Paper Monitor
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Friends, it seems like yesterday that, with innocent joy in our hearts, we opened the Guardian and let out an excited yelp that, yes, yes, yes, the longed-for wallchart of butterflies plopped on to the floor.
Remember how we ran with boyish/girlish glee to show mummy what we had got? And how she said yes, we could put it up on our bedroom wall so long as we were careful not to get Blu-tak on the wallpaper?
Now of course times are harder. Colder. Rougher. More cynical. Mere wallcharts have long lost their power to delight.
No, what we need are wallcharts which fold into little unstapled booklets. And that's what the Guardian has given us today. They are calling it a "foldie" in the hope that it sounds cooler.
On Saturday the paper tried to make a virtue of triumph of hype over reality, by billing the arrival of the "foldie" on the front page, with a little diagram. "[W]e are introducing a revolutionary new format to the Guardian stable: the foldie. We will use this lovingly crafted device - sweated over by paper technicians and inky fingered printers - to bring you beautiful pocket-sized guides..." blah blah blah.
Three points.
1. Didn't realise the Guardian had a stable. Sounds quaint.
2. There's that "device" thing again (remember the Telegraph introduced a device which turned out to be a logo saying "Was Is and Will Be" without actually saying what was, what is and what will be?) When will the world of newspapers realise that devices need batteries??? Get with the plan, boys, it's not that difficult.
3. Those diagrams? Reminds Paper Monitor of the rather strange guide they had in the new but still rather strange Times2 last week on how to peel an orange, which was lucky to escape further note at the time.
Anyway, if the whole butterfly thing does strike you as being familiar, you're right. It was just two years and 23 days ago that the Guardian's butterfly wallchart was released into the wild. No doubt there have been developments in lepidoptery in that time, but Paper Monitor can't help but think that the only thing really joining the Guardian's stable is a format in need of a subject.
In any case, we don't like being left out. So your suggestions, please, especially if they are nifty non-proprietary photo editing software format, of how one might conceivably fold a webpage. Send via Comments below, or send images to the.magazine@bbc.co.uk with "Nifty folding webpage idea" in the subject line.
Comment number 1.
At 9th Jun 2008, Egidius wrote:No. I am still sulking over the caption competition.
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Comment number 2.
At 9th Jun 2008, Candace9839 wrote:How to fold a web page? Minimise the window of course.
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Comment number 3.
At 9th Jun 2008, Starling wrote:Or close the lid of your laptop.
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Comment number 4.
At 9th Jun 2008, Blythy wrote:This isn't as clever as the guardian's free DVD box. The one that even works with DVDs from other papers.
How long before you can buy a paper with a free DVD player?
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Comment number 5.
At 9th Jun 2008, Gyrate wrote:Isn't the "foldie" just a way for the Guardian to save money on staples and folding costs?
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Comment number 6.
At 10th Jun 2008, BadgersRetreat wrote:MM is usually more willing to push the envelope. Why copy the old technology Foldie when you can trump it with -- the Bloatie?
A bloatie is a 5-pixel by 5-pixel dot that is hidden somewhere on the screen. If you click on it, it bloats up until it fills the entire screen. Wow!
Let's see the Guardian top that.
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