Such big ambitions

I always scan the student journalism awards to see if I can lay claim to any successes and big up my credentials on the back of someone else's hard work.

I'll occasionally see a name from somewhere such as Sheffield, where I've been twice, or Kingston, where I've been once, and convince myself that a 30-minute seminar on 'sharpening style' set some snapper on the road to greatness and they'll see the potential for a column I can write on the beach in 20 years' time.

But today I had to look no further than the student team awards section to find suchsmallportions.com, the product of a group from City University and one I described as the best student site I'd ever been involved with.

Judge for yourself. I have my fingers crossed.

Emily's out, but it's not black and white

Boy, the knives are out for Emily Parr, the loose-lipped BB blonde who blurted out a word Mark Twain couldn’t have completed a novel without.

The Sun have managed to drag up a former student pal who gleefully recalled how she used to make racist remarks at college and the Mirror doorstepped an uncle long enough to confirm he was “sickened, disgraced, shocked and appalled” before even got to the second par.

I admit I was one of the first to condemn the baying mob that victimised Shilpa Shetty earlier this year but had that furore been avoided would we really have had to endure the ritual public execution of a 19-year-old dragged out of bed, bleary-eyed and still in a nightdress?

OK, it was great television. And she didn’t do herself any favours by admitting she uses the word “at home”, something bound to get family and friends running for cover.

But, come on, whatever she has or hasn’t done in the past, what she did yesterday was no more than an attempt at rappin’ with her mates?

And wasn’t the real architect of her demise, fellow housemates Charley (a better Little Britain character than anything Matt Lucas could devise) and the scheming Shabnam, who stoked a spat into a full-blown incident.

As a result, the eviction vote was cancelled and Shabnam was spared the indignity of being voted out.

With not one but two Jews in the house (health worker Carole Vincent may not have come out like former model Zach Lichman, but she is) I can’t wait for the first anti-semite to reveal themselves.

Then we'll have a real reality show.

Choking on my Cornflakes

GMTV are really plumbing the depths. Their story on the family hounded out of a series of council estates because they have ginger hair was misguided and plain naïve.

I squirmed as the reporter listened intently to their stories of graffiti and abuse and how their young rascals can’t play outside safely. For two reasons.

Only one of them was a real ginger, even after I adjusted my set – and the neighbours were united in their view - that they were the family from hell.

Not the first time the newsroom has learnt to its cost that they may have got the angle slightly wrong. I was once bollocked when a news editor read my council-blamed-for-damp-house story and found a quote from the town hall claiming that they had a paraffin heater in every room and had blocked the air bricks to stop the draft.

It never made page 29, let alone national TV. Odd. That I could find it the Sky News site on but not on GMTV’s. Or maybe it’s not.

Anyway, I'm not alone in thinking a little old fashioned news judgement wouldn't have gone amiss.

Great Britons - or great expectations?

Couldn’t get over the shortlist for ITVs Greatest Living Briton 2007. The Queen v Robbie Williams?

Anyway, it struck a chord, especially when Gordon Brown was rolled out to say a few words. Gordon was at the Guildhall a couple of years ago when, as editor of Telegraph New Media, we helped to launch what was to be an annual Great Britons competition with Morgan Stanley.

I was actually very enthusiastic about this. I don’t know why we are so obsessed with defining our identity but I know we are, and thought it was bang-on what our readers would go for.

Anyway, I did throw myself into it somewhat, often trying every marketing trick I could muster to tease more votes out of readers and give it a good show. The highlight was the star-studded dinner at which the great and the swigged champagne and the winner was announced to a fanfare.

So good were those bashes that, when I left last year mid-campaign on what would have been Great Britons 2006, I reminded the organisers that I was still expecting an invitation, for old times.

Absolutely, I was told. No problem old boy. Wouldn’t be the same without you. Then, when it came to putting names on the seats, they blew me out with a . . . hmm, places are a little tight. We’ll see what we can do.

They didn't.

A British trait? Saying one thing and doing another? Now, that's just too cynical.

Plane confused

A friend of a friend was on a plane, so I’m told, when a chap offered her a paper to read to pass the time. As you do.

When they touched down, he was amazed to learn she was not keen to go for a drink with him. Amazed? Because he’s given her a paper, not once, but two or three times. Surely, he insisted, she understood the ‘code’.

The code?

Sure, the paper represents a pass, a subtle chat-up. Having accepted it, she was “giving off all the right signals”.

She was baffled. And so was I. And so was the fashion editor, the music critic, the nose-to-the-ground columnist and the Rolex-wearing trendy f****er in Paul Smith suits I know in media buying.

Any ideas? I'd love to know.

Mind you, assuming this wasn’t a wind-up, I really should have asked what paper she was offered. It may have given a clue to Mr Mile-High’s intentions?

The Scotsman: Fancy a dram? I’ll pay you back.

The Catholic Herald: I have protection. But it’s under the seat.

The Mail: Education is crap, the health service is third-world and crime is out of control. Let's do it. We’ll be dead soon anyway.

The Independent: Let me bore you rigid.

The Metro: Come on, it’ll only take a minute.

The Big Issue: Sorry, but it’ll have to be your place. Oh, and any chance of breakfast in the morning?

Just a thought.

Take note (or should i say notes)

Have I missed something or are we really, seriously,
debating the merits of the email interview?.


The spat between Wired and the internet entrepreneur Jason Calcanis seems to have sparked some interesting exchanges in which the likes of Dan Gilmour appear to suggest they are a valid tool for newsgathering.

Surely not.

Any media students reading this take note. Email interviews reduce our craft to that of the market researcher. That's it: form-filling.

Why? Because there's no exchange, no prompting, no interaction between those with something to say and those who will persuade them to say it.

I'm not talking about the quicky Q and A; Metro's 60-second interview, official statements and advertorials. In fact, a written exchange with a reclusive celeb could even be more revealing - I'm talking about the worrying trend to assume that everything can be done from behind a keyboard.

It can't.

Merely publishing email responses would be like asking interviewees to send in footage of themselves for a video slot or a tape for a podcast. Good reporting is all about context. All this seems a step too close to allowing people to check over your notes.

As for the argument that it cuts down on the chance of getting anything wrong. There's a simple answer to that: Try harder at getting it right.

Union hijack

Just when some of you may have thought it was safe to go back into the dear old NUJ . . .

Words fail me. They do. They really do.

Happy birthday NUJ



One hundred and still going strong. I haven't been to a party since your daft letter of condolence to Colonel Gadaffi for bombing his country.

But fun memories nonetheless. Here are my best bits:

1973: As a cub reporter showing my face at the payroll-style window in Acorn House every Tuesday morning to pick up the list of jobs they compiled for those of us on the move.

. . . then disappearing across the road to the Lucas Arms and ringing everyone on the list with my Morris Minor van parked with a full tank outside. Got my first senior job that way.

1979: As a senior reporter attending my first branch meeting in St Albans, a city with (then) a massive weekly, a huge evening, two freesheets and a couple of agencies.

. . . then wondering why only three people turned up and arguing with Ms Millitant over why I wasn't going to join a lineage pool. Left in a huff, got up early and flogged the page three lead to the Daily Star.

1983: As an editor hiring my best mate to run a district office in Biggleswade and persuading him to come over for a chapel meeting "to meet the gang".

. . . then having him emerge a few hours later as FOC and taking me to task for allegedly capping expenses. W***er

1985: As a downtable sub joining Eddy Shah's non-union Today and, a year on and under new management, trudging a mile through Pimlico's back streets to a recruitment-drive chapel meeting.

. . . then joining the steady flow of colleagues back out again, calling it to an early close and complaining they'd left the Mail/Express/Mirror "to get away from all this". Felt ill. First time I'd heard of RSI.

1992: As a chief sub, working through night with a handful of execs during the Montgomery Mirror dispute while all the casuals picketed the front door.

. . . then telling a rookie shipped in from a local paper to f*** off when he tried to book future shifts "if your mates don't get back in". Came out of it unscathed but was attacked for handing out first editions to Monty's security guards at 2am. Blimey. Wasn't their fault.

2000: As a publisher, popping up to Acorn House for the first time in 27 years to discuss the fate of the staff I'd reluctantly had to send home when the company closed.

. . . then, over a brew and a biscuit, sitting down with sensible grown-up people for a grown-up chat knowing we were pulling together for the sake of our pals/staff/members. Briefly, thought of rejoining.

Conclusion 1: As a reporter/sub, I wasn't keen on being part of the collective bargaining system and soon tired of local paper chapel meetings. In the 70s, they were always in the back rooms of pubs serving real ale and the ringleaders wore beards and held whip-rounds for "colleagues" I'd never heard of in countries I couldn't pronounce.

Conclusion 2: As an editor/manager I, oddly, found myself favouring collectivism as a way of knocking company-wide issues on the head. The few dealings I had with head office were even-handed and generally supportive of both views.

Happy birthday. Pint of Old Grumbler next time we meet?

Going overboard?


Never mind whether it was right or wrong for the Iran sailors to sell their stories, I can't help feeling a pang of sympathy for their claims of over-zealous reporting of their release.

I don't suppose I'd be too chuffed if I’d survived a harrowing ordeal only to be depicted as grovelling before a dictator I'd deliberately greeted with nonchalence.

I do know we rarely favour the weaker verbs when it comes to painting a picture for readers though.

Frank Lampard must’ve felt hard done by when he read in the Mirror that he “cowered” when a fan ran on to the pitch and took a swing. I saw the incident. He ducked rather neatly and was back on his toes in a snap like a boxer.

I’ve been around red tops long enough to know what it's like to hand stories to subs with the instruction: ‘It’s all there. Just work up a bit’. I’ve also seen stories undersold because we haven’t been incisive enough in our description.

One moment springs to mind though. A story about a runaway car “careering” into a shopping arcade would have been dramatic enough without the sub’s intro which began “Terrified shoppers fled as . . .” It wouldn’t have been so bad but for the last par from the witness who said “It was a miracle no-one was in the way.”

The story may have been otherwise well written but the intro and payoff matched like roast beef and custard, which is a point the “witness” made when he rang to ask who, other than him, had failed to spot a single fleeing shopper, let alone a terrified one.

He was as right as the “Irate councillor” who rang me to tell me that, yes, he did insist on getting an answer from the chairman of planning but had barely raised his voice, let alone “raged” or “angrily retorted” when he failed to get one.

And there wasn’t a miracle either. I just didn’t want to point it out at the time.

A funny thing happened on the way to graduation

Heard the one about the students who shut themselves away in a basement for two months without food or water or sleep, just so they could build the best comedy website they'd ever seen?

They almost died laughing.

Boom boom.

Okay, I won't make it on the comedy circuit. But the students just might. Suchsmallportions.com was the brainchild of Josh Widdicombe and fellow MA students at City University in London. What began as an online magazine project with Yours Truly the guiding light quickly gathered pace and became one of the most professional and commercially promising sites I've seen in seven years of teaching.

It's certainly the first one I've puffed and, if you follow this link, you'll see why. It's packed with news, reviews, quirky podcasts and clips from smokey clubs. There are even some adverts starting to appear. When I joined them to swig champagne from the bottle a few days before the launch, they were already 43p in profit.

Most pleasing for me was the way in which, from the day we met to brainstorm ideas in a classroom, they were thinking commercially. No hobbies, no indulgences, no 'how can I get the guy with glasses to upload my 3,000-word travel essay (think I'm joking?), just a fresh approach to a subject that's ripe for the web.

OK, so they did most of their thinking in the pub, but some - such as design guru Aaron Davis (guy with glasses) did spend up to 14 hours a day underground and PR mastro Anna Winston (girl with a smile) did get get out there and spread the word on the club scene. One promoter even compared their style to early NME which chuffed them to bits.

One of the best features is the Showcase section which allows comedians to submit clips of their act with a promise that they'll appear live if they're funny enough. The ones there so far a worth a chuckle and it deserves to gather pace.

All in all, it's quite endearing to see the surprise on young faces when they present a really quite good idea and get a really positive response. I just hope they stick with it all the way.

Who knows, they could be laughing all the way to the bank.

Just what is it with Kate Moss?

Alexandra Shulman went into some detail when telling the Independent why she has just used Kate Moss on the cover of Vogue for the 24th time in 24 years.

A year ago she was being pilloried by the Mirror in a cocaine expose. There were some who suggested her career was on the wane. But it wasn’t. If anything, her profile rose on the back of some high-profile TV ad spin-offs.

So why does nothing stick to her? Because while she may break a few rules in private, she doesn’t try to bend them in public – and attack our sensibilities in the process.

What I mean by that is, she does what she does and that’s all. She poses, she walks the catwalk, she appears in ads and takes up acres of space in magazines. But that’s it. She isn’t a model-turned-pop-star or a pop-star turned actress or a footballer’s wife-turned-fashion designer-turned UN ambassador.

She does one thing well and doesn’t bore us with trite opinions or reality TV appearances.

Grazia and Heat need her like OK! and Hello used to need Liz Hurley. She’s a story when she wears Ugg boots and when she carries a Dior bag, when her weight drops and when she doesn’t do what most columnists want, and drop her boyfriend.

Cleverly, or very cleverly advised, she just keeps her mouth shut and looks good. And that’ll never go out of fashion.

I've seen the future - and it's a lesson for us all

Students at the University of Westminster took a step closer to the the real world on Friday when their new multi-media newsroom was opened by the BBC's director of news Helen Boaden.

It cost £120,000, several years to get off the ground, is possibly the first of its kind and mirrors the sort of newsrooms major publishers are begining to create.
Boaden was clearly impressed as she joined a large group of invited guests to watch a 30-minute broadcast before being asked to perform the only low-tech function of the day - cut a ribbon.

It's an advance of which the university is rightly proud but also one that will massively benefit students. The best part of the event was watching the students doing their stuff on screen, rough-edges and all. Hundreds of hours in lecture theatres and poring over books can never match the sheer doing of the job.

As a visting lecturer at Westminster I'll be watching development closeley, not least to see what we 'experts' can learn and take back to industry. After all, what better guinea pigs that the bright young people we'll all probably end up working for in a few years.

During wine, nibbles and schmoozing afterwards, several people asked me how that prepared to the Telegraph newsroom but I couldn't oblige as I'd left on the eve of the move to Victoria.

The only insights I could offer were that it's a lot noisier than Victoria (I'm told even those breaking in new shoes do so publicly) and the students buy their own coffees on site. From what I hear the cost of a cuppa is considered so dear, there's a constant stream of people in and out of Starbucks at Victoria station.

Some things you can't teach

I shared an office this week with one journalist who posed the question, having hacked into a series of net-linked printers in distant offices, surely I'm only invading privacy if I hit the 'print' key my end.

A few minutes later, I 'helped' one of his colleagues sift thousands of online documents quickly by introducing him to the "magic" (his words) of CTRL-F.

Revelation. And it took me back to the point-the-mouse-at-the-icon days when dear old cardigans who defied smoking bans at their desks actually held the mouse in mid-air and pointed at the screen. (And don't let anyone tell you those tales are apocryphal).

On the way home I read Jeff Jarvis's musings on the essential skills he is teaching his journalism students in New York. Amid the maze of multi-skilling, some, he says, fleetingly wonder whether they had made the wrong career move.

It's understandable. There's a lot to take in these days. If nothing else, the demands of multi media mean the shy may flinch at podcasting, those with private lives - or nowt to say - may not want them aired on blogs and there must be more than one out there in the "even my mum says I'm no oil-painting" category who's not keen on standing in front of a camera with a mike in their hands.

Still, it's progress. Ask anyone in Fleet Street a few years ago why they left reporting to sub and they'd invariably say either the regular hours or not having to actually meet the great unwashed they write for.

But the career move stuff is something I hear a lot. I visit six universities on a regular basis to give "the talk" to media undergrads; the tea-boy-to-editor stuff with all the anecdotes.

It's clear seeing them in the classrooms and studios that they eat up the technical stuff because they're already multi-ligual. A 19-year-old who's toyed with Paintshop in his bedroom takes to Photoshop in minutes, the Qarkers become InDesigners and the Flashers become Dreamweavers.

I could have put that better, but you get my drift. Almost always what the young want to hear are tales of phoning every Smith in the book to track the kidnap girl's parents, standing in the rain outside a film-star's flat with a bunch of flowers or covertly following a lorry full of dodgy waste to stand up the Toxic Timebomb headline.

How they deliver the message is more of a detail. Years ago when I worked for David Montgomery at News International, he interrupted my clever-dick guide to direct input to tell out latest star signing 'wrap up the technical crap - we need to talk about exclusives'. His point was, let's get him doing what he does, he'll pick up this screen and keyboard thingy as he goes.

The world has moved on a bit from then. FutureHack does need to be flexible enough to, not only embrace change, but help to shape it.

The tools will change, more will be introduced and their use will become ever more widespread among the multi-skilling fraternity as reporters become presenters, subs become producers and publishers become deliverers.

But while the business at large changes its mind and changes it back again, those for whom the soaking flowers, the mileage and the sheer persistence pay off will flourish.

Doing it in your sleep

One of the best things about working with surfers is the way they email you with cool links to offbeat stuff. That's how I learned about the Onion a few years ago and, now firmly set into my favoutites list, the Framley Examiner.

Actually, I found Framley too realistic to be funny all the time but that's another (extremely badly-written cliche-riddled, mis-spelt) story. The funniest I've seen recently is themanwhofellasleep, a diary of, among other things, conversations overheard on Tube journeys through London.

It's made Greg Stekelman, 32, into the latest blogging-author. Selections have new been turned into a book, another aspect of the print-is-dead, long live the web, conundrum that's equallty amusing.

Local papers pump up the volume

I was asked to judge the Newsquest newspaper website awards a few weeks ago and this week,The Northern Echo received the accolade it deserved.

I worked my way through (literally) several dozen sites from the Abingdon Herald to the York Press during many idle hours before reluctantly deciding on the Darlington daily. I say reluctantly, because I know the bigger papers in these groups win eveything. Problem is, there's no getting away from the fact that, when a paper, to quote my rationale, "comes at the reader in so many ways, interacts with its local radio station and produces its breaking news in such a timely and relevant way" it's going to lead the pack.

Besides, any site that includes a blog from the ghost of a former editor, deserves a deeper look.

Nigel Vincent is doing a good job in leading the online development at Newsquest. Many of the smaller papers are telling stories with video and most are big on interactivity. That's important and Fleet Street can learn a lot from these people, particularly when it comes to developing online communities.

But I was particularly interested in the way they have now let costs run away with them and allowed editors to develop from a few pre-defined templates. This means most of the sites look the same but that's not an issue for the readers as there will be virtually no crossover. The backroom work done, the editors are free to concentrate on the journalism without looking over their shoulders for the next "zillion-pound" redesign.

I chose the South Wales Argus as runner-up for this reason and placed the much smaller News Shopper in third place, mainly for the sheer enthusiasm demonstrated by a handful of people in South London in getting to grips with a new medium.

But don't just take it from me . . .

Speaking of magazines . . .

I was this month’s guest speaker at an editor’s forum at the Clerkenwell Restaurant in EC1. I was woken by an early call the day before and asked to put a title to the talk. I said Web 2.0 – be there or be square. Bit naff, but, seconds earlier I’d been fast asleep, in goal for Leicester and turning a point-blank drive from Henri round the post. The crowd went mad.

Anyway, back to reality: I gave them a run-through of what I thought were some of the best web offerings in the magazine world at the moment. There’s no definitive jury on this and my preferences change all the time but some are worth sharing with a wider audience.

IPC’s Horse and Hound is really getting to grips with community-building. I can’t stand the thought of fox-hunting but the strength of feeling among the country lobby stretched across 10 very lively forums.

Emap’s Guitar Player is making good use of audio, allowing wannabe rock stars to practice their riffs and play along with other axemen in their bedrooms and Conde Nast’s Vogue Catwalk TV is getting better all the time.

Haymarket are developing their What Car? site into a nice little resource with their road tests sitting alongside the reader reviews.

The common denominator here is the way they are playing to their strengths and using the technology that best suits their purposes, not every bell and whistle in the developer's toybox. I did put a damper on what was a highly interactive exchange by pointing out some of the less successful attempts to embrace the new world – and how easy it is to arrange the best party in town and find no-one comes.

Like I said, the examples were what I saw as the best of the crop on the day. They change all the time in line with innovation. As if to underline that, one of the audience approached me afterwards and reminded me I’d made that point before.

He’d interviewed me for PR Week ahead of a new media conference last summer and asked me for my favourite blog sites. The ones I gave were so dated by the time I joined the panel, I had to read the review to recall what they were.

Solve this and a byline awaits

Here’s a mystery for any budding investigative journalist.

I took my car to a bodyshop after a minor prang. A chap with a clipboard went over very inch of it, noting the tiniest dent or blemish lest I accuse them of not looking after it. He did the same with the courtesy car and then carefully noted the amount of petrol left in each tank. Mine was half full. I agreed and signed his form.

A week later, I picked it up all valeted and shiny and headed out of the industrial estate. But before the first 100 yards, the fuel light came on. I was running on vapour.

I checked the form I’d signed. Half-full when it came in. 19,001 miles on the clock. Now it was empty, but still 19,001 miles on the clock.

I reversed up, asked two people from the office to come and look and posed the questions:

Did someone use it and turn back the clock?

Did someone deliberately add on 100 or so miles to the figure before handing it to me to sign? I never checked the mileage.

Did someone siphon the petrol out?

I got red faces and a cheque for half a tank. But, as yet, no answer. May be worth a few pars in the local paper when I do.

It pays to talk amongst ourselves

These pages got a mention in Press Gazette this week as part of a round-up of the "leading voices in journo-blogging". I have to say, that was a little flattering, given the amount of time I spend doing it.

In fact, putting it into newspaper terms, I must be the quarterly periodical to, say, someone like Roy Greenslade's multi-edition daily.

I'm impressed by the disclipline of many of these "journalism compulsive-obsessives" (Adrian Monck's self-description) and envious of the way they find, or make, the time to keep abreast of everything.

I've been critical of some forms of blogging in the past, dismissing those from all walks of life who risk RSI just to fill a space every day. But, collectively, these journo-blogs - with the aid of Google Reader - have provided the most comprehensive and thought-provoking overview of media thinking I can recall.

Especially to someone who grew up getting their insights once a week from, you guessed it . . . Press Gazette.

Of wigs and pens

Lawyers and journalists have always been good bedfellows. Andrew Grant-Adamson and Martin Stabe were quick to spot the words of wisdom in the recent Slate posting, Bartiromo Innuendo, which highlights the value of lawyers who help get difficult issues into print, rather than keeping them out.

Slate's Jack Shafer's starts his piece by pointing out that “a well-lawyered newspaper distinguishes itself by the way it writes around something".

There's nothing worse for a reporter than knowing something but not being able to say it. I spent many days and weeks in the late seventies and early eighties attending legal seminars by the likes of the NCTJ listening to zillion-pounds-an-hour barristers telling us how papers have been taken to the cleaners for asking why some junior minister was spotted in Shepherd Market late at night, alone.

One of the best proponents of the "write around" skill was not a lawyer, however, it was the late Roy East, the former People investigator who helped shape my early career in the westcountry where we worked on a tabloid hell-bent on exposing misdeeds on the moors.

Many a time I'd take my piece to his study and say, "I know Henry Wotnot gay, everyone knows he's gay but he's not admitting it." Roy would roll in a new sheet of A4 and begin: BACHELOR Henry Wotnot . . . new par . . . Mr Wotnot, who shares a two-bed flat with his schoolfriend Mr . . .

Years later, I recalled his advice when writing about black magic orgies in a block of flats owned by a former mayor who was refusing to be drawn on the subject. I began the third par. Alderman Wotsit may be surpised to learn . . .

Not sure that in our thirst for quick and easy news, we do enough of that these days.

Never mind God, geeks will inherit the earth

I can't be the only one who hoardes papers; whole papers, not cuttings that are easy to identify but entire editions put aside because there was an article worth reading when I got a moment.

I threw away a few dozen yesterday. In most cases I was baffled as to why I kept them at all. There were a few finds though, such as The Independent's Dec 4 two-page Q and A with the campaigning atheist Richard Dawkins and the Guardian's Jan 22 appraisal of Britain's motorways.

The Dawkins questions ranged from "Is it child abuse to force your kids to adopt your religion" to "What will you say if you ever reach the pearly gates".

The fun was in the wit and style of his answers but I was struck by the number of times he took the opportunity to back up his arguments with web references.

The best bit was when he was asked "how did such a geek like you get such an attractive wife" (he's married to the actress Lalla Ward), He laughed off the question but objected to the use of geek, likening it to the sort of racial epithets I won't repeat.

I've been reprimanded a few times for using the term but I'm nopt sure why. It's an endearing collective for everyone from the systems admin lot that boot our PCs to the hard-coders who give us the platforms we covet so much. They don't have to dream in binary.

A few post-grads had the giggles when I said it recently and it drew the odd muted gasp at a after-dinner speech. I mentioned it over drinks afterwards and opinion was split. In my corner was a teacher who married one. In the other was the chap who gave the vote of thanks who said it was a "mite offensive".

Offensive? Do me a favour . . . Geeks are the new avante garde and should celebrate the fact. The term has Orwellian simplicty and a resonance that rivals hack (which I don't mind being called as you drop the prefix drunken old). I draw the line at nerd to keep the few teccie friends i have.

Incidentally, it was never Jack Bauer that saved the world every 24 hours, it was Edgar Stiles. My system crashed when the terrorists got him. Point made.