thank you. Feel like an idiot trying to press the STOP button repeatedly in an attempt to prevent the pay me to read a few paragraphs thing.

i think this is actually part of the business model a few newspapers are trying to take on. More of a 'gently encourage' people to buy subscriptions rather than a hard and fast 'Brick Wall' paywall. From what I hear, it's working pretty well.

It's by design. It's called a leaky paywall.