Cheap Flights, Mr Right, and a Treat for Chomskyites

The Independent is perhaps the leading newspaper in Britain for reporting on environmental issues and climate change. And yet I am not the only one to notice the contradiction between the championing coverage of environmental issues and their cheap flights offer

The Guardian has also been guilty in the past of the same thing, and I remember a reader being told something along the lines of 'The promotions department and editorial department are totally separate and function independenly of one another.'

It is a given that newspapers need to make a profit and need to generate income to pay salaries, expenses and all the rest of it. However, I occasionally wonder if the editorial themselves ever consider the unfortunate irony of the predicament they and their newspapers are in.

These made the letters page:

Flight contradiction
Sir: I am confused, even troubled... readers of The Independent are regularly advised to be aware of, and then still more aware of, the dangers facing our blue planet from, among other things, global warming. We are told that the rise in cheap, more or less frivolous, flights is one of the growth areas and greatest contributors to this problem. So please could you tell me how you justify offering 280 £10 tickets to New York on your front page?
EMILY YOUNG
LONDON W11


Standby for flights
Sir: I hope that you will advise the lucky 140 couples who win tickets to New York not to leave their appliances on standby. As you say in your editorial (24 October): "there can be no excuses. We must all do our bit to preserve the environment."
MR S U SJOLIN
BURY ST EDMUNDS, SUFFOLK


I am not often one to feel sorry for celebrities whose private lives are endlessly pored over in the news, but I have to confess to feeling a considerable degree of sympathy for Ulrika Jonsson.

In the past few days The Daily Mail and the News of the World have dragged her failed relationship over the coals in a somewhat gloating fashion.

Happiness can be a fleeting emotion and it appears to have fled Lance and Ulrika for one reason or another. Ulrika is bright, gorgeous and intelligent so why can't she find someone with whom to be happy and realise her potential?


On a more serious note....

For Irish Chomskyites who may or may not be reading, he is giving a talk in January in Dublin that should see Trinity College being packed to the rafters.

Register your interest now as it is first come, first served!


'It's all about bucks kid, and the rest is just conversation.' - Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's film, Wall Street.