From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …

Close the door on your way out. Metro Media Publishing is closing seven of its eight suburban newspapers in its eastern division this week, as Crikey revealed last Tuesday. Staff are finishing up today — 32 employees have lost their jobs — however, it seems they can’t even get drunk and commiserate together, as one tipster reveals:

“Have just heard that staff in the east can’t have drinks at the office after work on their last day because as of 5pm they aren’t considered MMP staff so have to be out of the building. How delightful …”

Punny politicians. Crikey intern Joanna Robin has a side career as a celebrity culinary cartoonist (check out what we mean on her blog here). Her skill? Puns meets people. We thought it’d be fun to play around with some federal MPs:

Have you got any suggestions for punny politician names? Apple Corey-Bernardi? Bob Milk Carr-ton? Surely you can do better than that — send us in your best suggestions. Top pun will get turned into a cartoon …

Fairfax subs stuff-ups. Tips has been collecting goss on Fairfax’s rollout to its digital subscriptions for a few weeks now, and it seems the problems haven’t ended yet. This just in from another subscriber:

“I subscribe to a paper copy of The Sydney Morning Herald and have done so for five years. I recently suspended my subscription for four weeks. I was informed that I won’t have my subscription extended by four eeks but I will be able to access their digital version for ‘free’. I responded that I will not be able to access the net and was not interested in reading The SMH digitally. If this is how they treat their subscribers it is no surprise that subs are decreasing. It was bad enough when they went tabloid-in size and content-but now they want to just ‘rip off’ their loyal customers with substandard offers.”

*Heard anything that might interest Crikey? Send your tips to boss@crikey.com.au or use our guaranteed anonymous form