The Last News of the World

I did wonder whether to buy a copy of the last News of the World. It would also have been the first copy I ever bought too, and in readiness I glanced across its online pages this morning, to see what I would be getting in my last, closing down souvenir issue. The headline, "Thankyou and Goodbye" is a fair enough one, running across a montage of previous front pages. I could then have read about ""Harry's Flo looking good in drag", seen a celebration of "page three cheers - the very breast pics", read about "Michelle's Huge Parts", read an article about Coronation Street's sliding ratings or examined "Kelly's slinky legs" at my pleasure. It wasn't difficult to keep my cash in my pocket and forego the dubious pleasure of a last News of the World.

I did check out one further part of the website - the 47 page collection of their best front pages, and as I was reading these, I realised how much better our Sundays will be without this tawdry, gossip mongering, sleazy newspaper. It is sad, certainly, that 200 people have suddenly lost their jobs. But Sunday after Sunday the News of the World has served us up a diet that appeals to the very lowest common denominator of taste, purveying a content that matches in tawdriness the methods it has - apparently - often used to obtain it.

There may well be a new, equally bad newspaper to take the News of the World's place and titillate its 7.5 million readers, but for the next few weeks at least Sunday mornings in Britain are very slightly more uplifting without it.