When churning newspapers for meat wrapping is poetic justice

Now that the People Daily is no longer our competitor — it’s been circulating for free for the past three weeks — I have been scouring every city street for a copy.

It’s nowhere to be seen. The first time I encountered a free copy was somewhere on Dennis Pritt Road, where I occasionally pick other newspapers on sale. If you buy more than two issues, the People Daily is thrown in as a bonus.

I have been to other cities where they circulate free dailies. London’s Metro is one such example. The paper is placed in dispensers outside train stations, or a vendor will be on hand to dish out one whenever a passenger happens about.

So, why are vendors hoarding the newspaper, or using the sale of the People Daily competitors as the basis of the free gift?

And what happens on slow days, when the other papers are not moving as fast and the vendor is left with stashes of the People Daily yet to be disbursed?

Is there a mechanism for handling returns or the vendor smiles all the way to the nearest waste paper dealer?

If the latter is true, then this would be Prezzo UK’s self-fulfilling prophesy of newspapers serving no other sensible use other than as meat wrap. And since the man happens to have a substantial stake at the paper, then this truly is poetic justice.

Now that’s what one might call living to the true meaning of Jubilee’s mantra of kusema na kutenda (saying and doing), only that one did not expect this to extend to private business.