Thirty years ago this week I embarked, properly, on what was to be my life's career when I began a journalism course at Harlow Technical College.
I mention this for two reasons. One, a few of us from that fateful nine month course in the hellhole of Essex are meeting up tomorrow night and what an odd bunch the creme de la creme of the 1981 intake promises to be.
The second is the strange case of Johann Hari, a 'journalist' with the Independent who went straight into national journalism from university and then proceeded to besmirch an already well besmirched profession even further.
You may not have heard of him. He writes for a small circulation paper that few people read but he's made a name for himself as a left wing writer of some repute, garnering awards and enemies along the way.
Anyway, in short, he's been caught out. In interviews where he failed to get enough decent material he simply lifted quotes the subject had given before and then pretended it had been said to him. He also went under a pseudonym onto Wikipedia and inserted false and malicious 'facts' into the entries of people he didn't like, including accusing one person of being a drunk and another of being an anti-semite.
Considering some of the stuff he's written about Palestine then he's treading a fine line with the last of those.
If he had been a redtop hack then you probably would have heard about this. Parliament would have been recalled, two chief constables would have resigned, the Home Secretary would have beheaded herself in an act of contrition at the Tower of London and The Guardian, led by pious 'Professor' Roy Greenslade, would have been calling it the worst constitutional crisis since Suez.
But it's the Independent and they haven't even fired him. They've sent him away, he's returned his Orwell prize for journalism (but hasn't said if he's returned the money that he got as part of that) and Johann is going to 'retrain' as a journalist. Not that he trained in the first place.
Rumour has it he's going to retrain in the States. I doubt if he'll learn shorthand at 100 wpm, typing, law, local government and 'how to keep a contacts book' as we were laughingly taught 30 years ago.
But he should be sent to Harlow for nine months at the very least. Now that would be a suitable punishment.
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So 1981, Harlow. Human League are top of the charts, Spurs were between successive FA Cup Final victories, everyone had mullets or asymmetrical haircuts and I looked like Marc Almond.
Tomorrow will be interesting. A certain Daily Mail columnist has cancelled to see a child prodigy pianist from Belgrade (why she couldn't say she had a migraine I don't know) but The Guardian columnist, two freelances, a couple of public sector communication bosses and a high flying corporate PR 'reputation' manager will be there at least.
We're not meeting in Harlow. A couple of those coming have never set foot there since leaving 29 years and three months ago and have no intention of going back.
Personally, I've been back a few times, not least for the births of my three children.
But we're meeting in central London. Which poses a new problem. What to wear. Do I try and look like I'm really rich and successful with these people that I haven't seen in 30 years? Do I tone down and look less successful but happy? Or should I just dress as I normally do and find the last clean shirt I've got?
We'll see.
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This is eye opening. It's from the Telegraph and it's a series of photos of what looks at first like those chocolate Matchmakers you used to give your girlfriend's mum when they invited you round to dinner.
But it turns out it's the fashion editors of some of the world's most prestigious glossy magazines.
If you've ever wondered why the industry continues to promote poster girls for anorexia despite the obvious criticism then this may explain why. They make Princess Lollipop, the Duchess of Cambridge, look like Vaness Feltz.
http://tinyurl.com/63pxerg
Harlow? Goodbye...Solly
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