Another Jimmy riddle

I'd be intrigued to know if the ever-expanding jimmy Savile file includes an incident in 1976 in which he visited the Cornish gateway town on Launceston.

Not many celebs went that far for charity visits in those days so, having woken up to it a tad late, it was natural for the Cornwall Courier to rouse its snapper early to get a shot of him leaving town.

And so it was that an early right hand page carried a picture of the tracksuited star in the back seat of his car as it sat outside the White Hart Hotel in the Market square.

I, like a BBC executive or a Grateful charity beneficiary, did not give it a thought when the editor asked casually of the snapper: "I don’t suppose you got one of the bird?” (apology: this was the seventies)

He didn't because she was presumably long gone by the time the car arrived and presumably getting ready for school.

Either way, unless my memory is playing tricks, it was apparent we knew the identity of his guest as did a great number in what was, after all, a small and close community.

Worse still, it was all a bit too dog-bites-man to warrant a local paper’s attention.

Don't snub the sub

Every year for a handful of consecutive Fridays I teach second year media students the fundamentals of subbing, a skill usually developed over years of hacking, slashing, honing and sculpting everything from wedding captions and WI reports to splashes that can change governments and leaders that tell millions what to think.

It's not the easiest job in the world to get across just what the role is all about when so much communication is instant, not to say roughly-hewn, these days.

So, where to start.

Is it about the churn of dozens of stories a day, shifts that go through the night, lawyers on your shoulder, updates, adds and corrections coming at you every time you finally squeeze the gist of something you barely understand into half a dozen pars - and a late train home full of drunks.

Or is it the chance to engage today with the issues we’ll be talking about tomorrow, polishing raw facts filed under duress from news's front line and relishing in the sheer variety of a night that can embroil you in the adrenalin rush of crime, the intrigue of politics, and the glamour of showbiz, before unwinding with a leisurely drive home through near-deserted streets to the sound of Carmen on the CD?

Answers on a postcard. Thing is, it's important that it is taught, and as thoroughly as it should be practised.

Which is why every week, alongside all the fun stuff such as how newsrooms function, what style is all about, the clever devices that pull spreads together, I throw them column inch after column inch of text to (you guessed it) hack, slash, hone and sculpt until it resembles something worthy of a place on a page.

With a big screen on the wall and 40-odd students plugged into row upon row of Apple Macs, we learn to be as cynical as Paxman, as fastidious as Victor Meldrew and as poetic as Martin Amis.

Okay, bit of an exaggeration, but it's enough to know you just may have set the odd one on their way to becoming the next Leslie Sellers.

Why is that important to me? Because a few weeks after each course completes, I turn up at any one of several other venues, most recently Roehampton University and Greenwich College, to talk about media careers to students from some of the UK’s most prestigious schools.

They bring with them their local papers for discussion, many of which do serious credit to the communities they serve. As I’ve posted countless times, I’m a serious defender of the role of local papers.

But each time I ask: have they had the benefit of a sub's red pen?

Sadly, too often, it's clear they haven't. Which is a shame when you pick up something packed to the rafters with real local news and the message is lost among phrasing more Leslie Neilson than Leslie Sellers.

With new entrants getting fewer and younger, and with more of them filing remotely and often in abundance to meet quotas, surely it’s worth dropping a few self-indulgent columns just to restore the odd shift as press day approaches.

The IT Crowd loses one of its own

Sad to say Roger Hussey, the Jewish Chronicle's IT manager, died last week at his home in Essex. He was 57 years old - 55 when doctors told him he had cancer and 56 when they told him there was nothing more they could do. I was his boss. I had to step out of a reader event in Manchester, wine glass in hand, when he rang to tell me the news.

He spoke as if explaining how to defrag a PC, going into some detail about the diagnosis and the likely surgical scenarios. He was a mathematician, and despite what must have been a hammer blow of a shock, acutely alive to the logic of it all and chillingly analytical.

I went back to the reception, more shaken than the hands of the guests I'd been greeting. A couple of days later, he was back in his den. I'd call it an office but, well, you’ve all seen the IT Crowd.

Surrounded by cardboard boxes of cables, half-built PCs, CDS and old fashioned lever arch files, there was a man who knew the fuse rating of every plug in the building, the longevity and serial number of every server and the state of every data point.

With his somewhat shambling gait, lank blond hair and often reflective demeanour, he personified the quirky blend of mathematician and nutty professor that define the most imaginative IT brains; the sort that never take risks, value data as currency but have enough Robot Wars about them to keep you going when all you have is a looming deadline, a U2 battery and a coathanger.

He was an old school liquid luncher, more than once an after-work bon viveur who could catch the last train out of Fenchurch Street for the coast and be back at his desk by 9.30 without a flinch. No doubt hacks on the Basildon Echo will recognise that.

Once, when staff arrived at the office to find it barricaded by the National Grid because of a gas leak in the road, he appeared at my side as I looked down on the throng from the window. How did he get in? Best you don’t know, he said.

Here was an unflappable cryptic crossword of a man; loyal, brutally honest, fun-loving in an almost childlike way, yet stubborn to the point of arrogance when defending what needed defending. Never afraid to tell senior management they were (with respect, squire) not totally correct sometimes, he would follow a brief to the letter once a decision had been made.

He was strictly server-side. Engaging with a luddite public was never part of his job description (and yes, he did show me) nor was “wiping the a** of those who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a keyboard”. When one did get the past the human firewalls he'd lined up, he was charming and informative. Not so, when demanding to know why it had happened.

No better example of his complexity came when he did what Special Branch and the police cyber-crime unit (PC PCs to him) failed to do – locate the identity of someone who had attempted to hack the JC website. Asked to come down to the editorial conference to tell us how he did it, his explanation was indecypheraby Cantona. Two and a half years on I'm none the wiser.

After his diagnosis, he worked for months as if nothing had happened, dutifully booking time off for “medical reasons” and passing off major surgery as someone in “a surgical mask turning him off and turning him on again.”

He managed a performance or two with Rostock, a rock group in which he played bass and was still pushing for one last gig before it became physically impossible. A couple he did manage were for his children, both of whom brought their weddings forward so he could attend - and sing.

Throughout his “Uncle Dick leave”, he was never more than an email away, constantly reminding, suggesting, advising, first from a PC, then a laptop, and finally an iphone when he could no longer sit or stand. I'd say: “You're supposed to be convalescing.” He'd reply: “You're supposed to be doing it right!”

The mischievous humour he brought into the office – key passwords were often clever corruptions of 70s sitcom sketches – never left him. He would email with details of appointments with his “Uncle Ologist”, or talk about being injected with “paint thinners”.

His 56th birthday party included a pop quiz. I couldn't stay till the end but, having bored everyone with tales of my days as a teenage stringer for NME in the 70s, claimed to have been well ahead by the time I left, having casually boasted about how “I was there” when a song was recorded or a concert played.

He humoured me for months until the day he was whisked to hospital. I sent a text to ask why and he replied: “Pink Floyd song.”

I had to trawl Wikipedia to realise he was having breathing difficulties. I later asked how I was expected to know that, he told me: “I thought you'd have been there.”

He didn't suffer fools. I'm just glad he suffers no more.

He was a one-off. A lovely man, a consumate professional and the dearest of friends.

IT is worse off for having to evolve without him.

Drip, drip, drip - and that was just the coverage

It wasn’t the rain that put the dampeners on the Diamond Jubilee river pageant – it was the BBC.

Rarely have I cringed so much at the way our national broadcaster manages to demean itself in front of a global audience that holds it in such high regard.

Presenters, some seasoned event broadcasters, others bit-part add-ons from popular TV shows burbled their way through hours of coverage, desperately trying to fill voids of silence as if paid by the word.

To be told the royal barge is now heading “out towards the City of London – the real financial power”, and made to “look at all the crowds - this is what her reign has been leading to” was bad enough, but even understandable given the audience reach.

But to see Anneka Rice tell an artist whose acrylics were smudged beyond recognition by the downpour: “That’s so monet! He'd have been so proud”, or Matt Allwright tell us a woman who lives on a barge is surrounded by luxury because “she has sofas and everything” was banal.

Then we had John Sergeant on Westminster bridge gamefully trying to get the crowd behind him to cheer and Tess Daly being knighted in the studio by a man in drag!

And we did we have to be informed that small boats were being rowed by people “up since 10 without a toilet break”? Oh yes, and the woman on the barge’s dog had been good to “cross its legs” during the proceedings.

Forget Fearne Cotton’s embarrassing interview with a war veteran (she could have got his name right) and the fact that the opening of Tower bridge heralded “an extraordinary machine lifting an extraordinary road into the sky” before cutting away and missing most of it.

I can’t remember who said “The rain is the one thing no-one has any control over”. But by then I was past caring.

Executive editor Ben Weston took the view not to “point and shoot” but to “try and bring it to life”.

At least we know where to point the blame.

An Exclusive worth spiking

Just when I thought Leveson was the final nail in the coffin of journalism's reputation, along comes ITV’s The Exclusives, the Fleet Street’s Got Talent for youngsters who want to make the grade live on TV.

For those who didn’t see it last night - and it was flogged to death in the run-up - six wannabes were chosen from an X-factor style queue of hopefuls, put into an Apprentice-style house and thrown in at the deep end like Celebs in a jungle.

They comprised a typical researchers shopping list .. a glamour model called Hayley, a nerd called Chris, someone who never went to uni but lives to write … a toxic mix guaranteed to so we give us rows, tears, handbags and elbows while we watch them grow and mature under the watchful eye of editors thrust into the limelight because bosses at Bauer know the marketing value of reality TV.

But did they kick off by learning some journalistic basics to set them on heir way? Something to redress the balance of the past few months and show we're not all obsessed with celebrity tittle-tattle? Nope, the deep end consisted of typical intern work of returning shoot-loan clothes to PRs and transcribing interviews before being told to force their way to the red carpet and blag the odd quote from, yes, D-list celebs.

It was fun to see one of them snatch three or four words from one then ask her to repeat them gain because he didn’t get all of five words on tape, and annoying to see one of the transcribers looking so bored when he may have actually learned something about conducting an interview. Then there was a gaffe-prone chat with Amy Winehouse’s dad and the shame a lad called Stuart felt when he didn’t recognise the cast of Made in Chelsea.

But wore was to come when the big assignment meant going out on to the streets to identify blokes who wouldn’t mind taking their tops of for a photoshoot.

Not only did we witness then wandering the streets like Apprentice candidates flogging their last biro as a deadline loomed, shouting “Are there any men here who are Scottish, Irish or Welsh?” but they'd enjoyed a briefing that involved dragging a fit lad from the editorial floor in front of them and getting him to take his shirt off, just in case there was any doubt.

And there was me thinking the industry was in trouble.

Passing the screen test

I've just spent a few pleasant hours at Winchester University watching their journalism students put together their weekly broadcast.

Part of it was spent in a studio listening to producers guide anchors toward their best shot and cue up videos on hyper-local stuff from education reforms to a historic palace being rebuilt with Lego.

I also had a look at their website, all hand-built in the bedroom geek's tool that is Joomla, but crammed with everything you'd want from a local paper site. Memo to Hampshire Gazette: there’s a deal to be done, chaps.

The team was an interesting mix of 2nd year undergrads and MA students, devised to accommodate academic workloads but also one which had the advantage of mixing youth with experience.

They made all the usual mistakes of not getting the most out of their visuals but took great strides in initiative by getting bang on top of the news. Using Twitter to grab an instant interview with the local football club’s new boss was one.

You can see the results here and what I thought of it here.

What you won't see is journalism head Chris Horrie introducing someone who lays claim to being something of a digital early adopter as "a good old fashioned inkie".

A week earlier, I gave one of my twice-yearly talks to the young and aspirational on the Inspiring Futures scheme at Roehampton University and organiser Simon Clarke cited my "decades of experience across a range of media".

Decades? Little wonder then that on Tuesday, to the amazement of colleagues, I actually forgot it was my birthday until a one of them handed me a card.

It even came with a small present and the leading question: "Do you know what day it is?"

Let me guess? A good day to bury bad news?

Questions we never thought they'd ask

There's a documentary a week at the moment exposing the staggering extent of Rupert Murdoch's hold on the Establishment.

And they'll continue as more comes out and lies become omissions and omissions become confessions.

Last night's Dispatches corralled a handful of hacks, PRs and coppers for whom these will become a reguar gig, and useful one for those who've lost their jobs.

We were reminded of what we've always known: that a Blair government built on spin needed News International to get elected, what we suspected - that he needed the nod from Murdoch before invading Iraq - and what only tabloid insiders would know - that the News of the World features desk had shedloads to spend on stories. Although with £3 million plus to play with, I'd have expected them to find Lord Lucan, Martin Bormann and Madeleine McCann, not a few pantsdown "exposes".

And there was the blatanly obvious. Cameron's decision to hire Coulson was in hindight disastrous, but at the time, tactically inspired.

But the most interesting thing to come from this has been the dawning realisation of those involved that the penny has finally dropped.

When Coulson and Brooks sat before the Select Committee eagerly talking over each other, at pains to "admit" they did regularly pay coppers for info, they felt securely ringfenced enough to brazen it out like Guantanamo interrogators fessing up; "how do you think we cracked it?" safe in the knowledge that thwarting an attack on the White House was all the justification needed.

How times change - and how many other such confessions will come back to haunt?

Who selected this lot?

I can say one thing for the select committee quizzing the Murdochs yesterday: I wouldn’t have them on my investigative team.

With the exception of the tenacious Louise Mensch, their questioning wouldn’t be up to producing a showbiz nib, let alone a decent splash.

Murdoch junior, as tough a corporate pugilist as you’ll find, barely felt as much as a glancing blow and Murdoch senior’s long pauses and monosyllabic responses appeared something out of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, halting any cross examination in its tracks.

It was much the same for Rebekah Brooks whose air of innocence must seem bizarrely at odds with the feisty gung-ho “get me that story at all costs” persona familiar to former staffers such as Paul McMullan who told Newsnight later of how her “fixed stare” would leave him in no doubt about what was wanted. I know he's no friend of Brooks but anyone who has any experience of tabloid newsrooms, would have appreciated the reality check.

Earlier, Sky News viewers had heard Nick Ferrari exonerating Murdoch because his media empire was “twice that of the Navy” so how could the Admiral be blamed for a faux pas by the captain of a tugboat?

That’s easy Nick, if the Admiral is prone to making long-distance Saturday night calls to said captain to ask “so, what’s going on?” And, said Admiral began life, not at some posh military academy but on the docks, clawed his way up and is known to be as straight-talking as any red-necked deck-hand.

Anyone who’se edited under Murdoch will tell you he’s as hands-on as they come. Just as anyone who’s reported to a tabloid editor will tell you, they want details - all the details - and anyone who’s been an editor will tell you, you want details – all the details.

Back to Newsnight. I found myself growing tired of former Screws Politico David Wooding banging on from the high ground about how he’d never hack a phone. I haven’t seen David for years but the one I knew was as ethical as they come. But we’ve heard enough now. Any defence or justification in this climate is misplaced.

McMullan’s description of newsroom pressure was about right. What we’re seeing is a seismic culture change. A few months ago, media pub talk was one of bravado, of don’t let on but… Now, we’re running for cover, admitting excesses and adding … “but I never went that far!”

Tabloid newsrooms are macho places. The best yarns in the Cheshire Cheese, the Stab or the Popinjay were always about how the story was got, rather than what it said. Hacks retire and write books with a Raymond Chandler feel to them. Those who give the best talks at media colleges are the ones who include the naughty bits. Today, those smarting because their bosses turned down the MPs expenses scandal before the Telegraph went to town it were occasionally heard to snipe: “well, it was handed to them”.

Now and then, there’s a wake-up call. Papers stop buying pap pictures for a few weeks after a Princess dies with them in pursuit, or there’s brazen defiance when an MP caught with his trousers down tells us we’re “drinking in the last chance saloon”.

For the most part, the industry gets away with it. And it’s been largely for the greater good that it has. Ingenuity, guile and sometimes bare-faced cheek have been key to keeping society on
track.

Had it not been for the solid, justifiable investigation of the type employed by Nick Davies and the Guardian, coppers would still be collecting their brown envelopes and Royal newlyweds wouldn’t be able to phone home in privacy.

Yesterday, I wrote how I’d finally overcome my irritation at the use of “gate” at the end of every scandal story. Happily, that was endorsed by a Watergate legend when Carl Bernstein told how he used to wince every time it was used by a Murdoch title.

He too has now changed his mind, describing it as the biggest media event in history.

Britain's Watergate? More like Floodgate

Max Hastings used to have a hobbyhorse or two, such as banning the word gay and announcing one day that Celebrity was too trite for pages of the Daily Telegraph.

And I well recall one of his forays into the newsroom in which he told us to stop using the suffix Gate when referring to scandals.

It was sometime around Squidgygate, or was it Camillagate? Anyway, it was a decision one I wholeheartedly agreed with. Until now.

Hack-gate, Wapping-gate, Murdoch-gate Screws-gate don't really trip off the tongue as easily as "I knew nothing about it, guv". But if ever a topic were more suited, it’s this.

Coppers who turn a blind eye, MPs who fiddle their eccies probing shady hacks who give bungs to private dicks in seedy diners while their bosses destroy evidence - all of which threatens to unseat the Citizen Kane of our time - and all of which leads right to the steps of 10 Downing Street?

It's the most significant turning point in modern media history and, as we pause for breath ahead of the next revelation, it begs only one serious question; Who will play Rupert Murdoch in the film?

Rebekah Brooks, if she still has any clout, would probably plump for Nicole Kidman and James Murdoch wouldn't be at all hacked off at Matt Damon, such is notoriety. And there’d probably even be a cameo role of so for Brooks’ ex, Ross Kemp alongside David Jason and George Cole, in the bung scenes. Andy Coulson won’t thank me for choosing Dwight Schrute of the American Office as him, Ed Miliband will find little Comfort in who I have for him, although Hugh Grant can play himself.

As for the the Great Man himself. Not looking his best these days. Nuff said.

Banish hacking – but don’t move the goalposts

I enjoyed Hugh Grant’s appearance on Question Time last week as he was rolled out as the most eloquent celebrity hackee to stick the boot into News International.

What earned him even more brownie points was the way he shrugged off ex-Sun columnist John Gaunt’s ludicrous side-swipe in referring referred to an embarrassing incident long ago when Grant found himself in the papers for a personal faux pas.

But he missed the point entirely when he told Newsnight viewers a couple of nights later that stories about the personal lives of the likes of Ryan Giggs were not in the public interest.

They absolutely are. Zillion-pound-a-week footballers and their pecadillos are potentially one of the real victors of the NoW demise.

With serious debate now on the cards about what (ethical) red tops should and shouldn’t get away with, let’s not lose sight of what does actually constitute fair game.

When newsrooms die, the spirit does not

Tonight's farewell shift at the News of The World will be like no other.

Too many journalists have experienced such last nights but there's normally something of a build-up before the last rites. Falling circulations, takeover speculation, a shift in ownership – all of which staff read about in the Media Guardian before it makes the newsroom noticeboards.

Even when those on days off get the dreaded call at home and word spreads across the floor that “an announcement” is about to be made, there's always a sense of inevitability mixed with that of impending loss.

Final editions can engender a tremendous sense of solidarity and pledges for annual reunions, even as they work in split-screen mode with one eye on the job ads. But whatever fallout any of those working into the night tonight expected from the hacking scandal, the closure of one of the world's leading newspapers was not one of them.

(Claims that the 'brand' had been irreperably damaged, leaving closure as the only option, are, to use tabloid expletives, b*****ks, by the way. And that's understating it).

What we'll see on the stands tomorrow will be a classic of its day. If I know Colin Myler as well as I think I do, he'll produce a paper worthy of a curtain call, and one worth bringing to that first reuinon. There'll be no "splash", just a no-nonsense leader and a historical retrospective on the days when the management knew what they were doing.

Breaking news: I'm writing this in a waiting room of a car dealership next door to the now infamous MacDonalds restaurant in Wapping where all those money exchanges were said to have taken place. The only coppers in sight are the ones clanking around in the charity box on the counter.

















A

Best Saga in Ages

Not that I'm old enough to subscribe, you understand, but the latest issue of Saga magazine would tempt me to, if only I were honest enough to own up.

Katy bravery, who I still think of as a fresh faced twentysomething back in the day when we both arrived in Fleet Street to launch the Daily Shah, has done a remarkable job in revamping a publication showing no signs of retirement and very few wrinkles.

The last time we met, she told me she was overdosing on celebrities after years of editing mags at the Express, Mirror, NoW etc. Even so, I see she couldn't resist putting Kristin Scott Thomas on the cover. But like all men of an undisclosed age, I'm certainly not complaining about that.

Talking of revamps, I've just returned from another week in my Padstow bolthole where I bought a copy of the Cornish Guardian. Its a paper I knew well long before I met anyone in fleet street; a local rival, in fact (I was on the opposition Courier in Bodmin).

Back then in the seventies, it wasn't much of a rival, it has to be said: parochial, predictable and packed with parish pump, nothing like the clean, confident and crisp version editor Zena O'Rourke is producing today.
And that is presumably why judges last month voted it weekly newspaper of the year. Another victory for another female editor in the days when everyone is closing down and going digital.

Encouraging.

Well played - and it didn't even kick off

How many hands did I shake last night? Let's see, eight teams of winners and runners-up from four divisions, a few players of the year, teams of the year, best looking, worst-dressed, dodgiest haircut, you name it, I handed it out at a synagogue in Edgware.

It's not the first time I've dished out silverware at a sports ceremony, so why the mention?

Well, because it wasn’t your usual footie gig, for a start. This was not the jeering, barracking spite-fest which sees lager-fueled lads swaggering up to score-settling boos and the sound of We Are The Champions.




Or the heads-down kids following in the steps of their Mike Basset England manager bosses who thrust trophies in the air to cheers of “Get in their my sa’an”.

And don’t even think I’m exaggerating. I haven’t even started on the punch-up in the gents (sic) at the Dacorum Sports centre in Hemel Hempstead a few years back.

No, this was the MSFL, the biggest Jewish soccer league in the world and one populated by players who wear suits by day, play their football on a Sunday and behave themselves in kosher restaurants by night.

It was interesting that there were umpteen sides represented on the night and a couple of hundred players in the room. But to a man there was one team.

Listen, I’ve seen the crunching tackles go in, the odd 30-yarder splinter a post and a keeper flatten a defender or two who ignored his call. And I’ve heard the barracking from the fans and the odd nose-to-nose when things got a bit “tasty”. But the hard stuff stays on the pitch.

But when it came to taking the credit, they did so with a civility and generous warmth I’ve rarely experienced at this level.

You could say, they played a man’s game.

The girl will go far

Read this. It’s an unsolicited job application.

Dear Sir,

I am writing to express my interest in writing for you. I am a regular contributor etc…I run my own website …I have a 2:1 in creative writing … I have worked in challenging and professional environments etc…

Then she says:

As a starting point, please complete the reply slip below and post to me



Like I said, she'll go far. Further than the application, one hopes.

April comes early

What god sport it is to pick up the dailies on April 1 and try to spot the April Fool’s joke. Not always easy given much of the real news these days.

But what many readers may not know is that the Jewish world has its own traditions of leg-pulling with the festival of Purim and the so-called Purim Speil.

For years, the JC has been bemusing readers with weird and wonderful tales of the unexpected and unsubstantiated, all taken in good heart by a readership that understands and respects them.

The problem theses days though is that, given the speed with which news moves online, this can happen.

As for the Royals, they could probably do with some multicultural training. No-one at the Palace go it - and no one was amused.

Computer says 'no, no, no - more'

This not a joke. Repeat: not a joke.

Mr Abraham, a reader, wrote a rather sarcastic letter to the to the Letters to the editor inbox. He then got this automated reply:

This is an automated response.
Thank you for your letter. Please note that no letter will be considered for publication unless you supply a full postal address (which will not be published in full). Please indicate whether you want this abbreviated postal address used, or your email address, should your letter be selected.

He replied:
Abbreviated postal address, please.

The rest speaks for itself….


This is an automated response.
Thank you for your letter. Please note that no letter will be considered for publication unless you supply a full postal address (which will not be published in full). Please indicate whether you want this abbreviated postal address used, or your email address, should your letter be selected.

Abbreviated post code, please.

This is an automated response.
Thank you for your letter. Please note that no letter will be considered for publication unless you supply a full postal address (which will not be published in full). Please indicate whether you want this abbreviated postal address used, or your email address, should your letter be selected.

Yes, to repeat, my postal address is KT7 (blushes spared here - RB)
Thank you.

This is an automated response.
Thank you for your letter. Please note that no letter will be considered for publication unless you supply a full postal address (which will not be published in full). Please indicate whether you want this abbreviated postal address used, or your email address, should your letter be selected.

Yes okay, please use postal address, abbreviated.
Thank you.

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Thank you for your letter. Please note that no letter will be considered for publication unless you supply a full postal address (which will not be published in full). Please indicate whether you want this abbreviated postal address used, or your email address, should your letter be selected.

Yes, yes and yes!!!
This is the third time I have been asked this automated question!
Regards

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Thank you for your letter. Please note that no letter will be considered for publication unless you supply a full postal address (which will not be published in full). Please indicate whether you want this abbreviated postal address used, or your email address, should your letter be selected.


Yes use my postcode, abbreviated.
Regards,
ps why do you keep on sending this email to me, I have already replied to you, at least once?


This is an automated response.
Thank you for your letter. Please note that no letter will be considered for publication unless you supply a full postal address (which will not be published in full). Please indicate whether you want this abbreviated postal address used, or your email address, should your letter be selected.

I have already agreed to you to use my abbreviated postal address..
Thank you.

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Thank you for your letter. Please note that no letter will be considered for publication unless you supply a full postal address (which will not be published in full). Please indicate whether you want this abbreviated postal address used, or your email address, should your letter be selected.


Please use abbreviated postcode!
I have already advised this twice before!

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Thank you for your letter. Please note that no letter will be considered for publication unless you supply a full postal address (which will not be published in full). Please indicate whether you want this abbreviated postal address used, or your email address, should your letter be selected.

Abbreviated postal address, please.

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My postal address is (OK, I’m sparing more blushes - RB)……………

This is the third time I have given you this information!! Please do not ask me again.

Thank you.

This is an automated response.
Thank you for your letter. Please note that no letter will be considered for publication unless you supply a full postal address (which will not be published in full). Please indicate whether you want this abbreviated postal address used, or your email address, should your letter be selected.

Fingers crossed he doesn't leave a comment.

easyJet and easy pickings: part two

What is it about this story and light fingers? Two days after the Sun nicked our easyJet exclusive and made it their exclusive – and a day after it went around the world like the longest of long-haul flights – it now appears on that well known “content farm”,
the Huffington Post.

And what makes matters worse is that while they do give an attribution – it’s to CNN and, wait for it, even the Daily Mail for quotes from the hapless passenger who complained – taken word-for-word the ones used in the original JC story.

I was interested to read the many comments this attracted when Roy Greenslade picked it up on his blog, particularly the cynicism among those who thought the practice rife.

Which is why I took the decision some time ago that the JC should syndicate its material. Sadly, our syndication partner was on holiday the week this happened. When he comes back I’ll have to ask him. Did he fly easyJet?

A Sun exclusive - it's a easy-get

When is an exclusive not an exclusive? Well, there’s one in today’s Sun.

The Page 20 headline Queasyjet – Airline offers Jewish passengers a choice of ham or bacon – had all the elements of a lively, mischievous page lead.

And a heavily-researched one too, given the exclusive tag and the joint byline of Chris Pollard and Vince Soodin. But what puzzled Jewish Chronicle assistant editor Jenni Frazer was that it had appeared in her paper on Friday – and Soodin had even rung her asking for contact details.



Even more galling was the fact that she had insisted “only if you credit the JC!” This was not a trite request. The nationals trawl the JC every week for copy. Only last week, The JC’s (properly, well-researched exclusive) on a Jewish football team being kicked out of a league for fielding non-Jewish players had been sold all around by an agency - yet presented by all concerned as an original story.

The Mirror even led a page on it under the lively headline Jew Are Ya?
But even more revealing was the response from the Sun when Frazer rang Soodin to front him up with: “What happened to your promise of a credit – and why on earth did you claim it was an exclusive?”

The reply: “When we take stories from regionals or locals, we usually tag them exclusive.”

A regional? Tell that to our readers in Manchester, Gateshead, Southend, Tel Aviv, New York...

Anyway, after a calm yet, shall we say empirical, exchange, came the reasoning: “We do use it in a different way here.”

PS: Indeed. At least they fessed up in the end and added a link in the online version.

Keys' final commentary

I was tempted to suggest that, with Gray shown a red, Sky should throw away the keys. Now they don't have to. He's quit.

But still he doesn't get it. His suggestion that the success of Sky over the past 20 years had made him enemies within the media, and that it was unfair to lambast broadcasters for off-air comments.

"The clips you have seen are fairly selective," he says. I should hope so. God help us if they'd shown more.

No Gray area - he had to go

So, Andy Gray has got the boot for the Sky Sports sexism debacle. That’s made me a tenner (a safe bet at the time) – saved Sky execs a few bob in fees and will probably be worth a Ronaldo transfer fee in PR terms.

It was good fun while it lasted with the tabloids upping their game in the trawl for women reader with customary indignation. The Mirror’s Game of two halfwits was the pick of the day, although the Sun’s Get ‘em off (next to a picture of lineswoman Sian Massey dancing in something skimpy) was a bit of an own goal.

I’d been wondering when Andy Burton was going to get a kicking for his part.

Gray is a footballer so knows no better. Richard Keys would have got in on the “changing room crack” and gone native ages ago. But at least he had the nous to apologise.

But Burton had no excuse. As a professional broadcaster, he should have known better than to get caught like Rooney by an Accrington offside trap.

Also, the fun of these spats is the way everyone gets involved: from the dragging up of Ron Atkinson’s racism to Kenny Dalglish, whose daughter used to present for Sky, distancing himself by saying he hadn’t even noticed that the lino whose every decision every manager scrutinises every match was female.

The most hilarious element was the Independent’s Andy Townsend own goal.

As for Gray. Wish I’d upped the stakes on the tenner. Sorry, but what a pillock.