RED RAG (cover illustration)

Back Issues

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Established 1979
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These are the back issues of Red Rag. They'll be posted here every (usually) two weeks on or around the anniversary of their original publication. We're currently reissuing 1986; the latest issue is dated June 15th (scan / txt); the next one is due out on the 29th.

Red Rag, or Reading's only newspaper, had a noble tradition of misspelling, mixed metaphors, wrong facts, confused political judgements and a readership of 4000. It printed practically everything it got sent ("except poetry and party political broadcasts, provided it isn't racist, sexist, militarist or otherwise supportive of oppression"). It aimed to provide a decent alternative coverage of local news and issues from a radical non-aligned position; to promote subversive and creative initiatives; to provide a forum for unorthodox views; to allow some sort of co-existence between a huge variety of interests. An indispensible source of local information? a forum for the self-indulgent and self-important? a continuous experiment in collective, de-centralised organisation? Who knew? But in six and a half years it had never sold a single copy.

In this issue (scan / txt): Red Rag is once again skint; the Rag needs a new worker to take over the post of distribution co-ordinator; if your Red Rag was late this week it was because at 3.30 on Saturday no one had volunteered to coordinate Sunday folding & distribution; this has been a ludicrously short and vague Going Out because we cannot afford to print anything larger. Get off your arses and support the Rag - or isn't it worth the effort?

Perhaps you could suggest a new method of raising money. So far we've only come up with blackmail, kidnap, bank robbery and holding a jumble sale.