Four more former colleagues from The Sun have been arrested this week. I worked with all of them and have spoken to many others from our vintage. I think the general consensus is that a lot of Wapping refuseniks are sorry to see one of them, in particular, in this situation, but their reaction to the fate of the other three can best be described as a snigger.
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David Cameron made a speech about a week ago defending capitalism. Which is fair enough. After all, capitalism rewards hard work and those who pull themselves up by their bootlaces to make money, achieve things beyond their expectations and to compete in a free market economy. All by sheer determination and talent rather than through who you know, an old school tie and inheriting rather than earning money.
But which bit of capitalism do you want? No, really. Because it's quite clear we all like bits of it. The bits of it that mean we can make money mainly.
The bits of it that say businesses should be privately owned and run with the purpose of making capital by buying and selling according to market forces and that those who make the money should be rewarded for it. And controlling labour but at a rate which is economically viable to all concerned.
Like banks of course.
The bits of capitalism that says private businesses make more money if the state doesn't interfere too much. Like banks.
And when the last Labour government relaxed regulation, it meant they had the freedom to make lots of money. Instead, of course, they lost lots of money. But when you let a child go out into the world you allow them to make mistakes. They learn by them. Although you'd rather they didn't make mistakes that end up with you having to sell your house to cover them.
Too much regulation, they argue, and we'll be off. We'll take our ball and go and play in Hong Kong or somewhere. Of course they never do but the threat is enough to keep regulation as loose at Fred Goodwin's zipper.
Then there's the bit of capitalism that says that the state can own RBS but not manage it. Bankers manage banks, not politicians. So they can pay themselves what they want. Cameron believes this, even though he tried to put a seven figure cap on it. So the boss paid himself £953,000 instead. Except it wasn't that, was it? Experts reckon he pocketed around £5 million overall. But that's capitalism too.
In fact, it's probably the purest form of capitalism you can get. A company owned by the state but allowed to operate as if it wasn't in the hope the state gets its money back and more.
And bosses rewarded for their success in such a way it generates half a million quid for the exchequer, which could hire 100 nurses (though of course it won't).
But suddenly we don't like that bit of capitalism. It smacks of inequality even though capitalism allows for inequality in that it wouldn't work if everyone got the same.
And so when it comes down to it, we like our capitalism in easy to digest bite size chunks and not in great big whopping pay packets for a bloke who, when dressed in his riding gear, resembles a Michelin man with a penis on his head. That was such an unfortunate photo Stephen.
For even if we could sympathise a little with a man who gave up a safe job earning millions for a dodgy one earning millions, the sight of him in his black velvet hunting jacket and white cravat, astride a horse and holding a whip while in a knob hat, is enough to want to us all to see him thrown to the dogs.
I don't own the copyright to the photo so you'll have to click on the link to see it though I'm sure you already have.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/30/article-2093630-0D5959CA000005DC-979_306x423.jpg
Tally ho....Solly
Monday 30 January 2012
Tuesday 24 January 2012
In sickness and in Shelf
The BBC have a lovely new film to promote its natural history programmes. Over snippets of cutesy animals, his royal highness, David Attenborough, reads the lyrics to What A Wonderful World.
It's simply beautiful. Then comes THAT shot of two baby polar bears and David says 'I hear babies cry and watch them grow' and as a nation, we all shout 'yeah, in a bloody zoo!'
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My wife, my business partner and several friends and acquaintances are among what is probably a majority who fail to understand the emotional bond between a fan and his (or her) football team.
Let's say it's a man. Better still, let's say it's me though it may be you too.
The relationship between a fan and their team is, quite simply a marriage. Or at least a good marriage.
You are in it for life. You want to be in it for life. Although there are times when you think, why the hell do I do this. But you do it. Sometimes it's a bit routine. You wonder whether there is more to life and what might have happened if you had supported that other lot down the road or someone more glamourous or a bit younger. But then you think, nah, I'm actually the luckiest man in the world when all's said and done.
It's just like marriage. You do it once a fortnight and sometimes it feels like you're just going through the motions when you fail to get as excited as you once did, but then occasionally you do and you come out, pause for breath, light a cigarette and mutter 'fantastic.'
Of course, it can be dispiriting. The kids let you down, they run off with someone else, they get arrested. Though most of the time you're just proud that they try their best for you and wish them luck when they leave home.
Occasionally you turn up drunk or say something stupid in front of guests and they all feel embarrassed for you.
It can be expensive but you don't think of the cost. It's only when you tot up how much it's cost over your lifetime that you realise - blimey, I could have bought a Bentley for that.
But a Bentley doesn't lift you to the same heights or such depths of despair. And if you were going to pop your clogs, you'd much rather it was watching the ones you love than in the seat of a car.
Of course some people get married more than once but that first one is a bit of mistake. You were a bit hasty and fell for the first team that caught your eye but eventually you end up with 'the one' and it was always meant to be.
And there are different marriages of course. What I am describing applies to Spurs, I feel.
If you support West Ham then it's like marrying a childhood sweetheart and hoping that one day you'll buy your own council house and Liverpool is an arranged marriage. Your parents insist on it and, it turns out, you end up being loyal and comparatively happy with a tendency to complain a lot.
Arsenal fans thought they were marrying some posh bird with a bit of an exotic accent but despite enjoying plenty of trips to Europe and lots of sophisticated nights out, they've very little to show for the last few years.
Chelsea fans married some East European catalogue bride for her dad's money and Manchester United fans are like those smug married couples who, every Christmas, send you a card detailing all the wonderful achievements of their children. Little Ryan had a bit of a falling out with his brother. Ginger ran away from home and we thought we'd lost him but he came back again.
At least, most of the time it's like a marriage. However, for our lot, this season has been more like an affair. It's been a real blast, a lot of fun and quite invigorating. And now, even though it's all over, you can say 'well it's been worth it' and go back to normal, hoping for the occasional high, accepting there will be good days and bad days, but sticking with it until the bitter end. Oh yeah, and it looks like dad may be going to prison.
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A while ago I mentioned Evening Standard pisspoor columnist Sarah Sands who tried to argue for the existence of God by claiming the sitcom Rev was funnier than anything about atheists and Leonardo di Vinci did some nice paintings. Today she's at it again. To paraphrase her column, she argues that because religion has such beautiful churches, religion is a 'good thing'.
Reading this rubbish, it reminds you that the best city in the world has one of the shittiest local newspapers serving it. As with its mayor, London deserves better.
Knock knock. Who's there. M.A.B. M.A.B. who? M.A.B. it's because I'm a Londoner.
See ya....Solly
It's simply beautiful. Then comes THAT shot of two baby polar bears and David says 'I hear babies cry and watch them grow' and as a nation, we all shout 'yeah, in a bloody zoo!'
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My wife, my business partner and several friends and acquaintances are among what is probably a majority who fail to understand the emotional bond between a fan and his (or her) football team.
Let's say it's a man. Better still, let's say it's me though it may be you too.
The relationship between a fan and their team is, quite simply a marriage. Or at least a good marriage.
You are in it for life. You want to be in it for life. Although there are times when you think, why the hell do I do this. But you do it. Sometimes it's a bit routine. You wonder whether there is more to life and what might have happened if you had supported that other lot down the road or someone more glamourous or a bit younger. But then you think, nah, I'm actually the luckiest man in the world when all's said and done.
It's just like marriage. You do it once a fortnight and sometimes it feels like you're just going through the motions when you fail to get as excited as you once did, but then occasionally you do and you come out, pause for breath, light a cigarette and mutter 'fantastic.'
Of course, it can be dispiriting. The kids let you down, they run off with someone else, they get arrested. Though most of the time you're just proud that they try their best for you and wish them luck when they leave home.
Occasionally you turn up drunk or say something stupid in front of guests and they all feel embarrassed for you.
It can be expensive but you don't think of the cost. It's only when you tot up how much it's cost over your lifetime that you realise - blimey, I could have bought a Bentley for that.
But a Bentley doesn't lift you to the same heights or such depths of despair. And if you were going to pop your clogs, you'd much rather it was watching the ones you love than in the seat of a car.
Of course some people get married more than once but that first one is a bit of mistake. You were a bit hasty and fell for the first team that caught your eye but eventually you end up with 'the one' and it was always meant to be.
And there are different marriages of course. What I am describing applies to Spurs, I feel.
If you support West Ham then it's like marrying a childhood sweetheart and hoping that one day you'll buy your own council house and Liverpool is an arranged marriage. Your parents insist on it and, it turns out, you end up being loyal and comparatively happy with a tendency to complain a lot.
Arsenal fans thought they were marrying some posh bird with a bit of an exotic accent but despite enjoying plenty of trips to Europe and lots of sophisticated nights out, they've very little to show for the last few years.
Chelsea fans married some East European catalogue bride for her dad's money and Manchester United fans are like those smug married couples who, every Christmas, send you a card detailing all the wonderful achievements of their children. Little Ryan had a bit of a falling out with his brother. Ginger ran away from home and we thought we'd lost him but he came back again.
At least, most of the time it's like a marriage. However, for our lot, this season has been more like an affair. It's been a real blast, a lot of fun and quite invigorating. And now, even though it's all over, you can say 'well it's been worth it' and go back to normal, hoping for the occasional high, accepting there will be good days and bad days, but sticking with it until the bitter end. Oh yeah, and it looks like dad may be going to prison.
------------------------------------------------------------
A while ago I mentioned Evening Standard pisspoor columnist Sarah Sands who tried to argue for the existence of God by claiming the sitcom Rev was funnier than anything about atheists and Leonardo di Vinci did some nice paintings. Today she's at it again. To paraphrase her column, she argues that because religion has such beautiful churches, religion is a 'good thing'.
Reading this rubbish, it reminds you that the best city in the world has one of the shittiest local newspapers serving it. As with its mayor, London deserves better.
Knock knock. Who's there. M.A.B. M.A.B. who? M.A.B. it's because I'm a Londoner.
See ya....Solly
Friday 20 January 2012
We're Gonna Drive 'Em Back Into The Sea
In an advert for Iceland, featuring another of the famous clan, Stacey Solomon, a voice announces the benefits of frozen food 'when people drop by unexpected.' I wouldn't have minded if it was Stacey who said that but it wasn't, it was the narrator. Ad agencies, like newspapers, used to check their copy again and again to make sure that it at least made grammatical sense. Maybe it's a sign of the times, but you can bet a tabloid sub would spot the need for an adverb in a short sentence.
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My mate was head of corporate communications of Kodak in Europe around the turn of the century. He left in 2000 and here's why.
In Rochester, New York, in 1999, as the world got ready to either celebrate or face an apocalypse caused by the millennium bug, Kodak's bigwigs got together for a conference to discuss the future.
The suits on the stage flew round the world on private jets and ran a company employing close to 50,000 people with an HQ that even had its own power plant.
They had returned from a major photo industry show in Germany where the biggest talking point was the advances made by new fangled digital technology.
So the cameras involved weighed a ton, cost a fortune and were a fraction of a pixel in resolution but the IT boffins and assorted photographic nerds were getting excited. This, they decided, was the future. And they were right of course.
Kodak had actually invented digital camera technology several years earlier but as their money came from selling film, they sat on it. The future was in yellow boxes, they thought.
Only the dimwitted couldn't see how short sighted this was. Unfortunately, the dimwitted were running Kodak. Imagine, a camera where you can see the photo you've just taken and take it again if the subject blinked without having to pay for two pictures to be developed. Nope, they couldn't imagine that.
They imagined cameras with reels of plastic where you only got to see the results if you took it into a darkroom and spent hours developing it.
So in front of a room full of PR, marketing and other important types, they went through all their visions of the future without mentioning the word 'digital' once. This puzzled my mate so he asked, out loud, in front of the audience of PRs: "What about digital?"
The senior executive consulted a colleague, turned back and replied: "We're going to drive them back into the sea."
The following year my mate left. He now does very well thank you. Something to do with change management, whatever that means, but it allows him regular trips to Ibiza with women half his age so who's complaining?
Kodak now looks like going the way of RCA, Pan Am, Betamax and the Room at the Top nightclub in Ilford, to mention a few. They could have adapted. They could have produced world beating digital cameras, gone into mobile phones with built in cameras, pocket sized video cameras, ebooks, who knows?
Instead they blamed the changing world around them for leaving behind, tried to claim they were the victims of a 'perfect storm of consumer technology advances' or that they were just unlucky.
My bet is that executive probably retired on a decent pension and is living the good life. Though he may well have gone on to captain an Italian cruise liner, who knows?
Because it is that kind of lack of vision that may well see the remaining 19,000 Kodak workers finally go under. But no doubt the bosses will do all right.
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Talking of cruise liners, I've ordered a Costa Concordia model from the local hobby shop. They've said they'll put it on one side for me. (Hat tip: Allan Hall who really should know better!)
Ahoyahoy....Solly
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My mate was head of corporate communications of Kodak in Europe around the turn of the century. He left in 2000 and here's why.
In Rochester, New York, in 1999, as the world got ready to either celebrate or face an apocalypse caused by the millennium bug, Kodak's bigwigs got together for a conference to discuss the future.
The suits on the stage flew round the world on private jets and ran a company employing close to 50,000 people with an HQ that even had its own power plant.
They had returned from a major photo industry show in Germany where the biggest talking point was the advances made by new fangled digital technology.
So the cameras involved weighed a ton, cost a fortune and were a fraction of a pixel in resolution but the IT boffins and assorted photographic nerds were getting excited. This, they decided, was the future. And they were right of course.
Kodak had actually invented digital camera technology several years earlier but as their money came from selling film, they sat on it. The future was in yellow boxes, they thought.
Only the dimwitted couldn't see how short sighted this was. Unfortunately, the dimwitted were running Kodak. Imagine, a camera where you can see the photo you've just taken and take it again if the subject blinked without having to pay for two pictures to be developed. Nope, they couldn't imagine that.
They imagined cameras with reels of plastic where you only got to see the results if you took it into a darkroom and spent hours developing it.
So in front of a room full of PR, marketing and other important types, they went through all their visions of the future without mentioning the word 'digital' once. This puzzled my mate so he asked, out loud, in front of the audience of PRs: "What about digital?"
The senior executive consulted a colleague, turned back and replied: "We're going to drive them back into the sea."
The following year my mate left. He now does very well thank you. Something to do with change management, whatever that means, but it allows him regular trips to Ibiza with women half his age so who's complaining?
Kodak now looks like going the way of RCA, Pan Am, Betamax and the Room at the Top nightclub in Ilford, to mention a few. They could have adapted. They could have produced world beating digital cameras, gone into mobile phones with built in cameras, pocket sized video cameras, ebooks, who knows?
Instead they blamed the changing world around them for leaving behind, tried to claim they were the victims of a 'perfect storm of consumer technology advances' or that they were just unlucky.
My bet is that executive probably retired on a decent pension and is living the good life. Though he may well have gone on to captain an Italian cruise liner, who knows?
Because it is that kind of lack of vision that may well see the remaining 19,000 Kodak workers finally go under. But no doubt the bosses will do all right.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Talking of cruise liners, I've ordered a Costa Concordia model from the local hobby shop. They've said they'll put it on one side for me. (Hat tip: Allan Hall who really should know better!)
Ahoyahoy....Solly
Saturday 14 January 2012
On the Peace
A new family moves into a house in a well established area. The neighbours are a bit cheesed off at the arrivistes, not least because they wanted to buy it themselves.
The new family are, well, not quite 'the same as us' - they're foreigners and although they can show they have roots there, they have a different religion and different customs and some of their friends are a bit brash and loud.
It's the rich friends that lent the new family the money to do up the house and get the garden in order, send the kids to private school and have a new car on the drive.
This breeds more resentment with the neighbours. They have rich uncles who make their money in the oil industry but never share it round so their homes are a bit tatty.
All in all, the new lot are not made to feel welcome. Occasionally it gets unpleasant. And sometimes there is an uneasy truce.
Some years ago they tried counselling with a rather effete bloke called David. It worked for a while but camp David was a long time ago and things move on.
The kids from the family at number 11 used to throw stones at them but they've moved on and they seem to get on ok now.
And the police sorted out the grumpy old git at number 15. He died and the new lot are squabbling over who should get the house so they're preoccupied.
The people at the house behind occasionally throw dog poo over the fence. The new family threw it back, it hit a baby and the police had a word.
The new family aren't blameless. They've built a very big wall without permission to stop the local scallies breaking into the shed and they blocked off an access road which they weren't allowed to do.
They did give a bit of their land at the back over to some of the neighbours in the hope that it would assuage them. They supply power and water to it too but then they built a garage on part of it so it's still a sore point.
Now there's a new problem. Some secretive neighbours a few doors down used to shout their mouths off about how they're going to send the boys round.
The head of the household is a funny little man with a bizarre dress sense so they nickname him Armani Dinner Jacket.
ADJ has been banging on for a while about how the new neighbours should have their house burned down and how they and all their friends and relatives should be wiped off the face of the earth.
He's even got it embroidered on a cushion on his sofa, that's how much he means it.
The police have seen it but decided that it was all a bit 'sticks and stones' and they shouldn't take much notice of a few insults.
But recently it became apparent that these secretive neighbours have been making a bomb to blow up the new family's house. They've already said how much they want them dead after all.
This gives the new family a bit of a dilemma. The police won't do anything until something actually happens, nor will the rich relatives - although they have written a stiff letter to the local paper about it.
They could wait until the bomb goes off and then throw a bomb back but by then they may already be dead so what good is that?
Alternatively they could take pre-emptive action and superglue the locks or firebomb ADJ's home but then all his mates would join in, and the police and it could get a bit tasty.
Besides, the new family's rich friends may decide not to help them out if that happens.
There is another option. A bit drastic perhaps. But a couple of local heavies - Moss and Addy - have offered to help out. For a bung, they'll 'sort out' the nerdy cousins whose know how is building the bomb.
And so that's what they do. ADJ's nerdy cousins get a seeing to.
Of course, there's a bit of a to do. A few accusations and threats of revenge are made, mainly on Twitter. Even some celebs join in.
However, it does mean the bomb doesn't get built and, instead of the problem escalating, the uneasy peace remains for a little while longer.
It would be nice if there was an easier solution, wouldn't it?
Shalom, Salam, Solly
The new family are, well, not quite 'the same as us' - they're foreigners and although they can show they have roots there, they have a different religion and different customs and some of their friends are a bit brash and loud.
It's the rich friends that lent the new family the money to do up the house and get the garden in order, send the kids to private school and have a new car on the drive.
This breeds more resentment with the neighbours. They have rich uncles who make their money in the oil industry but never share it round so their homes are a bit tatty.
All in all, the new lot are not made to feel welcome. Occasionally it gets unpleasant. And sometimes there is an uneasy truce.
Some years ago they tried counselling with a rather effete bloke called David. It worked for a while but camp David was a long time ago and things move on.
The kids from the family at number 11 used to throw stones at them but they've moved on and they seem to get on ok now.
And the police sorted out the grumpy old git at number 15. He died and the new lot are squabbling over who should get the house so they're preoccupied.
The people at the house behind occasionally throw dog poo over the fence. The new family threw it back, it hit a baby and the police had a word.
The new family aren't blameless. They've built a very big wall without permission to stop the local scallies breaking into the shed and they blocked off an access road which they weren't allowed to do.
They did give a bit of their land at the back over to some of the neighbours in the hope that it would assuage them. They supply power and water to it too but then they built a garage on part of it so it's still a sore point.
Now there's a new problem. Some secretive neighbours a few doors down used to shout their mouths off about how they're going to send the boys round.
The head of the household is a funny little man with a bizarre dress sense so they nickname him Armani Dinner Jacket.
ADJ has been banging on for a while about how the new neighbours should have their house burned down and how they and all their friends and relatives should be wiped off the face of the earth.
He's even got it embroidered on a cushion on his sofa, that's how much he means it.
The police have seen it but decided that it was all a bit 'sticks and stones' and they shouldn't take much notice of a few insults.
But recently it became apparent that these secretive neighbours have been making a bomb to blow up the new family's house. They've already said how much they want them dead after all.
This gives the new family a bit of a dilemma. The police won't do anything until something actually happens, nor will the rich relatives - although they have written a stiff letter to the local paper about it.
They could wait until the bomb goes off and then throw a bomb back but by then they may already be dead so what good is that?
Alternatively they could take pre-emptive action and superglue the locks or firebomb ADJ's home but then all his mates would join in, and the police and it could get a bit tasty.
Besides, the new family's rich friends may decide not to help them out if that happens.
There is another option. A bit drastic perhaps. But a couple of local heavies - Moss and Addy - have offered to help out. For a bung, they'll 'sort out' the nerdy cousins whose know how is building the bomb.
And so that's what they do. ADJ's nerdy cousins get a seeing to.
Of course, there's a bit of a to do. A few accusations and threats of revenge are made, mainly on Twitter. Even some celebs join in.
However, it does mean the bomb doesn't get built and, instead of the problem escalating, the uneasy peace remains for a little while longer.
It would be nice if there was an easier solution, wouldn't it?
Shalom, Salam, Solly
Tuesday 10 January 2012
When I say ugly, I don't mean rough looking...
Everyone's talking about a film called The Artist. I believe that wasn't its original title. It was formerly known as Prince.
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Louise Mensch says the reason she's unlikely to get into the cabinet is because she's got young children. In the past she thought it may because she was too attractive.
Following the same logic, I never became a centre forward for Spurs because my hair was too curly, I never married Ann-Margret because I was left handed and the reason I'm not Prime Minister is because I don't like peas. Well, it makes as much sense.
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Last week John Humphrys asked David Cameron who he would have playing him in a film about his life. Legitimate question in the light of the Thatcher film. Today he asked Ed Miliband, indirectly perhaps, if he was too ugly to be Prime Minister. Those bloody left wing BBC types, eh?
And would he have asked a woman the same question?
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Good old Kelvin. My former boss illuminated the Leveson inquiry not just with a general attitude of 'so what' about ethics, getting it right and so on, but with a very funny impression of John Major.
Just for the record. If you got it wrong under Kelvin he bollocked you. If you didn't try in the first place he bollocked you more.
But about the Major incident when the then-PM rang Kelvin after pulling out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism.
I remember this story well. I edited The Sun's City page that day while the drama unfolded in the Square Mile. It was both exciting and terrifying and knackering. I wasn't even the regular City editor, I was just covering. Bloody typical.
Every five minutes the editor or the news editor or some bearded twat from features would come in and ask what was going on and I'd have to tap dance my way out of it, waffling about George Soros and betting against the pound and so on. Then they'd leave the room and I'd ring a mate in the City and ask him to explain to me what was going on so I could explain it to the boss.
The worse aspect was the constant changing of interest rates. I remember them going up from 10 to 12 then 15 (though I think that was a promise never kept) and back down to 12.
Trouble was, every time they changed, the paper wanted a table on what this meant for people's mortgages.
So when they went from, say, eight to 10 per cent, I'd have to ring the Halifax and ask them to do me up a table of repayments on £30,000, £50,000, £80,000, £100,000 mortgages and what they'd gone from and to.
There was no email in those days. All the tables had to be faxed to me and I had to type them on to the screen in between monitoring the collapse of the pound, the share prices and phone calls from various readers and reporters, including the political editor, Trevor Kavanagh who - out of everyone - was the most relaxed and gentlemanly of all I dealt with that day. He helped calm me down too, I recall. The guy's a mensch, and not in the Louise sense.
Anyway, no sooner had I finished one mortgage table, the interest rate changed and I'd have to go through the whole process again. It was one of the most exhausting days of my working life. And I didn't even have Twitter, Google or, in fact, the internet at all, to help me out. Blimey.
It was incredibly hectic but looking back, it was at a time when mass market tabloids would clear the desks for a decent political story. Some serious issues may have been simplified but they were dealt with. Even celebrity stories in those pre-Big Brother days would take second place to topics that really affected the kind of aspirational working class readership of a red top tabloid.
At the end of this tumultous day, those of use who had been involved were gathered by the newsdesk when Kelvin came out of his office to say that John Major had rang. Doing the impression again, he told how Major had asked what the paper's view on the day was.
My recollection differs slightly from Kelvin at the Leveson hearing in that he told us: "I told him 'John, I've got two buckets of shit on my desk and I'm going to pour both of them all over you."
We laughed, a bit nervously, and asked Kelvin 'what did Major say?'
Kelvin impersonated him again and said: "Oh, er, ho ho, very, er good Kelvin, I'll look out for that."
It was around this period that I think I really got to see what The Sun was about. Having been slavishly Tory under Thatch, it was now doing a better job of being anti-Conservative than the Labour-supporting Mirror.
It wasn't altruistic, it was commercial.
And being The Sun, it was probably more effective.
The logic was that while Sun readers were losing their jobs and having their homes repossessed, the paper they read could not simply gloss over it because they were, in general, a Tory paper.
They had to support their readers more than they could support a useless government who continued to shoot itself in the foot.
The Sun had supported Major in 1992 but Kinnock was in opposition so, for them, it was a no brainer. Of course, come the next election in 1997, The Sun had switched to Blair.
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I wasn't entirely sure who or what Georgia Salpa is when I noticed her appearance in the Celebrity Big Brother house. I'm indebted to the Daily Mail online, who seem obsessed with this Richard Desmond show for explaining.
Apparently she is a 'body confident Kim Kardashian doppelganger' they say.
Now, if they could just tell me, again, who Kim Kardashian is, we'll all be a lot better informed.
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Poor old Anthony Worrall Thompson. He was caught stealing onions and bread from Tesco. And that was just for starters. The wine and cheese was for dessert.
Heard an interesting tale about AWT and New Covent Garden where he bought food for his restaurants, and came across some crates of bananas that he accidentally thought belonged to him.
I'm sure it was an innocent mistake. Night all...Solly
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Louise Mensch says the reason she's unlikely to get into the cabinet is because she's got young children. In the past she thought it may because she was too attractive.
Following the same logic, I never became a centre forward for Spurs because my hair was too curly, I never married Ann-Margret because I was left handed and the reason I'm not Prime Minister is because I don't like peas. Well, it makes as much sense.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last week John Humphrys asked David Cameron who he would have playing him in a film about his life. Legitimate question in the light of the Thatcher film. Today he asked Ed Miliband, indirectly perhaps, if he was too ugly to be Prime Minister. Those bloody left wing BBC types, eh?
And would he have asked a woman the same question?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Good old Kelvin. My former boss illuminated the Leveson inquiry not just with a general attitude of 'so what' about ethics, getting it right and so on, but with a very funny impression of John Major.
Just for the record. If you got it wrong under Kelvin he bollocked you. If you didn't try in the first place he bollocked you more.
But about the Major incident when the then-PM rang Kelvin after pulling out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism.
I remember this story well. I edited The Sun's City page that day while the drama unfolded in the Square Mile. It was both exciting and terrifying and knackering. I wasn't even the regular City editor, I was just covering. Bloody typical.
Every five minutes the editor or the news editor or some bearded twat from features would come in and ask what was going on and I'd have to tap dance my way out of it, waffling about George Soros and betting against the pound and so on. Then they'd leave the room and I'd ring a mate in the City and ask him to explain to me what was going on so I could explain it to the boss.
The worse aspect was the constant changing of interest rates. I remember them going up from 10 to 12 then 15 (though I think that was a promise never kept) and back down to 12.
Trouble was, every time they changed, the paper wanted a table on what this meant for people's mortgages.
So when they went from, say, eight to 10 per cent, I'd have to ring the Halifax and ask them to do me up a table of repayments on £30,000, £50,000, £80,000, £100,000 mortgages and what they'd gone from and to.
There was no email in those days. All the tables had to be faxed to me and I had to type them on to the screen in between monitoring the collapse of the pound, the share prices and phone calls from various readers and reporters, including the political editor, Trevor Kavanagh who - out of everyone - was the most relaxed and gentlemanly of all I dealt with that day. He helped calm me down too, I recall. The guy's a mensch, and not in the Louise sense.
Anyway, no sooner had I finished one mortgage table, the interest rate changed and I'd have to go through the whole process again. It was one of the most exhausting days of my working life. And I didn't even have Twitter, Google or, in fact, the internet at all, to help me out. Blimey.
It was incredibly hectic but looking back, it was at a time when mass market tabloids would clear the desks for a decent political story. Some serious issues may have been simplified but they were dealt with. Even celebrity stories in those pre-Big Brother days would take second place to topics that really affected the kind of aspirational working class readership of a red top tabloid.
At the end of this tumultous day, those of use who had been involved were gathered by the newsdesk when Kelvin came out of his office to say that John Major had rang. Doing the impression again, he told how Major had asked what the paper's view on the day was.
My recollection differs slightly from Kelvin at the Leveson hearing in that he told us: "I told him 'John, I've got two buckets of shit on my desk and I'm going to pour both of them all over you."
We laughed, a bit nervously, and asked Kelvin 'what did Major say?'
Kelvin impersonated him again and said: "Oh, er, ho ho, very, er good Kelvin, I'll look out for that."
It was around this period that I think I really got to see what The Sun was about. Having been slavishly Tory under Thatch, it was now doing a better job of being anti-Conservative than the Labour-supporting Mirror.
It wasn't altruistic, it was commercial.
And being The Sun, it was probably more effective.
The logic was that while Sun readers were losing their jobs and having their homes repossessed, the paper they read could not simply gloss over it because they were, in general, a Tory paper.
They had to support their readers more than they could support a useless government who continued to shoot itself in the foot.
The Sun had supported Major in 1992 but Kinnock was in opposition so, for them, it was a no brainer. Of course, come the next election in 1997, The Sun had switched to Blair.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wasn't entirely sure who or what Georgia Salpa is when I noticed her appearance in the Celebrity Big Brother house. I'm indebted to the Daily Mail online, who seem obsessed with this Richard Desmond show for explaining.
Apparently she is a 'body confident Kim Kardashian doppelganger' they say.
Now, if they could just tell me, again, who Kim Kardashian is, we'll all be a lot better informed.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Poor old Anthony Worrall Thompson. He was caught stealing onions and bread from Tesco. And that was just for starters. The wine and cheese was for dessert.
Heard an interesting tale about AWT and New Covent Garden where he bought food for his restaurants, and came across some crates of bananas that he accidentally thought belonged to him.
I'm sure it was an innocent mistake. Night all...Solly
Thursday 5 January 2012
Madsen, dogs and Englishmen
OK, I owe the Daily Star an apology. I may have given the impression that the only people to go on Channel Five's Celebrity Big Brother would be reality TV show rejects and footballers' wives whose French implants had yet to explode and possibly Diane Abbott hoping to find a place where she could be sure no one would be watching her.
It has been pointed out to me by Daily Star night news editor Pat Wooding via my Dr Finlay (Dr. Finlay's Casebook = Facebook, it's the latest in social media rhyming slang) that I cast some doubt, too, on Hollywood actor Michael Madsen appearing, as 'revealed' by the Star. Well, the Star was right and I was wrong.
The Reservoir Dogs actor is actually on the programme. So hat's off to the Daily Star. So too is some bloke who had a number one 11 years ago. And a woman famous for not being married to Ryan Giggs but having his surname.
I now look forward to guest appearances in the house by the likes of Jack Nicholson, former president Jimmy Carter, Dame Vera Lynn and Boutros Boutros Ghali.
---------------------------------------------------------------
This week's conviction of Dobson and Norris - or Knobson and Doris as I suspect their prison mates may end up calling them - has reminded us of that famous Daily Mail front page with the massive headline 'Murderers'.
It is one of the most famous front pages of recent decades, I suspect. But while the headline is one of the best things to grace a front page, above it is a reminder of the dumber side of national newspapers....a massive banner across the top advertising the latest horoscopes by Jonathan Cainer.
This week has seen the Daily Mirror signing Russell Grant as if he was some kind of messiah and most of the other papers trumpeting how they will tell the fortunes of their readers for the next 12 months.
Back on my local paper, when our astrologer had contractual problems, it was left to us reporters to write the horoscope for a couple of weeks.
We worked it out ourselves. I am a Sagittarius and I had a party planned for that weekend so the horoscope for Sagittarius read 'you will find yourself at the centre of a social whirl this weekend' or something similar.
Another guy was playing football a few days later so sporting endeavour featured high on the agenda for Taureans and the girl going to see Elvis Costello made sure that all Virgos could see that they would be lifted by music within the next few days.
Readers wrote in to say how accurate the new, anonymous astrologer was.
It is the 21st Century, we have advancements in science that can convict two murderers because of a tiny speck of blood that has been embedded on a jacket for 19 years.
We can send neutrinos racing round a Swiss Scalextric that could eventually tell us how the universe was created. We can overthrow dictatorships by sending messages via satellites in space through tiny little boxes we can fit in our pocket. We can do all these things and more thanks to the hard work, creativity, brains and dedication of fantastic people all over the world.
And yet the newspapers are still keen to propagate the medieval myth that our lives are governed by a load of mumbo jumbo. And that we should believe some fat tosser in a look-at-me waistcoat or daft old witch with a bad haircut who says that because Venus is up Uranus then the colour red will be significant next April.
Quite frankly the whole astrology scam has been going on too long and our newspapers shame themselves by pandering to it.
There are some people for whom their daily horoscope acts as a kind of crutch to help them through their sad and lonely days. Much the same as God does for others I guess.
Anyone who needs a crutch as badly as that is so lame that if they were a horse they'd be shot.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Good little programme on grammar schools on BBC4 which made the point that the system was let down by a lack of dynamic young teachers.
I'll vouch for that. I can say it never did me any harm but I'd rather have come out remembering a lot of good teachers and one bad one, rather than one really good teacher and a bunch of misfits, incompetents, paedophiles and crusty old Mr Chips style bastards.
But hey, I'm not bitter....class dismissed. Solly
It has been pointed out to me by Daily Star night news editor Pat Wooding via my Dr Finlay (Dr. Finlay's Casebook = Facebook, it's the latest in social media rhyming slang) that I cast some doubt, too, on Hollywood actor Michael Madsen appearing, as 'revealed' by the Star. Well, the Star was right and I was wrong.
The Reservoir Dogs actor is actually on the programme. So hat's off to the Daily Star. So too is some bloke who had a number one 11 years ago. And a woman famous for not being married to Ryan Giggs but having his surname.
I now look forward to guest appearances in the house by the likes of Jack Nicholson, former president Jimmy Carter, Dame Vera Lynn and Boutros Boutros Ghali.
---------------------------------------------------------------
This week's conviction of Dobson and Norris - or Knobson and Doris as I suspect their prison mates may end up calling them - has reminded us of that famous Daily Mail front page with the massive headline 'Murderers'.
It is one of the most famous front pages of recent decades, I suspect. But while the headline is one of the best things to grace a front page, above it is a reminder of the dumber side of national newspapers....a massive banner across the top advertising the latest horoscopes by Jonathan Cainer.
This week has seen the Daily Mirror signing Russell Grant as if he was some kind of messiah and most of the other papers trumpeting how they will tell the fortunes of their readers for the next 12 months.
Back on my local paper, when our astrologer had contractual problems, it was left to us reporters to write the horoscope for a couple of weeks.
We worked it out ourselves. I am a Sagittarius and I had a party planned for that weekend so the horoscope for Sagittarius read 'you will find yourself at the centre of a social whirl this weekend' or something similar.
Another guy was playing football a few days later so sporting endeavour featured high on the agenda for Taureans and the girl going to see Elvis Costello made sure that all Virgos could see that they would be lifted by music within the next few days.
Readers wrote in to say how accurate the new, anonymous astrologer was.
It is the 21st Century, we have advancements in science that can convict two murderers because of a tiny speck of blood that has been embedded on a jacket for 19 years.
We can send neutrinos racing round a Swiss Scalextric that could eventually tell us how the universe was created. We can overthrow dictatorships by sending messages via satellites in space through tiny little boxes we can fit in our pocket. We can do all these things and more thanks to the hard work, creativity, brains and dedication of fantastic people all over the world.
And yet the newspapers are still keen to propagate the medieval myth that our lives are governed by a load of mumbo jumbo. And that we should believe some fat tosser in a look-at-me waistcoat or daft old witch with a bad haircut who says that because Venus is up Uranus then the colour red will be significant next April.
Quite frankly the whole astrology scam has been going on too long and our newspapers shame themselves by pandering to it.
There are some people for whom their daily horoscope acts as a kind of crutch to help them through their sad and lonely days. Much the same as God does for others I guess.
Anyone who needs a crutch as badly as that is so lame that if they were a horse they'd be shot.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Good little programme on grammar schools on BBC4 which made the point that the system was let down by a lack of dynamic young teachers.
I'll vouch for that. I can say it never did me any harm but I'd rather have come out remembering a lot of good teachers and one bad one, rather than one really good teacher and a bunch of misfits, incompetents, paedophiles and crusty old Mr Chips style bastards.
But hey, I'm not bitter....class dismissed. Solly
Tuesday 3 January 2012
What a Filkin liberty
Dame Elizabeth Filkin's report on the ethical relationship between police officers and journalists recommends that we don't flirt with them or drink alcohol with them.
I would personally recommend that journalists don't sleep with policewomen. You could end up with cressida dick.
------------------------------------------------------
However, this does restrict the training of local newspaper journalists in how to build, maintain and use contacts of course.
As a local hack, the police are a good source of stories and the journo, in return, is a useful conduit for the police to appeal for witnesses, to launch crime prevention campaigns and, in general, to promote a better image of the force.
I started off at the Ilford Recorder. It is one of many parts of the country where, quite frankly, the police could use as much help as they can get in improving their image.
I was there a long, long time ago but can remember, with varying degrees of fondness and horror, various ways of bonding with the bill.
The annual Recorder versus Met Police East Traffic Division Indoor Sports Olympics for instance (basically a darts match at the police social club) got everyone together. And very drunk. After which everyone drove home, knowing they wouldn't be stopped as all the traffic cops were drunk too. Perhaps it's a good idea these things don't take place any more. Besides, I'm sure that fat copper with a moustache and 'Crafty Cockney' tattoo was a ringer.
And the local nick's Christmas Party, a more stuffy affair in which the editor, the Mayor and various others would discuss niceties over a glass of sherry.
However this was rounded off with the traditional CID lock in at the Red Lion (everyone gave a fiver to landlord Mick Ryan on the way in) which would end around 5am so we could go home and get changed before police calls the next morning.
The Recorder would do the odd human interest story about the police. The detective who draws caricatures of his colleagues and gets them exhibited, the hidden story behind the signed photo of Jayne Mansfield behind the duty desk (she once broke down in Ilford and the police helped her out, so it wasn't really a mystery but we could resurrect the story every three or four years) and the chief inspector's obsession with Arsenal. It made them more human. Apart from supporting Arsenal of course.
They helped us too. I got an exclusive interview with Adam Woodyatt, aka Ian Beale in the newly launched EastEnders (this was 25 years ago remember) because his dad was the chief copper at Barkingside nick and set up the interview.
Oh, and Adam Woodyatt was a charming young man. He biked round from Elstree to Valentine's Park on a new Yamaha but we couldn't go to the pub as he was underage and that would have been a much better story!
I understand he's still in the soap though I don't watch it any more.
In between we would carry stories about local crimes and help the police find witnesses of course. It was called making contacts and has acted for decades as a central plank in learning to be a journalist.
Now of course, we can't do this any more thanks to the likes of Neil Wallis. Which is something else he's done to ruin journalism.
Instead of being able to mix with real policemen and women so we can understand them and they can understand us, we'll have to deal with jobsworth press officers who give us (and via us, you) only half the information we need. I don't include you, Andy Roberts, of course.
And as for young local journalists, they will have to rely on Wikipedia and Blackberry Messenger for their information and never get to talk to a real human being ever again.
------------------------------------------------------------
An 81-year-old man had a heart attack at Spurs last night and died. I was at the game and it wasn't that exciting. But the conversations I've had with football fans follow the same pattern. As a way to die it's up there with being crushed by a falling piano or being shagged to death, or in a Las Vegas hotel room while snorting cocaine from the naked body of a showgirl. Or is that just me? I've always liked pianos.
At least being 81 means he lived long enough to see Spurs win the league. I have a feeling that even if I live twice as long I won't be that lucky.
So if it's going to be a coronary at the Lane then hopefully it will be at something better than a 1-0 scrappy home win against West Brom.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Things you never thought you'd say. This includes 'I'm warming to Joey Barton', 'Louise Mensch is a bright woman' and 'Well done Daily Mail.'
Well, knock off the last one. After the conviction of David Norris and Gary Dobson there is, at last, a reason to be able to tell people you're a tabloid journalist rather than try and disguise it with 'oh, I'm a content provider for multimedia organisations.'
Of course, the real hero is not Paul Dacre, the reformed police or even Mr and Mrs Lawrence.
No, the real hero is science. It was the advances made by scientists that got the double jeopardy law changed. And without the science all the valiant efforts of the newspaper, the police and the parents themselves may well have been in vain.
Naturally the Daily Mail will bask in the glory and they are entitled to. Even Roy Greenslade has praised them. We can but hope that having discovered the good they can do, they do it more often.
Perhaps they should run a story that doing the right thing cures cancer.
Evening all....Solly
I would personally recommend that journalists don't sleep with policewomen. You could end up with cressida dick.
------------------------------------------------------
However, this does restrict the training of local newspaper journalists in how to build, maintain and use contacts of course.
As a local hack, the police are a good source of stories and the journo, in return, is a useful conduit for the police to appeal for witnesses, to launch crime prevention campaigns and, in general, to promote a better image of the force.
I started off at the Ilford Recorder. It is one of many parts of the country where, quite frankly, the police could use as much help as they can get in improving their image.
I was there a long, long time ago but can remember, with varying degrees of fondness and horror, various ways of bonding with the bill.
The annual Recorder versus Met Police East Traffic Division Indoor Sports Olympics for instance (basically a darts match at the police social club) got everyone together. And very drunk. After which everyone drove home, knowing they wouldn't be stopped as all the traffic cops were drunk too. Perhaps it's a good idea these things don't take place any more. Besides, I'm sure that fat copper with a moustache and 'Crafty Cockney' tattoo was a ringer.
And the local nick's Christmas Party, a more stuffy affair in which the editor, the Mayor and various others would discuss niceties over a glass of sherry.
However this was rounded off with the traditional CID lock in at the Red Lion (everyone gave a fiver to landlord Mick Ryan on the way in) which would end around 5am so we could go home and get changed before police calls the next morning.
The Recorder would do the odd human interest story about the police. The detective who draws caricatures of his colleagues and gets them exhibited, the hidden story behind the signed photo of Jayne Mansfield behind the duty desk (she once broke down in Ilford and the police helped her out, so it wasn't really a mystery but we could resurrect the story every three or four years) and the chief inspector's obsession with Arsenal. It made them more human. Apart from supporting Arsenal of course.
They helped us too. I got an exclusive interview with Adam Woodyatt, aka Ian Beale in the newly launched EastEnders (this was 25 years ago remember) because his dad was the chief copper at Barkingside nick and set up the interview.
Oh, and Adam Woodyatt was a charming young man. He biked round from Elstree to Valentine's Park on a new Yamaha but we couldn't go to the pub as he was underage and that would have been a much better story!
I understand he's still in the soap though I don't watch it any more.
In between we would carry stories about local crimes and help the police find witnesses of course. It was called making contacts and has acted for decades as a central plank in learning to be a journalist.
Now of course, we can't do this any more thanks to the likes of Neil Wallis. Which is something else he's done to ruin journalism.
Instead of being able to mix with real policemen and women so we can understand them and they can understand us, we'll have to deal with jobsworth press officers who give us (and via us, you) only half the information we need. I don't include you, Andy Roberts, of course.
And as for young local journalists, they will have to rely on Wikipedia and Blackberry Messenger for their information and never get to talk to a real human being ever again.
------------------------------------------------------------
An 81-year-old man had a heart attack at Spurs last night and died. I was at the game and it wasn't that exciting. But the conversations I've had with football fans follow the same pattern. As a way to die it's up there with being crushed by a falling piano or being shagged to death, or in a Las Vegas hotel room while snorting cocaine from the naked body of a showgirl. Or is that just me? I've always liked pianos.
At least being 81 means he lived long enough to see Spurs win the league. I have a feeling that even if I live twice as long I won't be that lucky.
So if it's going to be a coronary at the Lane then hopefully it will be at something better than a 1-0 scrappy home win against West Brom.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Things you never thought you'd say. This includes 'I'm warming to Joey Barton', 'Louise Mensch is a bright woman' and 'Well done Daily Mail.'
Well, knock off the last one. After the conviction of David Norris and Gary Dobson there is, at last, a reason to be able to tell people you're a tabloid journalist rather than try and disguise it with 'oh, I'm a content provider for multimedia organisations.'
Of course, the real hero is not Paul Dacre, the reformed police or even Mr and Mrs Lawrence.
No, the real hero is science. It was the advances made by scientists that got the double jeopardy law changed. And without the science all the valiant efforts of the newspaper, the police and the parents themselves may well have been in vain.
Naturally the Daily Mail will bask in the glory and they are entitled to. Even Roy Greenslade has praised them. We can but hope that having discovered the good they can do, they do it more often.
Perhaps they should run a story that doing the right thing cures cancer.
Evening all....Solly
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