Just like pornography, you can't stumble blindly around the internet for more than 2 minutes without coming across some news. Ugh. Yep, with the sheer profusion of internet version of news papers, news aggregator sites, bloggers rehasing, enhancing and reporting new stories, you can’t get away with it.

Somehow though, actual-paper newspapers just won't die. And that's good actually, trees aside, because the Poorhouse does like a non-electronic browse of the comings and goings of the world now and then. Plus, a computer’s an expensive thing to drop down the toilet.

What else the Poorhouse likes is being cheap. So join the fun, and get these free vouchers for a month's worth of half price Guardians and Observers. Yep, it's even one of the nicer types of paper!

Shock! Horror! Evil! etc. as the Telegraph splashes the following headline in massive print over its front-page a couple of days ago.

Children of nine may get sex advice packs

Imagine the expressions of fear on the Tory-inclined readers' faces as they read that kids are getting nigh-on-pornographic books promoting going out and getting their fellow 9 year olds diseased and pregnant (well, maybe, read the sex advice pack for possibilities). No doubt it includes graphic illustrations of "dirty sanchez" et al. How on earth could a responsible Government allow this?

The Poorhouse has just been thoroughly enjoying reading a book (yes, a book, no need to die of amazement) called "Who Moved My Blackberry(tm)?", allegedly written by fake Financial Times columnist Martin Lukes.

To lazily quote the back of the book, it describes "a year in the life of an A-playing brand ambassador suspended halfway up the corporate ladder. Must be read with a can-do headset". Yep, this book, detailing the manifold output of Martin's Blackberry is compulsive reading for those of us still unlucky enough to be messing around in the world of corporate nonsense. It is also hilarious, mainly because - even moreso than The Office - it is absolutely true.

Time for a bit of book-reading now perhaps. Don't worry, it won't be over highbrow. You may recall a certain Mr O J Simpson, previously heralded as a sportsman and actor but is now far, far more famous for having erm....not killed his wife, the Poorhouse supposes. Or such was the verdict in the (televised) criminal trial anyhow, although he was somehow found guilty of "wrongful death" in a later civil trial.

Despite the fact that the official "innocent" was perhaps the least expected court case result ever - up there with Michael Jackson's acquittal some courtroom sceptics might say - OJ decided he needed to push it just a bit further by writing "If I Did It"; a "novel" where he details exactly what would have happened and how were it to be the case that he did kill his wife and Ronald Goldman. Funnily enough, it fits the real evidence really quite well, creative writer that he is.

The generally appalling "Mail" brand of national newspapers in the UK is famous for just being full of complaints, anger and hatred, especially against "liberals", the poor, or minorities of any kind. It seems its readership also has this tendancy to be offended and appalled at essentially nothing.

Along the same lines as the anecdote regarding the person who went to Weightwatchers and demanded to change her goal weight because 9 stone 11 pounds reminded her too much of the September 11th tragedy too much to be anything less than uber-offensive (fine - 9 st 10lbs it is, now you need to pay £4.95 extra and lose another pound), here's a letter from "Mrs CF" - the Poorhouse would hazard a guess at Christin[a/e] Fox - getting upset at nothing in the Mail on Sunday.

Poorhouse am-dram favourites "The Company" is about to put on their next dramatic production. This time we have the uber-famous Educating Rita. This is the story of a young lady who wishes to move from reading the trashy page3.com to the fine intellectual tomes of thepoorhouse.org.uk which inspired thousands of inappropriate student-teacher relationships throughout the world.

Be there between 11-14th October 2006 starting 7:30pm, at the University Drama Studio, Glossop Road, Sheffield, UK. For more details about who, what, why and of course the real plot, go visit their website.

This week, I have read - that is flicked through reading selected paragraphs from a book i bought in a charity shop because one of the characters had the same name as me.

To my astonishment, the bit i read in the charity shop sounded just like me - likes tea, impossibly attractive living in new york loads of luck with the menfolk of the world. well the tea bit anyway.

I was shocked, no disgusted, to figure out she wasn't the main character when i got home. She in fact was the flatmate of the main character.

Further horrors awaited me in the storyline itself.

The stry actually consists of a woman called sam who loses her diary. A man called ben finds it, reads it, falls in love with her through it, tracks her down, sleeps with her housemate a few times to get close to her, then eventually goes out with sam.