.
THE THINGS THEY SAY
‘Success didn’t spoil me; I’ve always been insufferable’
— America author Fran Lebowitz
FRONT PAGES
CARTOON OF THE DAY
Patrick Blower, Torygraph
Congrats Kelvin!
Former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie got married to his partner Lesley in London. They are pictured at Claridges after the ceremony. The Daily Drone wishes them every happiness for the future.
Ten facts you didn’t know about the Murdoch family
(Or were too bored to ask)
1 When James Murdoch met his now wife Kathryn he was living in New York City and she was in Australia. For their second date he suggested they met in Hawaii. As you do.
2 Many Murdoch watchers thought James Murdoch was the main source for the Succession TV series.
3 James Murdoch and his wife thought it was Liz, who swore it wasn't her but thought it was her ex-husband Matthew Freud.
4 Succession writers said Freud had offered to spill the beans to them but they declined his offer.
5 ”I cannot exaggerate what a terrible person he is" — Kathryn Murdoch on Matthew Freud.
6 ”Fox and our papers are the only faintly conservative voices against the monolithic liberal media. I believe maintaining this is vital to the future of the English-speaking world". Rupert Murdoch actually said that to his ex-wife on why Lachlan should get the family business.
7 After the Succession episode where Logan Roy dies, Liz Murdoch and her reps got in a panic about how the family would deal with Murdoch's death.
8 They contacted James's representative about it, but he replied to them that they didn't watch Succession: "Me and James watch Shogun.”
9 The plan for the Queen's death was called Project London Bridge, the Murdoch one has been named Project Bridge.
10 Er, that’s it.
The Eringer Chronicles
INVESTIGATIVE reporter Robert Eringer, whose intriguing CV includes work as a nonfiction book author, undercover operative for FBI Counterintelligence and spymaster to Prince Albert II of Monaco has written two excellent pieces about Fleet Street.
Our man Clements signs major six-figure deal with Viking
EXCLUSIVE By RICHARD DISMORE
Best-selling author Rory Clements, a former Expressman, has landed a six-figure deal to write three books for a new publisher, Viking.
Clements, whose historical novels have sold more than a million copies in the UK alone, has twice won the Crime Writers’ Association Historical Dagger Award.
His first book for Viking, part of the Penguin publishing group, is called Evil in High Places and is due to come out in hardback in August. It comes on the heels of his final book for Bonnier Zaffre, A Cold Wind From Moscow, which is in bookshops now and on Amazon. Evil in High Places is set during the German Olympics of 1936 and is his second book featuring a new protagonist, Detective Sebastian Wolff.
The synopsis reads: “All eyes are on Bavaria for the upcoming Olympic Games. As athletes fight for gold and the Nazis fight for power, Detective Sebastian Wolff faces a battle of his own: a spate of murders has left Munich’s aristocracy shaken and he has been ordered to solve the case, fast.“But this is a country arming for war, and corruption runs deep. In a search that will take him from high society to the city’s darkest corners, Wolff will soon learn just how fine the line is between justice and jeopardy.”
Viking editorial director Rosa Schierenberg said of her new star signing: “As a longtime fan, I am delighted that Rory has decided to make Viking his new home. He is a superlative storyteller who combines the flair of his very best espionage with the rich historical detail and brilliant plotting of authors like Robert Harris and Philip Kerr.
“We have hugely ambitious plans for Rory and can’t wait to introduce thousands of new readers to the inimitable detective Sebastian Wolff.”
Clements, who lives in Norfolk with his wife, the painter Naomi Clements-Wright, said he was “thrilled” to be joining the Viking team. “Their energy and creativity inspires me with great confidence for the next stage of my career.”
The Daily Drone understands that Clements, 75, did not seek to switch publishers but was “head-hunted”. Penguin Viking, which also publishes Richard Osman, John le Carré and the Obamas, approached his agent, Teresa Chris, and negotiations began. Bonnier fought to keep him but lost out.
Clements came to novel writing after a successful career as a Fleet Street journalist. He was a sub-editor on the Daily Express and had senior roles on the Daily Mail, Today and Eve Pollard’s Sunday Mirror.
THE HONOURABLE MEMBER
Remember the Country Boys, the gay little column that ran in the Drone for years? Thought not.
Well listen, luvs, Oliver is back! This time as a Labour MP. Ooh, just fancy that! And we all look forward to him standing erect in the Chamber for his maiden speech, don’t we? Oh, please yourselves. Interested? Read on … you know it makes sense! (It doesn’t — Ed
NEW TODAY
IN WHICH I SPY A LIB DEM DOG’S COCK ACROSS A CROWDED DIVISION LOBBY
A Remembrance of Newspapers Past by PAT PRENTICE, a new weekly memoir only in the Drone
ONLY IN THE DRONE
Our top columnists
Warning: This column contains (Enough trigger warnings — Ed)
Angela Rayner’s never going to be fashion icon, is she? She tries but rarely succeeds. However, there were some approving glances as she sashayed into Westminster Abbey for the Commonwealth Day Service of Celebration dressed in eye-catching red. Trouble was, a short time afterwards in strode a genuine fashion leader and the world’s most photographed woman. The Princess of Wales looked stunning, also in red. Poor Ange, second again.
Trust the Marvellous Ms Midgley in The Times to venture where lady columnists usually fear to tread. Apparently, she confides, pube transplants are all the rage.
It appears that over-zealous shaving/trimming/plucking of the nether regions has meant that some lady gardens cannot flourish again. So, transplants using hair from the head are available - at £3,000 a pop. I won’t pass on further details but be assured it is nothing like the home life of our late dear queen.
Othello, starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal, has become the highest-grossing play in Broadway history, taking $2,818,297 for eight performances. There was 100% capacity for the second week of previews at the Barrymore Theatre ahead of a March 23 opening for a three-month run. Average ticket price: $361, also a record.
Trump has done more to unite Europeans than anything since the Cold War, says the FT’s Gideon Rachman. A poll reveals 78% of Brits regard him as threat; 74% of Germans and 69% of the French agree. In another survey, France was rated as a ‘reliable partner’ by 85% of Germans with Britain scoring 78%. The US? 16%.
Police scrambled as a four-year-old boy in Wisconsin called emergency to say his mother had been bad and had eaten his ice cream and should go to jail. By the time female officers Gardinier and Ostegaard arrive he changed his mind: she needn’t be jailed but she certainly should get him some ice cream.
No, it’s not yet April 1 but I bring news that an 11-piece orchestra, using instruments made entirely of vegetables, has just won a Guinness World Record. The ensemble, formed in Vienna in 1998 has performed 344 concerts using instruments such as a carrot recorder, a cucumberphone, a radish flute, aubergine percussion and a leek violin.
Putin dresses in battle fatigues visiting Kursk to boost Russian army units’ morale. I do hope he doesn’t think he can turn up at the White House in that sort of get-up.
The last post is looming for Denmark’s state-run mail service. Letter deliveries will end later this year after a 90% decline in volumes since 2000. Britons may still send three times more letters a head than the Danes but the trend here is similar. Now the Royal Mail is owned privately, how long has our post got?
If there’s one thing that Mad Miliband hasn’t cut to Net Zero it’s the number of flights (1,768) and air miles (5,234,196) his department has ‘consumed’ during the year, according to Rupert Lowe, who himself has been cut from Reform.
VW, one of the world’s great sausage manufacturers. Eh? The iconic German car manufacturer started producing and selling its own currywurst in 1973 after the dish became popular in its work canteens. Now guess what? VW last year sold 8.5 million currywurst ‘units’. Vehicles? A measly 5.2 million.
Hackers from North Korea have carried out the biggest cryptocurrency theft in history. That’s $1.5 billion in Ether, a digital coin like Bitcoin, from an exchange in Dubai. The heist eclipsed the $1 billion lifted by Saddam Hussein from the Iraqi central bank before the Gulf War.
Can fish-eating really determine social behaviour? According to researchers who monitored 6,000 children over two years, seven-year-olds who didn’t eat fish were 35% more likely to display poor social behaviour, such as not sharing toys or helping classmates. By the age of nine they were 43% more likely to be difficult.
Watching a whodunnit in which a character is wearing an Apple Watch or using an iPhone? Rest assured: they didn’t do it. According to Richard Osman on The Rest is Entertainment, Apple has a ‘no villains’ clause written into agreements when it supplies kit to TV shows and films.
If you’re looking to get some fresh air only seven countries meet the World Health Organisation’s air quality standards. That’s Oz, NZ, Bahamas, Barbados, Grenada, Estonia and Iceland. What about Chad, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Congo and India? You’ve guessed it.
TongueTwister: A skunk sat on a stump and thunk the stump stunk but the stump thunk the skunk stunk.
OldJokesHome: To the person who stole my trainers and high viz jacket: you can run but you cannot hide.
TheThingsTheySay: ‘Research has shown that, since becoming the Duchess of Sussex in 2018, Meghan has spent just six hours in the county.’ — Kate Mansey, The Times.
HeadlineOfTheWeek: Former F1 World Champion Boots Toilet Door Down And Has Ceiling Fall On Him - Sun.
LightsCameraCliché: One day, son, all this will be yours; You can trust me- I’ve got your back; I think that’s me done; Don’t try to hide it -— just tell me; she’s not motivated by money — she’s different, she’s free; Still, everybody’s got a price; Is that why you brought me here?
RICK McNEILL adds: You four men go that way, the rest of you come with me; I expect you’re all wondering why I asked you here today; When I say go, run like hell; You’ll never get away with this; So it was you all along.
The Road to Perdition
By Helena Handcart
THE NEWS ACCORDING
TO KELVIN
A good number of people on PIP receive the money on top of wages from their regular employment. It’s a racket the Tories did nothing about.
Their shadow Helen Whatley is hopeless and needs to be replaced.
*****
Migrants from the Congo are four times more likely to claim benefits than Brits, according to new analysis. Shockingly 445 Congolese make claims per 1,000 followed by Iraq (434) per 1,000, Afghanistan (414), Algeria (361), Eritrean (355) Syria (352), Somalia ( 336).
Our rate is 100 per 1,000. As we are skint to the point of planning to reduce benefits for the disabled why not simply attack the migrant benefits bill.
Surely they didn’t arrive just to see how much they could take from us…
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Stand and Deliver
By Hermione Orliff
NEW TODAY
The breath-taking two-faced hypocrisy of those who seek to rule us is truly astonishing. Thanks to wossname Pierce in the Mail for reminding us that Labour shadow minister Thangam Debbonaire roundly condemned Boris’s 2023 resignation honours: ‘This has been rewarding cronies…Keir Starmer would never do that.’ Guess who’s just taken her seat in the Lords. And guess who put her there. (If that’s the biggest stick you can find to beat Starmer with he’s doing well. Wossname is a biased little twerp — Ed)
To Cardiff for the rugby and my eyrie In the BT Stand. The result? Least said, eh? Oh, for the days when the Watkins clan, David, Stuart, Ian, Matthew and Owen (no S) inspired the Welsh team. Not forgetting Sir Tasker, VC, whose statue stands outside the ground. I took my friend, Ceridwen. Nice girl but a bit too fond of bottles of Cwrw Gorslas. She missed England’s first try because she was still trying to get Ruth Jones’s autograph and then she kept going out for a wee. This is the last time, cariad, I told her.
The Government’s in a bit of a panic over a Labour revolt on benefit cuts. Now, says The Times, Sir K has gone on a ‘charm offensive’ (That’s an oxymoron if ever I’ve heard one). He’s been inviting scores of his MPs to No10 to try to woo them round. Haven’t they all got something better to do?
Hacks have obvious cause to celebrate the invention of the Gutenberg printing press in 1440. It was also thought of as the catalyst for the spread of science and knowledge, says Kara Swisher in The Atlantic. But one of the best sellers in the early days wasn’t Copernicus’s On The Revolutions Of The Heavenly Spheres, for instance, but something called The Hammer Of Witches, ‘a demented treatise on satanic women who stole men’s penises and hid them in a nest in a tree’.
The Rt Hon Calamity Lammy poses as His Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs at the G7 in Canada. Are we really surprised, then, that the FCDO has, according to a Freedom of Information response, spent £4,948 on ‘media training for Ministers’ so far this year?
Elon Musk reveals he has fathered his 14th child. Seldon Lycurgus joins similarly bizarrely-named siblings including Saxon, Techno Mechanicus, Exa Dark Sideræl and X Æ A-Xii. (Don’t worry, though — we’re in safe hands).
Apropos the above, Musk joins a long line of men compelled to ‘seed the earth’. Genghis Khan had so many sons that one in 200 people alive today is his descendant. A Sultan of Morocco, Ishmael Ibn Sharif, fathered more than 1,000 children while Ibrahim Njoya, who ruled in Cameroon, had 350 from 1,000 wives. However, the Drone’s Lead In Pencil Award goes to Nigeria’s Mohammed Bello Abukhar. He had 203 children from his 120 wives, some of whom were pregnant when he died on his 93rd birthday.
American football players at West Virginia University have been banned from dancing on TikTok because it makes them look namby-pamby. Coach Rich Rodriguez growls: ‘We try to have a hard edge and you’re in there in your tights dancing. It ain’t quite the image I want.’
As gold breaches the $3,000 an ounce barrier for the first time, did I ever tell you about the Labour Chancellor by name of Brown who sold off much of Britain’s go. (Yes! — Ed).
And you wonder how spending on HS2 spiralled wildly out of control. The company behind the railway white elephant has spent £20,000 on a giant Lego model of one of its proposed stations, according to The Times.
HeadlineOfTheWeek: Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It’s Off To Woke We Go — MoS on Disney using politically correct CGI dwarves in Snow White.
TheThingsTheySay: ‘This is off the record but you can use it.’ — classic Donald Trump news management in an interview in The New Yorker recalled by former editor Tina Brown.
It could happen to anyone but surely not the US Marshals Service. The marshals can’t account for billions of dollars in crypto currencies seized in criminal investigations. This includes 69,370 bitcoins, worth $5.7 billion, confiscated in 2013. The USMS can’t seem to figure out what’s what and what’s where because it manages this and many other crypto assets via a single Excel spreadsheet. Doh!
The most successful animated film ever made is Ne Zha 2, a Chinese feature which has garnered more than $2 million at the box office, says The Economist. It reimagines the tale of an eponymous ‘demon child’ from a famous 16th century novel. Fans love it because it doesn’t contain party line ‘heavy doses of patriotism’ that Chinese producers usually feel obliged to provide.
ClickbaitCrapheap: Should we pity or blame someone called Joshua Rom who toils for Sun online? He allowed his name to go on a page lead-length piece, with pix, headed: BBC In Major Schedule Shake-up As Prime Time Series Is Pulled Off Air. All it amounted to was the One Show stepping aside for one evening on Friday for BBC 1’s Comic Relief coverage.
The average working day in the States ends at 4.39pm, 42 minutes earlier than two years ago. Despite this, productivity has increased by 2%: employees are working in focussed 24-minute spurts. Weekend working is also more popular.
ThisSportingStrife: Beleaguered Man United gaffer Ruben Amorimm has not only having to put up with poor results, an under-performing squad and eccentric bosses but his missus is seriously pissed off with Manchester. Maria, more familiar with relatively sun-kissed Lisbon, can’t stand the ‘wind, rain and dark nights’. She’s not the only partner so afflicted. Angel Di Maria’s wife branded the city a ‘shithole’ and told him: ‘I want to kill myself. It’s night time at 2pm.’ And David De Gea’s girlfriend called Manchester ‘uglier than the back of a fridge’.
A so-called columnist has taken to informing his reader that he intends to lift his nose from the grindstone to take a rest. There’s posh. So if you read that ‘Hermione Orliff Is Unwell’ any day now, please don’t be concerned.
HEADLINE OF THE WEEK
A helpful headline from the Mail on Sunday under the guise of ‘health’. On a following page was a picture of Bill Clinton, whom we are reminded has a ‘kink’ in his. How nice.
A large headline then reassures us: ‘A slight bend is normal … but anything more pronounced may be a sign something’s up’ (Fnaar, fnaar — Ed).
Goodness, how times change — pass the smelling salts Mabel.
Joe Saumarez Smith dies at 53
Joe with Queen Camilla at Epsom races last year
For a while in the late 1990s Joe Saumarez Smith, who has died, aged 53, formed part of a powerful political team at the Sunday Express.
But unlike his friend and political editor, the charismatic Peter Oborne, Joe presented a studious, almost professorial image to the world. It came as a shock to learn that he happened to be a high stakes poker player, a racehorse punter since the age of eight and an expert on all forms of gambling.
His interests lay more in big business and gambling than in newspapers and in 1997 he quít the Express in favour of becoming involved in a long list of start-ups. For a while he was chairman of the British Horseracing Authority. This kind of success never changed him. He was always happiest talking about the runaway winner of the 3.30 at Sandown.
The scion of an old Channel Islands family, it was a pleasure to have known Joe. He was cultured, urbane and great company. I just wish I was as good as him around the world’s poker tables.
JON ZACKON
The subs called him Samurai Sword, no idea why — Ed
Fleet Street in the 1930s, note the barber named Sweeney Todd … just the place for a close shave
THEN NOW
Yes, we get the connection, but quite why you would name a hairdressers after the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is anyone’s guess. Close shave, sir?
Back in the 1930s no one seemed to be worried about a salon in the Boulevard of Broken Dreams named Sweeney Todd but maybe they didn’t make the connection.
Next door on the right at 153 Fleet Street was Alderton & Sons, tailors, with Bouverie House to the left. The building on the right was Edgley’s which sold secondhand office furniture, above were the London offices of the Eastern Daily News.
The two buildings on the left no longer exist but the one on the right is still there, now occupied by Wrap It Up which sells salads and wraps. It would have been meat pies back in the day.
The adverts on Sweeney Todd’s were less healthy and more in keeping with the character of Fleet Street — Guinness and Combe’s Brown Ale. The shop below was Prosperity Kandy Store displaying placards for The Jockey racing paper.
VICTOR WATERS writes: The building next door is 151 Fleet Street, not 153. I know this because my office in the 1960s was at the top, behind those distinctive round windows. (The mighty Presswise Ltd and London Picture Service Ltd were my businesses, housed in four scruffy old rooms.)
Access to those upper floors is only possible now from a side door in Wine Office Court and I think all of the upper floors are part of an ad agency. In the 60s King magazine began up top of 151, before Conor Walsh and Ted Simon (both of the Sketch) moved it to Salisbury Square, and I took over their rooms and their press relations business.
Some readers might remember the Sunday Mirror's Matt White and Ronnie Maxwell (dec.) who rented one of our rooms for their freelance work on the US rags, Midnight and National Enquirer!
Garth Pearce dies at 77
LAST PICTURE: Garth with his wife of 52 years, Davina, and other members of the family at his Berkshire home on Christmas Eve 2024
ONE of the great Daily Express Showbusiness Editors, Garth Pearce, has died at the age of 77 after a short illness.
His daughter Dulcie Pearce, Deputy Head of Features and Film Critic at The Sun revealed the shock news in an email to the Drone last night.
Dulcie said in the message also signed by her sister Gemma: “It is with deep sadness that we share the news that our darling dad, Garth, died yesterday.
“After a very short illness with cancer, he passed away at home on Wednesday, February 5th with his beloved family by his side.
“After only six nights in hospital — starting on January 16th — he came back to his home in Swallowfield, Berkshire, where he wanted to be surrounded by his family, his things, look out at the countryside and, most importantly, ‘watch Sky Sports on the telly’.
“With a lifetime of exceptional health, he’d only had one other night in hospital in his 77 years — in 1955 at the age of seven to have his tonsils out.
“So when told of the aggressive cancer, he was typically stoical about it. “Many might say ‘why me?’ But I just think ‘why not me?’”
“He spent the last weeks reflecting on his wonderfully exciting life — how he married his teenage sweetheart, travelled the world twice with rock stars and on film sets and said yes to every opportunity.
“‘I’ve lived the life of a celebrity without having the misfortune of being one,’ he said.
“Along with our mum Davina, his wife of 52 years, we had the opportunity to reminisce, laugh and hold on to him over the last few weeks, which has been such a blessing.
“As many of you can imagine, he remained the best storyteller until the very end. He will not be remembered for this terrible illness that has taken him from us, but instead for the incredibly generous, thoughtful man — and hilarious raconteur — he was.
“We would appreciate it if you could pass the news on to others we may have missed. And also share your stories of dad with each other; laugh at fond memories and raise a glass of good quality wine to him.”
His former Daily Express colleague MAUREEN PATON told the Drone: “I just wanted to say how sad it was to hear of Garth’s demise — quite a shock. My deepest condolences to his family.
“I remember him as a kind and helpful colleague in the Daily Express showbusiness department. For all his considerable achievements, there was nothing grand about him — and he was always quick to give praise where it was due.
“But for a while, I was in awe, not just because of all those exclusive interviews but because there was always an aura of glamour about a man named after my mother’s favourite Daily Mirror superman comic-strip hero. And Garth’s suntan and suits certainly lived up to that image.
“Apart from a baffling devotion to football, I can’t fault the man. RIP, Garth.”
GARTH’S DAILY EXPRESS MEMORIES
How I blew the whistle on MI5’s spying — and escaped a jail term
Fleet Street went big following up ex-Daily Mail Manchester reporter GEOFFREY SEED’s TV investigation into MI5's domestic spying. Seed — whose last political thriller, Death in a Time of Conspiracy — drew on knowledge gained while driving a truck through the Official Secrets Act. Lawyers warned he and his key witness were headed to prison. That didn't happen, he says — and here's the reason why.
The cuttings have since gone yellow and my hair grey, but 40 years ago this month, my Channel 4 investigation into MI5's domestic spying on peaceniks, trades unionists and sundry dissident groups — revealed by my star witness, former intelligence officer, Cathy Massiter — led the news.
No-one from MI5 had ever before gone on camera and risked imprisonment under the Official Secrets act to set out such detailed and politically sensitive information.
The legal advice I had was simple; pack a bag and a toothbrush because you're headed to the Old Bailey and jail. But we weren't arrested.
Two previous OSA cases, against leaky civil servants Sarah Tisdall and Clive Ponting, both ended in court but with much hostile publicity directed at the authorities as a result.
My guess is that to prosecute Massiter and any programme-maker under an Act needing reform, would be a case too far. Besides, not a single allegation she made was ever found to be inaccurate. Her actions and motives would have had jury, public and media sympathy.
The experience of seeing the State, its spooks and their foot soldiers in Special Branch close up and in action was invaluable, not least when writing political thrillers much later on.
As for Cathy Massister, she moved near to us in Wales and later, even served in my wife's restaurant for a while. I often hoped that a customer might say "...excuse me, there's a spy in my soup" but they never did.
Death in a Time of Conspiracy has five stars on Amazon BUY IT HERE
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.
Cocklecarrot and Co get elbow from Jim
Boss cuts out night lawyers and leaves legal matters to the few subs who haven’t been sacked
By LIFTON DUST
FORMER bookie Jim Mullen, boss of newspaper behemoth Reach, is taking perhaps his biggest gamble yet with cuts to the company's legal department that have the potential to cost it considerably more than they save, according to the latest issue of Private Eye.
The magazine reports: “Due to a change in operating processes in England and Wales, the staff lawyer or night lawyer on duty will no longer be proactively reading the whole of the print edition each night,” staff have been informed. The number of lawyers on duty both in the day and on call overnight has been cut, and hacks are expected to make their own call on what might. or might not, be problematic.
“If an article needs legal review, you must send this to the editorial legal team as early in the day as possible,” they have been instructed. “You must set out at the top of email what legal issue you are concerned about.”
The problem with this — as the Eye can testify from some experience — is that it is seldom the sentences hacks expect might cause a problem that end up actually doing so.
Legal complaints, and writs, often come out of left-field and these days tend to focus on (and attempt to exploit) obscure points of privacy and data protection, areas of the law which continue to evolve.
Retch staff are at least getting some extra training. “We've all been summoned to a series of hastily arranged and idiot-proof sessions covering issues like defamation, contempt and the Ipso code, in the hope the company doesn't get taken to court," one hack told the Eye.
ONLY ON DRONE TV
Fleet St in the Blitz, plus a cameo by legendary Daily Express editor
A DRONE DISCOVERY! A fascinating film of how newspapers were distributed during the Blitz in London — with a cameo performance by legendary Daily Express editor Arthur Christiansen at the end.
Runtime 6 minutes
Alex Hendry
Former Daily Express reporter and all round good guy Alex Hendry has died, the Daily Drone has learned. His funeral has already been held near his home in Beckenham, south-east London where he had lived since 2002.
Scottish-born Alex will be remembered as a fine reporter who was a successful and caring Father of the NUJ Chapel.
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)
It’s never too late to write my first novel, says our Maureen
And talking of days gone by …
At an age I can hardly bring myself to mention, I’m making my fiction debut on 10 April with a post-war crime novel — The Mystery at Rake Hall; C.S.Lewis Investigates, writes former Daily Express feature writer MAUREEN PATON.
Published by Swift Press, it reimagines the university don and future Narnia creator as a secret detective in 1947 Oxford when one of his female students goes missing and racketeers are on the prowl.
Droners will note the ink splashes on the retro cover, left, a nod to the hero’s status as an author that certainly knows his way around an inkwell.
But although he's loosely based on the real Lewis, rest assured that I haven't let the facts get in the way of the fiction. A second book in the series will follow next year.
SIR JOHN JUNOR: THE ROCK‘N’ROLL YEARS
Still on the subject of literature, Maureen Paton’s civil partner NORMAN JOPLING has a book out too. It’s about legendary Sunday Express editor (and Aston Martin DB4 owner) John Junor's flirtation with the pop press during the Sixties.
It is exclusively revealed in Shake It Up Baby!, Jopling’s account of being a pop-music reporter from 1961-72.
After starting out as the office boy at Record Mirror, Norman later interviewed everyone on the scene from the Beatles and the Stones to Little Richard, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton (a lucky pillion passenger several times on Norman's scooter).
Originally published by Rock History, the memoir is now in its second edition via Gladiola Publishing and available on Amazon.
Shag night on the Express
THAT caught your eye, didn’t it? Actually the shag referred to here is the tobacco variety and there was a distinct cloud of it in the Daily Express subs room when this pic was taken back in the day.
Terry Manners, who unearthed the photo during his history researches, is trying to date it. The pic shows a reporter giving his copy to the Chief Sub who is polluting the atmosphere with his shag-filled pipe.
Rory’s new spy thriller
OUR friend and colleague Rory Clements has a new book out, A Cold Wind Wind From Moscow, a wartime spy thriller.
The synopsis reads: Winter, 1947. Britain's secret services have been penetrated. The country is more vulnerable than ever — and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin knows it. He decides it is time to send his master of 'Special Tasks' to create extra chaos.
But Stalin has a more important motive than mere disruption. He has a man on the inside who must be protected at all costs — a communist super-spy who has the secrets of the atomic bomb at his fingertips.
Freya Bentall, a senior MI5 officer, no longer knows who to trust and is left with one option: to bring in an outsider whose loyalty is beyond question - Cambridge professor Tom Wilde. His task: to find the traitor in MI5.
Barty’s having a party
Barty, right, surrenders to another glass of pinot grigiot with Tony
WE sought him here we sought him there, we’ve sought that damned elusive Barty Compton everywhere.
Now, thanks to ‘Monsewer’ Tony Boullemier, we’ve found him.
Monsewer reports: ‘Geoff 'Barty' Compton, who now lives near Nimes, en France, has been visiting the home his family recently bought in Worcestershire.
‘When I called in on him, it was a chance to swap multiple anecdotes from our days together at the DX in the early 1970s.’
They're pictured during a typical long lunch. And later on a canal bridge, which the Compton family now owns as part of their land.
Geoff regrets he wasn't well enough to attend Phil Durrant's recent wake but says he'll try and make future Express reunions.
Pictures: Ben Compton
Problem of migration and a culture clash that is swept under the carpet
THE clash of Britain’s permissive society with the alien cultures of immigrants has been a problem for years but is seldom discussed.
Many people fear to tread in the sensitive area of race which can be a problem in itself.
In his latest dispatch PAT PRENTICE tells of a relative’s shock when on a visit to London from a Northern city she spotted miniskirted girls standing at bus stops, conflating these respectable girls with prostitution.
Our British liberal attitude is clearly at odds with those who, having been brought up in different cultures, must have thought they had arrived in Sodom and Gomorrah.
Who do you think they are?We’re sorry we haven’t a clue but that’s Express tech whizz Yetty in the chair
EVEN the aged Lord Drone is too young to identify most of these people. But what we do know is that the man sitting behind the box of tricks is none other than John ‘Yetty’ Yeates, a man ahead of his time who discovered how to transmit Daily Express pics at the speed of light back in the 1960s. He is pictured with some admiring bigwigs at the Black Lubyanka.
Chat that inspired Akass in the Keys
PAT PRENTICE once nipped out for a livener in the King and Keys between editions on the Telegraph only to bump into the great columnist Jon Akass.
Prentice gave Akass, pictured, his opinions on current affairs and went back to work. Picking up a paper a few hours later he discovered that Akass had told the world about what his friend had told him in the pub. ‘He was quoting me,’ said Pat.
Reporter quits Mail after death threats
A CLASSIC dilemma for many young reporters is what to do when sent on a job that they think is wrong or unfair.
This happened to Daily Mail journalist Lydia Hawken who agreed to go on an assignment for fear of losing her job. The result was death threats on social media.
It has to be said that working at the Mail is a pretty thankless career path. Endless redundancy cycles, neck-throttling inter-desk fights and to add insult to injury, basically everyone hates you because you work at the Mail.
Is it any wonder, asks Popbitch, that the paper’s newest intake of staffers are crumbling under the pressure? Any wonder they’re quitting and pivoting to OnlyFans careers or posting celebrity cancel culture style public apologies for their journalism?
This week Lydia’s Femail story about the actress Millie Bobby Brown’s appearance went viral when the actress included it in an Instagram post criticising stories which mocked her appearance.
"This isn’t journalism", wrote Bobby Brown,’this is bullying. The fact that adult writers are spending their time dissecting my face, my body, my choices, it’s disturbing."
In response, Lydia Hawken, a freelance, posted a TikTok video where she says she received death threats for the piece, which had been ‘assigned to her’ by senior editorial staff, and which she did not feel ‘brave’ enough to say no to. She has now quit writing for the Mail.
You can watch the full three-minute video on TikTok, where Hawken makes clear she’s ‘not asking for sympathy’. Which is just as well, given that the top comment on the video is pretty unforgiving: ‘You made your bed when you chose to write for a fascist newspaper.’
Popbitch writes: The Mail take on MBB was definitely mean, but to be frank if you're famous and get a load of plastic surgery and aesthetic work, it's not exactly hugely outside the Celebrity Overton Window to mention it.
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
