department of not good enough

London Lite and thelondonpaper: unbearable, I think we can agree. Everyone I know, including me, prefers the latter. Partly it is because the font is less vulgar; partly because it is, on average, a fraction less rabble-rousy; partly because, when it began, it was genuinely a scintilla more ambitious; partly because it has the em cartoon which is great to a degree that I have gone on about before.

But yesterday, in the sports section, was 'the lowdown', a collection of things you should do this week. One of the things was, and I quote in toto:

Play Twenty20 Cricket
adidas Twenty2 Yards All Round III cricket shoe
A splendid addition to the growing adidas cricket range, these cricket shoes combine all the latest technology with contemporary styling to produce a stunning range of performance footwear to meet the demands of the modern game (it says here!).

It's one thing to get information from a press release, but this is literally a newspaper quoting a press release as a recommendation. The 'it says here!' line is not enough. We need to know whether it is true. Or at least plausible. Or something. Like, what if it was, 'this is the best restaurant you'll ever eat in (says the chef!)' and that was it? Or, no, I'll stop, it's hammers to kill gnats, but really.

(If you are a chef who wants thelondonpaper to say your restaurant is the best anyone will ever eat in, then the bottom of the section suggests you email James Gill. He's just some underpaid, overworked guy, I have no doubt, and it's mostly the system not the individuals, but it's really, really crap.)