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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 1987; the latest issue is dated February 10th (scan / txt); the next one is due out on the 24th. Red Rag, or Reading's only newspaper, had a noble tradition of misspelling, mixed metaphors, wrong facts, confused political judgements and a readership in its heyday 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? In its first seven years it never sold a single copy; but now after much soul-searching a price had been put on the Rag's head... In this issue (scan / txt): despite Parliament being told recently that there were no women at Greenham, no fence had been cut, and so no money was necessary for repairs, small groups of women have cut down parts of the perimeter fence at Greenham Common every night for a week. The Wildlife Garden, dismissed by some as a heap of rubble, wins an Environmental Award; the Job Training Scheme is only there to get the unemployment figures down in time for this year's election; a Free Mandela demonstration is coming to London; and Veggie Dining have had more comebacks than we care to remember, had their cutlery stolen and been banned from most of the suitable venues in Reading. | |||