The Blonde Beggar of Bethnal Green

Friday: I'm emerging from the Radio 4 cocoon when Craig (editor) texts me with news of a storming review in London Lite. This is a free newspaper distributed during morning rush hour; but it's now 5pm, and the vendors have all gone home. Desperate to see the review before it becomes tomorrow's celebrity autobiography, I hit the streets in search of a discarded copy.

There's a guy reading one in the window of Starbucks. He's alone, waiting for someone. I want his paper. He wants a fuck for the night - that's why he's sitting alone in the window of a Soho Starbucks. I mouth through the glass that I want his article. He misunderstands. I retreat.

I think about checking the bins, but there's a guy already doing that - does he have a review out, too?

Then down to the Tube, last resting place of a million free handout newspapers. It's rush hour, jammed, and I can't get through the carriage. I miss my stop - Liverpool Street - letting the train empty. Down the carriage, picking up papers, looking for the golden ticket. The train has left Bethnal Green and is well on its way to the end of the line when I find a copy, slightly soiled - but it's not human, so I'll live with it.

It's 4 stars. A treat. I sit down to savour it. It's then I notice all around me, discarded on seats, copy after copy of London Lite, hundreds of them. (No one takes them home to clip and file, like I shall do with my precious edition.) The review is already tomorrow's Ashley Cole autobiography.