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THE THINGS THEY SAY
Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it — American comedian Steven Wright
TODAY’S PAPERS
CARTOON OF THE DAY
Bonkers is nicking your milk? Pull the udder one
Hitchens prowls rival newsroom
ALTHOUGH the Daily Mail building is a mega operation, behind the front door the publications remain resolutely separate. Each paper sticks to its own floor, each section to its own desk.
Which makes it all the stranger that The i Paper has recently spotted an interloper in their midst.
Peter Hitchens.
Hitch has apparently been sneaking into The i’s kitchenette, where he’s been spotted drinking milk from their massive communal bottle.
On his most recent expedition he was even ‘caught’ by someone, but simply carried on as normal. Peter’s slow walks back and forth through The i offices are nothing new, but staffers there say it’s the milk thievery that’s one step too far.
One said: “He’s moved from suspected to confirmed milk pervert.”
Editor’s note: Peter was known as ‘Bonkers’ when he worked on the Daily Express, I mention this only to make the headline work. A headline, like a good joke, is often improved by an explanation. That’s what I always say.
Source: Popbitch
STILL SNAPPING AT 79 Celebrity Photographer Richard Young has had his eye on the stars for over 50 years
CELEBRITY photographer Richard Young was a familiar face in Fleet Street newsrooms in the 1970s and 80s and he is sill going strong at the age of 79.
Former Expressman STEVE MILL who spotted this feature in the Mail On Sunday, told the Drone: “Nice to see Richard Young still out there looking fit and healthy at 79.
“I recall seeing him bowling into the Express sometime in the morning to review his work from the previous evening, usually in the Hickey office.
“I wonder if he still has any association with the Express? Incredible that he could afford to buy a house after having taken a few photos of Burton and Taylor.
“By his own admission Richard is not good with finances, but he's been savvy enough to retain ownership of all his own work.
“I recall a despatch rider pal of mine at the Express telling me about a colleague who was waiting outside a London royal residence catching sight of, (the then) Lady Diana, and the blurb was that she wasn't supposed to be there. The despatch rider was told later that if he'd have had a camera with him and successfully captured a picture or two of her he could have named his own price.”
Young's career in photography began in 1974 when he was asked to take pictures for a book written by John Cowper Powys. Later that year, he was invited to photograph philanthropist John Paul Getty III as he went around London. These pictures earned him a job as a freelance photographer at the Evening Standard.
In 2006, The Times named him as "one of the most important photographers of the 20th century".
Six years later Young's career was the subject of the documentary series Celebrity Exposed: The Photography of Richard Young, shown on Sky Arts. The four episodes of Celebrity Exposed featured exclusive interviews with a host of celebrity royalty including Kate Moss, Sir Elton John, Vivienne Westwood, Steven Berkoff, Tracey Emin, and many more.
The Daily Drone Investigations Unit in collaboration with Drone Laboratories and Drone Mart has produced this gorgeous tea towel to commemorate the presentation next week of King Charles to His Royal Excellency King Trump. Snap yours up now. All profits go to the Drone Lunatic Asylum for Deranged Fuckwits.
SPOT THE HALFWIT
Every picture tells a story
Which was why the Daily Express snapped this one up like lightning
THE Daily Express has always given prominence to good pictures and whole pages were often given over to PHOTONEWS (ask any flong sub).
Terry Manners spotted this pic, left, online which the Express had snapped up. He explained: “In Feb-
ruary 1971, a giant, forked lightning bolt lit up London and Colin O’Brien, a photographer in Clerkenwell, caught it by chance at cloud level on camera, snapping it from the top floor of a new tower block ‘Michael Cliffe House’ that his parents had just moved into. Colin walked into the Daily Express offices in Fleet Street the next morning with the picture and sold it at once. It became the PHOTONEWS page the next day. It is featured today on the website Spitalfields Life.”
NEW TODAY
If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, then we all know where that leaves Starmer. In the Commons he repeatedly cited former cabinet secretary Chris Wormald. Trouble is, James Kirkup in the Daily Telegraph points out, Sir Chris is no longer in post because the prime minister sacked him. So this was Starmer quoting an official he has already sacked, because he is in trouble for firing another civil servant, Olly Robbins, whom he blamed for failing to stop him appointing an ambassador whom he also went on to sack. Gone, too, is Morgan McSweeney, the chief of staff who convinced the PM to hire Mandelson. He only got the job because Starmer let go his previous chief of staff, Sue Gray. There’s a pattern here.
At last someone seems to have worked out how Starmer manages to survive (aka cling by fingernails) in office. John Rentoul in The Independent says this is highlighted by the defence spending rumpus. He says: ‘Starmer could have set out a plan to increase spending to 3%, funded by tax rises or welfare cuts. But because he’s so afraid of his backbenchers, he took a “middle course” that lacked any real commitment to defence and satisfied no one. It’s typical of his premiership: the language of “absolute conviction” contrasted with the “actions needed to get him through the day”’.
No one seeks to diminish the enormity of paedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes but the Sisterhood is in danger of wallowing in it. The conflating of Mandelson with Epstein in the DV row is just another excuse to grizzle on and on about ‘survivors’ or ‘victims’ or whatever they’re called this week. Surely no one is suggesting that Mandelson did not pass vetting because he was snapped in his Y-fronts in the same room as the financier who was murdered (sorry, who ‘committed suicide’) in his prison cell. Wasn’t it Mandy’s links with dubious Russian and Chinese outfits? Of course it was.
Uganda’s defence chief has warned that his government will end all diplomatic relations with Turkey unless Ankara pays a $1 billion ‘security dividend’ and supplies him with ‘the most beautiful woman in the country’ as a wife. General Muhoozi Museveni, son of Uganda’s president, has form. In 2022, he offered 100 cattle as a ‘bride price’ for Italian prime minister, gorgeous, pouting Giorgia Meloni, threatening to ‘capture Rome’ if his demands were refused.
A memorial for British journalists killed while reporting on conflicts has been unveiled. It is made up of a series of aluminium columns acting as rays of light, arranged in a spiral to create a bright beacon and to act as a place of reflection. The memorial by Birmingham-born artist Wolfgang Buttress is called End of Copy | Words of Light. It will be sited in the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire and there will be a replica at St Bride’s. Unlike the US and France, the UK had no permanent memorial for media workers killed in the line of duty. At least 16 have died on the front line since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Boris Johnson is regularly dumped upon by SCCs in the Drone but, hey, why should he care? Since leaving office in 2022 he has trousered something like £8 million, says Nicky Woolf in The New World. Most is from speaking engagements such as $405,000 from US bank Centerview Partners, £250,000 for a speech in California, and plenty more from talks in cities including Abu Dhabi, Delhi, Dubai, Riyadh, Taipei and Lagos. The rest is from TV, specifically a forthcoming Channel 5 show about Ukraine. Then there’s his ‘million-pound-per-year’ weekly column at the Mail; and the reported £2 million advance for his underwhelmingly received autobiography, Unleashed. Nice work etc…
It doesn’t sound like a bolthole for the rich and famous but the tiny Swiss town of Zug, just south of Zurich, has become a haven for the wealthy Gulf set looking for a European base during the Iran war, says Mercedes Ruehl in the FT. It is now home to around 135,000 people and is known for commodity traders and cryptocurrency firms. The influx is creating fierce competition for rented accommodation. Queues to view one two-bed flat stretched around the block.
When the Strait of Hormuz reopens to commercial traffic, as it eventually must, there will still be the problem of mines, indiscriminately scattered by Iran, which haven’t been mapped. Send for the US navy’s dolphins, says Madeleine Rowley in The Free Press. Since 1959, these specially trained marine mammals have been finding and marking underwater explosives, serving in Vietnam and Iraq. In Puget Sound, Washington state, US submarines are guarded 24/7 by dolphins and sea lions working in shifts.
The Two Haitches have been warning about the impact of Artificial Intelligence for some time but, even now, some are convinced it’s just a bubble. Ahem. Take the theory that companies were spending so much on chips, data centres and electricity – 2% of America’s entire GDP last year – that there wouldn’t be enough short-term demand for AI to make the numbers work. In fact, demand is so high that the AI giants are having to ration their customers’ usage. And these companies are growing faster than any others in modern history: since late last year, Anthropic’s annual recurring revenue has nearly quadrupled, to more than $30 billion.
AI (and no apology for going on about it) is being touted as a productivity tool, not a replacement for workers. But the data tell a different story. In the US the six largest banks cut roughly 15,000 jobs in the first quarter, all at least in part down to AI-driven efficiency gains. More significantly, perhaps, they also reported a YoY 18% increase in collective profits. Citigroup has gone even further, pledging to reduce its workforce by 20,000 as part of what it calls a broader ‘productivity and efficiency journey.’ As one corporate veteran observed: ‘Call it productivity, call it innovation but AI is starting to have a really big impact.’
Is nothing safe from the fallout of the Iran war? There’s a panic in the States that there could soon be a condom shortage. The CEO of Karex Berhad, the world’s biggest condom maker (by sales volume, not by size, I hasten to add) warns today that the company may raise prices by as much as 30% because of supply chain disruptions. That’s bad news for customers such as Trojan and Durex, but great news for that just-in-case condom you’ve kept in your purse or wallet since 2017. It may soon be worth its weight in gold.
Introducing the Drone Guide To Political Leanings, courtesy of Josie Rath in Die Welt. A recent TikTok trend has seen everything from hobbies to habits and clothing interpreted as an indicator, she says. Telltale left-wing signs apparently include wired headphones, clothing with horizontal stripes, a tote bag, visiting a flea market, cycling, stickers on your laptop, sprinkling food with pumpkin seeds, and, somewhat specifically, a ‘green secondhand sweater’. Right-wing markers include AirPods, vertical stripes, driving, sparkling water, filter coffee, an ironed shirt, going to the gym, and enjoying a beer after work.
Designs for Trump’s proposed white-and-gold Triumphal Arch have been approved by the US Commission of Fine Arts. It will sit on the artificial Columbia Island, in the Potomac River separating Washington, DC, from Arlington, Virginia. The 250ft monument is nearly 100ft taller than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and commemorates the US’s 250th anniversary. At the arch’s base are four gold lions. Capping the structure is a 60ft Lady Liberty-like gold statue flanked by gold eagles. Visitors will be able to access the viewing deck via an internal staircase or lift.
Goop Kitchen, an offshoot of Gwyneth Paltrow’s multimillion-dollar lifestyle company, is expanding to New York after a successful launch on the US west coast. It offers ‘certified clean’ takeaway food such as wraps, salads, soups, and pizzas made without gluten, seed oils, or processed ingredients. Five years after it started, the enterprise currently has 11 locations in Los Angeles and three in San Francisco. They serve more than 40,000 customers a week and half make $20,000 a day. YoY sales rose 48% in 2025. After NewYork, Miami, London and Paris are targeted.
New craze alert! Conquesting. It’s the growing practice in New York where teenagers have developed an obsession for taking empty subway trains for a joyride, says Sarah Maslin Nir in The New York Times. They break into the driver’s car and use a skeleton key – available on Amazon, apparently – to drive the train, filming the whole thing for social media. Last year, 23 ‘conquesting’ incidents were reported, up from just two in 2023. In the first three months of this year, there have already been a dozen.
TheThingsTheySay: ‘If he opened the North Sea and if his immigration policies became strong, which right now they're not, he can recover, but if he doesn't, I don't think he has a chance.’ — Trump comes over all Mystic Meg on Starmer.
HeadlineOfTheWeek: Naughty Pilots Told Off After Drawing Penis-Shaped Flight Paths — Star.
ThisSportingLife: West Ham legend Paolo Di Canio was always a passionate and shouty player. In retirement he doesn’t seem to have calmed down much. He ever-so slightly lost his head during a live debate on Italian TV which ended with him head butting a wooden desk to make a point. Luckily, Fabio Capello was there to hand him a tissue to stop the consequent bleeding.
NIBS
Italian journalists are striking because their industry-wide contract hasn’t been renewed in ten years, with salaries losing 20% of purchasing power to inflation. (Wanted in Rome)
CNN is preparing to cut employees as part of Mark Thompson’s digital overhaul, with a reported push for “more employees fluent in product, streaming, audience development, and digital storytelling”.
Future has expanded its Future Collab project with "Editors in Residence" at Who What Wear and "Masters" at Marie Claire. The schemes embed social media creators into the titles’ editorial output.
Australia's ABC has switched to BBC programming as more than 1,000 staff at the national broadcaster began 24-hour strike action over pay and conditions. (ABC)
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
RABBIE-BURNS KNIGHT, a candidate for Scottish Monster Raving McLooney Party, has several bright ideas including a statutory right for old people to have cheap seats near the toilets on planes.
ONLY IN THE DRONE
Our great columnists
Stand and Deliver
By Hermione Orliff
To Parliament for a two-day production of the long-running Westminster Follies and, in particular, the latest instalment of that comedy of errors Right Hon Rabbit In The Headlights. Packed, restless house all agog. Starmer, always pinky of cheek these days, clearly suffering from stage fright. He blinked and became even more flushed at the gales of laughter that greeted his attempt to defend his part in the Mandelson vetting farce. It was a dull, leaden, vanilla performance as usual. Contrast Badenoch, centre stage, in sparkling form plus pertinent contributions from Abbott, Davey and Flynn among others. Elements of farce when the increasingly risible Hoyle banished two bit part players for speaking the truth about lying. Then Yes, No, Maybe, Prime Minister, starring Olly Robbins and the fragrant ingénue, Emily Thornberry. Robbins, who seems a good egg, is lucky to be extricated from this Whitehall tangled web. Coming soon: The End Of The Keir Show.
This Developed Vetting everyone’s talking about: a bit of a palaver. I know someone who has undergone DV and confirms it is a forensic, rigorous, invasive, often intimidatory, process which can take several months. There are endless questionnaires to fill in, deep dive checks on financial and employment records and an interview which, in my pal’s case, took six hours. Relationships, including possible ‘extra curricular’ activities will be scrutinised; ‘substance’ habits investigated; intimate secrets laid bare. All bets are off; there is no hiding place. It’s definitely not for the fainthearted. After passing the process my pal was at what is called Strap 2: ‘C’, head of MI6, is Strap 3. I’m told that even a cursory Google search on Mandelson would have flagged up that there was little chance that he would, or should, have passed. By the way, an example of the detail the UKSV go into. The operative who vetted my acquaintance even rang up their hairdresser ‘for a chat’.
The City of London, once the world’s financial hub, is losing its lustre. The value of Taiwan’s stock market has overtaken it to become the world’s seventh largest. The surge in Taiwan has been fuelled by soaring demand for the chips at the centre of the boom in artificial intelligence. The semiconductor giant TSMC alone accounts for more than 40% of the share capitalisation. This has pushed the value of Taiwanese equities to $4.14 trillion, surpassing the $4.09 trillion capitalisation of the British market, according to Bloomberg. Concerns that London is losing ground to rivals have been driven partly by a dearth of new companies joining the London Stock Exchange through initial public offerings since the last boom in UK flotations ended in 2021.
Amid the imbroglio over Starmer’s repeated failure to answer questions at Prime Minister’s, er, Questions, some clarity, courtesy of Shadow Leader of the Commons Jesse Norman. Out of 24 responses given by the PM to Kemi Badenoch in the last month, says Mr Norman, no fewer than 23 ‘ignored the question and changed the subject’.
Mummer Felicity Kendal announces she is ‘done with dating’. At 79, of course you are, dear.
Doctors and nurses have been ordered not to say ‘it’s raining cats and dogs’ or ‘the early bird catches the worm’ in the latest example of the woke bollocks which bedevils ‘our’ NHS. The Telegraph says that an NHS trust in Lancashire has instructed staff not to use the phrases to avoid offending foreign patients. It said that that the terms ‘may not translate well across other cultures’. No surprise that the tedious twats have also outlawed ‘chairman’ and ‘mankind’.‘Chairperson’ and ‘humankind’ are said to be the correct form. Critics say the guidance is like an April Fool spoof and warn that the NHS’s policing of language is increasing.
What chance has Claudia Winkleman’s chat show got when the best guests on offer are Dan Levy, Phil Dunster, Cush Jumbo and Josh Widdicombe?
Those around when newspaper sellers in London used to shout ‘Star, News, Standard’ as they peddled their wares will be jolted by the fact that the last named surviving title now has only 16 staff as 23 have transferred to Independent Media which will now produce the Standard website. When Alexander Lebedev bought it for £1 in 2009, the paper employed 346, says Press Gazette. Over the years the number has dwindled as the newspaper morphed into a free weekly newsprint magazine, heavy on lifestyle and cultural content but not really covering hard news. How long will Alexander’s son, Evgeny, be able to keep it going? Over his years of ownership the already loss-making title has lost £150 million.
Scramble! scramble! Woke dogfight over Lincolnshire! An RAF officer cadet has been suspended after saying Islam is the biggest security threat to the UK. He made the comment in a question-and-answer session during a training exercise at Cranwell officer training college in which he and other cadets were asked about dangers facing Britain. Now the RAF has launched an investigation into the incident. Retired Rear Admiral Chris Perry told the Mail the Air Force was guilty of shutting down critical thinking and called for the cadet’s reinstatement. He said: ‘If he had answered “the far Right” I doubt he would have been suspended.’
We’ve all suffered slow news days, especially at bank holidays, but we had to get a paper out regardless. It meant that when the chief sub insisted that the Brev par x2 the back bench had just given him for subbing should be the splash, he was right. For once. In broadcasting, different rules apply. Thus, on Good Friday in April, 1930, a BBC wireless announcer informed listeners: ‘There is no news’ and played piano music for the rest of the scheduled 15 minute bulletin.
A British submarine has surfaced after a record 205 days beneath the waves. The crew of the
Vanguard-class sub were greeted by waiting families on their return to Faslane. It was the longest unbroken patrol in the Royal Navy’s deterrent history and was part of a mission running since 1969 that ensures at least one nuclear-armed submarine is always on patrol, hidden and ready.
There’s got to be some payback for having to sit in that big chair for hours, trying to control naughty MPs and being ignored by Starmer at PMQs. So, Sir Lindsay Hoyle has made sure to utilise all of the perks available to him. Since becoming Speaker, his foreign trips have cost taxpayers £370,000, including £40,000 for two trips to Canada and South Africa. As the Taxpayers’ Alliance says: ‘Sir Lindsay needs to rein in these trips and properly explain why the public is picking up the tab for his foreign jollies.’
Google’s AI summaries’ are now said to be correct 90% of the time. Pretty good, eh? Well, no actually. Helen Lewis on Substack points out that you wouldn’t be too impressed if your iPhone called the wrong person 10% of the time, or your banking app sent your mortgage payments to the wrong bank one in every 10 months.
UntouchedByHumanSub: ‘Ants can be stopped from entering your home with 17p ingregient they “hate”.’ — Mirror.
TheThingsTheySay: ‘A prime minister who, experience suggests, would delegate his choice of dessert to another if he could.’ — Top leader in The Times sums up Starmer. ‘A decent, straight lawyer who seemed the right person to get the country back on its feet.’ —Daily Drone
RancidJockstrapDept: More World Cup profiteering in downtown Ripoffsville. The price of a $12.90 NJ Transit return ticket from Penn Station, New York, to New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium will be $150 during the tournament. That’s a 1,163% price hike for the 18-mile journey. Eight matches will be played at the MetLife.
StatsAFact: In the past 25 years, the number of billionaires living in Florida has increased by 1,883%, according to Jeremy Clarkson in the ST.
It’sOnlyMoney: Newly uncovered figures show civil servants have claimed thousands of pounds in expenses to travel into London, including overnight stays and meals. This means they are effectively billing taxpayers for turning up to work in their own offices. One Department for Transport official claimed more than £7,000 for just nine trips. In just three months, total claims hit nearly £140,000.
Paddy Clancy dies at 82
ANOTHER big figure from old Fleet Street, former Daily Express reporter Paddy Clancy, has died aged 82.
Clancy, who was well known in his native Ireland for his broadcasting work, died on Friday, 23 January at Sligo University Hospital surrounded by his family.
He is survived by his wife Bernie, two daughters and a son.
The Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin said Clancy was "an enormous presence in Irish journalism for over six decades. His distinctive take on RTÉ's morning paper round up was essential listening.
"His reporting and columns were essential reading for many years in the Sligo Champion, Donegal People’s Press, Irish Sun and Mirror."
Retro Rambleshanks, author of the acclaimed Drone series Yesterday Once More, writes: Ashley Walton, LOTP, used to tell of the time when, as a new reporter, he was sent by Night News Editor Mike Steemson to fetch Paddy Clancy and fellow Irishman Mike O’Flaherty back to the office from The Cartoonist where they were ‘resting’.
‘How will I know them?’ he asked. ‘Easy,’ says Steemson, ‘they’ll be standing at the bar wearing just their underpants.’ And so it came to pass. When Ashley returned to the office Steemson asked what the response had been. ‘They said to tell you to go fuck yourself,’ reported Ash. ‘Oh, good,’ said Mike, ‘they’re coming back, then.’ And so, fully clothed, they were.
James Mossop
One of the great sports writers, James Mossop of the Sunday Express, has died aged 89.
Jim covered ten World Cups, eight Olympic games, dozens of world title fights, major golf tournaments and Formula One races.
He started his career on the North West Evening Mail and developed a passion for journalism that never waned. He spent most of his career on the Sunday Express before joining the Sunday Telegraph.
Alex Montgomery, former chairman of the Football Writers’ Association, said: ‘He was the very best of journalists, an outstanding football writer who had to be read and who was on so many occasions in a class of his own.’
The family, who are having a private funeral, have set up a tributes page.
CONTRIBUTE HERE
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.
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
CRICKETERS IN THE FRAME
DAVID RICHARDSON, pictured above in sunglasses, has been clearing out his loft and come up with a few sporting pix involving Daily Express journalists. But who are they?
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)
Death of a Mirror great
DAILY MIRROR news sub Peter Lewis, one of the great caption writers of old Fleet Street, has died at the age of 83.
His colleague PAT WELLAND told the Drone: “Peter, an enigmatic and singular man, was a caption writer of genius who could spin 200 words or so of drollery from hardly any info on the back of a pic showing, say, a warthog eating a Mars bar or a celeb scratching his balls.
“In its own way it was a minor art form, long vanished as our old trade goes down the tubes to the Decomposing Room.”
Ivor Davis dies at 87
ONE of the big stars of the old Daily Express, West Coast correspondent Ivor Davis, died on Sunday 29 March surrounded by his family in Ventura, California. He was 87.
The Express assigned him to cover the Beatles in 1964 when the toured America for a month. His wife, Sally Ogle Davis, died in 2012, and they had two children Gideon and Rebecca. In 1969 Davis co-wrote Five to Die, the first book ever published about the Sharon Tate-LaBianca murders, and covered the trial for the Daily Express.
As a foreign correspondent, he traveled throughout the western hemisphere covering riots, floods, earthquakes, and politics.
As Editor-at-Large for Los Angeles Magazine, he and Sally wrote more than 100 major magazine and cover stories. In 2019, he wrote about his journey with the Manson Family title Manson Exposed.
Davis was the best selling author of books about his travels with the Fab Four —“The Beatles and Me On Tour” and three books about his experiences with the Charles Manson murder case. His latest book is “The Devil in My Friend —The Inside Story of A Malibu Murder”— about a friend who turned out to be a murderer.
John Smith told the Drone: “Sad news about Ivor Davis, and farewell to another of Fleet Street’s greats. Our paths often crossed when I was New York correspondent for the Daily Mirror back in the sixties.
“He was fiercely competitive when chasing a showbiz story, but always amiable and cheerful company, ever ready to give me guidance when coping with the Hollywood scene that he covered so brilliantly for so many years.”
Will the last sub-editor to leave the building kindly turn off the lights?
(Too late, they’ve all been sacked)
HERE is evidence that stories are being subbed by robots.
The caption on this pic of actor Johnny Briggs lying on the cobbles of Coronation Street reads: "An individual dressed in a dark suit and a blue shirt is seated on a cobblestone street, smiling and leaning back with his arms crossed.”
That is a classic example of Artificial Intelligence scanning a pic and writing what it saw. A human being was not required.
Terry Manners, who spotted this error on the MSN.com website, told the Drone: “This is the picture of former Coronation Street star Johnny Briggs this morning showing him in a clip from the series looking utterly distressed. But the caption has him smiling would you believe. The pic went with a story about Johnny suffering illness and leaving the show but the sub thinks he is just a bloke in a suit sitting on the cobbles and smiling. Ughh!”
Point of order, M’lud: Johnny Briggs died five years ago.
David Eliades, giant of DX foreign desk and brilliantly successful author dies at 92
THE Drone is particularly sad to report that David Eliades, who manned the Daily Express foreign desk for many years, has died at the age of 92 at his home in Switzerland.
There was more to David than just journalism. He was an author too and one of his works is still playing to audiences at various locations in Italy.
EXCLUSIVE
John Osborne hated gossip writers but the play he wrote lampooning them was an embarrassing failure
John Osborne was one of our most successful playwrights but he hated gossip columnists such as William Hickey with a vengeance. So he wrote a play attacking them. Former William Hickey editor CHRISTOPHER WILSON, writing exclusively for the Drone, said the battle came to a head on 5 May 1959, the opening night of The World of Paul Slickey, the much awaited follow-up to Osborne's blockbusters Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer.
The play didn’t go well. The audience booed and actress Adrienne Corri, raced downstage throwing V-signs at them and shouting "Go fuck yourselves!"
Among those booing loudest was Noël Coward, who later wrote in his diary, “Never in all my theatrical experience have I seen anything so appalling — appalling from every point of view!”
Farewell to the Great Eliades
CHEERS DAVID: Raising a glass to David Eliades are, from left, Kim Willsher, Alan Frame, Geoff Levy, Gill Martin and Chris Williams
By ALAN FRAME
Before David Eliades joined the Daily Express in 1963 he worked briefly one floor up on the SX. Until, that is, the ghastly old lecher John Junor called him in and said: ”I’m afraid we shall be parting ways” to which David replied: “Sorry to hear that, where are you going?”
That was one of the many stories told when friends of the great man celebrated the 92 years of his life in the St Bride’s Glee Club, more formally known as the Humble Grape wine bar at the rear of Fleet Street’s parish church.
The event was hosted by David’s widow Lamar, pictured, who had travelled from Lugano with her daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren who took in their stride the sight of old hacks drinking vast quantities of fine wine.
Kim Willsher arrived straight from the Eurostar that had brought her from home in Paris. She told of David persuading Nick Lloyd to splash on the news of the Chernobyl disaster (we led the way on the appalling effects of the fallout which lasted for decades) and ensured that she had a well-deserved pop at Nick in the process.
One of David’s great gifts was in encouraging young female reporters, in spectacular contrast to the likes of Mike Parry, and it was no surprise that so many of them were there to raise a glass to him; Liz Gill, Gill Martin, Melanie Whitehouse, Gill Swain and Jo Gourlay. Louise Court would have been there had she not just lost her father Monty, former news editor of the Mail and editor of Racing Post.
Sadly David Richardson wasn’t well enough to make it from Languedoc but his daughter Lucy dashed down from her job in the City to read a message from the old boy.
Two distinguished former Express defence corrs were there, John Ingham and Michael Evans who excused himself after a mere three hours to write a piece for The Times.. Chris Williams came down from Glasgow, the indomitable Kate Hadley from Cambridgeshire, as had Esther Harrod, and David’s goddaughter Emma Freemantle from Herefordshire. Somehow I made the seven miles from Gipsy Hill and David Wigg the three from the King’s Road.
It was a great show of the affection we all had for David; Sue Peart, Maureen Paton, Caroline Hendrie, John Burns, Jeremy Gates and Geoff Levy all shared their memories and if I hadn’t ended up in the Bell with Williams, Willsher and Ingham I might well be able to recount them.
Thank you Lamar, and most of all thank you David. You were a star!
The things they used to say on 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'.”
Peter ‘PJ’ Wilson dies at 87
Another well-known Fleet Street name, Peter ‘PJ’ WILSON, former news editor of the Daily and Sunday Mirror, died on March 18, aged 87.
He joined the Daily Mirror as a reporter in 1966 and left in 1987, weary of working for the then proprietor Robert Maxwell.
PJ’s friend and colleague Peter Miller wrote on the Mirror Pensioners website: ‘Three things made PJ an exceptional journalist: He could spot the potential in a story, then get the story, often against the odds, and finally write it so fluently that the sub-editors invariably ticked it through. Those rare talents made him a brilliant reporter and an inspiring news editor.’
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.
The day I was told to rewrite Tom Stoppard’s copy (and share his ancient typewriter)
JOHN SMITH remembers a mad day at the Bristol Evening World in the 1960s when a gas explosion rocked the city. Tom Stoppard was one of several reporters sent to cover the drama. Trouble was that young Tom was not a news man and wrote far too much. Consequently a frazzled chief sub told Smith to rewrite the Bard’s lyrical prose.
GOOD NEWS (we think) Daily Star gets cash boost from website robots
THERE’S good news at last for the Daily Star. It has become one of the biggest sources of online advertising revenue for Reach.
The paper’s senior reporter Adam Cailler now works full-time on tailoring content for web portal MSN.com which, like Yahoo, republishes content from a variety of publishers and shares ad revenue with them.
MSN.com is the third-biggest English-language news website in the world and has been edited by AI-driven robots since 2020.
It is possible for publishers to earn higher rates via advertising from content published on MSN than on their own sites because MSN operates its own advertising system based on first-party data from logged-in users.
The success at MSN comes amid plummeting Google Discover referral traffic hitting digital revenue at Reach, with overall page views down by 8% in the second half of 2025 across the network.
Cailler has spent the past six months dedicated to managing Daily Star content on MSN, which he said at times surpasses the brand’s own website in terms of article views.
“I’m not just the first at the Star, I’m basically the first at Reach to just be dedicated to nothing but MSN for a job,” he said.
The role came about after Cailler realised a lot of Daily Star content could not be automatically fed through to the platform due to its strict filters.
“Thus my six-month journey through the joy of MSN and trying to figure out their filters and monitoring and making it… quite a big earner for us. And it’s just developed from there.”
His role involves monitoring what is working on MSN over a 24-hour period, tailoring content and commissioning stories aimed at this specific audience.
Source: Press Gazette
The Night Howls
Two members of the Daily Express news sub-editorial team fill their time after returning from the pub late at night in the 1980s. If memory serves, this was the final of the Arthriticson Howling Contest which involved shouting HERE DOWN PLEASE! in the manner of Foreign Sub Jack Atkinson an aged Ulsterman. By the look on the face of Lord Drone, left, he has received a high score from adjudicator Mr Robert ‘Algy’ Smith.
We thank you most kindly, as the late Mr Arthriticson would have said.
You must remember this Sunday upstart (but to be frank we doubt that you do)
NEWSPAPERS come and, regrettably, newspapers go — and one of the least remembered is the News on Sunday. It was a left-wing tabloid launched in April 1987 and folded only seven months later. Judging by its first splash, right, it’s not surprising.
The founders were former members of the left-wing group Big Flame and other radicals.
The idea of the paper was originally thought up by Benjamin Lowe aided by Alan Hayling, who became Chief Exec and Chris Bott who wrote the business and fundraising plan. They took John Pilger on board as acting editor but he left before the newspaper was launched. The decision to base its HQ in Manchester was criticised.
The paper had hoped to sell 800,000 copies but the first issue only managed 500,000 sales and by its eighth issue circulation had gone down to 200,000. The failure of the paper was attributed to inexperienced staff, bad management, poor marketing, a commitment to political correctness and ideological purity at the expense of news values.
The NoS was kept afloat during the 1987 general election campaign thanks to the extension of an additional loan from the TGWU, so that its folding would not embarrass the Labour Party. It went bankrupt immediately after the election and was purchased by Owen Oyston but finally closed down five months later, in November 1987.
Two ex-employees, Peter Chippindale and Chris Horrie, wrote a "withering" account of its demise called Disaster!.
NEW BOOK ALERT
Inside story of the kidnapping of Kelvin MacKenzie (up to a point)
ALLAN HALL, of this parish, has written another book, which will be published next January but can be preordered today.
He told the Drone: “Conceived in delirium, written in Berlin, edited in Bavaria, printed in Cambridge — The Duck Press is the incredible story of the kidnapping of one Kelvin Calder MacKenzie! AND it's NOT self-published! (Spoiler alert: Kelvin survives.)
“Other than that, it’s a bit of a romp featuring a grieving father who lost his only son at Hillsborough, a gay crimper called Desmond, a Saaarf London villain named Vic, a Sun femme fatale, a fired Sun hack, a compassionate detective, a man-eating lizard called Cecil and the biggest beast of them all, Keith Rupert Murdoch. Sun staff in the book are sometimes real, sometimes fictional characters.”
The author pledges to squander all royalties on strong drink.
Allan Hall is retired now but was formerly a crime reporter at the Daily Mail, chief reporter at the Daily Star, US editor for The Sun and US editor at the Daily Mirror. He is the author of 30 books on crime, mysteries and the paranormal, including the bestselling Monster about Josef Fritzl.
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.
Compton Miller dies at 8o
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.
Fleet Street in the mist
Looks eerily quiet, doesn’t it? This slightly moist pic of Ludgate Circus taken from the foot of Fleet Street dates from 1972 and found by Terry Manners in his dusty drawers.
The photo was snapped by City copper PC Lew Tassle walking home after his beat in EC4.
He would have been standing outside the Albion so one can’t help wondering whether he had slipped into the pub for an out-of-hours snifter. Just about everyone else did.
PC Tassle often displays his pictures in the wonderful Spitalfields Life website which opens a window to how London used to be.
WE’VE GONE BANANAS, READERS!
Swim’ll Fix It for the Donald
FRUIT AND NUT
The cheesy grins say it all. Lord Drone’s magnificent organ has staggered to the rescue of Donald Trump as he waits for his Nobel Peace Prize. We sent our columnist Helena Handcart (Mr) to dress up as a banana and hand the President the 10 metre swimming certificate (s)he won in the 1950s.
The Halfwit in the White House (what’s left of it) looks well pleased with the gift, doesn’t he readers?
FLEET STREET GOES TO WAR
An atmospheric picture from 1915 showing men queuing in Fleet Street to sign up to fight in the First World War. It makes one wonder if any of these brave lads ever returned from the killing fields.
This pic was submitted by Tom McCarthy who spotted them on a social media site called Old England in Colour, which features colourised photos.
RUPERT THE RUTHLESS
Rupert Murdoch was a ruthless operator from an early age, says Andrew O'Hagan in The New Yorker. The media tycoon's first job in the UK was a summer placement at the Birmingham Gazette, arranged for him by his father through the chairman of the paper's parent company, Pat Gibson. The editor, Charles Fenby, later recalled that he took young Rupert under his wing, befriending him and showing him everything he could about the business. "And what did he do? He wrote a filthy letter to Pat afterwards saying I should be fired."
Peter Grosvenor dies at 92
PETER Grosvenor, long-standing literary editor of the Daily Express, has died two months short of his 93rd birthday. He joined the Express in 1962 when Beaverbrook was still alive and taking more than a passing an interest in his newspapers. He remembered one call in particular when the Beaver informed him: "Mr Grosvenor, we have more readers in the Social AB class than any other paper. So it's a very important job you do Mr Grosvenor.” There would have been a hint of menace in the Beaver's delivery.
Meine Güte! Vee have vays of making a groß cockup at Der Torygraf, Herr Springer
By DONNA N BLITZEN
DID anyone at the Telegraph think to remind the subs that their paper had been bought by a German publisher?
We only ask because, with incredible timing, the Second World War-obsessed title led its Review section last Saturday with a picture of Adolf Hitler and a swastika with a headline asking: ‘Why would anyone pay to own this?’
The cockup happened one day after Axel Springer, which owns a string of top Teutonic titles including Bild and Die Welt, agreed to purchase the Telegraph Media Group in a deal costing £575 million.
The Daily Mail and General Trust had proposed to buy the company in a £500 million takeover, but the government ordered an investigation on public interest and competition grounds. In the interim, Springer nipped in, with chief executive Mathias Döpfner saying he wanted to “preserve the distinctive character and legacy” of the right-wing paper.
Poignant story behind these three cobblestones buried in memory of DX showbiz writer Ian Lyness in the land he loved so much
By BRIAN EMSLEY
THESE three cobblestones have been interred bearing messages in fond remembrance of former Express showbiz writer, and my friend, Ian Lyness.
The Drone ran an obituary four years ago after he died aged 70 in Colorado, where he lived with his American wife Catherine. But he suffered terrible homesickness for England.
Ian had asked me back in 2011, after first getting lymphoma, that his ashes be scattered in Hadley Wood, near High Barnet. But when his ashes were sent to me by his widow they were blocked by UK Customs for paperwork reasons and ended up in a lockup in Utah. His wife had by then relocated to Maryland.
A profound patriot, Ian would be turning in his urn that he could not rest in England especially when masses of illegal immigrants pour in with no paperwork. So, to honour his request, I and another chum buried cobblestones in the wood, messages penned on them. One of his favourite films was I’m All Right Jack, hence one of the messages.
He was a great supporter of King Richard III, who as a teenager, commanded the Yorkist army that crushed the Lancastrian army on the same spot at the Battle of Barnet. So, I hope Ian’s happy!
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)
APRIL FOOL’S COCKUP
A dwarf at reception asking to see the Editor? Pull the other one say Mail
staff (exit a disgruntled Warwick Davis)
Actor Warwick Davis found himself unexpectedly in the tabloids last week as he was spotted out with a new girlfriend following his wife’s death a year ago, writes Popbitch.
Davis was apparently unhappy about the coverage, so he rocked up at reception at the Daily Mail on April 1st, asking to see the editor.
Reception dutifully called up to the paper, whispering that there was a famous dwarf at reception demanding to talk to the editor about a story.
The journalists upstairs rolled their eyes, told them something like “yep, great April Fool”. So no-one took any notice of the request.
After about another 15 minutes with no attention, Davis got back into his car and left, headed towards the US Embassy, where he was spotted attending an appointment shortly after.
Who the hell is that man gatecrashing our quiet lunch? McEntee? Nuff said
MAIL diarist John McEntee really put his foot in it when he arrived late at a lunch to celebrate his cousin Catherine’s 50th wedding anniversary with husband Mick.
So when he saw all the guests sitting at dining tables he wasted no time in addressing the assembled company.
But there was a hitch as the former William Hickey editor admitted.
He said: “l arrived late and all were seated including the happy couple their children Gareth and Andrew and two grandchildren plus childhood friend Majella Sullivan and her husband Nick. The upstairs room was chocka block with about 60 covers.
“Before the food was served and without Catherine I dashed to the front of the room banged a wine bottle with a spoon and called for silence.
“Addressing the throng I described growing up in Cavan with my cousin and how wonderful it was to be here with her family and friends marking her splendid milestone with Mick.
“I called for a toast just noticing out of the corner of my eye the lovely Catherine with her head in her hands. Returning to my seat nothing was said. Then during the dessert course I noticed that the room had emptied down to three large tables containing Catherine's invitees. Behind me were dozens of empty tables.”
Catherine explained: “They weren't part of our party. They were just people I don't know having lunch.” Doh!
DRONE PICTURE SPECIAL
My chum and colleague Ivor Davis, famed West Coast reporter for the Daily Express
Ivor Davis drives a robot in his car in pursuit of a story in 1984
BY PAUL HARRIS
THE death of Ivor Davis made me think of my life as a photographer from Barnstaple, North Devon, where I lived for 29 years too frightened to try and compete with Fleet Street.
In 1975 I sailed with my car to South Africa where there were lots of jobs as many white families were fleeing the country because of the fear of war.
I ended up in The Rhodesia Bush War but it was Terry Fincher who got me to Hollywood and Ivor Davis who enhanced my career in California.
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—2026
