It's virtually a newspaper (metro.co.uk)

Member Name: grahamt

Product:	metro.co.uk
Date:	05/10/09 (54 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's an easy read, it's free and it won't require much of your brain

Disadvantages: Won't keep you occupied for long

It was the news that the London Evening Standard was going to be given away for free, the newspapers that is, not the company, although the current owner - Alexander Lebedev - did only pay a pound for it, that prompted me to write this review. I remember years ago that my father used to bring home the Standard every evening and catch up on the events of the day before the days when we had a telly. Everything he needed to know, he reckoned, he could learn from the Standard.

I'm not sure about that but what is certain is that it packed a lot of concise information into a compact form. Years later, when I was still working I used to spend a lot of time with clients in London. Every morning I would travel up by train. I used to see people reading a newspaper, Metro, and leaving it behind on the seat and I used to grab a copy to read. Then I discovered that it was usually available on the platform of most station, most that is except Ascot, where I used to start my journey. Maybe they considered themselves too posh for such a publication!

Metro is a great paper, so long as you don't take it too seriously. It reminds me very much of the Standard. It leans a little too far towards the likes of the Sun in content though, although that doesn't include the infamous Page 3. It does have a snappy style, though, that enables you to get the most out of it in that shortish journey to work each morning.

When I retired, one of the things I missed was the Metro: no train journeys, no Metro. Then I discovered the Metro website and, lo and behold, one of the options on the extreme right of the Home tab on webpage banner is e-Metro, a link to a virtual, electronic copy of the paper. For convenience they have even reproduced the day's copy immediately below, with the legend: Turn the pages here>. Clicking on the front page shown takes you to a new webpage where you can read on your computer screen, not just today's copy but also those from the previous five days.

I've subscribed to have them send me a weekday email with the link to that day's copy so that I can make sure I don't miss anything. Particular favourites are 60 second interview, Television - What to Watch, Metro Mail (I've written a few emails myself!) and, being a Sudoku addict - Metroku. A few of the news items refer you back to the Metro website and here you can find all of the news items in the virtual paper, and more.

Besides the Home tab there are a whole load of others, from which my favourites are Weird, MetroLife, Travel and Tech, which do pretty much what it says on the tin. If you want to try to earn a bit of extra cash then ME View may be the place for you. You can upload video you've shot and if Metro readers download it to their mobiles you earn 15p a time. Metro may also ask if you will add an advert to your video and then you can earn even more! Some people seem to have earned hundreds, if not thousands.

So, the Metro website. Well, don't expect to find anything intellectually challenging here. Even the Sudokus won't keep you occupied for long. It's good for whiling away a half-hour or so and you might just find something amusing that will make your day. If not, well, it hasn't cost you anything and you've saved a few rain forests into the bargain. That can't be bad can it?

Summary: The website where you can read an electronic copy of the free newspaper