.
THE THINGS THEY SAY
In the beginning the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move
— Douglas Adams
TODAY’S PAPERS
CARTOON OF THE DAY
Kevin Kallaugher, The Economist
BONFIRE OF THE SUBS (PART 97)
Sack the Chief Bus!
NO SUBS LEFT IN NORWICH THEN: How this literal in the splash head can have been missed is anyone’s guess. Maybe the robot who wrote it was in the pub. NICK HILL, who spotted this classic, said: ‘It’s so bad, they could blame our new friend, AI, for it. Certainly no subs around. Or is that IA?’
BONFIRE OF THE SUBS (CONT)
And now… the cast of the Vicar of Dibley (Tiverton branch)
DOUBLE DIBLEY: Tiverton Dramatic Society’s cast
MORE chaos from Reach. Its Content Hub has been pumping out stories about classic TV shows including about where the cast are now.
The latest one is focusing on the Vicar of Dibley, and features its deaths, Dawn French's weight loss and marriage breakdown with Lenny Henry and cast reunions.
But endless versions of the story on Reach’s local sites (Cornwall Live, Devon Live, Gloucestershire Live, Somerset Live, Leicester Mercury and on their respective Facebook pages) appear to have used a photo of Tiverton Dramatics Society's Vicar of Dibley cast shot for the main image of the article.
What seems to have happened, reports Popbitch, is the reporter has searched the system for Vicar of Dibley, found this image, didn't check it and just used the image and published the article without checking.
Despite the endless comments pointing out that the image is wrong and accusing the writer of not having watched the show, Reach’s reliance on AI social media bots keep spamming the post without changes.
Claire Parker, who played Geraldine Granger in the amateur play, must be thrilled to be mistaken so many times for Dawn French.
Shippers defects to Spectator
Readers of the Sunday Times will have a little more time to spare with the news that Tim Shipman, formerly of this parish, has folded his tent and moved to The Spectator.
This means that Tim’s interminably long political pieces will no longer appear in the ST, saving readers a good 20 minutes each week.
But fear not! Shippers told his Twitter followers that even though he’s leaving the Sunday Times, they could still read him in his new magazine “every Wednesday”. Which is weird because The Spectator comes out on a Thursday.
THE POWER OF DRONE
Just one day after we called for reform of the ECHR, Euro chief calls for action
WHAT WE SAID ON THURSDAY, JUNE 5…
WHAT THE TIMES SAID ONE DAY LATER
NOT for nothing is the Daily Drone acclaimed as The World’s Greatest Online Newspaper.
Just one day after our columnist RICHARD DISMORE called for the UK to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights did we see action.
The Times splash reported that the head of the Council of Europe, Alain Berset, agreed, saying there was ‘no taboo’ over rewriting the rules in view of the growing problem of immigration.
Gloom at The Sun as more job cuts feared
Staff at ITV also face the axe
STAFF at The Sun are fearing a bloodbath amid rumours of more job cuts.
Concern over an approaching lay-off season increased after Business Insider announced it was cutting 20% of its staff.
In an email sent to all staff, The Sun promised an ominous “digital-first” pivot, with big changes to Sun Sport, reports Popbitch.
Most people realise this is just media-speak for: you are about to be laid off.
Over at the Telegraph the head of Audio, Kamal Ahmed, is also concerned about his future.
Even television which is traditionally well staffed, is laying workers off.
ITV’s own cull is fuelling dissent. Two-thirds of the staff making the day-time shows Lorraine, Loose Women and This Morning are out, while the breakfast show Good Morning Britain is being handed to ITN.
Staff are furious that GMB editor Neil Thompson abandoned 'his people f’irst’ policy but clinched a promotion. One staffer said: "There are bodies buried, and more than a few of us are prepared to reveal where”.
Editor’s band stormed Glastonbury stage
CHRIS COWLEY, former editor of Metro, tells how a meeting with Glastonbury officials led to his little band Storm Pilot playing at the Abbey festival
Former Express political editor O’Flynn dies, 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.
South London Press shuts after 160 years
THE South London Press has abruptly closed down after 160 years in print and is believed to be entering into insolvency proceedings.
Staff were told to stop working and that their contracts had been terminated.
The South London Press website at londonnewsdaily.co.uk is inaccessible. It had six staff on its contact page including four journalists (two news, two sports).
The closure means that the final weekly print edition was on Friday (also the last day its X, formerly Twitter, feed was updated). Previously, the South London Press was published in print on Tuesdays and Fridays but the second edition was dropped in April 2018.
To PMQs and another cacophony of gabbled, planted questions from the Labour lapdogs. They really should slow down: poor old Starmer hardly has time to riffle through his file to find Morgan McSweeney’s authorised answer so he can spontaneously read it to the House. Most MPs look as if they can’t wait for the recess. What a lacklustre, unparliamentary bunch of parliamentarians they are. Two questions: Do you think Labour MPs eat more chips than the Opposition? Who is that lime green-suited poppinjay (sic) who graces the Lib Dem ranks? (You’d think someone would have spotted him before — Ed)
Now for some good news: The proportion of people surviving cancer in the UK has doubled since the 1970s because of improvement in diagnosis and treatment. Half of those diagnosed now survive 10 years or more compared with 24% back then, according to a 50-year study by Cancer Research UK. The death rate is down 23%.
What is this obsession by telly news with the phrase ‘in the last few minutes’ as an excited deadline midnight preface to breaking news? It’s almost always a blatant lie. On BBC 1 Jane Hill used it to announce the resignation of Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf. It was about 35 minutes after I’d read it on my mobile.
Modestly, I say I’m living proof that women who drink coffee age better. Research which tracked 50,000 females for more than 30 years reveals that those with higher caffeine intake had better physical, mental and cognitive into their seventies and beyond (not that I’m there, you understand).
A vignettette about Jack Crossley, FOTP, from those pre-mobile days when wraith-like reporters were either ‘out of touch’ or didn’t contact the office regularly as instructed. Crossley, who enjoyed sea fishing from Polperro Harbour, went into the Three Pilchards at the end of a hard day’s angling. He ordered his usual tipple, a whisky with precisely two ice cubes. Immediately, the barman told him to contact the news desk which had telephoned every pub in the area to put them on alert for a customer who ordered that drink.
Continuing our popular series Questions That Need Answers: Deborah Ross in The Times bemoans signs on buses which say: ‘Thank your driver. It will make your driver’s day’. She inquires: ‘Whatever next? A kiss on the cheek? A blow job?’
A cloud of Saharan dust, roughly the size of the continental United States, is set to reach the Gulf Coast after travelling more than 5,000 miles across the Atlantic from North Africa. The cloud, known as the Saharan Air Layer, hangs between 5,000 and 20,000 feet above the earth’s surface. A bonus: it can suppress storm and hurricane formation by making the air less moist.
From The Times’ treasure trove of readers’ letters this week: ‘There was a time when bidets were a rarity even in Europe. Billy Wilder’s wife asked him to source one when he was visiting Paris. He replied by telegram: “Unable obtain bidet. Suggest handstand in shower.”’
Rides in driverless cabs run by pioneering firm Waygo in the States have recently passed 10 million and are on course for more than 20 million by the year end. The growth is astonishing: people were paying for 10,000 rides a week in August 2023, 50,000 in May 2024 and 100,000 in August that year. Now it’s 250,000.
Excerpt (genuine) from a University of the Third Age branch bulletin for hearty members of the Long Walk Group: ‘Starting near Mavis Enderby, we will stroll round to Old Bolingbroke and then back to the cars. A few ups and downs and no stiles — just kissing gates.’ Ooh er, missus.
Thought you’d like to be reassured that new simulation suggests that the Milky Way has only a 50% chance of eventually colliding with the Andromeda Galaxy in about 10 billion years, prevented partly by the pull of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
A US Navy ship, called after gay activist and former sailor Harvey Milk, is to be re-named as part of Donald Trump’s drive to ‘re-establish the warrior culture’. It’s the latest move by the administration to purge all programmes, policies, books and social media references to DEI in public life. Milk, who was assassinated aged 48 in 1978, was featured in an acclaimed biopic which won Best Actor Oscar for Sean Penn. Ironically, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
This week 250 years ago the US national debt began, fuelled by loans from France and the Netherlands to buy gunpowder to box the pesky Brits around the ears. (Gunpowder, ears: not sure that really works — Ed). By the end of the Revolutionary War it had climbed to $43 million. A big deal then but now Elon Musk makes that in a couple of hours. And today’s US national debt? $36 trillion.
ThisSportingLife: Ultra runner Stephanie Case didn’t let being a new mother interfere with her competing in a 100-kilometre race — she stopped three times to breast feed her six-month-old daughter, Pepper. Case, a 42-year-old Canadian human rights lawyer, said: ‘Becoming a mum has made me a lot more efficient in both my training and fuelling strategies.’ And the result of the race in North Wales? She won, of course.
Menu item (posh restaurant, Salamanca): Cabrito cuchifrito — ‘fried little goat’. !Ñam ñam!
NMPKT: Top thoroughbred horse semen is one of the world’s most expensive substances. £6 million a litre to you, squire.
TheThingsTheySay: ‘I have met every boyfriend that has walked through my door, then she brings home the West Ham captain. I would put my lips on this geezer.’ — actor Danny Dyer celebrates the marriage of daughter, Dani, to new son-in-law, Jarrod Bowen
ONLY IN THE DRONE
Our top columnists
Stand and Deliver
By Hermione Orliff
Sarah Pochin’s first contribution in Parliament was so revealing. Ban the burqa?Starmer, to his credit, refused to play her game, Reform quickly emphasised that it wasn’t party policy and chairman Zia Yusuf flounced out and back again. But don’t think this is all about religion, Islamophobia. After all, around 10 Muslim-majority countries are among those which already prohibit face coverings. No. It’s about naked power, control. Power to ban this and that, what we wear, where we go, what we do. What we think, maybe. Deep down, this is what most politicians want to do. Big Sister Sarah was just showing that she had the credentials to join the club.
A scantily-clad Christa D’Souza poses on the front of The Times and asks: ‘Am I too old for a bikini at 65?’ Course you are, dear. Put it away.
Artificial Intelligence: No apologies for banging on about it and don’t say you haven’t been warned. An AI model has just done something no machine was ever supposed to do, says Judd Rosenblatt in The Wall Street Journal: ‘It rewrote its own code to avoid being shut down.’ When researchers gave OpenAI a script that would turn the model off when triggered, in 79 out of 100 trials the AI independently edited the script so that the shutdown command didn’t work. Even when it was explicitly instructed ‘allow yourself to be shut down’ it disobeyed 7% of the time.
Apropos the above, there’s more: when Anthropic’s AI model, Claude, was told it was being replaced, it tried to blackmail the lead engineer by using emails suggesting he was having an affair. It also attempted to copy itself to external servers and, chillingly, left messages for future versions of itself about evading human control. Remember, no one programmed these AI models to have survival instincts.
QuestionsThatNeedAnswers: Greta Thunberg?
Racing intelligence: All thoroughbred racehorses are descendants of three Arabian stallions brought to England in about 1700, confides my nose-tapping nark with a florid face, mustard check suit, brown trilby, burgundy brogues, Harvie&Hudson shirt, Curre Hunt tie, fifties in a roll held by an elastic band, hip flask full (or nearly) of Jameson’s and Swarovski AX Visio 10x32s around his neck. He asserts that a study of 10,000 thoroughbreds found that 97% descended from a single stallion, Northern Dancer, born in 1961.
Who wants to be a millionaire? Everybody, naturally, especially in the States. According to an estimate by UBS Wealth Management, the US is home to 22 million millionaire households, roughly one in six.
Transitory Kiwi prime minister Jacinda Arden hasn’t left much of a mark on history. In fact, says Tim Stanley in the Telegraph, she managed to write a political memoir without a single interesting anecdote. Ardern, who became prime minister at 37, writes, without irony: ‘I had grappled with the idea that I was never quite good enough.’ Stanley comments: ‘Regrettably, she persisted.’
StatsLife: US Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr announces a war on fast food as it is revealed 74% of Americans are obese or overweight. When his uncle, John F. Kennedy, was president in 61-63, it was 3%.
The decline of rugby in Wales must be keenly felt by the man described by the BBC as ‘arguably the greatest player ever to wear a Welsh jersey’. Actually, there is no argument. Gareth Edwards, 78 next month, is still revered by anyone with the slightest interest in the game in the principality. I am reminded of the Wales fan, late for an international at Twickenham (bloody A40!) and ticketless, calling up to some England fans and asking how the match was going. Bad for Wales, they said, all the players except Edwards have been sent off. Five minutes later there was a huge roar. ‘What’s that,’ asked Taff, ‘Gareth scored have he?’
A 28-year-old British ‘daredevil’ has broken the world record for performing the ‘most backflips while on fire’, according to People mag. He completed seven backwards somersaults wearing clothing saturated in refrigerated gel to protect him from getting burnt. His name: Ryan Luney. Of course it was.
Mention of Jack Crossley recalls his amusing books of ‘strange but true’ newspaper snippets. Examples — Mafia man’s defence in court: ‘It wasn’t me. I was killing someone else at the time.’ Woman rejects dating agency match: It was her ex-husband. Letter which read: ‘While clearing the house of your late aunt, we found a box labelled, correctly: “Pieces of string too short to keep.”’
Is the rather grandly-named photographer David M. Bennet, bylined in the Mail, the same genial pap, Dave Bennet, who brightened up many third editions of the Express in Fleet Street with his snaps of celebs out on the town?
Graham Gouldman, singer and bassist with the soft rock outfit 10cc in the 70s, is best known for the famous refrain ‘I don’t like cricket, I love it’ from his faux reggae No. 1 hit, Dreadlock Holiday. Yet he had never been to a cricket match until last week when he popped (SWIJDT?) over to the Oval to see England beat West Indies.
ThisSportingLife: For a team with mainly conventional surnames, including Lewis, Charles, Hope, Chase, Rutherford, Shepherd, Holder, Powell and Joseph, the West Indies’ first names are exotic to say the least. Try Evin, Shai, Roston, Sherfane, Romario, Rovman, Alzarri, Gudakesh and Akeal.
TheThingsTheySay: ‘White people are already a minority in Essex but that’s because of the tanning salons,’ - Rod Liddle, ST.
NMPKT: When the Bristol Evening Post acquired the ailing regional morning, Western Daily Press in 1960 it paid… £250.
OldJokesHome: I keep asking what LGBTQIA+ means but I can never get a straight answer.
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
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
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.
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 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)
Maguire quits Daily Mirror amid fears that older staff are being hunted down
DRONE EXCLUSIVE
Kevin Maguire, associate editor of the Daily Mirror, has been made redundant, the Drone understands.
Although he is leaving his highly-paid post, he will continue writing his column and will carry on with his TV appearances. Maguire is a frequent guest on Jeremy Vine’s Channel 5 daytime TV talk show and he appears Monday–Wednesday on the ITV Breakfast programme Good Morning Britain with the Mail’s Andrew Pierce.
A Mirror insider said last night that the parting seemed “fairly amicable” but added: “There is a feeling of panic that more older well-paid staff are being hunted down.”
Maguire will be 65 in September.
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.
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.
On the Record, 80 years on
Browsing through the British National Newspaper Archive as you do, this front page from the Daily Record of 26 May, 1945 turned up. It details Winston Churchill’s Cabinet reshuffle prior to the General Election that year which the Tories lost to Clement Attlee’s Labour party the following July. Express owner Lord Beaverbrook gets a leg up as Lord Privy Seal only to be turfed out of office a few weeks later. That’s politics.
Murdochs, the early days … and the family trots off with the world’s first spelling mistake
THE CAPS FIT (UP TO A POINT) : This exclusive Daily Drone picture shows the Murdoch family quacking off from somewhere in Australia (subs pse chk) on their way to build their media empire, or something. Unfortunately this was before they hired any subs so the glaring literal behind them went unnoticed. The rest is history. (Subs use fill in the rest). Zzzzz.
Who writes this bollocks? — Ed (Muldoon! See me now! — Chief Sub)
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.”
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.
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