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THE THINGS THEY SAY
TODAY’S PAPERS
A good lawyer knows the law; an excellent lawyer knows the judge — Legal aphorism
CARTOON OF THE DAY
Matt Pritchett, Torygraph
The fun of typos
Christopher Howse, assistant editor of the Daily Telegraph, has written an amusing column in the current issue of The Spectator about newspaper typos.
We’ve been spammed A few readers have complained that they are greeted by spam popups when opening the Drone. Our tech experts are running an extensive check of the website which should solve the problem.
Former Express political editor Patrick O’Flynn dies aged 59
Tributes have been paid to Patrick O’Flynn, former political editor of the Daily Express, who has died from liver cancer aged 59.
O'Flynn, from Cambridge, later served as a UKIP MEP for the East of England from 2014 until 2019.
Friends said he went to the doctor after feeling unwell, was diagnosed with stage four liver cancer and told he only had weeks to live.
O’Flynn previously worked at the Birmingham Post and had also written for The Spectator.
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson said O'Flynn was ‘a truly original conservative journalist who grasped the causes of much of the current discontent’.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said: ‘I can't quite believe it. My husband and I always enjoyed Patrick's company. He often messaged me with thoughts on politics. We'd agree on substance then argue over tactics. I teased him about being a secret leftie… but my goodness, he loved this country.’
Patrick O’Flynn is survived by his wife, Carole Ann, also a Daily Express writer, and their son and daughter.
Another one bites the dust …
Exit of editors continues as the Metro’s Cowley is shown door
Life is proving to be tough at the top as another daily editor is made redundant.
This time the dubious honour is granted to Chris Cowley of Metro, pictured, who has been in the chair for just two years.
Cowley, who describes himself ‘as a short-haired singer in a rock'n'roll band, father who embarrasses two daughters, and weekend lawn mower’, succeeded former Expressman Ted Young who had held the post since 2014.
Deborah Arthurs remains as editor-in-chief of the Mail Group-owned title.
Reach titles are biggest losers in April led by Sunday People
The Sunday People continued to be the newspaper with the biggest annual circulation decline in April, according to ABC figures.
It was down 20.6% to 44,096. The title’s Reach stablemates fared little better. Several were down by about 18%: the Daily Star Sunday (57,065), the Daily Express (119,020), the Daily Record, the Sunday Mail and the Sunday Express (103,853).
Eight newspapers no longer publish sales figures but if they had fallen along with the industry average they would be as follows:
The Sun: 630,000, The Sun on Sunday: 540,000, The Sunday Times: 290,000, The Times: 160,000, Daily Telegraph: 170,000, Sunday Telegraph: 115,000, The Observer: 75,000, The Guardian: 55,000
Star sports editor Arthur hits 90
Former Daily Star northern sports editor Arthur Lamb celebrated his 90th birthday this week.
Arthur worked on the Ossett Observer from school then papers in the North-East before joining the Daily Express then Daily Star. He moved to the Liverpool Echo before retirement.
His nephew Phil Walton told the Drone: ‘He’s a great character who was friends with a lot of sports stars in the day as well.
‘Here he is, it would be great to hear from any of his old colleagues.’
Contact Arthur HERE
ETERNAL TRIANGLE
Some things never change, the stunning Black Friar pub
The Black Friar is a pub beloved by journalists for more than 100 years.
Situated on Queen Victoria Street, London, the Grade II* listed building was built opposite Blackfriars Station in about 1875 on the site of a former medieval Dominican friary.
Remodelled in 1905 by the architect Herbert Fuller-Clark.it is famed for its triangular shape and its stunning internal decoration created by the sculptors Frederick T. Callcott and Henry Poole.
The building was nearly demolished during redevelopment in the 1960s, until it was saved by a campaign spearheaded by poet Sir John Betjeman.
Reporter Norfolk, hero who exposed grooming gangs
PAT PRENTICE remembers Andrew Norfolk, talented investigative reporter for The Times who died on 8 May, aged 60
TODAY I read The Times obituaries and learned of the death of a fine, intrepid reporter. I immediately recalled an email I received from him in 2015.
Andrew Norfolk, pictured, exhausted and battered by State lackeys, had triumphed over police and social workers' criminal conspiracies of silence to expose the truth about rape gangs.
It had been a long campaign, throughout which he had been vilified, threatened with death, and accused of being racist, when all he wanted to do was expose the abuse of young girls, whom some responsible custodians of law and order had deemed unworthy of help.
My involvement had begun when my late ex-wife was wounded in Kosovo and her driver was killed. She returned to The Times and as she recovered her confidence, was delegated to the features department.
On one of her stories — about a bride who had been burned alive — she alighted at a railway station and confided what her mission was to a minicab driver.
The man happened to be a relative of the killer, and that led to a series of texted death threats to her.
On her return to London, she announced that she had heard dark rumours of young girls being sexually abused by immigrant gangs. A features executive decreed that such matters would be deemed racist.
Eve-Ann died soon afterwards, but the story did not.
Andrew Norfolk was on the case, and with terrier-like tenacity, gripped it in the teeth of truth until the authorities could no longer keep it as their guilty secret.
At some point, when Andrew was clearly struggling, I sent him an email urging him to continue and emphasising how much I and other colleagues at The Times supported him and were proud of his efforts.
Many difficult months later, veracity was victorious and I emailed my congratulations to Andrew.
His reply was an acknowledgement more prized to me than any award from journalistic judges.
It read: "Hi Patrick. Really kind of you to make contact and apologies for the slow reply. Been a bit of a crazy day. An email you sent me in 2012 remains the most cherished I've received from a colleague. Much has happened since then with the Rotherham story but you spotted its significance long before most. Your kind words remind me that what we've done with this investigation is nothing new for British journalism. Just a bit out of fashion. For that I owe The Times big time.”
A piece I wrote recently (Drones passim) suggested that Andrew would be a perfect person to lead a proper inquiry into why rape gangs happened and how political mercenaries had conspired to pretend they did not.
Alas, Andrew is no more. But the mark this modest and courageously diligent giant of journalism has left will remain as a beacon to real reporters and a stain upon the reputations of many scurrying quislings of authority.
My original email: Hi Andrew. I am copy-tasting today. I have been telling everybody (and they don't disagree) that your stuff is absolutely brilliant, not to say courageous. Then I realised I should be saying it to you. For what it's worth from a humble hack of 47 years in the business, your pieces are a lesson to everyone in diligence, attention to detail and plain hard work. You have dignified a newspaper empire that badly needs something good saying about it.
It is a privilege to have you as a colleague.
NEW TODAY
Poor little Pixie Cooper is looking increasingly desperate and unhappy as she parrots the party line and tries to defend its failed immigration policies. She always looks as if she’s just remembered she’s left the chip pan on, a worried frown scrunching her elfin features. Important duties rarely permit her to smile: when she does, she manages to frown at the same time. I feel sorry for her.
A recent lamentation about the declining numerical strength of our armed forces prompts an old sea dog to call with an even more depressing catalogue of the vessels we are now able to deploy compared with 1982. Aircraft carriers, then 4, now 2; Destroyers 13 (6); frigates 51 (9); submarines 37 (10). What was it that Private Frazer used to say?
If baby-naming continues as it has, everyone in the United States will be called Liam or Olivia by 2080. And if they aren’t, they’ll be Noah and Emma. The Social Security Administration reports that the four names have been the most popular for six consecutive years. Onomasticians predicting, however, that parents will get bored and move on. In the 1940s Garry, Jerry and Larry were favoured and the top girl’s name was Mary. It’s now 132nd.
World’s longest train journey? The 8.01 from Shenfield to Liverpool St sometimes felt like that, especially if you were stuck in the Bow Bottleneck. Actually, though, it’s 11,654 miles, 13 countries, eight time zones and 14 days. According to Big Think, it starts in Lagos, Portugal, and passes through Europe, Russia, Mongolia, China and Southeast Asia, finishing in Singapore. There are 20 changes, some involving different stations and various legs are affected by sanctions or war. It’s so difficult that it is thought no one has ever completed it.
That Oz! What a rum place. I mean, did you know that, according to Sean Williams in National Geographic, there are more than a million thirsty camels rampaging around the bush ‘trampling ecosystems and destroying infrastructure’ as they try to find water. They were originally introduced to the country by surveyors in the 19th century. The cost of rounding them up for meat is prohibitively high and the government’s culling programme, involving snipers in helicopters, ended in 2013.
Drug deaths in the US dropped by 30,000 last year. The 27% fall from 110,000 to 80,000 is the largest in one year on record. The opioid overdose-reversing drug naloxone, now available over the counter, has contributed.
A new trend among young people is exploring on their own. It’s all about finding yourself, says The Economist. Online searches for ‘solo travel’ have more than doubled in the past decade. In Britain the number of going it alone has soared from 6% in 2011 to 17% in 2024. Strikingly 84% of solo travellers are women.
The longest word in the English language is believed to be: pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis — a lung disease caused by the inhalation of very fine silicate or quartz dust. If this information passes you by, you are probably suffering from Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia — fear of long words.
A mysterious arrangement of large stones found resting on the bed of Lake Michigan has been compared with Stonehenge. The deliberately-designed winding line of rocks, which spans more than a mile, would originally have been on dry land but is now 40ft under the surface. Experts say it was constructed 9,000 years ago which would make it 4,000 years older than Stonehenge.
Chimpanzees in the wild have been filmed administering first aid. Scientists from Oxford recorded the chimps in Uganda’s Budongo forest dabbing medicinal plants on open wounds and other injuries, not just for themselves but for others.
Another of those ‘it could only happen in America’ stories: When Tofu, the cat, broke a tooth chewing on a wooden music box, its owner in Denver arranged for an artificial replacement…in gold. At $5,000 a pop.
The oldest recorded reptile-like footprints have been discovered near Melbourne. They could be up to 358 million years old and suggest animals emerged from the sea to walk on land much earlier than originally thought. The reptile is believed to resemble a monitor lizard, 2.5ft long with long toes and hooked claws.
StatsAFact: Sheep used to outnumber humans 22 to 1 in New Zealand but the declining price of wool has prompted a switch to dairy farming. Mind you, there are still 23.6 million there.
GnuWhatAScorcher! Longleat safari park rangers attempt to stop wildebeest running at top speed of 50mph as temperatures soar to worrying levels.
ThisSportingLife: Olympic swimming great Gary Hall has set a new record, receiving 10 medals in one day. Hall, who lost five golds, three silvers and two bronzes in the LA wildfires, was presented with replacements at a special ceremony at IOC headquarters in Lausanne. He won the originals representing the US at three summer games between 1996 and 2004.
UntouchedByHumanSub: ‘HBO confirms they’re reverting back to original name’. — Mirror
TheThingsTheySay: ‘Animals are so non-judgemental. When I paid to have my dog’s testicles removed, he forgave me instantly and all it took was a Bonio. I know for a fact that my husband would not be so understanding about it.’ — the Marvellous Ms Midgley in The Times.
ONLY IN THE DRONE
Our top columnists
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Stand and Deliver
By Hermione Orliff
NEW TODAY
So Sir Charmer and his crack team of negotiators have hammered out a deal which defines a new relationship between us and the European Union. I expect we all feel the better for that.
A so-called columnist fantasises about his days of derring-do by recalling that, back in the 90s, he took an eight-hour, 275-mile journey through Ukraine in the back of a malodorous Lada ‘taxi’ with Kim Willsher (there are worse ways to go, avers Reg, the aged Drone retainer who brings my tea). The driver was a fetid local who smoked evil-smelling fags throughout and munched garlic-infused gurgle burgers or some such. I’ve never met the award-winning Ms Willsher but her name is usually prefaced by the epithet ‘the fragrant’. Some mistake, surely. (Sorry, Kimmie, pet, but that’s your actual satire —Ed).
One of the most fascinating aspects of Trump’s new reign is the rag tag and bobtail make up of his cabinet. Take real estate billionaire Steve Witcoff, 68. As the Donald’s special envoy for more or less everything, he is tasked with solving major diplomatic conundrums — Gaza, Ukraine, Iran for starters —having no discernible experience or skill. He’s very different from the mentor he’s known for 40 years. While Trump tends to go for the gilded ornate (Getaway! — Ed), Witkoff’s West Wing office has a desk, plain conference table and a chair on which he places his rucksack. Can he succeed? ‘Diplomacy is negotiation,’ he says. ‘I’ve been doing it all my life.’
Old John D. Rockefeller: what a player! The US Supreme Court this week in 1911 ordered that his conglomerate, Standard Oil, should be broken up into 39 distinct companies because it was too powerful and monopolistic. Now the good news: He was given shares in the new outfits, which included ExxonMobil and Chevron. They all flourished and his wealth exploded, making him America’s first billionaire. In 1913 his personal wealth was 3% of US GDP.
Apropos the above, sort of (and I don’t want to worry you) but credit ratings agency Moody’s has downgraded the US from a perfect AAA to Aa1. The reason: successive administrations are deemed to have failed to reverse ballooning deficits and interest costs. OK, so these things happen, right? Not to the US. And not since 1917.
Once more with feline! (You’ll note what I just did there). Man’s best friend is his cat, growls my correspondent with the cold, wet nose. They are on track to become more popular than dogs in the UK. Cat ownership among 18 to 34-year-olds has risen dramatically in recent years: 41% of Gen Z own one. Celeb feline fans, such as Swiftie, have fuelled the trend.
Guinness Is Good For You? It’s a load of bollocks, says a doctor writing to the FT (well, what he actually said was it has ‘long been debunked’ but we know what he means). A pint contains a trivial 0.3 milligrams of iron. A woman would need to drink 50 pints a day to meet her needs and twice that if she were pregnant. The doc adds: ‘There may be cogent reasons for drinking Guinness but anaemia is not among them.’
A Lufthansa Airbus flew for 10 minutes without a pilot after the aviator at the controls fainted while alone in the cockpit, an air accident inquiry has revealed. Luckily, the auto pilot kicked in on the flight from Frankfurt to Seville last year. There was further drama when the pilot, who had been in the loo, was locked out of the cockpit. But before he could use emergency access codes, his colleague came round. He was taken to hospital after the plane made an unscheduled landing in Madrid.
LiteraryCorner: ‘A world of silly people behaving in a silly way: farce plots enacted in fantasy realms.’ The Daily Drone’s new mission statement? No, an appraisal of the work of P.G. Wodehouse.
I don’t know what to make of this but my man lurking around St Stephen’s Entrance says that, following the row over Speaker Hoyle’s freebie fest, there are Bring Back Bercow murmurings in Westminster. Surely not! They’ll be resurrecting Boris next.
Readers of a sensitive disposition may wish to scroll through the next item but the New World Screwworm is on the rampage. The beast, actually a fly, is devastating livestock in the US. It lays up to 400 eggs inside a wound or, ahem, orifice of a warm-blooded animal. When larvae hatch, they burrow into the living flesh. An infection called myiasis can eat a fully grown cow in about a week.
A university professor in the States has been caught compiling lecture notes for a course for students which explicitly forbids the use of chatbots… using Chat GBT.
All this fuss about Sir Charmer and Rivers of Blood etc prompts Patrick Maguire in The Times to recall a 1970s quote from a race relations think tank about Labour and immigration: ‘What Enoch Powell says today, the Conservative Party says tomorrow and the Labour Party legislates on the day after.’
InTheCourts: A fan of NFL team Kansas City Chiefs who dresses as a wolf to rob banks has been kicked into touch… a 32-year stretch, reports my man in the press pack (see what I just etc?).
StatsAFact: The population of the United States rose 1% between June 2023 and June 2024, the highest increase in a generation.
ThisSportingStrife: Dutch footy star and habitual bad boy Quincy Promes is said to be a target for Iranian club Esteghial. He wouldn’t be the club’s first big name player with a secret double life. In 2011 they signed former Aston Villa defender Jlloyd Samuel. He settled in Tehran very quickly and married a local fashion designer called Helia. Trouble was, he already had a wife and three children in London. This was revealed when Jlloyd died in a 2018 car crash sparking a bitter three-way feud between his two wives and sister. Now both Helia and the sister are convinced he faked his death and is still alive. Somewhere.
TheThingsTheySay: ‘I have just about remembered not to put an ice lolly in my vagina in the heatwave as advised by 487 ‘experts’. But there was a recent near miss in the freezer aisle at Asda when I forgot and nearly shoved a Nobbly Bobbly down my slacks.’ — the Marvellous Ms Midgley in The Times.
Backbench wizard Peter Sloan dies aged 73
Peter Sloan, one of the most delightful Fleet Street characters you could ever wish to meet, died of cancer on May 1 a day before his 74th birthday.
Former Express and Mirror sub Pat Welland told the Drone: “Sloanie will be well known to Express Newspapers hacks as he served honourable time in the 80s as Night Editor of The Star before rejoining the Mirror. A lovely bloke who will be much missed.”
The funeral will be held on May 28, 1pm, at Hither Green Crematorium, London, SE6 1TP. Afterwards, at the Trafalgar Tavern, Greenwich, SE10 9NW. MORE DETAILS
His Lordship’s order of ‘milk’ is delivered to the Drone offices
(Kindly refrain from telling the whife)
HACKED DOWN BY HICKEY
THEY do look grand, don’t they? His Serene Highness Prince George de Chabris and his Princess — or so they claimed.
In reality de Chabris was a political swindler and his companion was better known as Jan Jackson, a bit-part actress from Wisconsin.
De Chabris tricked Jeremy Thorpe into selling him the National Liberal Club in London but guess who helped bring the fraudster down? Why, William Hickey of course.
Former Hickey editor CHRISTOPHER WILSON has the full fascinating story
The shrinking Express
Staff numbers have been slashed
By THE EDITOR
What a difference 30 odd years make. These were the serried ranks of the Daily Express news, sport, features and picture desk staff on just one night in 1991 at the new Blackfriars offices in London.
Today things are looking a little different. The Drone was shocked to hear the current state of staffing on the paper.
All the news subs now work from home and there is normally only about five or six of them. The only people in the office are the newsdesk and the night editor plus one other, normally Mark Hoey, sometimes it’s only Mark. The middle bench help out with subbing for the first couple of hours of each shift.
This contrasts with the situation when I joined the Express 50 years ago. There were desks for 16 news subs which were filled most nights. There were also five seats on the backbench — night editor, deputy night editor, foreign page editor, copytaster and revise editor.
There was also a chief foreign sub, splash sub and a parly sub. Some nights there were so many subs that there were no desks for them and they had to sit in the reporters room.
There were, however, quite a few vacant desks after 10pm when the action moved to the Popinjay, the Old Bell, The Cartoonist and the Albion.
It was much the same in the 1980s during Saturday afternoons on the Sunday Mirror. Little work was done during our well-paid six-hour shift. More time was spent chatting, doing crosswords and eating tea and biscuits. There was also a little sport — flicking rubber bands at the fluorescent lights and trying to get the bands lodged in the plastic cover. This was harder than it sounds.
After five hours of this chief sub Malcolm Munro-Hall normally let us go an hour early. Then it was up the stairs to the cashiers — fondly known as Sky Bank — to collect one’s generous winnings.
Tell that to the kids of today and they wouldn’t believe you …
Pictured above from left are: Frances Jennings (Sports Secretary), Alan Hill, Chief City Sub (in glasses behind Frances), unidentified woman, Phil Osborn (Sport), Simon Moon (Features sub, behind Osborne), Linda Mackay, Stephen Kahn (City Editor in light-coloured trousers), Ken Weller, Liz Wilson, David Richardson (Foreign Editor), Clive Goozee (Sport, in background behind Emery), David Emery (Sports Editor), Chris Djukanovic (Picture Editor, behind Kahn), Alastair McIntyre (Chief Sub-Editor in bow tie), Mike Parry (News Editor), Steve Martin, Sir Nicholas Lloyd (Editor), Terry Manners (Night Editor), Larry Ellis (photographer), Terry Evans (Picture Desk, behind Ellis), Clive Bradley (Art Desk), Roger Watkins (Assistant Editor), Fred Boyce (Art Desk), lan Benfield, Jackie Wood, Dave Grayson, Heather McGlone, Bill Montgomery (behind Heather), Rosemary Carpenter, Maurice Hibberd (Night Picture Editor), unidentified woman, Dick Dismore (Sunday Express Night Editor), Philippa Kennedy, John Sebastian, lan Walker (Deputy News Editor), unidentified secretary, Jeremy Gates (Travel Editor), Peter Grosvenor, Literary Editor. Kneeling at the front are: Valerie Marsh (Picture Desk Secretary), unidentified, Wendy (Editor's Secretary), Annie Leask (Showbiz Reporter), Louise Gannon, Jane Woods (Picture Desk), Caroline Hendrie.
The things they used to say in the Boulevard
of Broken Dreams
By PAT WELLAND
With nothing better to do, I’ve been re-reading a couple of books about the Boulevard at a time now seen – as one of the authors remarks – “as remote as the Byzantine empire”.
From political commentator Alan Watkins’ excellent A Short Walk Down Fleet Street, two conversations between Jack Nener, “a foul-mouthed bow-tied Swansea boy” who was Mirror editor 53-61, and his deputy, Dick Dinsdale:
1. “What we need on this paper, Jack, are a few Young Turks.”
Nener: “I can see we could do with a few new faces about the place, but why in fuck’s name do they have to be Turkish?”
2. “The sub-editors, like most people who work long shifts in unchanging company, had a number of catchphrases, or joke sentences. One of them – it comes from the film of Tom Brown’s Schooldays, rather than from the book itself – was: ‘Flashman, you are a bully and a liar, and there is no place for you in this school.’
Nener was overheard asking: ‘Who’s this Flashman, then, Dick?’
‘Flashman? Flashman? I don’t think we’ve got any one of that name on the paper, Jack. Is he a reporter or a sub?’
‘I don’t give a fuck what he is, but get rid of him fucking quick. He’s a bully and a liar’.”
3. From Matthew Engel’s equally enjoyable Tickle the Public – 100 years of the popular press: “There is a story that around 1926 John Logie Baird went into the Express office anxious to show his new invention (TV, as any fule kno) to the editor (Beverley Baxter). Baxter, in keeping with the paper’s reputation for percipience, sent down the message ‘Get rid of that lunatic. He may have a knife'.”
Lord Drone is honoured for 20 years of his Fleet Street organ
LORDING IT: Drone as imagined by Scott Clissold of the Sunday Express
THE Daily Drone is 20 years old? Shurely shome mistake. Believe it or not it is true and to mark the anniversary His Worship Lord (Bingo) Drone was presented with a magnificent caricature hand-tooled by Scott Clissold, talented cartoonist of the Sunday Express.
The ceremony took place in front of disinterested diners at the Boulevard Brasserie in London’s Covent Garden, the venue for numerous drink-sodden gatherings of the World’s Greatest Lunch Club.
The brasserie is a favourite with WGLC members not just for the excellent cuisine but also for the fact that Le Patron provides old-age pensioners with half-price food.
Lord Drone gave a long address of thanks to gently sleeping members which can be summed up as “thanks awfully chums”. He left shortly afterwards in a sedan chair after proffering his fondest thanks to Roger Watkins (chairman), Terry Manners, Dick Dismore, Alan Frame and Pat Pilton for their generous gesture. (Will that do M’Lud? — Ed)
Frank Welsby dies at 82
Former Daily Express Manchester reporter Frank Welsby who broke the Louise Brown test-tube baby story in 1978 died on 21 February aged 82.
He was a proud Lancastrian, a frank and fearless man who did not suffer fools, particularly news editors he considered to be incompetent.
Welsby leaves Ingrid, his beloved wife for 60 years, and their sons, Julian and Jocelyn.
Bill’s dun scrubbin
Expressman BILL WHEELER has been busy cleaning the stones on the front of his cottage in Portland, Dorset.
Sorry Bill, your plaque needs subbing — where’s the bloody ‘g’?
Alan Morison, 77
TOP OPERATOR: Alan Morison with his Thai partner Chutima
ALAN MORISON, an Australian who served as a news sub on the Daily Express in the 1970s, died on Good Friday in Thailand after a year-long battle with cancer. He was 77.
Moro, as he was known, was best known in Thailand for the courageous stand he and his partner, Thai journalist Chutima ‘Oi’ Sidasathien, took against the Royal Thai Navy, after they were prosecuted for criminal defamation in late 2013 over a paragraph referring to the trafficking of Rohingyas in the news website Phuket Wan which they both ran.
Facing up to seven years in jail they refused a deal which required them to apologise, and were eventually acquitted in September 2015.
The Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand said: ‘Under his mild, soft-spoken demeanour Alan had a wicked, dry sense of humour and a steely commitment to the highest journalistic principles. “Really good journalism is about changing what is wrong with the world,” he said.’
Colleague Martin Peters added: “He was treated appallingly for doing his job and exposing the truth. May he rest in peace, his work will not be forgotten.”
His Express friend and colleague Tony Boullemier said: “He was a super chap and a top all-round journalist.”
Colleagues remember Terry Caleno who has died at 73
By KEVIN WALKER
Terry Caleno, a respected former member of the Express Art Desk, has died aged 73. There was no funeral, as he had wished for a direct cremation.
Past colleagues from the Express and Sunday Mirror Art Desks met in the cellar bar of the Walrus & Carpenter, in the shadow of the old Express building in Lower Thames Street, London, for a reunion and tribute to
‘Our Tel’.
Gill Hayden read a wonderful eulogy spiced with humour and along with a few tears. The Sunday Mirror tribute is below.
The three amigos
PUB CHUMS: Craig Mackenzie, Tony Boullemier and Alastair McIntyre
It was Easter, so it must have been time for lunch, although to be honest, when isn’t it time for lunch?
Former Express and everywhere else chums Tony Boullemier, Craig Mackenzie and Alastair McIntyre glanced in to the Flintgate pub in Oatlands, Surrey, for a glass or two and a catch up. Tony was visiting family up the road in Weybridge and as Mackenzie and McIntyre live locally a meeting was a no-brainer as they say these days.
There’s not much more to report except that a good time was had by all and old stories and jokes were told and laughed at as if they were new (they weren’t).
Picture: RIC BOULLEMIER ric@generatemedia.co.uk
MANN OVERBOARD
Last of the Reach print editors axed as Daily Star’s Denis is shown the door
(but at least he outlasted the lettuce)
EXCLUSIVE by SPIKE DIVER
DAILY STAR print editor Denis Mann, who dreamt up the Liz Truss lettuce campaign, has been fired by Reach, after only three months in the chair.
An insider told the Drone that he turned up for work, was summoned to a meeting and told to go home. His work email was immediately disconnected.
Mann, pictured, a former night editor of the Daily Express, is the last of the Reach print editors to get the chop.
His predecessor Jon Clark was shown the door in January after seven years as editor and replaced by online editor-in-chief Ben Rankin. Mann, formerly deputy editor, reported to Rankin as print editor of the Daily Star and Daily Star Sunday.
Clark said of Mann’s lettuce brainwave: “Denis spotted a line in The Economist about the shelf-life of a lettuce and mentioned it to me at the start of the day. We instantly saw the potential of pitting a real lettuce (60p from Tesco) against Wet Lettuce Liz Truss to see who would outlast the other. The video team threw their all at it and Lettuce Cam was born.”
Daily Herald subs c1928
This scene from the late 1920s is fairly typical of any newspaper office up to the 1980s when computers took over. There are spikes, paste pots and a boy to take copy to the printer. Note the young man, top left, making a call on a candlestick telephone. At this time the Daily Herald was owned by the TUC before it was sold to Odhams. In 1964 Odhams revamped the paper and renamed it the Sun. In 1969, with sales still falling, it was sold to Rupert Murdoch — you know the rest.
Daily Express celebrates
its 125th anniversary
THE Daily Express was once viewed as a young upstart as it challenged the dominance of the Daily Mail in the early years of the last century.
Today, April 24 — the day after St George’s Day no less — the paper celebrates its 125th anniversary. A facsimile of the first front page in 1900 is pictured left.
To mark the occasion yesterday’s Express carried a double-page spread written by acclaimed Daily Drone columnist TERRY MANNERS.
The Express editor was gracious enough to add a credit, pictured below, to the Daily Drone which supplied pix.
A full transcript of of Terry Manners’ piece is available HERE
Good lord, m’Lud, it’s our old watering hole thriving in 1884
The date is 1884 in this fine painting by Wilhelm Trübner shows a bustling Ludgate Circus at the foot of Fleet Street, complete with Victorian steam train chuffing over the bridge.
Fascinatingly, the King Lud public house, a favourite watering hole for journalists right up until the 20th century, can be clearly seen.
In 1981 the pub changed its name to the Old King Lud to distinguish itself from the New King Lud which had opened a few doors away.
A brief period of closure in the early 1990s was ended with the pub re-opening in 1993 as the Hogshead in Ludgate, owned by the Whitbread Brewery. It is now part of the Leon restaurant chain.
Trübner was a celebrated portrait and landscape artist who was born in Heidelberg in 1851 and died in 1917 aged 66.
The Daily Drone is published, financed and edited by Alastair ‘Bingo’ McIntyre with contributions from the veteran journalists of old Fleet Street, Manchester, Glasgow, Welsh Wales and the worldwide diaspora. Dedicated to scribblers everywhere.
©Lord Drone, Whom God Preserve 2005-2025
