REASONABLE? NOT ME

My Lord — I fully accept Wislon’s criticism of my piece on Gregg Wallace and Jamie Oliver. I have always thought that Oliver’s resurrection merely confirmed the public’s affection, which I share, for his “diamond geezer” schtick. But it is true that he shamelessly wriggled out of his obligations to suppliers and other creditors.

On another point, my Lord, I suggest you put Cocklecarrot on full alert (insofar as that is possible). I am consulting with Sue, Grabbit and Runne regarding Wislon’s foul calumny that I am the “voice of reason”.

Surely, as a former Hickey, he knows better than most that no columnist’s reputation can recover from such a slur?

I suggest Wislon goes into his cellar and comes up with champagne, which I will accept at our next meeting in lieu of substantial damages.

My Lord, I remain your faithful servant,

SODMIRE (another typing error)

Cocklecarrot was last seen exiting the Drone’s suite of offices (destination known) in a cloud of cigar smoke — Ed

OLLY AND THE LOLLY

Dear Lord — To me Richard Dismore is the voice of reason and I'm a devotee of his column, but as someone once said, even Homer nods.

Yes, Jamie Oliver looks squeaky-clean by comparison with Gregg Wallace on TV – but nobody ever accused the Bermondsey barrer-boy of walking off with the money.

Lest we forget, and there are at least 1,000 restaurant workers who never will, the collapse of the Oliver empire in 2019 led to colossal job losses, a creditor debt of £83 million, and unpaid suppliers who went bust as a consequence. Jamie himself did not go bust, because he had become extremely rich – worth around £150 million at the last count.

Oliver traded on his golden media-hero image to open too many restaurants, too fast — I only tried one and the food and service were terrible. But he continued to surf the wave of public acclaim until, slowly, others caught on to the fact that Oliver was just a greedy man who didn't care what the punters thought as long as they paid the bill.

When the crash came, those who took the hit were left deeply unimpressed by his half-hearted words of apology. Since then he's opened more restaurants, and trundles blithely on as if nothing had ever happened. But these days as a worker or investor I'd be chary about going anywhere near.

The media protects its own (think Alastair Campbell), and so Jamie Oliver rises again unchallenged. I doubt Gregg Wallace ever will.

Yours till lunchtime,

CHRISTOPHER WISLON (that well-known typing error)

OLD BEFORE MY TIME

MiLord — I am writing to tell you of a missive that arrived through my door this morning which, I hope, will give you an opportunity to update your somewhat moribund letters page. 

I am not of a particularly great age but in my time I have enjoyed or suffered (often both) the expert attentions of more than a few hospital departments, among them paediatrics, A&E, orthopaedics, gastroenterology, cardiology, respiratory, substance abuse, neurology and rheumatology, following whose administrations I find myself in relatively rude health, not to speak of deep gratitude. 

I thought I had attended all the hospital units I am ever likely to encounter in my remaining allocation of time, but no.  The letter today requests my appearance in two weeks’ time at NHS Lothian's Department of Medicine of the Elderly. This is completely new to me. Older folk than I may be familiar with it. 

Its location is not within any of Edinburgh’s fine hospitals but in an obscure building out near the Edinburgh bypass and I immediately wondered if it had anything in common with Slough House. Is this where the damaged doctors go? I shall find out. 

IAN BAIN
Edinburgh 

10 July 2025

PS a few days later: A little investigation (which I admit I should have carried out at the time) reveals that the original name of the Department of Medicine of the Elderly is… the Geriatric Unit.  I am outraged!  

12 July 2025

THE ELEPHANT GANG

Sir — At the tail-end of my book (Pirates of Fleet Street) which you kindly serialised, there is mention of a real-life character — Rosie the Hoist. She was most certainly one of those ladies who, decked out in furs, would shoplift at the best of stores ‘up west’.

When I knew her Rosie was around 70, I would guess. It was 1973, so that fits with her being one of the gang in the 1920-30s. At my pub opening or ‘change’ as it is always known, she was still sporting the grand fur coat, with huge, added inside-pockets.

One quibble with your columnist’s very colourful piece. An early para, mentioning how the ladies terrorised the Elephant and Castle, suggests that stores like Harrods and such were at the Elephant. Some chance!

VIC WATERS
Perth, WA

HANDCART HANDBAGGED

Sir — I don't want to get all personal here but I will. That so-called columnist Helena Handcart says that Roger Watkins is her mentor and guide. Well, he's not, he's mine I tell you, mine. The silly bitch has copied the format I started and I know she was really all over him for an invitation to his 60th anniversary party at the weekend. 

I'm happy to report he blew her out and invited me. It was very nice if you like that sort of thing. Plenty of cucumber sandwiches and Horlicks martinis and curtains by 9pm. 

Not like the old days but all the better for the absence of Tart Handcart.

Yrs,

HERMIONE ORLIFF (Ms)

(Cocklecarrot, have you got a minute? — Ed)

1 July 2025

JACK ATKINSON, FASTER THAN A BULLET

My dear Lord Drone — I write regarding my colleague and great friend Richard Dismore's excellent memories of Express Foreign Copy Taster and renowned antique gun collector Jack Atkinson, who clearly did not understand the London humour of his lordship's Dronespeak  and who cast a sinister shadow over the subs table on several occasion with his itchy trigger fingers. 

I always remember Jack telling me that he paid several thousand pounds back in the Seventies to install solid iron shutters in his gun room off the lounge at his home in the Petts Wood area of Kent. At the hint of any break in, they would slam shut on all four walls, locking the unsuspecting thief into his cage. 

"What do you do then, Jack?" I asked politely. 

"My dear boy, I simply blow his head off with the shotgun I keep on the  lounge wall! Ammunition is always in the sideboard. Mrs Atkinson has the key." 

Super fit Jack was a tricky fellah in many ways. His favourite tactic as age was closing in was to challenge the younger subs to a race up to the steps of Paul's and back after the first edition. 

He would come back boasting of his victories as one beer-gutted sub collapsed in the pub after another. Until Bernie Workman, who followed him up on the opposite side of Ludgate Hill and ducked into a bank doorway, waiting for Jack to appear flagging on the way back. 

Just as our Foreign Sub got near the steps to the Express, Bernie rushed out and sped by to call the lift for him. Jack never challenged anyone else again as far as I know. 

TERRY MANNERS
Neasden Omnibus Club Athletics Assoc. 

JERRY LEE CONFIDENTIAL

M'lud — Reading Terry Manners article on Jerry Lee Lewis I was reminded of the following. Myself and an old Express pal were visiting Memphis in the early 1990s with a view to stopping by a large property located on Elvis Presley Boulevard. 

One evening we were enjoying a refreshing glass and got into a conversation with one of the locals. He was an employee of the Peabody Hotel located directly across from our hotel on Union Avenue. Jerry Lee had been appearing at the Peabody, and hotel employee told us that he witnessed the unedifying spectacle of Lewis assaulting Mrs Lewis in the hotel lobby! A not unusual event we were assured.

Fair to say Jerry Lee's behaviour left a lot to be desired... I mean he shot his bass player! (It was an accident Jerry was at pains to point out).

Lee showed up outside Graceland in November 1976 claiming that Elvis Presley had wanted to see him. Harold, the guard at the main gate, phoned up to the house and spoke to Elvis' cousin Billy Smith telling Billy that Jerry Lee was drunk out of his mind and waving a .38-caliber derringer around. Billy went upstairs to tell Elvis what was happening. Elvis was not a fan of Jerry Lee saying, "If Jerry Lee would just play the piano and keep his mouth shut, he'd be a hell of a lot better off.” Billy asked Elvis what to do, considering there were a large number of people at the gate and a drunk waving a gun about. 

Elvis’s reply was, "Tell Harold to either have that drunk son of a bitch locked up, or I'm going down and beat the hell out of him". So Harold at the main gate called the cops and had Jerry arrested. Not surprisingly Jerry Lee denied the incident ever took place.

Like Little Richard, Jerry could never quite reconcile his (sincerely held) religious beliefs with his natural affinity for rock music and the rock n' roll lifestyle. In fact there is a recording of Lewis talking during a recording session at Sun Studios in the mid 1950's, and in the recording he can be heard commenting on the this dilemma in fairly anguished tones .

I guess anyone that could come up with a rhyme such as “Hang it in like Gunga Din” couldn't have been all bad.

STEVE MILL

BORE AND PEACE

M'Lud — With reference to Helena Handcart's mentions of that munchkin of misplaced causes, Greta Thunberg, I fear Israel missed a trick that could have ended the war. Instead of 'kidnapping' her and refusing the Madleen entry into Gaza, the IDF should have thought outside the box and let Sweden's answer to Wee Jimmy Krankee and her guitar-strumming, virtue-signalling chums to carry out their intended 'aid' mission. She would have bored Hamas into submission within weeks, thereby achieving what Trump and the rest of the world never will. 

JEFF BOYLE

15 June 2025

TAVENER UPS STICKS
Terry Manners writes … Our old friend and member of this parish Roger Tavener writes to me from Oz where he has made his new home …

“I can see the Blue Mountains from my office window here. And Bondi beach is just 15 minutes down the road at a gentle jog.”

It’s just the sort of place I would expect to find the reporter with the film star looks and olive-green suit that used to drive the women mad. Roger and romance always seemed to go hand in hand. But it was story chasing he excelled at.

Now he has turned his back on Blighty but soon, he tells me, he is on the move again.

“This place used to be called Little England. Now it's New New Delhi. I go all day without hearing English spoken,” he says.

“I suppose I decamped not just for a bit of skirt but despondency at the way the old country was going. I flogged my land, Mercs, Porsches etc in Wales which I had never appreciated but was a fabulous location. Near beaches, moors, mountains.

“But now I will move further north. To the Sunshine coast north of Brisbane which is still Aussie.

“Remember old Peter Mason? He's in a posh part up there and we were supposed to meet a few months ago. But he didn't reply to an email so I guessed it was off and couldn't contact him. He and I have some interesting history, which we laugh about now.

“I'm thinking of turning that old Drone stuff I did for Lord Bingo into an AI book with an update or two. Nothing as fun as those escapades. Of course, I'll contact Bings, if I get a green light.

“I have become a controversial figure here and now do stuff under a pseudonym. A few years ago, I helped bring down the government. I was in a pub and a politician turned up. With a girl. Much younger than his daughters. You can guess the rest.”

Rog signs off with … “Tell the boys and girls I’m having a laugh Tel.”

Good luck to you Rog, you’re always a star in my book. The industry needs more reporters like you today.

TERRY M

THE POWER OF DRONE

Dear Lord — Is the influence of the mighty Drone even more powerful than hitherto recognised? More akin to that of those things the heroic Ukrainians are hitting Siberia with than to that of the work-shy bee?

No sooner had Lord Frame's latest address appeared in the organ (well no sooner than I read it yesterday, June 4) than it changed thinking at the Daily Mail no less.

Frambo's revelation that the Mail, among other right-wing papers, displayed a noticeable bias to right-wing views (who knew?) brought an immediate volte face. The June 5 Mail splash read ‘Battle Lines Drawn Over Immigration’ heading a piece outlining the plans of Labour and the Tories in an even, almost forensic manner. 

‘A remarkably balanced article’, enthused one of the reviewers on Sky's June 4 late-night look at the papers. ‘Unlike the Mail, and it put Starmer's position first,’ agreed the other. I'm off to buy a souvenir edition.

Eat your heart out Skibbereen Eagle. Floreat Apis Mellifera.

T.RYLE
c/o St Jude's
NW11

ROCKY ROAD TO A FORTUNE
M'lud, I enjoyed reading the side item about John D. Rockefeller.

Other amazing aspects of his life:

His first employer paid young John just over 50 cents per day, and from the beginning of his career he set aside money for charitable causes.

By the end of the 1890’s the average wage in the United States was around $10 per week. Rockefeller's annual income was approximately $10 million. And bear in mind these were the days before income tax.

Of more than $250 million in dividends paid out by Standard Oil between 1893 and 1901, over a quarter when directly to Rockefeller... and he was a retired man.

As Standard Oil shares soared in value in the late 1890's one periodical estimated that Rockefeller's wealth had grown by $55 million in nine months.

People these days fawn over the likes of Bezos and Musk, but compared to Rockefeller's astounding success they don't even register.

By the by, none other than J. Paul Getty, (himself so slouch as a businessman) would unknowingly take on Standard Oil, but that's another story.

STEVE MILL

EUTHENASIASTS OR WHAT?
Sir —  Should enthusiastic supporters of Assisted Dying call themselves Euthenasiasts?.
Spellcheck permitting, of course.

STERCUS ACCIDIT

IN DEFENCE OF ROBIN AND SUE’S HONOUR

Dear Lord Drone — It is with a heavy heart that I write to say how sad I was to read the bitter words of Robin McGibbon Jnr on his father, our late colleague Robin, greatly admired by his colleagues on the Express and the Fleet Street community at large.

The Daily Mail feature today, hung on the peg of Harry and his rift with his father King Charles, remarked how important it was not to let anger between father and son go to the grave. But it did not address that at all.

Instead of a sensitive piece of writing, what we read was a one-sided tale of a man obviously desperate for people to agree with his point of view that his father “was shamelessly self-indulgent and thought nothing of abusing a young boy’s trust”.

A boy who “feared his father’s vindictive streak”. A boy who was bitter when his father left his mother for his 20-year-love Sue, (not 19 as he claimed), who nursed him until his death. A boy, estranged from his father, who now wants to get the world onside.  

Nowhere in this blow-by-blow biased account of the life of the family do we hear Robin or Sue’s version of the rift. Or anyone else. There is a great void where Robin’s voice should be.

And the vital missing links, like a letter this angry young man wrote that is at the heart of the matter, is conveniently forgotten about. But now it is a closed book as far as Sue is concerned. She is upset enough.

The Daily Mail, a beacon of good journalism to most of us hacks from the Express, did not give Robin’s good lady the right of reply. I am surprised. But I hope I speak for her when I say McGibbon Jnr will never put a wedge between our great love and friendship for a man who danced with the stars and rolled with the punches. He’s still rolling.

TERRY MANNERS

BISCUITS WAS A PUSH OVER

Sir — Not to drone on about Mark Palmer... however. During a press football tournament at the old Wembley Stadium my frustration at not getting the ball was palpable.

It boiled over at an opposition throw, rage set in and I decided the bloke stood in front of me had to go, with a mighty push that left him prostrate on the revered playing surface.

Without shame I smirked 'sorry mate' and ambled off, life was much better.

The feeling didn't last beyond the following week when the new executive editor of the Daily Express walked into the sports dept and greeted me by name! Ouch.

As far as I am aware he didn't hold a grudge and he was long gone before me.

Yours
DUNCAN FERGUSON

PALMED OVER THE BAR

Crumbs! Surely the Drone was much too kind to Mark Palmer in reporting the change of his relationship with the Mail.

If memory serves, even those languishing in the lower reaches of the Express's city and money pages heard tales that, with time on his hands, Biscuits was taking an unhealthy interest in the sports desk. 

He was said to regularly challenge proven operators like Emery, Goozee, Wiltshire and Critchley over their choice of stories and how they should be pitched. And he was also demanding that when he was out of the office a lackey should send him subbed copy.

Oh, such happy days! But was it all really true?

Cheers,
COLIN HENDERSON

THE UPPER CRUST

Sir – My Express Newspapers 1988 Pension Fund is soooo exceedingly generous, I buy Lurpak butter. Spread the word!

HORACE OVIS
Yeast Breadfordshire.

P.S. Has anyone exulted the Sun headline, “They think it’s all ovaries – it is now!” Must be up there with the best. Ken Wolstenholme would have laughed his football socks off.

That’s enough bread jokes — Roland Butter

BISCUITS IN SOCK SHOCK

My Dear Lord Drone — Your piece on the endearing Mark ‘Biscuits’ Palmer, who is standing down from the Mail titles after 17 years, takes me back to happy times working with him at the Express.

Boyish Mark, a member of the Huntley and Palmer biscuits empire, had no sides to him that I could see, taking into account he was from such an historic family, and it was no surprise to me to see that he had written a book on the historic shoe giant Clarks, under the title Made to Last (geddit?)

I have always wondered if he went to school with someone from the Quaker family. They were the sort of contacts he always had.

But I will never forget the night I was with him at the Sheraton Hotel in Edinburgh where Sean Connery was opening the Fringe Festival.

It was packed with the great and the good of Scottish society ‘done up to the nines.’ DJs and tartan ball gowns were squashed against the bars as everyone awaited the arrival of the great man, not Mark, but Connery.

Suddenly our little party heard the plaintive cries of Mark over the din of the crowd as his head kept bobbing up and he pushed his way with difficulty through the mayors and other dignitaries crushed nose to breast, carrying his shoes.

“Terry, Terry, help!”

We eased him through.

“What is it Mark?”

“I forgot to pack my socks!”

We all looked down to see his little pinkies poking out from his Gieves & Hawkes dinner trousers. They were bare and he was having difficulty avoiding being trod on.

I had to leave the party, go to a room and get him some, which he gratefully slid on. Then I was embarrassed to notice they had a hole in them. He never said. Too much of a gentleman, of course. It’s all about schooling isn’t it? Great guy.

TERRY MANNERS
Neasden Mansions. 

CAPTION CAPS IT ALL
Sir -- Telegraph Online today has a picture of tens of thousands of trans activists crowding Parliament Square, with this stunning caption: "The Supreme Court ruling on single-sex spaces undermines the CIPD's previous guidance on trans rights in the workplace."

Look, I'm not being captious (see what I did there?) but allow me to quote from my well-thumbed copy of the Morris Benett one-page guide on caption writing (1968):

"Just fucking say what's in the fucking picture." 

Good God, it's not differential calculus, is it?

RICK McNEILL
Been there done that
30 April 2025

JACK IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD

Milord — Pat Welland quotes from Alan Watkins' book A Short Walk Down Fleet Street two well known stories of the less than articulate musings of Jack Nener, (Mirror editor 1953-61) and his Neanderthal deputy Dick Dinsdale. 

There are many others, for by all accounts Nener was, as described, "a foul-mouthed bow-tied Swansea boy". Mirror legend has it that during Party conference season Nener and Dinsdale were having a spirited conversation in the bar of Blackpool's swanky Imperial Hotel. 

Cuss words beginning with f and c were being flung around loudly and a couple sitting nearby were getting uncomfortable. Eventually the man went over to Nener and asked him to tone down his language as his wife could hear every word. 

"You can't speak to my friend like that", said Dinsdale. "He's the fucking editor of the fucking Daily Mirror". "Yes", said the man. "I rather thought he might be.”

I know the story to be true because none other than Hugh Cudlipp told me so. He said both Nener and Dinsdale suggested to him that at future conferences the Mirror should take over the best bars for themselves and bar members of the public (ie readers and contacts). 

 MICHAEL HELLICAR

OLD FOLK’S MOAN
Sir — While no great believer in current obsessional attempts to create a risk-free world, I was caused some anxiety by the pic of members of the WGLC splashed on the Drone. Is [it] entirely wise for chaps in their eighth, possibly ninth, decades to be bunched closely together in such near proximity to Kim Leadbeater?
GERRY HATRICK
NW11
19 April 2025
NURSE!!! — Ed

REMEMBERING OUR DEPARTED COLLEAGUES
My dear Lord Drone — How lovely to see the Sunday Mirror tribute to art desk designer and all-round nice guy Terry Caleno, who died a while back. He also worked at the Express, of course, but I never knew he played the clarinet, violin and piano. What a secretive and talented guy he was. So unassuming.

And so lovely to see his former colleagues from both papers pay tribute to him with a pint. Well done Kevin (Walker) for jogging our memories.

So sad that the custom of posting little paragraphs and obits for staff died on the Express in the Seventies. I recall that Les (Chips) Diver used to make great play on the Backbench by acting as guardian of the words that remembered our loyal staff.

But someone upstairs eventually pulled the plug, as we entered the new era where loyalty and ‘the Express Family’ no longer mattered a hoot.

We even had an official ‘fixer’ Peter Drake, whose job was to visit Express families in mourning to make sure they ‘were OK’, financially and emotionally.

Those were the days, eh? Before chairmen came along who thought a sub was a metal object that went under water.

TEL BOY
Obits Library, Neasden Omnibus Company, Dollis Hill.
13 April 2025

RACHEL NO MATES
Sir — Sometimes in life you just have to admit you might have got it wrong. It is some months now since I had the temerity to point out the uncanny similarity between our much-maligned chancellor Rachel Reeves and Rosa Klebb, the main antagonist in the James Bond 1963 film From Russia with Love. Judging by those who have called my opinion unfair, discourteous and down-right rude (and they are the printable opinions), may I offer my sincere and heartfelt apologies . . . to all Rosa’s fans out there. I don’t know about Reeves. Strange, but she doesn’t seem to have a comparable national fan base.
IAN BARRATT
1B, Bond Street, Basildon

COMIC RELIEF
M'Lud — My apologies for being the 940th Drone reader to comment on page one of Saturday's Daily Star. Instead of its usual diet of make-believe weather forecasting, pooing seagulls, US VP JD Dunce, scumbag bots and the many tiresome variations on the orange man-baby theme, the edition actually splashed on an earth-shattering (literally) news story reminiscent of when the highly-respected Lloyd Turner was editor. Mustn't get carried away though. Probably a one-off before the paper returns to being the Beano of the Retch stable.
JEFF BOYLE

31 March 2025

JUST A LITTLE PRICK
Sir — Why is Helena Handcart’s column slimmer than Hermione Orliff’s? Is she more svelte and lissome? Please address this under the Drone’s  I Think We Should Be Told protocol.
O.B.S MOUNJARO
Wellness4You
EC4
It’s because you, sorry she, didn’t fill enough copy to fill the slot and I couldn’t be arsed to find a filler, so the makeup had to be adjusted. It’s one of the many things sub-editors do — Ed

CAP’N LUDVIK
M'lud, at the conclusion of John Preston's biography of Cap'n Bob he relates the following:
Maxwell's sister Sylvia is visiting her brother at the Mirror offices. Mirror man Mike Molloy is captioning some old wartime photos and writes Maxwell's name, Jan Ludvik Hoch on the back of one of the pictures. Sylvia questions her brother as to why he always gives his real name as Jan Ludvik Hoch to which Maxwell replies that it is his real name.
'No it's not', said Sylvia. 'Your name is Ludvik. You were named after Uncle Ludvik, not Jan'.
Maxwell looked at her in astonishment.
Was I?' he said.
This one will run and run.

STEVE MILL

GREEDY BASTARD
M'Lud — How uplifting to read your report on the generosity of Jim Mullen awarding Retch journalists a £600 bonus. A selfless and heartwarming gesture, especially as CEO Mullen's haul is a pisspoor £662,000 and the company's operating profits are in such dire straits. As to why this ex-bookie's runner wants or needs so much money is open to conjecture, so I couldn't possibly comment. But my mate Wes down at the Dog & Duck reckons it's because our Jim is just a greedy bastard.
MAL PRACTICE,
Neasden Echo

COCKLECARROT! WAKE UP, YOU’RE NEEDED

From the desk of Sir David Napley,
Messrs Sue, Grabbit and Tossoff,
Carterfuck Chambers,
EC1

Sir — We act on behalf of Christopher Wislon, that well-known typing error. Our attention has been drawn to your article which refers to him in the most unsavoury terms, implying he is a secret corset-wearer and Bourneville boulevardier, and that he covertly trawls the world wide web in search of purveyors of transvestite frillies.

Nothing could be further from the truth. While Mr Wislon concedes he is no stranger to illegal acts — he confirms he once blacked Nigel Dempster's eye in a row over a telephone box, an act which resulted in our client depriving Mr Dumpster's rightful access to copytakers by ripping the wires out of the Daily Mail phone — he is, in this case, above reproach. He has a picture on his wall of the actress Liz Fraser wearing a tight corset which, he says, is ample to his needs.

Our client seeks an immediate apology together with damages which will make your fucking eyes water. Failing instant reparation, our client instructs us to come round and confiscate your green eyeshade, while offering the observation that despite occupying your editor's chair for a record two decades, nobody is indispensible, matey. 

Yours in briefs,
DAVID NAPPY (Sir)

Thank you for your letter. I refer you to the reply given in Arkell and Pressdram. — Ed

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