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I picked up the Faversham News this week expecting, perhaps rather optimistically, to read about Faversham.

And to be fair, it starts well.

There are Faversham stories.

There is a little bit of Whitstable thrown in, but I’ll allow that. It is nearby, people from Faversham do occasionally go there, and at this stage we haven’t completely lost control of the map.

So far, so good.

Then we reach the courts section.

And things begin to drift.

There is a story involving a grandmother and a mother having a brawl.

In Canterbury.

Not Faversham.

Canterbury.

Never mind. Perhaps this is merely a short excursion.

We turn the page.

Now we have a man from London who terrorised a woman from Maidstone.

Excellent.

We have successfully introduced two entirely different places into the Faversham News without troubling Faversham at all.

By page ten, we have arrived in Stelling Minnis.

At this point, I fell asleep.

Not because Stelling Minnis is necessarily dull, you understand.

I simply realised that at the current rate of geographical expansion, I might eventually find myself reading about a wheelie-bin dispute in Sevenoaks or an escaped ferret in Calais.

Still, I woke suddenly.

Page twelve.

A heart-warming story about a medical lady.

From Canterbury.

Of course she is.

Page thirteen takes us to Thanet, because apparently we hadn’t travelled quite far enough east yet.

Then, on page fourteen, something remarkable happens.

Faversham appears.

Admittedly, it appears in a story about mobile mast upgrades across Kent and is mentioned alongside about twenty-five other towns.

But nevertheless:

Faversham.

There it is.

Standing proudly among the crowd.

A fleeting cameo appearance in its own newspaper.

I almost applauded.

By page fifteen, however, normal service has resumed.

We are reading about a man from Canterbury whose crimes took place in Dymchurch and various other locations.

None of them Faversham.

Naturally.

Below this is an advert inviting readers to buy KM photographs.

Well, I’m sure the residents of Faversham will be absolutely thrilled.

Perhaps they can buy a nice photograph of somewhere actually featured in their local newspaper.

Canterbury, maybe.

Or Thanet.

Possibly Dymchurch.

By page seventeen, we encounter a story about council black holes.

No, not potholes.

Black holes.

And where does this fascinating local story take us?

Medway.

Obviously.

Page eighteen, and we are back in Canterbury.

By now I am beginning to wonder whether somebody has accidentally printed the wrong title at the top of the newspaper.

Perhaps this is actually the Canterbury News and somebody in production has pressed the Faversham button by mistake.

Then we move on to Kent restaurants.

Any in Faversham?

No.

Of course not.

Why would the Faversham News feature restaurants in Faversham?

That would be far too straightforward.

I won’t drag you through every remaining page.

Partly because I value your time.

And partly because I was becoming increasingly nervous about reaching the KCC Highways section.

God knows where that might take us.

Tunbridge Wells?

Dover?

Gravesend?

Possibly Belgium.

But I must mention the “Decades” feature.

A nostalgic look back at Kent.

Excellent.

Surely Faversham will get something here.

Rainham.

Ashford.

Folkestone.

The Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway.

Faversham?

No.

Nothing.

Not a sausage.

And that, really, is the joy of the whole thing.

The Faversham News appears to treat Faversham less as its subject and more as a vague administrative suggestion.

A starting point.

A concept.

A town whose name happens to fit nicely across the top of the front page.

I do understand how modern local newspapers work.

Stories are shared.

Editorial teams cover large areas.

Budgets are tighter.

One reporter may now be feeding several different titles.

I get all of that.

But surely, somewhere along the line, somebody should occasionally look at the name of the newspaper.

Because Faversham is not exactly short of things happening.

There are shops opening and closing, planning applications, housing developments, parking problems, roadworks, local businesses, events, schools, the creek, the market, the brewery, councillors, arguments, footpaths and enough general administrative nonsense to fill several editions.

You could probably create half a newspaper just by standing in Market Place for an afternoon with a notebook.

Yet somehow the Faversham News manages to set off across Kent like an elderly coach party whose driver has lost the itinerary.

Canterbury.

Maidstone.

Stelling Minnis.

Thanet.

Dymchurch.

Medway.

Rainham.

Ashford.

Folkestone.

And every so often, somewhere in amongst it all, Faversham pops up briefly to remind us why the newspaper has its name.

Perhaps I’m being unfair.

Perhaps next week will be different.

Perhaps there will be a full page about the market.

A story from the creek.

A local business.

A planning row.

Something actually happening in Faversham.

Or perhaps I’ll open page three and discover a fascinating story about a missing wheelie bin in Margate.

At this point, nothing would surprise me.

Somewhere, presumably, Faversham was still happening.