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Strictly speaking, the idea here is not, it must be said, for a machine or printing press process which would "read" - smudging in small and marginal ways the cheap ink, loosening the crisp spinal fold - at relative random, freesheet newspapers, prior to distribution to the far flung veins of your city's
circulatory system, so that in rummaging around in the lower regions of each freesheet stack, commuters increase not at all their chances of obtaining a copy involate, pristine, or unpenetrated by human gaze or, in these times of moral hypermobility, otherwise.
No, the idea is for the act, relatively simple as it may be, of making the public aware of the existence, irrespective of whether such existence is reflected in any reality we are engaged with, of such a machine or process, with the aim that the rummagers are apprised, or at least become cognisant of, the futility of the search for an unsullied newspaper, and thus and thereby train station exits will be unblocked, freesheet silos a measure more tidy.
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This could concept could be rolled out to many products where the great unwashed is afforded the opportunity for petty displays of discernment: for example, with reference to self-selection of largely identical and equally unappetising rolls and other bread products in supermarkets, this could be achieved by way of a bagel pre-fondler. |
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If there is anything that I have learned from watching Hollywood films, it is that you cannot quell the most human of feelings: hope. So often in science fiction, it seems, that alien races are impressed and thwarted in equal measure by the indefatigability of humankind in dire circumstances. |
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Not only is it the commuters' futile right to search for a pristine rag-tag collection of gossip and advertisements - it is their duty. They day they give up is the day that the invading alien hordes win... (+) |
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Is this aimed squarely at OCD sufferers? |
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Train stations should have all the freesheets delivered into a hopper outside and distribute them onto the commuting masses by constantly raining them down from the rafters. |
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Those wishing to read something would simply reach into the air and grap a paper as it flaps down to the floor. |
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This would also provide work for street urchins who could scurry industriously underfoot collecting unclaimed papers, carefully refolding them for redistribution. |
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Hope. I am for it, yes, but hope surely needn't be so circumscribed that the best a suburbanite can hope for is the petty joy of being the first to tease apart the pages of an worthless paper containing badly-subbed précis of all the day before yesterday's happenings? Is the window of available experience so narrowed by crowded drudgery that the opportunity to weaken a clean, machine-creased fold is enough to light a small fire of gladness in thine heart? Better, I feel, to deny the dulled public these ever tinier pleasures, to plug all the gaps in the quotidian until such time that joy is utterly denied and then, then might the people see what their lives have become, how ovine their soft-handed work has made them, how addled they are by distractions and nominal enterntainments, yes then they may feel within the endless, turbid swelling of happiness constrained and take that first step to a better, wider life. With this aim, then, I intend to plug each gap, each fissure, however tiny, in the damming of hope, 'til the flood. |
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Incidentally, aside from the possibility that it would be at first surprising and occasionally visually arresting (and thereby provide a replacement joy), [zen_tom]'s idea is much better. |
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I've always been puzzled as to why fly-tipping (the dumping of rubbish in unauthorised areas) is illegal except for when you call your rubbish a Free Newspaper. I have similar thoughts about the unaddressed fliers that arrive with the morning post.
I am concerned, therefore, that your idea may give these documents an unwarranted credibility by making it appear, through their used appearance, that they are actually worth reading. However, as I have no sensible alternative that doesn't involve internment camps and old telephone batteries, I shall maintain a neutral stance for the time being. |
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//I have no sensible alternative that doesn't involve internment camps // |
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Let's not rule anything out just yet... |
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The first sentence of this idea needs to be prefixed with an "Inasmuch as" clause, and the second with a "Notwithstanding" clause. This is just to fill them out to a decent length, you understand. |
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Good point, it wouldn't do for there to be a lack of prolixity. |
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Self churning, yes, but I have been considering what process is applied to freesheets to render them mere litter. It cannot be simple movement, from hopper to elsewhere, as were the sheets to be removed from the hopper and stacked against a wall (for example), people would still take them. Equally, some freesheets that are still in the hopper are deemed unacceptable by commuters, because they have been interfered with by some member of the public. Which leads us to the conclusion that freesheets (and possibly other things) become litter simply by being touched by someone other than the beholder. |
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