Weekend Supplements: Why the Daily Mail is the only one to get it right

Today is Sunday...and in all traditional British households this means one thing - a session with the newspapers. It might be the Sunday version of your regular read, it might be that you don't get a paper until Sunday (they are SO much bigger - more bang for your buck!), it might be that your other newspaper is replaced by a special, higher-quality version on Sunday (it is the Sabbath, you know! Only the best will doodle-doo!)...or you might be one of the lucky families where this HQ version is in addition to the normal one - so you have two papers to share between you all! The lavishness! [If you live alone, you can wallow/luxuriate in all that ink and knowledge solo - then feel extra smug that your recycling efforts are more impressive than the couple downstairs who spend all their time cycling - No time to read? Bah - just look at my stack of old print! These are going to be toilet paper soon!]

Now, I have been fortunate in that I never have to buy a newspaper - I always have lived where someone else footed the bill. This means I sometimes have no say in the reading material - but that only makes it more exciting for me. Staying in a posh hotel? The Financial Times may be coming your way! Waiting for a bus in a municipal station? There's bound to be a well-thumbed Daily Star somewhere...

If I am travelling, not having news makes me feel a bit sea-sick. I worry that something colossal has happened and I will return and make a frightful faux-pas in mentioning the wrong celeb or maybe the next big entrepreneurial opportunity is slipping me by because the bazillionaire who is looking for a wing man with my exact skill-set is only taking CV submission via YouTube and I hadn't heard a thing about it.

I have rectified this on most occasions where I am able to access a computer as my GoogleReader has subscriptions to all the places I could possibly need:

1. Actual news: Daily Mail Online
2. Science news:
1. New Scientist - Online News
2. Wired Top Stories
3. Queer news:
1. - Gay news daily: Towleroad.com - "Hot blog"--Newsweek
2. automatic straddle
3. be yr own queero
4. Bi-Furious!
5. BiNet USA News and Opinions
6. Bisexual news & opinion from BiMedia.org
7. Bisexuality and beyond
8. Bliss Warrior
9. Blogging for Truth
10. Dorothy Surrenders
11. Dyke Republic
12. Either / And
13. eric mathew's world.
14. Gay UK News
15. Haviland Stillwell
16. HOMELESS YOUTH PRIDE WALK 2009
17. Jess I Am
18. Julie & Brandy In Your Box Office by Autostraddle.com
19. Mohra's Memoir
20. Queer's soup
21. Queers United
22. The Bilerico Project
23. The Lesbian Agenda
24. the lesbiblog
25. this girl called automatic win
4. Women's news:
1. Feminist Daily News
2. Feministing
3. The Pleasure Project
4. WIMN's Voices: A Group Blog on Women, Media, AND…
5. Woman-Stirred
6. Women's eNews
5. Random sites of interest:
1. Blogger Sentral
2. Dave Gorman
3. First Guns
4. Foucauldian Reflections
5. Foucault blog
6. Obsolete Word of the Day
7. philosophy bites
8. Quipsologies | From the Authors
9. Sleep Talkin' Man
6. ...and, of course, the requisite PICTURES:
1. A Collection a Day, 2010
2. Artistaday.com - New art... everyday.    
3. Biblical Art of the Day
4. Cute Overload
5. Daily Squee    
6. Dilbert Daily Strip
7. Fail Dogs
8. Fuck You, Penguin
9. Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger?
10. Loldogs, Dogs 'n' Puppy Dog Pictures - I Has A Hotdog!
11. Look at this fucking hipster    
12. Missed Connections    
13. My First Fail    
14. PHD Comics
15. The Map Scroll    
16. Tots and Crafts - Funny Kids' Drawings

Hmm, I feel this is quite telling... I have more interest in funny photos of babies and pets, than about actual world events. I'm not sure how I should feel about that...

Anyway, the point of this post is to say that to supplant my Sunday morning magazine-a-palooza, I have been trying to find the articles online. There are sections of the weekend supplements of various newspapers that I enjoy but buying ten papers to read twenty articles is silly. So I have been trying to scour the web for their links...NOT EASY!

Firstly, there is no list of weekend supplements that I can find - NOT EVEN ON WIKIPEDIA! I might rectify this...

The best I could do was find this marketing company that assesses readership, etc. of UK newspapers. They provide a list of all the newspapers and their supplements:

3 am    The Mirror
Celebd on Sunday     Sunday Mirror
Culture     The Sunday Times
The Daily Express Saturday    The Daily Express
Entertainment Mail     Sunday Mail, Scotland
ES Magazine     The Evening Standard
The Eye    The Times
Financial Times Magazine     Financial Times (there's this Arts section, but what you want is FT Weekend)
The Guide     The Guardian
The Herald Magazine     The Herald
How to spend it     Financial Times
The Independent Magazine     The Independent Newspaper
The Information     The Independent
Live     The Mail on Sunday
Mailsport Weekly     Sunday Mail
Observer Food Monthly     The Observer
Observer Music Monthly     The Observer
Observer Sport Monthly     The Observer
Observer Travel Magazine     The Observer
OM The Observer Magazine     The Observer (there is also this excellent eViewer - fee to pay)

S Sunday Express Magazine    The Sunday Express
S:2     The Sunday Express
Seven Days     Sunday Mail
Spectrum     Scotland on Sunday
Starmag     Daily Star
Style     The Sunday Times (fee to pay)

Sunday     News of The World
Sunday Herald Magazine     The Herald Sunday (free three day trial - per email address!)

The Sunday Review    The Independent on Sunday
Sunday Telegraph Magazine    The Sunday Telegraph
The Sunday Times Magazine     The Sunday Times (fee to pay)
The Sunday Times Rich List     The Sunday Times
Take 5     Daily Star
Take it Easy     Sunday People
Telegraph Magazine    The Telegraph
Television & Radio     The Daily Telegraph
Times Magazine     The Times (fee to pay)
The Times Special Supplement    The Times
TV Mag     The Sun
We Love Telly!     The Mirror
Weekend (The Daily Mail)     The Daily Mail
Weekend (The Guardian)     The Guardian (there is also this excellent eViewer)

You Magazine     The Mail on Sunday


Out of these there are a few that I really like (emboldened) - these I have provided weblinks where possible. They are a mix of magazines published on various days.

There are others I have thought of that aren't in the list:
Stella by The Telegraph, which has a terrible website - it gives links to all the fashion things and leaves out the bits loved best by me! Lucy Cavendish writes a column about her family, next to Bryony Gordon who writes about her single life - together they make up the last page called 'How the other half lives'. There are no links allowing me to read previous articles, as there are for Liz Jones from the Daily Mail; I had to do a search for them and both writers' entries are variously linked under Fashion, News or Family categories - no consistency. Plus Vicki and Octavia are a mother and daughter Agony Aunt pairing but the links are to each advice bit separately - with no link in between to take you to the other dose of advice being dished out on the same day (there are always two).

The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday are my favourite source - easy to navigate and free. The only real downside in the journalism (apart from the right wing stance which some may dislike) is that they are trying to do more trashy, celebrity exposé stories - they are even starting an office on the West coast of USA to be first in line with the gossip - which makes me sad. :(

The other thing I don't like is the Daily Mail's supplements being so fiercely gender-identified. Live is supposed to be for the men, whilst ladies can enjoy You. I like both and I don't think designating one for a particular gender is useful.

For some this post will be a valuable resource to minimise time-wasting searches, for others it will be anathema to your beliefs since you value the printed page rather than online content and you worry that the websites will bankrupt the printing presses.


Bonus of the day... stocious or stotious - to be very drunk! Thanks, Lucy Cavendish!