreds of fed-up passengers, irritable children, the elderly, the drunken and 'the heatstrokers', lugging their carefully weighed 15kg luggage across the simmering heat of a Spanish runway (where I always thought it was forbidden to walk).

What more revelations will come from Ryanair Towers, I dread to think. Maybe I should reconsider the idea of getting a pilot's licence?

Take a look at the pic below – far-fetched perhaps, but it could well be sitting on a director's table in Dublin right now for consideration.

http://trendplanner.com/2009/03/13/ryanair-just-trying-to-save-you-money/

 It seems there is no sphere of publishing that is not affected by the insurgency of digital and online media these days, one in particular being magazines.

Yet despite the falling circulations and closure of some fairly high-profile magazines, many are still confident of a prosperous future, with this year even seeing some major new launches, despite the recession.

Those who are championing the printed magazine say that digital media cannot compete with print for several reasons – such as the charm of the tactile nature of a glossy magazine, the ease of reading and the fact you can take it anywhere, from the bus to the bath.

Therefore, it was with a slight raised eyebrow that I noted an article on guardian.co.uk revealed that Paul Raymond Publications, which is the publisher of major top-shelf titles such as Men Only and Mayfair, had fallen into the red.

The group posted a pre-tax loss of £166,205 for the year ending 31 December 2008, according to records filed at Companies House. This in comparison to a £1.4m profit the previous year.

Interestingly, the company attributed the blame for its poor performance to the popularity of online 'content', if I can use that term in its loosest context.

Apparently, the publisher has been forced to rely increasingly on giving away free DVDs (we're not talking re-runs of Fawlty Towers here) to compete with online, and this has bumped up the production and distribution costs, which hasn't helped matters.

In a statement, Paul Raymond Publications said of the 8% sales drop: "The decline... continues a trend identified over a number of years, and is attributable to increased competition from other media sources, primarily internet-based sources."

Now here is where I believe Paul Raymond titles differ from say your women's weeklies, or more socially acceptable specialist mags. The brief list I gave earlier, that many purport can and will be the saving grace of magazines, does not quite apply in the case of porn.

For starters, the tactile quality of a printed product, I can only imagine, is not part of the charm of 'reading' a porn mag.

The ease of reading? A questionable benefit, giving the magazines' tendency towards photographs.

And being able to read it anywhere? Well, perhaps this is an advantage – you can take your favourite top shelf anywhere – from the sitting room to the shed.

But pornography, by its very nature, is a somewhat guilty secret, and being able to hide it away in your computer's online history, must be far more appealing than your mum or partner etc being unfortunate enough to find a copy under the mattress.

Online can offer the discerning porn fan a customised and clandestine experience that leaves no obvious trace.  

This may be one example, where having a printed copy of something really isn't best for the reader, and where the fleeting, customised, and perhaps password-protected nature of online, may in fact be more suitable.

Now I am all for promoting print, and I may be in the minority on this subject, but this is one type of print that I can honestly say I wouldn't be sorry to see disappear from the shelves!

I had another vision of doom when I got to work this morning and read the latest industry news on Tinternet.

And no, I have not overnight become a soothsayer, and I do not profess to know the exact date of the end of the world. But just to freak out the superstitious among you, I could throw out a random day…  well maybe not – I am scaring myself now.

However when it comes to print, Armageddon seems a little closer than any of us would perhaps like to admit.

On a nearing daily basis I read news stories and blogs informing me of new products that sound the death knell for print, magazines going online only, companies slashing ad budgets, print administrations and redundancies, and even the publishing giants taking battering with their results and circulations.

It has almost become in vogue to spout forth about how the printed form is 'near the end', and who am I to break the trend with this blog?

The latest news I have seen may have Newsquest shaking it its boots – it's Scottish boots anyway, as publisher of The Herald and Sunday Herald.

Scottish TV network stv has announced it is to launch stvjobs.com – an online classifieds site designed to directly rival local newspaper behemoth Newsquest's own s1jobs.com.

On the surface this may appear to be merely an online battle, where the weapons are keyboards and the injuries, falling page views.

However Newsquest is a print giant. It has branched out of its typeset comfort zone to offer an online jobs service in addition to its printed classifieds.

If some young and trendy upstart in the shape of stv comes along and steals away all of its users, then what hope is there for the old man of print?

To put it more illustratively, it's like David and Goliath. But in this story, the underdog is Dave – a modern man with an armoury of web jargon and a Twitter army behind him. Newsquest's Goliath is a giant but an old one… with a token iPod Classic and a near-dormant Facebook account.

It will be interesting to see how this battle unfolds, as it is illustrative of a much wider dilemma facing printed products and brands. Maybe I am becoming too cynical. But whatever happens, it looks like newspapers in particular are in for a rocky time.

I stumbled upon some ABCe figures for newspaper websites in the UK the other day. They were from December but made for some interesting reading.

The Guardian.co.uk retained its web crown with around 26m unique users in October 2008, followed by Telegraph.co.uk (23m), Times Online (21.6m), Mail Online (20.9m), Sun.co.uk (16.4m), Independent.co.uk (8.9m), Mirror Group (5.9m).

Further evidence of a rise in online and fall in print comes with the release of DMGT's results today. The company fared okay on the whole, but its regional division Northcliffe Media saw revenues fall 18%.

Yet, this was offset slightly by its digital revenues – up 6% – and a rise in the number of visitors to its 'thisis' network of local websites.

In fact, I read elsewhere that it had recorded 4.3m uniques for its 'thisis' sites – a 25% increase from November last year.

Thisis (boom boom) a pretty good figure and not far off that of Mirror Group's, which as a brand has arguably a lot more clout than Northcliffe.

Maybe, if local publishers such as Northcliffe can increasingly attract their local audiences to go online, as well as buy and read its papers, then Newsquest needn't panic quite so much after all.

And, maybe, given the biblical analogy earlier, I should conclude with a moral: how about… have a little faith and miracles might happen?

If all else fails, pick up some rocks and start throwing.

I have a love and hate relationship with the Christmas card. I love receiving them and hate writing them. Not quite the Christmas cheer I should portray, but still. On analysis, I would like to get to the bottom of why I love them in the first place. I guess it's something to do with the fact that it's the only time of year I get post that isn't a bill, a garish leaflet for the local takeaway, or Sky and the like telling me to 'go digital' (I am still holding off – I won't do it 'til they make me in 2012), or it's for someone that lived in my flat 20 years ago. That and the fact that I might hear from people who have eluded the onset of social networking sites and hence disappeared off the face of the earth.

As the switchover itself shows, life is a-changing, and digital in all shapes and forms is becoming part of the norm. To get a bit philosophical, perhaps the whole world is transitioning in one giant switchover. Analogue to digital, five channels to 500, petrol to electric, even paper cards to e-cards. It's life Jim, but not as we know it.

One might argue that sending an e-card requires just as much/little effort and sentiment as scribbling your name on the bottom of a multi-pack (charity of course) card scrambled from Boots on the way home from work in a panic because someone has already mentioned the words 'last post'. And stamps, don't get me started on stamps. I spent nigh (it's Christmas) on £10 on stamps yesterday. Outrageous.

Yet although I despise the annual repetitive strain-inducing chore of the Christmas card list, it was with a sense of dread that I read this headline on the telegraph.co.uk: Traditional Christmas card 'set for decline'. The article quoted the MD of one of Britain's largest e-card companies (I shan't give them any more publicity then) as saying that the number of festive e-cards sent has grown by more than 200%.

With an even heavier heart, I read how increasing numbers of businesses were opting for this… the Royal Opera House, Cancer Research UK to name a few.

The MD said e-cards are becoming more popular because they are 'cheap'. Cheap? What word springs to mind after that one hey? Quality? Classy?

Bouncing snowballs, prancing reindeer, Santa doing the hula… what more could I possibly want clogging up my inbox this Christmas?

And just like my previous rant on e-books, I cannot foresee such impersonal, loud, in-your-face graphics catching on in a world that holds print in such high regard. People still do like the personal touch. They like the fact that you or I have had to curse and moan over the writing of our cards; they like seeing the pile sticking through the letterbox because the postman can't be bothered to put them through properly; they even like the panic of receiving a card that hasn't been reciprocated and having to find an inappropriate one from last year to send in a panic-stricken return. It's much akin to speaking to real people in a call centre, not a recorded voice.

Plus, there's enough 'un-tradition' happening at Christmas anyway and certainly enough already to moan about. While Cliff Richard is still vomiting out his yuletide offering, and predicted whiteouts of snow don't arrive anywhere south of the Shetlands, that personal touch via a card from someone across the world (or desk in my case), makes all the difference to feeling good at Christmas.

Something else I hate, while I am having a moan, is exclamation marks used in excess. However, I am going to break the trend in this next sentence… The worst thing about e-cards is that nobody even knows you have got one!!!!! Unless of course you PRINT it out and then the silly argument of 'saving the environment, trees, world etc' is annihilated anyway.

And, if you wanted just one more nail to hammer into the e-card coffin, I offer you this: Think about some old people this Christmas. For Royal Mail has a pension deficit big enough to engulf David Blaine's ego and some, and it needs filling. Don't add to the group's woes by becoming an e-diot (sorry) and abandoning them at their time of greed. I mean need.

But seriously, at this time of year and cheer, it's the little things that count. And receiving that glitter-dusted nativity scene, where even the donkey manages to look pious, is a stalwart of Noel.

Christmas cards are a tradition stretching back to 1843, so Wikipedia tells me, and surely in this fast-paced and evolving age, there's something to be said for that.

My colleague Jo Francis wrote a recent blog on a great site, Moonpig, which has really cornered a market with it's quirky personalised offering.

But, be warned, on a visit to one personalised card website, I was dismayed to see a typo in the company's tagline. If you can't spell calendar properly, then what hope for people like me with an oddly spelt name. Personalised? Bah humbug, pick up a pen and write your own, I say.

Who or what is going to save the economy? It's a million dollar question, or perhaps a £118bn question – as that is the predicted national debt for next year – the most the country has ever owed.

Mr Darling has told us "exceptional times require exceptional measures". Too true. Although I am sure I have heard Bear Grylls utter those same words as he chewed the skin off a live snake one time in Borneo.

And as much as I would like to see Bear drinking his own shirt-squeezed sweat in the House of Commons (along with the bucketfuls being produced by the Labour frontbenchers), this is real life, and Alistair Darling will have to suffice.

Okay, so he might not look like a superhero – but neither did Clark Kent. This gently named Chancellor is our only choice for a saviour, a begrudging, caterpillar-bedecked hero, that we must watch with hopeful eyes – will he be able to save our ailing economy? Will his decisions save jobs; save homes; save me some cash off my gas bills this winter? At least all the stress isn't likely to give him any grey hairs.

Yesterday I read some interesting comments from HSBC's managing director of economics (no pressure there then), Stephen King. He says that government borrowing (the current plan) alone may not be enough to kick-start the UK economy.

He used Japan as an illustrative example – since succumbing to deflation, the country's government borrowed more and more cash to sustain its economy. Yet, this did not have the desired effect of more spending. In fact, its levels of private saving have risen dramatically.

But what then for the UK?

Monetisation.

Printers, take note, the real superhero of this story, could just be the humble printing press.

It may often be thought of as a little naïve to just print more money in a time of crisis. Perhaps even a last resort, a desperate measure. But as we were so accordingly reminded in the pre-Budget report: exceptional times, exceptional measures etc etc.

Zimbabwe, I hear you cry. Hyperinflation, you say. More money isn't always a good thing (really) – it undermines the value of money and creates inflation. But as Mr King says, there is a shortage of cash in the world and printing presses could prevent a "collapse in velocity" and help stave off more recessions and depressions that you could shake a stick at.

Money makes the world go round, some say, and more of it, might just make our economy move a little faster.

If all else fails, we still have Dastardly Darling and his Muttley Crew to save us.

Imagine what you can buy for £1 these days... I was going to say a loaf of bread, but that's probably pushing it right now. Perhaps a bus pass? A couple of baked potatoes? Or maybe the portfolio of Independent News & Media (IN&M)? Well, that's what some insider media types are quoted as saying in The Observer recently.

IN&M have completely denied the rumours that they are going to offload The Independent and sister title, The Independent on Sunday, to the Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) group for a rather incredulous £1.

However, it seems The Observer claims that even for a nominal amount, it would be cheaper for IN&M to sell up than close down.

A lot of the drama centres around "dissident shareholder" Denis O'Brien, who holds a 26% stake in IN&M and has publicly criticised aspects of the group, which is run by the O'Reilly family.

Chief exec Tony O'Reilly is a man under pressure. With falling circulation figures and the newspaper industry experiencing a sharp drop in advertising revenues, he needs to do something inspirational to save this paper from the spike. Harry Rednapp – don't suppose you fancy a change of industry?

But to sell more shares would mean to potentially give more power to O'Brien, who could well stage a takeover bid.

It is a tough conundrum. Sell or stay? One many printers themselves are facing across the land. Selling, in some cases, is the only way to preserve jobs and keep a name going, but for £1? Really?

If you decide not to invest, then that £1 you didn't spend tabling a bid for The Independent could be better spent on a holiday brochure.

It seems that some agents (two thirds according to a Travel Weekly poll), would consider charging £1-per-copy for their holiday brochures in a bid to offset costs.

I hold my hands up here. I have helped myself to many a copy of far-flung destinations that I have absolutely no intention on going to. I have even used their sun-drenched pages as wrapping pages when times were tough (and who said old-fashioned journalistic initiative was dead?).

What effect this could have on print runs is hard to gauge. But I wouldn't panic just yet. Travel agents know how much those brochures pull people in off the streets and they are a great reference tool when skimming through the hundreds of pages of search results on the internet.

Anyway, that £1 is burning a hole in my pocket now. I had better go and spend it. Anyone for a baked potato?

When I first came across the idea of erasable paper, I admit it, I scoffed a little.

For a start, calling it erasable paper makes it sound as if it self-destructs like an Inspector Gadget note after 30 seconds, when in fact, the paper doesn't actually go anywhere.

To get a bit more technical about things, it is the images themselves that erase after a certain time-scale – at present, within 24 hours.

This works because the paper is coated with chemicals that react when exposed to light of a certain wavelength, producing visible words and images. However, this begins to disappear within a day, allowing the paper to be used multiple times.

Xerox has designed this paper on the premise that studies have shown 40% of print is disposed of within 24 hours and not kept for long-term use.

So it ticks the environmentally friendly box for starters.

Yet, I can't help but feel reminded of a very specific memory from my past: Christmas 1987, tearing chunks of sparkly wrapping paper with chubby fingers to reveal that pinnacle of pre-school artwork – the Etch A Sketch.

I can imagine the office revolution now… financial reports being drawn up in the boardroom with a magnetic pen. But seriously, you cannot get away from the obvious flaw – you cannot print on an Etch A Sketch – and don't even try it, it's not big and it's not clever.

The Xerox team's plans are very much still at the research stage and it will probably take years before we see the fruit of their labour.

But as a concept, it really isn't that bad is it? As a lowly office worker, I know for a fact that I am a tree's worst nightmare – casually throwing away paper with little thought of its source or where it might end up.

For quite a bulk of paper requirements, paper could be re-used, saving the rather costly need for recycling and allowing people like me to use my print outs for a second or third time without having to chuck it in the blue recycling bin under my desk and hope for the best.

The possibilities of this invention are quite far-reaching… school handouts, draft and design work, proof reading and so on.

Come to think of it, I rather like the idea. Just so long as my contract isn't printed on it…

Some people say that books, newspapers – they are all ultimately destined for the giant shredder in the sky.

Others reckon that there is something long-lasting, tangible and psychologically pleasing about a good novel or an evening paper.

Me? I am afraid I am too busy getting uncomfortable on the fence on this one.

I read in an article on The New York Times website that an e-newspaper had been developed by Plastic Logic. Apparently this gadget will initially only be available in black and white, will be the size of a piece of copier paper and will be continually updated via a wireless link, keeping avid news fans up-to-date at all times.

There are still a lot of questions to be asked at this stage though – which papers will feature on the device? How much will it cost? What about colour? Moving images?

Only this summer, Orange and France Telecom trialled a prototype of the Read&Go – which allowed 100 testers to access top French newspapers Le Monde and Le Figaro via FTE's Orange cellular network, the results of which are yet to be revealed.
 
What with this and all the recent news about the Sony Reader and Amazon's Kindle, I started to wonder what the future really is all about for printed books and papers.

I know that I love books. There is something private about opening the page and getting lost inside its love-worn cover. And the thought of a digital Bible, or electronic Mills & Boon, just doesn't sit well to be honest.

It took a phone call to my Grandma in the end to help me resolve (sort of) the issue.

We spoke the other evening and she informed me about how busy she had been washing and drying her clothes.

You may wonder what this has to do with print (I am beginning to think that myself), but bear with me.

My Grandma washes her own clothes, by hand, as she always has done. A concept so alien to me that I still don't really understand the logistics of it. Of course, the odd 'handwash-only' has had a dunk in my sink but to wash each and every garment individually by hand and wait for them all to dry? Nonsense.

In such a modern and technology-driven world, this medieval practice left me stunned.

Yet these kind of traditions are exactly what makes some people believe that books and newspapers will never die out. People like what they know and love tradition, and books are something so inherently embedded in our daily lives from bedtime stories and chemistry textbooks to television guides and favourite works of fiction. How could we possibly imagine a world without them?

It is this that worries me… How could I imagine a world without washing machines?

Just as the idea of bending over a kitchen sink with permanently crinkly fingers is completely archaic, never mind painfully slow and a waste of my good time, perhaps printed books will become the 'handwashing' of the future – cumbersome, slow, heavy and out-of-date.

Will future generations have this unconditional love affair with the printed book? And more importantly, will I become the 'ghost of printing future' – an 89-year-old woman who seems so bewilderingly old-fashioned with a stash of paperbacks gathering dust on the shelves – my grandchildren looking on, e-readers pride of place in their pockets?

But book lovers, printers, newspaper addicts – don't panic yet. Just because something is smaller, more modern, or even more effective doesn't always make it popular with the paying public. Just look at Betamax and Mini Discs… One thing's for sure – the future is bright but mine it isn't going to be orange unless I make a mistake with the handwashing.