"Underground Magazine" - New Satirical Free Paper handed out on the Tube

Last week I was rushing outside Hammersmith Tube on my way to the Crossrail viewing when I saw a guy carrying a large sign (like one of those Golf Sale signs) saying "Free Satire". I was curious but didn't have enough time to stop & pick up what he was handing out. However, I remembered that a Twitter account called @undergroundmgzn followed me & the people behind it sent me an email, which I've finally got around to reading. I'm pleased I did.


Underground Magazine sets out to "fill the gap between Metro and The Evening Standard in bins across the capital." It has a print run of 10,000 copies and the people behind it started handing out the first edition last week.  You can read the whole thing online as a pdf.

As you can see from the image above it pokes fun at many of the stories we read in free sheets like Metro & The Standard as well as having a number of Tube & commuting related features. There's the "help me find this woman of my dreams on the Tube" story: "Atwood expressed his gratitude: “Normally I’d have to spend ages on Google finding all that stuff. But Underground really saved me a great deal of time. I’ll let you know how the first drive past her house goes!”

Plus the featured in the picture, a way to stop people from reading over your shoulder on the Tube "it has turned out that Underground Magazine has chosen, on this very day, to target the kinds of bastards who think it's OK to lean over you and stare at your stuff. If he or she is still reading at this point, he or she's really taking the piss".

Like most papers justifying their existence they have various claims to show they are the biggest on certain subjects. I like their claims on being the big on womens' sport online. "THIS GROUNDBREAKING ARTICLE, entirely devoted to women's sport, has single-handedly guaranteed that 50% of Underground's online sport section is devoted to the subject. Writers of the article, reflecting upon their success in smashing the glass ceiling, commented, “Well we wanted to do something controversial for the website, you know for the publicity and that. At first we couldn’t think of anything, and then we remembered women.”


Best of luck to Underground Magazine who also have a Facebook account and I look forward to seeing the second copy.

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