Freesheets to the wind

The South Liverpool freesheets are a genuinely fascinating source of information on how the cogs of commerce turn around the leafy suburbs of the city. In a digital age they’re becoming something of a relic, like the supermarket small ads boards or the shop window of a local newsagent advertising for band members, flatmates or lost cats.

It’s a useful reminder that not everyone has embraced the web as the only marketplace going. Indeed its important to recognise that there are vast amounts of people who don’t Twitter, blog or even browse the net - nevermind do their shopping online.

Need a plumber, carpet, software engineer or psychosomatic gastric band? The freesheets will be able to help. But there’s also news on community group meetings, night classes, charities, sports clubs advertising for new members. A little insight into the communities that exist below the waterline of the web.

A few ads caught our eye in a recent copy of Liverpool Link. They’re reproduced here mainly because they made us chuckle, but these peculiar throwbacks remain a valuable community look-out; a social network of sorts from a time before the Internet, before computers.

Bob says stuff the recession

And well he might. Selling bathrooms in an economic climate best described as gloomy can’t be easy, with big ticket items like cars, houses, holidays and new kitchens the first casualty of belt-tightening.

Still, you’ve got to admire Bob’s pitch (top). When in doubt, buy a fitted kitchen.

Wrinkles

We might suggest that not furrowing your brow might represent a cheaper way of straightening your forehead, but we’re not cosmetic technicians.

Hypnotic gastric band

A fascinating concept. Can we also expect virtual toupees, tits and todgers? The power of the mind overcomes the power of physics.

The mental image of a hypnotic gastric band is too delicious for words.

Valentine’s Day haircut

Another enterprising pitch, but no matter how attractive a haircut is made it’s still a haircut at the end of the day isn’t it?

Show the person you love that you care with… a short back and sides.

A woman’s greatest asset

Hair - a woman’s greatest asset. Not sure what Germaine Greer would make of that but there you go.

Also ‘the only thing she never takes off’? Well, perhaps, apart from her tan if she’s a proper scouser like.