.
THE THINGS THEY SAY
Fashions come and go; bad taste is timeless
— Regency dandy Beau Brummell
TODAY’S PAPERS
CARTOON OF THE DAY
Peter Brookes, The Times
DRONE TV
FLEET STREET AT WAR
If you have ever wondered how journalists and printers managed to get the newspapers out during the Blitz, this fascinating film answers a lot of questions. Runtime 10.28 mins.
YOU READ IT HERE FIRST!
Caroline Waterston to step down as Mirror editor just as we predicted
Chloe Hubbard, left, is replacing Caroline Waterston
THE news broke yesterday that Mirror editor-in-chief Caroline Waterston was on the way out — THREE DAYS after the Daily Drone announced her impending departure.
Waterston, who will leave at the end of the year, had been in the job for less than two years. She will be succeeded by Chloe Hubbard, who has been UK editor at The Independent since the start of this year.
Hubbard’s start date will be announced later. Her remit, like Waterston’s, will also mean leading Reach’s magazines team including OK!.
MONDAY’S DRONE
Waterston’s departure comes shortly after a shake-up at Reach that saw Express editor-in-chief Tom Hunt become editorial director (brands), with the editors of the Mirror, Express and Star reporting to him. They remained “responsible for maintaining and developing distinctive brands with growing, loyal audiences”.
The Mirror was understood to have been among the hardest-hit titles by redundancies at Reach this autumn.
Just over half of National Union of Journalists members at the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror (95% of those who participated in the ballot) voted in favour of strike action, as reported in October, but no action has taken place.
Reach chief content officer David Higgerson said: “Caroline has led the Mirror with talent, integrity, and personal commitment.
“Under her guidance, the title has continued to hold power to account and to produce impactful campaigning journalism that has made a genuine difference. We wish her every success in her next chapter.”
EXCLUSIVE FROM THE DRONE GRAINY PIX DEPT
London Evening News staff meet for lunch, 45 years on
By BARRY GARDNER
Forty-five years after it closed the London Evening News managed to assemble most of its first team for a celebratory Christmas lunch on Tuesday (Dec 9).
Brilliantly organised by the last LEN News Editor Charles Garside, twenty-one former members of the ‘happiest office in Fleet Street’ gathered at The Punch Tavern, just around the corner from the old Associated Newspapers offices.
There were toasts to absent friends as several dozen bottles of wine were demolished.
As a mark of appreciation for his skills in corralling the motley crew of reporters, subs and feature writers Charles was presented with a rare copy of the last edition of the LEN, dated October 31st, 1980, signed by everyone present.
“Still a bloody good read,” he said.
Those at the lunch: Mike Ryder, Guy Simpson, Lee Rodwell, Paul Henderson, David Meilton, Colin Adamson, Helen Minsky, Kevin Murphy, Mia Scammell, Michael Crozier, Peter Dobbie, John McShane, Spencer Bright, John Blake, Charles Garside, Andrew Hogg, Jeff Edwards, Simon Brodbeck, Stan Slaughter, Ann Morris, Barry Gardner.
EVERY MONDAY (nominations welcome)
HERBERT OF THE WEEK
Jeremy Corbyn
DOPEY: The inaugural conference of Jeremy Corbyn’s new party, daftly named Your Party was a complete shambles and his co-founder Zarah Sultana boycotted the opening day.
For some reason they eschewed the chance to pick the obvious name, the Fruit and Nut Party.
Pity the Mail’s Dan Hodges as he skulks in his Derry Street eyrie awaiting the High Court process servers bearing libel writs on behalf of the Chancer of the Exchequer. They must be on the way, mustn’t they? After all, he’s just written an article in which he accuses Reeves of lying. Eight times. (And not an ‘allegedly’ in sight — Cocklecarrot, KC). In addition, he says she is guilty of mendacity and of being a purveyor of dishonesty and deceitfulness. You don’t need to reach for your battered copy of McNae to know that these statements must be defamatory, capable of inducing feelings of public hatred, contempt or ridicule about the Chancer. Mind you, if they’re substantially true, Dan might just get away with it.
Just settled down with the morning papers, waiting for it to get light and contemplating my first drink of the day (Stop it! - Ed) when I utter a howl loud enough to send Crusader the cat scuttling up the curtains. My Telegraph had just told me that Save the Children’s Christmas Jumper Day has been renamed Winter Jumper Day by some primary schools in the interests of ‘inclusivity’. The charity’s big Christmas fundraiser has just been held and thousands of schools took part. Most kids were dressed in Christmas jumpers because it is, er, Christmas. Critics have said the decision was ‘outrageous’ and ‘utterly ridiculous’. As London Assembly Tory leader Susan Hall says: ‘What’s wrong with children celebrating Christmas in our schools?’
Apropos the above, those who were there well remember attending Kingston Crown Court just before Christmas in 2014. On trial were four Sun journalists accused of making payments to public officials following the Operation Elvedon witch hunt. There was an intentionally intimidatory atmosphere in court. The journos were even locked in the dock. So everyone was on alert when the jury foreman asked if he could pass a note to the judge. What was going on? Were the jury about to throw a procedural bombshell? Judge Marks considered the note, peered over his specs and announced that the 12 good men etc wished to wear Christmas jumpers next day. Did anyone object, he asked. Silence in court.
It’s worth noting that all 29 journalists accused by the CPS under an obscure, ancient law were eventually cleared. No prizes for guessing who was DPP at the time but he’s the twat currently running the country (into the ground).
A so-called mixologist in his so-called column in the Drone (above right) advises on how to prepare a so-called G&T. Tall glass: tick; plenty of ice: tick; hearty measure of decent gin: tick; crushed juniper berries: tick (ish); lemon: oh dear me, No! It’s got to be lime, love: A sharper acidity and a bright, tangy freshness with a slightly more bitter note than lemon. Nelson’s Navy wasn’t wrong. Lime then was considered gin’s classic and historical garnish and kept scurvy at bay. After all, our American cousins don’t call us Lemonys, do they?
Leading global encryption organisation the International Association for Cryptologic Research was unable to announce who had won its leadership election…because an official lost one of the encrypted keys needed to access the results.
Envy is a deadly sin as we know. But it’s hard to look across the Atlantic and not feel a pang or two. The US Department of Homeland Security has just signed a $140 million deal for six Boeing 737s to use for migrant deportations. The planes will save $279million annually in taxpayer dollars by ‘improving the efficiency of flight patterns’. There have been more than 1,700 deportation flights to 77 countries since January. That’s 579,000 people. The department hopes to deport a million by the end of Trump’s first year in office.
To listen to some you’d think that Russia was going to win the Ukraine war and then take over Europe, if not the world. But after almost four years of conflict, the country’s economy is falling apart, says Simon Tisdall in The Guardian. Oil and gas income, which represents up to 50% of state revenue, is down 27%, YOY. Inflation is 8%; interest rates topping 16%. Its deficit is rising to fund the war and import costs of strategic goods have risen by 122%. Russians are even having to pay more to drown their sorrows: the price of vodka is up 5%.
White storks, extinct as breeding birds since 1416, are set to return to Britain next year as part of a rewilding project in Barking and Dagenham of all places. The scheme will also see beavers reintroduced to the flooded gravel pits in the area.
New Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is obviously not someone to fuck about. She kicked work-life balance into touch by assembling her fledgling team for a meeting…at 3am. It wasn’t because of a national emergency either but a three-hour ‘study session’ to prepare for an upcoming appearance in parliament. Media criticised her for contributing to a culture of overwork.
In case anyone thought things were getting better at the Louvre, recently hit by an outrageous $102 million theft and flooding, pesky workers at the world’s most visited museum have voted to go on strike.
Regular readers will recall that this diary called time on the Zack Crawley experiment long before the Ashes squad was even selected. It’s a tragedy really because, along with Gower, Vaughan and the sublime Thorpe, he has been one of the finest English exponents of the cover drive in 40 or so years. Sometimes. Then, again, he is guilty of some dreadfully loose play: waving his bat about miles from his body, his head in the air. Close fielders love him; they know it’s only a matter of time. He’ll last the tour though but then he has to go. And don’t get me started on Brook.
Following my snippetette about a former duchess’s relaxed attitude to paying the bill run up through her VIP Selfridges account, Popbitch says she also liked to spread her custom around other high end stores. Thus, she was included when Harvey Nichols issued all the prominent royal females with a store card. Most didn’t use them except for one, who maxed out her card and never cleared the balance.
TheThingsTheySay: ‘Officialdom went madly, wickedly didactic. It was springtime for goose-steppers.’ — Quentin Letts in the Mail recalls how bureaucrats relished imposing restrictions during the pandemic.
HeadlineOfTheWeek: ‘Lightning Bum’ Is The Shock Symptom Striking Brits Several Times A Month — Metro.
NMPKT: Merridale Road in Wolverhampton was the childhood home of Enoch Powell and Mary Whitehouse. They lived next door but one.
OldJokesHome: If you know of anyone who’ll be eating Christmas dinner alone because they have no family or close friends, let me know asap...I need to borrow some chairs.
It’sOnlyMoney: Labour-run Camden council spent nearly £11,000 on taxi fares in 24-25 to supplement the duties of the mayor’s full-time chauffeur. One police force spent £1.2 million on equality, diversity and inclusion roles and related training despite its chief constable recently complaining about budgets.
NIBS
Hearst is cutting 26 roles at the Dallas Morning News, a paper it acquired less than two months ago. Union The Dallas News Guild says the entire copy desk, including sports, is being eliminated. (D Magazine)
Manchester Mill is launching its first membership campaign, handing out 50,000 copies in the city in hopes of adding 1,000 pay-what-you-want subscribers in the coming weeks. (Linkedin)
A news reporter has been fired after requesting an investigation into their editor’s AI use. Florida nonprofit Suncoast Searchlight had four reporters tell the board their editor-in-chief was using AI editing tools and inserting hallucinations into drafts. (Nieman Lab)
Peers are calling on the government to block UAE-backed RedBird IMI from overseeing any sale of The Telegraph. Lord Fox said the group’s failed takeover attempt left “financial wreckage” and urging the investment group does not drive any new sale process. (The Telegraph)
Hickey ed sacked for his addiction to lunch
FORMER William Hickey editor CHRISTOPHER WILSON remembers his predecessor Richard Berens, friend of royalty, habitué of Boodles, who was seldom spotted at his desk.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Stand and Deliver
By Hermione Orliff
This hype about the rise of the Greens and their snaggle-toothed leader: let’s have a bit of context. Rory Stewart says he was horrified after speaking to Zack Polanski about the economy. He tells Leading, a sister podcast to The Rest is Politics, that Polanski had no idea how much Britain spends on debt interest payments, didn’t know the difference between debt and the deficit and thought the top rate of tax was 40% not 45%. Says Stewart: ‘Polanski told me I had been unfair because he hadn’t been ready for that line of questioning. “I’m an actor,” he said. “I can get up on those things with a bit more warning.” Sorry, but for the leader of a party polling at around 20% – and for someone wanting to tear up our entire economic system – that’s not good enough.’
Oh, what a kerfuffle as the UK is said to be edging towards approving China’s giant new embassy in London, despite warnings it could become an espionage HQ…with a gift shop attached. Downing Street insists the plan actually improves security by corralling China’s seven diplomatic sites into one heavily monitored fortress near the Tower of London. Beijing is said to be furious at delays to the proposed building. Our Architecture Correspondent says there is no truth in the suggestion that the embassy will be constructed in wood as a huge horse.
The zealotry hand-wringers in the ‘climate crisis’ industry are always trying to scare the pants off us (Have a care — Ed) but often their ‘truths’ are a little askew. The Free Press reports that science journal Nature retracted a paper that made the striking – and, it turned out, quite incorrect – claim that climate change would reduce global economic output by 62% by the end of the century. Ahem. A group of sceptical scientists decided to investigate. Guess what? They found that the underlying data suggested a loss of 23%, not 62%, and a 6% loss by 2050, not, as the paper had it, 19%.
Sadiq Khan has spent £253,967 on diversity training for City Hall staff since coming to office in 2016. The annual bills vary from £4,993 to £57,077, according to a written answer. City Hall says: ‘It is important to note that we do not record the costs associated with training delivered internally by GLA staff, as this is considered part of their core responsibilities and is absorbed within existing roles.’ Guido Fawkes comments: ‘The actual spending is likely to be far higher, especially considering staff are mandated to spend entire days on climate activism training.’
Look, I’m not saying I told you so. But I told you so. Trumpo has been awarded the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize at a glittering ceremony in Washington DC. You’ll recall being given a heads-up by this diary on November 19. In other news, the World Cup draw took place at the same event.
The Royal Navy’s Type 23 frigate HMS Lancaster was expected to serve 18 years when she was launched. Now 35 years later she is being retired after almost 35 years’ service. In that time the 4,500-tonne warship has spent 4,097 days at sea and has sailed 816,000 nautical miles – equivalent to 37½ times around the world or almost two return trips to the Moon.
We may have missed Grace, Hobbs and Hammond but we’re all grateful that we lived at the same time as Joe Root (even though he hasn’t enabled us to regain the Ashes). It gives me the opportunity to repeat the tale of when Joe, a mere sprog, was in line to be Sports Personality of the Year at his comp in Sheffield. When he arrived home on the day the victor was announced, his Mum, who, incidentally, was at the Gabba to see his latest century, said: ‘Did you win?’ ‘No,’ replied Joe, ‘they gave it to some girl called Jessica Ennis.’
Nearly €86,000 worth of snails have been stolen from a farm in north east France. Police say they’re on the trail.
A 112-year-old Fabergé egg has sold at auction for a record-breaking £22.9 million. Commissioned by Tsar Nicholas II in 1913 as an Easter present for his mother, the 10cm tall Winter Egg is crafted from rock crystal, with a snowflake motif and encrusted with 4,500 tiny diamonds. The sale tops the previous £8.9 million record paid in 2007 for a Fabergé egg created for the Rothschild family.
The Drone pictures four elderly gentlemen replete after slurping comforting broth and scoffing cut-up French delicacies at a Christmas do in a Covent Garden eatery. If this is the beating heart of the World’s Greatest Lunch Club, Gawd help the other two members who couldn’t make it.
Remember when China was panicking over its booming population? The number of births per family were severely restricted. How times change. The population has shrunk for three consecutive years, with just 9.54 million births in 2024. That’s barely half of the 18.8 million registered nearly a decade ago when the one-child policy was scrapped. Trust politicians to come up with an answer, though: China has now started taxing contraceptives as a way to improve the birthrate.
Another Tom Stoppard titbit: Sitting with the great man at a dinner, Craig Raine says in The Spectator that his wife desperately wanted to tell him he was the best playwright since Shakespeare. Says Raine: ‘She resisted but I wrote to him about her repressed impulse, adding that even for a man so accustomed to receiving “fulsome compliments”, it might have been difficult to respond. He wrote back brilliantly: “Surely she means since Aeschylus?”’
Much excitement in New Jersey where Pantone, best known for its proprietary colour naming system, announces its Colour of the Year. It’s Cloud Dancer, which, to those less up their own bums, is sort of white.
HeadlineOfTheWeek: Woman Hit Partner With Wooden Giraffe — Aberdeen Press & Journal.
NMPKT: Last year the world produced 791 trillion pounds of plastic that will end up in landfills.
TheThingsTheySay: ‘She's tall and chesty and long-haired, which men of a certain age prefer on their barmaids, not on a minister. They would like her far more if she had a sensible bob and the agonised self-loathing of a Mounjaro mummy.’ — Susie Boniface in Street Of No Shame on why men are wary of Angela Rayner.
SportSnap: India have now lost the toss in 20 consecutive One Day Internationals. The probability of that happening is 1 in 1,048,576.
It’sOnlyMoney: The Arts Council gave a £95,000 grant to artists in Brighton for ‘Skip’, a rubbish dumpster outlined with yellow lights. Crawley Council spent £5,070 on 12,200 hot drinks from vending machines for council employees, when the equivalent number of tea bags would have cost just £200.
ONLY IN THE DRONE
Our great columnists
Gaiety at Eighty for Tony
IT was nosebags all round for the Class of 1970 when former Expressman Tony Boullemier took his old friends out to dinner to celebrate his upcoming 80th birthday.
Adding to the entertainment was Kelvin MacKenzie, who got married for the third time earlier this year. He confided that each time he marries he moves a junction or two of the M25. He is currently at Junction 11 and he confessed that he is currently considering Junction 16.
Pictured at the Queen’s Head in Weybridge, Surrey, are Kelvin MacKenzie, Julia Boullemier (Tony’s daughter-in-law), Alastair ‘Bingo’ McIntyre (appearing by kind permission of Lord Drone), Chris ‘Lady Bingo’ McIntyre, Craig Mackenzie, Lesley MacKenzie (Kelvin’s wife), Tony ‘Monsewer’ Boullemier, and his son Richard ‘Ric’ Boullemier.
NOT DEAD YET…
Nosebags for the aged
The rump of the World’s Greatest Lunch Club met for their regular soirée yesterday at their old haunt of the Boulevard in London’s Covent Garden. Their numbers have been reduced in recent years by death and illness. Still keeping the Grim Reaper at bay are, from left to right, Pat Pilton, Alastair ‘Bingo’ McIntyre, Alan ‘Frambo’ Frame and Little Dicky Dismore.
Richard Compton Miller, the last of the gossips from the great days of Fleet Street has died at the age of 80. He had been in hospital with pneumonia when he caught an infection and had also been suffering from Parkinson’s Disease.
The funeral is on Tuesday December 16, at 1.30 at the Temple Church, Middle Temple.
Compton Miller dies at 8o
The Drone is particularly sad to announce the death of one of the funniest men in Fleet Street, Express sub-editor John Mulcock.
Mullers, as everyone called him, died on 18 October at the age of 81.
Drone editor Alastair McIntyre said: ‘Mullers was a great and dear friend and our joint insanity helped to keep us both sane during crazy and stressful days on the Express in the Noughties. I grieve for him.’
Tony Boullemier said: ‘A top sub and an extremely funny man. If he wasn't firing off a quip, he was saying something that you just knew was leading up to one.
‘And when political correctness spread over newsrooms in the 90s, he was one of the last journos to ignore it.’
John Mulcock
TIMES READERS’ LIVES TRIBUTE
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)
DX lawyer Stephen Bacon dies at 79
Stephen Bacon, one of the great Daily Express lawyers and a thoroughly nice man, has died. He was 79 and had been suffering from prostate cancer.
Stephen practised for 11 years in Manchester chambers before joining Express Newspapers from where he retired as head of legal. He later became a media law consultant mainly for The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun.
Stephen leaves a wife, Felicity, who is a retired Express features sub, and a daughter, Cleo.
Hot metal, hot off the press
PETER PHEASANT, pictured, who retired as night editor of the Nottingham Post five years ago, has turned his talents to writing.
His debut novel, Manfishing, is about the exploits of an ambitious young reporter on a weekly newspaper in the dying days of hot metal.
Manfishing is set in the fictional Midlands town of Brexham when stories were bashed out on typewriters in smoky newsrooms, long before the age of the internet.
It follows the exploits of Simon Fox, a small-time reporter with big ideas. Anything that’s fit to print makes the pages of the broadsheet Brexham Bugle, from court cases and council reports to weddings and whippet racing.
As Fox seeks out the next front-page scoop, he meets a cast of colourful characters, including a disabled pensioner who is being terrorised out of his home and an Auschwitz survivor pleading for help to save her sick grandchild.
But he knows nothing of the secret alliance between a corrupt detective and a violent skinhead.
Meanwhile, Fox is grappling with tragedy at home. And when the Bugle’s century of independence ends with a takeover, he is on a collision course with the new owners.
NATURE NOTES
With DAISY HEDGEROW-CORDUROY
ENGANGERED SPECIES
The lesser spotted
Daily Express reader
TERRY HAMILTON, (Daily Express and Daily Star, Manchester, 1968-87) spotted this rare sighting on his travels.
If anyone knows the identity of this gentleman please let the Drone know so we can put him in a museum along with a copy of the Daily Express … at least one will be STUFFED.
There is a alternative explanation for this — he may be using the paper to wrap up his fish and chips
Stand aside le Carré, Seed’s written another spy thriller
"Where The Past Lies" is the fifth political thriller from ex-Daily Mail and TV journalist, Geoffrey Seed.
Former Mirror executive, the late Revel Barker, published Seed’s debut novel which led an Amazon best-seller list for three months.
Seed's wife says writing books is just his way of pretending he's no longer on the road. This is his side of the slur.
A MONOCLE-POPPING MOMENT AT THE EXPRESS
Do you mean us, Annie?
WHAT-HO! Express subs Alastair ‘Bingo’ McIntyre, Bob ‘Algy’ Smith and John ‘Bertie’ Brooks enjoying a refreshing glass of supper some time in the 1980s
MUCH has been written on these pages about the madcap Dronery on the Daily Express during the 1980s and 90s and our man TERRY MANNERS has found more evidence.
He writes: While browsing yet more publishing archives I came across this revealing quote from an interview with a local councillor for Salisbury, named Annie Riddle, pictured, in the December issue of the digital magazine Inside Salisbury.
Sounds fascinating, eh?
Talking about her time as a sub-editor in Fleet Street, she says: “When I was at the Express. There were a bunch of young lads there, four of them, they were very good, but they used to push it.
“They had this thing called the Drones Club and would pretend to be characters out of Bertie Wooster with the monocles and this would go on for the whole shift…
“Fleet Street was very male-dominated then. Heavy drinking was the norm but there was a lot of fun and I worked with some really clever people.”
Who could she be talking about, I wonder?”
(Drone editor dives under nearest desk)
SAVED FOR THE NATION
How our man Wilson rescued the only monument to UK journalism from being ground into powder
You may never have seen this magnificent sculpture but the fact that you can still visit it is down to one man — former Hickey editor CHRISTOPHER WILSON.
The monument, confusingly called The Three Printers, was sculpted by Wilfred Dudeney in 1954 and represents not three printers but one.
It stood for years in New Street Square, off Fleet Street, until Wilson noticed it had disappeared.
Some swift detective work located the statue in a Watford builder’s yard awaiting the crusher.
Mail jobs cull as it tries to find £500m to buy the Telegraph
The Daily Mail Group’s desired £500m buyout of The Telegraph is so ambitious that the Mail is massively scaling back operations to save enough cash for it, writes Popbitch.
In the last couple of days every department at the paper has been informed of heavy cuts and redundancies — yesterday it was the Femail team blindsided. Journalists still there are telling each other they’re employed “for today”, without holding out much hope for tomorrow.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has said she will review any buyer, and it seems inconceivable that a Labour government would willingly allow an even bigger, rabidly anti-Labour consolidation to form.
But just in case, some Telegraph journos are getting their Plan B’s together. The latest journalist reportedly being tapped up for a future Reform MP run? Congratulations to Allison Pearson!
WHAT AN INSULT
Reach journalists who tuned into staff meeting to learn their fate are instead urged to buy a ‘beauty box’
Morale at the Reach national newspapers have plunged to rock bottom as the few remaining journalists fear for their jobs.
The publisher of the Express, Mirror and Star titles has announced it will cut hundreds of jobs as it pivots to video and plans to share more content across its titles.
There will 321 redundancies and 135 new roles in the shake-up.
One worried staffer told the Drone: “Those of us still currently employed at Reach were invited to a Town Hall with [Reach CEO] Piers North to update us on ‘Q3’.
“Someone called Emma popped up to tell us about ‘brand diversification’ including advent calendars and something called a ‘TikTok Viral Beauty Box’ which apparently are all selling fast — so staff who had tuned in to find out if they would be homeless by Christmas were urged to put our orders in straight away.
“Apart from anything else we have such a huge workload now we don’t have time to listen to such guff — I logged off the ongoing meeting to contact the Drone instead but my nose isn’t far from the grindstone. It’s so insulting.”
All Assistant Chief Sub-Editors on the Express have been put into a pool with downtable subs on both papers and a committee of chiefs are deciding who stays and who goes.
Only the Deputy Chief Subs from both titles (including the Sunday Mirror) are in a separate pool of six and two were going to be culled, but two volunteered and one was promoted to replace the Mirror chief who has taken voluntary redundancy.
Our contact said: “We’re not expecting to have much longer even if we don’t get the elbow this time.”
THE POWER OF DRONE
Palace acts TWO DAYS after we called for Prince Andrew to be stripped of all his daft titles
Alan Frame’s column on 14 October
Here’s proof that the Daily Drone is read in the highest social circles — including the King.
Just two days after our columnist Alan Frame suggested it was time to remove Prince Andrew’s titles the Palace acted — and did just that.
Fleet Street caught up last night …
NAMES WHO MADE THE DAILY EXPRESS GREAT
TOM BROWN reports: Cleaning out old files including some historic newspapers, I came across the attached memo. The subject matter — expenses in 1977 — is of course important. But the real interest is in the list of names — some of the most outstanding journalists ever who every day made the Express the marvellous paper it was in those days.
The memo is signed by the late, great Morris Benett.
The things they used to say on 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'.”
KELVIN SPIKED MY SPLASH
(Another case of F for you know what)
CHRISTOPHER WILSON was elated. He had a great story about Selena Scott replacing Anna Ford as ITN News At Ten’s token woman. Big news in 1980.
Trouble was, Daily Express night editor Kelvin MacKenzie didn’t like the story and a row ensued. But Kelvin being Kelvin they were pals again by the following day.
YOU MUST BE JOKING!
Reach bosses boast about their ‘great journalism’ after sacking
all their most experienced staff
Who are they kidding? This absurd post has appeared on LinkedIn
A PLAGUE ON YOUR PLAGIARISM
Daily Express nicked our stories, say two writers
Two journalists have accused the Daily Express of plagiarising their stories and publishing the copy under another reporter’s byline.
Daniel Puddicombe, a freelance journalist, said he is livid after his Telegraph feature on a coast-to-coast train in Mexico was was apparently copied by the Daily Express site. The piece is under another journalist’s name, and was published six days after The Telegraph.
Puddicombe said he is certain it is his work that has been lifted as he is “the first and only non-Mexican journalist who travelled on that railway line and to have been in contact with the military and the Navy”.“There is absolutely no chance that anybody else could have done that,” he told Press Gazette.
He added another piece he wrote for the Telegraph about “Portugal’s Presidential Train” has also been “recycled” for the site, but it “at least references me and my original piece”. This second article did not appear to be written by AI, according to Pangram.
Both of Puddicombe’s articles lifted by the Daily Express were published on 18 October. He received an offer of £100 per article after reaching out to the Daily Express, which he declined and described as an “insult” as “less than one-third” of what he was paid per article.
Another journalist, who asked not to be named, claimed the Daily Express lifted their piece and published it under someone else’s name. It did refer to the journalist’s original work, but they were prompted to invoice the Daily Express by a journalist Facebook group. They were again offered £100.
Mind the steps…
MALCOM TATTERSALL says that if Justice Secretary David Lammy really wants to end the long delays in our judicial system, he should bring back “the police station steps”.
GONG BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
AH, this fair takes a chap back to the old days when a bollocking from Sunday Express editor Eve Pollard earned the victim a medal.
This little gem was found in the effects of the late SX executive Phil Durrant by his widow Helen.
She said: ‘I have a lot of stuff to sort that was being stored. I found this with a safety pin on the back to wear as a badge, in Phil's stuff!'
Former Sunday Express exec Peter ‘Stewpot’ Steward told the Drone: ‘I don't know why everyone on the Sunday Express during Eve’s reign of terror didn't get one.’
Henry Macrory remembers that the 'badges' were created by the late Sheila Copsey.
Snapper Harry leaves Bolton to join his chums in the North
The annual Christmas gathering of hacks at the Crown and Kettle, Ancoats, Manchester on December 11 drew a larger attendance than usual this year, writes George Dearsley.
There was new blood in Kay Shelley (Manchester Evening News 1968-70) and Jan Disley (ex Daily Mirror). Also, snapper Harry McGuire (pictured) was finally tempted to leave Bolton for our reunion.
They joined regulars, including Peter Grimsditch (launch editor of The Daily Star in 1978), Alan Nixon, Phil Thomas, Malcolm Tattersall, Mike Hughes, Steve Lord, Charlie Yates, Russ Jenkins, Andy Russell and George Dearsley.
Express sales plunge after puzzles redesign cock-up
SALES of the Daily Express have haemorrhaged after an ill thought out redesign of its popular puzzles pages.
Frustrated readers deserted the sinking ship after changes to bring puzzles in line with the Mirror to save cash.
Bosses were forced into an about-face and published a grovelling apology promising to restore puzzles into their old format.
What the powers that be have failed to understand that readers hate redesigns, taking the view that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
The Express has undergone many rejigs over the years, including a switch from broadsheet to tabloid which did little to stem the relentless plunge in circulation.
Meanwhile they can’t even get the Page One blurbs right with one reading: “FREE Family size bottle at of Coca -Cola.”
An insider told the Drone: “Everyone is struggling with this new regime. The subs are swamped.”
That’ll be all my good man: Daily Mail’s butler retires after 46 years of service
THINGS are getting serious at the Mail, not only have they made 16 reporters on Femail redundant, they have also lost the services of the in-house ‘butler’.
The gentlemen’s gentleman, who padded round Northcliffe House with a silver tray laden with pink gins, has retired after 46 years. He was known as the Fleet Street Jeeves, a misnomer if there ever was one, because Jeeves was never a butler, he was a valet.
There is no word yet if the butler will be replaced but the Drone understands that Jacob Rees-Mogg doesn’t have much on his plate at the moment.
In other news, The Mail’s putative purchase of the Telegraph hasn’t even been announced as a done deal yet, but DMG’s bosses are wasting no time marking their territory.
Up on the second floor of DM towers, staffers have noticed a new publication has been added to the lightbox of the organisation’s titles.
Right next to the logos for The i Paper, Metro and Weekend Mail - welcome to … The Telegraph!
Observer Sport hits rock bottom with this daft front page
Look, we on the Drone enjoy schoolboy humour as much as the next man but this front page of this week’s Observer sports section has crossed the bounds of acceptability.
It’s not funny, it’s not clever and it has no relevance to the story to which it refers, England’s poor cricketing performance so far in the Ashes in Australia.
In fact it doesn’t refer to cricket at all and the pic has no connection with the sport.
The rest of The Observer was well subbed and attractively laid out so maybe the Sports Editor and his minions should go back to journalism school.
As more and more experienced journalists are shown the door, this is the sad result.
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
