THE THINGS THEY SAY
The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do — Walter Bagehot
TODAY’S PAPERS
CARTOON OF THE DAY
The question I failed to ask Hockney that might have cost me millions
CHRISTOPHER WILSON had a memorable meeting with David Hockney by that famous Hollywood pool during which the artist made a few pencil sketches of his young interviewer. Wilson’s one regret was that he was too polite to ask for the sketches, which he now reflects could be worth millions.
DRONE PHOTO NEWS
What goes around comes around: Young bloods Press ganged into reporting on the 1969 Troubles
By GEOFFREY SEED
FOOTAGE from the recent attempted pogrom in Belfast was enough to remind old hacks of how grim it was in the early days.
From memory, the Daily Mirror placed this ad in Press Gazette when young shavers like me were flown in for four week 'tours' to help out the permanent guys.
The Daily Mail's Belfast office was run by Ted Scallan and John Thorne, later of the BBC. I joined them periodically, soaking wet behind the ears, between 1969 and 1972 when almost a thousand people were killed —soldiers, police officers, civilians.
Stories could be filed until about 3 a.m. and six hours later, the whole bloody business started all over again.
I left newspapers for television in '74 but returned to Northern Ireland to film in the 'H' Block dirty protest and later, to produce three Panorama investigations into the British State's secret involvement in running terrorists.
All good clean fun. If nothing else, these experiences provided material for when I dyed my hair grey and began writing political thrillers.
Ace Star reporter George is the only journalist to be banned from writing for the Sunday Sport … possibly
By GEORGE DEARSLEY
The recent furore concerning newspaper mogul David Sullivan reminded me of an unusual claim to fame in my journalistic career. I believe I may be the only journalist ever to be banned from contributing to the Sunday Sport.
The ban was imposed by the then editor Drew Robertson, whom I had upset by writing an innocuous piece in the trade journal Press Gazette, the content of which has dissolved in the mists of time.
Robertson was later sacked in 1990 for running an adverse Press Council adjudication under the headline BOLLOCKS TO THE PRESS COUNCIL. Around that time, the Sunday Sport had also caused uproar when it snatched a picture of television actor Gorden Kaye as he lay injured in hospital after a car accident. Robertson went on to form his own media company and, among other things, has done sterling community work throughout Derbyshire.
An old friend of mine — Ian Pollock, ex Daily Star — took his post, leading Journalists Week to write the classic headline BOLLOCKS OUT – POLLOCK IN. My ban was immediately lifted and Ian commissioned me to write many pieces for the paper, including a full, graphic, no-holds-barred account of a man, who underwent a sex change operation to become a woman.
Another assignment concerned a TV ad about a giant hedgehog, which flattened cars on a country road. I had to interview the hedgehog. Them were t’days.
MURDER!
(Of the Engliẝh language)
HERE is an excellent example of how language changes over the centuries.
It is a report of a murder case from 1674. Sixteen people died when someone poisoned boiling meat with rat poison.
Good job they eventually invented sub-editors. Thanks to the best of that particular breed, Terry Manners, who discovered this gem in the Bishopsgate Institute.
NEW TODAY
The resignation of John Healey is less a blow to Starmer (he’s already yesterday’s man with his future behind him) but, to Labour as a whole, it’s a real catastrophe. The outgoing Defence Secretary is respected, statesmanlike and serious — a proper politician. How he must have winced at the shenanigans of his shallow colleagues in Cabinet. Healey and Starmer attended the 2024 NATO Summit where he told reporters that Britain will be the ‘leading European nation’ in defence spending and declared that our nation would be ‘democracy's most reliable ally’. How hollow those words sound now. No wonder he resigned. Honourable man. Meanwhile, Labour hacks rushed to scrub digitally all evidence of Healey from the party website. A pic of him with Starmer is replaced by one of Lammy with the PM (Gawd ‘elp us). As Guido Fawkes muses: ‘Eventually this photo will just show Starmer alone in a dark room with a few cobwebs on the wall and tumbleweed drifting across the table…’
Some among us are old enough to have been plying our trade back in 1968 when the Tory shadow minister Enoch Powell made his notorious Rivers of Blood speech, warning of racial tension escalating into violence. He was quoting from the Aeneid when he said: ‘As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood".’ Outrage followed. Powell was vilified; an outcast. Now the emotive phrase is mostly what is remembered. Yet Powell went on to warn that what was then happening in the US ‘is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect.‘ He added: ‘To see and not to speak would be the great betrayal.’ In the light of recent events, who shall say this warning does not resonate? To paraphrase: How prescient did he have to be?
There was a chilling difference to the rioting in response to knife attacks in Southampton and Northern Ireland. Instead of the ‘carnival of live streamers’ we’ve become used to, says Aris Roussinos in UnHerd, Belfast was a ‘serious’ operation, coldly and carefully targeted at migrant homes. No phones or cameras were allowed; protesters were advised to dress in ‘all-dark clothes’ and ‘mask up’. Commanding-looking men in expensive 4x4s oversaw youths filling petrol bombs and setting fire to barriers. And journalists were not welcome. ‘Asking around for an interview, I was cornered by two burly men: “Are you fucking daft?” one asked. “Fuck away off and get on home before you get kneecapped.”’
JD Vance was quickly bollocked by No. 10 for intervening in the Henry Nowak debate. The veep not only said that ‘righteous anger’ was the only response to the murder, he also claimed Nowak would still be alive if ‘the last few generations of European elites had stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants’. But, says Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian, Nowak had Polish heritage and his killer, Vickrum Digwa, is the ‘British-born son of a British-born father’.
Apropos the above, there’s another way of looking at this. The idea that Vance’s remarks cross some ‘red line of diplomatic protocol’ is nonsense, says Ameer Kotecha in The Spectator. After the death of George Floyd, Starmer said his killing had ‘shone a light on racism and hatred’ in the US. European politicians frequently comment on America’s gun laws and abortion policies. During the 2024 US election, around 100 Labour Party activists travelled to swing states to campaign for Kamala Harris. Criticise the substance of Vance’s remarks all you like. But spare us the “pearl-clutching” over the intervention itself.
The Drone has already ridiculed the World Cup for its venality, greed and commercialism. As millions of fans adjust their sleep schedules to follow the fortunes of their favourites, FIFA will focus on a different scoreboard. It expects the tournament, which it has modestly described as ‘104 Super Bowls in a month’, to generate roughly $13 billion in revenue. That’s 70% more than the last World Cup. Sponsorship revenue is projected to jump more than 55% from 2022. Ticket revenue is expected to more than triple to $3 billion. The addition of 40 extra matches will lift global TV revenue to $4.3 billion from $3.4 billion. Win, win and trebles all round for Infantino & Co.
A new skyscraper is set to loom over the City of London. The £1 billion, 1,015-ft giant is taller than the Shard, says Fabio Crispim in Metro. One London, as it has been named, will be erected between the Cheesegrater and the Gherkin on the site of the old St Helen’s Tower. It will have Europe’s highest publicly accessible viewing gallery, gardens and London’s highest bar.
The financial market in the States is bracing itself as three private companies seek to go public each targeting a valuation of $1 trillion or more. The launch, through an Initial Public Offering, of Elon Musk’s SpaceX at $1.7 trillion, will be followed by Anthropic and OpenAI each aiming for $1 trillion. Money people the world over will be watching with interest (SWIJDT?) what is considered Musk’s biggest gamble to date and whether there is room in the market for not one, but three blockbuster IPOs.
Diners at the Clerkenwell restaurant Bouchon Racine were bemused when a bellboy from the Ritz, in ‘full regalia’ rushed in halfway through lunch service holding a Post-it note. He had been dispatched to the French bistro to secure a table for two of the hotel’s guests, confides Hannah Evans in The Times. Asked why he had trekked halfway across London, the bellboy replied: ‘Well, you don’t answer the phone.’ The manager hurriedly found a table and the guests are now regulars who dine at Bouchon at least once a week.
Zoo owner Gabriel Ligon is philosophical about the trials associated with keeping wild animals. ‘When you run a zoo, zoo things happen,’ he says with a shrug. He should know, reports Rachel Wolfe (sic) in The Wall Street Journal. There is currently a Nile crocodile on the loose from his Magnolia Wildlands zoo in central Louisiana. It’s in good company: the zoo, near the town of Ethel, has also misplaced a Marabou stork, a lynx, two Indian crested porcupines, a family of capybaras, a mob of kangaroos, a flock of flightless rheas, a herd of water buffalo and an ‘entire safari exhibit of bison, zebras and antelope’. Other incidents include a red river hog goring an employee and a hyena biting a teenager.
No wonder West Ham United wanted to distance itself from allegations by seven women that billionaire co-chairman David Sullivan abused his power and preyed on them for sex, in some cases when they were in their late teens. The club was the first in the Premier League to be accredited by the charity White Ribbon UK in recognition of its efforts to support ending male violence against women and girls. Sullivan, who has resigned, categorically denies the claims.
When Substacker Robert Francis was researching the astonishing 11,000 bird species in the world (‘The hardest thing I’ve ever done.’) a bonus was discovering some of the strange names they have been given. They include the Plains-wanderer, Supertramp Fantail, Predicted Antwren, Inaccessible Island Rail, Horned Screamer, Morepork, Bare-faced Go-away-bird, Hoary Puffleg and Andean Cock-of-the-rock. A mere wren doesn’t really cut now it does it?
The effect of the turmoil in the Gulf on airlines is becoming clear. Average jet fuel prices are expected to be 70% higher than a year ago, pushing the industry’s fuel bill up by $100 billion. That surge could cut global airline profits in half this year, to just $23 billion, says the International Air Transport Association. North American carriers are still projected to generate a large share of those earnings at $9.4 billion, though that’s down sharply from $12.4 billion last year. The pain will be felt most acutely by airlines with thin balance sheets and those operating in the Gulf region, where conflict has disrupted routes and demand. Florida budget carrier Spirit Airlines became an early casualty, suspending operations last month, while European outfits, including EasyJet, Lufthansa, and Ryanair, warn that rising fuel costs could weigh on already-slim profits.
When the local garden centre café employs a robot, the world is turning faster than we thought. OK, so Robert, as he’s inevitably called, only conveys dirty crockery from tables to the kitchen but, yikes, where’s it going to end? Casting an eye over to Amazon may give a clue. The company has unveiled a €10 billion European expansion. It includes the next generation Proteus robot which not only can navigate warehouses, move heavy carts, and prioritise tasks but takes orders in plain conversational language. Amazon runs the world’s largest robot fleet — more than a million machines compared with its 1.56 million workers; robotics now backs 75% of deliveries. There is a downside, of course. Total white collar job cuts are reportedly reaching 30,000.
Nicola Sturgeon Amnesia Shock Latest: Remember the forgetful former SNP leader’s luxury item on Desert Island Discs in 2015. A coffee machine. Somehow it later slipped her mind that her embezzling hubby had bought three such devices costing between £1,300 and £2,600 each.
LeftInACab: Back in response to fervent public clamour including siege at Drone HQ. (All new and mostly genuine): denture with two teeth (off white); one Croc (size 8); breast milk (in R. Whites Lemonade bottle); bishop’s crosier catalogue; human hair (assorted); Royal Free Hospital discharge docs; mini fridge (new); Daily Drone Christmas Annual, 2017; paper bag containing gooseberries (past best); textured photo with rhinestoned picture of Jesus.
HeadlineOfTheMonth: Big Knickers Day At The Liver Salts Factory — Oldie.
OldJokesHome: Barman: ‘We don’t serve time travellers here.’ A time traveller walks into a bar.
It’sOnlyMoney: HM Prisons & Probation Service is seeking an ‘Equalities Lead’. They will create ‘an Equality Action Plan’, encourage employee engagement in the equality agenda and carry out equality related audits and reports. Salary? Up to £45,316 plus employer pension contribution of 28.97%.
The Infernal Intern
By Heidi Highgate
NEW TODAY
We Gen Zers are having to juggle more than one job — if we can get them — because life’s so expensive. According to Deputy, a global workforce management platform which analysed 20 million shifts done by 300,000 UK workers, a record 1.35 million adults are working at least two jobs. It’s called poly-employment. Ashlin McCourt, from Northern Ireland, clocks up 60 hours a week as a civil servant, a waitress and a baker. The 28-year-old, who fits in the last two around her main job, is saving to marry. Her partner also has two jobs. Ashlin says: ‘You don’t even know you’re tired because that’s the norm.’
Which reminds me that many of my pals are wondering whether it was worth spending three years running up debt to get a degree that can’t secure them a job. So spare a thought for students in the States: At least 16 colleges, including Duke, Georgetown, UChicago and NYU, now charge more than $100,000 a year. And they’re hardly outliers: some 85 institutions charged more than $90,000, many of which will presumably soon be joining the six-figure club.
It’s very much the flavour combo of choice this summer: Fricy, a mixture of fruity and spicy. According to Lucy Knight in The Guardian, London’s Mango Twist offers a Volcano slushie made up of mango and chilli and a Mangonero fruit salad covered in chamoy and tamarind. Sales of Waitrose’s spicy mango condiment Mango Amba are up 30% in the past year, while ‘fricy sauce’ purchases at the hot sauce retailer Hot-Headz! have rocketed in the past six months, with pineapple and mango among the most popular.
No wonder Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has called for airports to stop selling or restricting liveners at airports early in the morning. He says the airline is diverting an average of nearly one flight a day because of drunken behaviour. A decade ago it was one a week. It’s true drinkies at 5am can be the first faltering step on a long journey to degradation and humiliation. I recall a hen weekend where Rule No. 1 was: ‘drink fizz straight from the bottle and be silly’. Mind you, it was a pretty abstemious flight out: lads on a golfing party at the back had drunk the plane dry 25 minutes after take-off.
Nerds everywhere welcome the Pope inaugurating the 566ft Tower of Jesus Christ at Gaudi’s Sagrada Família in Barcelona. Not just because the church’s construction is finally over but, more excitingly, Lego is releasing a 12,060-piece version of the basilica, which, hopefully, will not take 144 years to complete.
To Copenhagen with my current FWB (keeps him on his toes!) for Denmark’s riot of fun, the 2026 Mullet Championship. It celebrates the much-maligned but enduring hairstyle, defined by very short hair at the front and longer locks at the back. More than 1,000 gathered before an outdoor stage in the city centre as outrageously-coiffed competitors paraded in the mane (SWIJDT?) event. Organiser Steffen Stiw Weber, a 37-year-old electrician, started the championship, after he was banned from competing in the States because he wasn’t American. Competitors in Denmark’s event were evaluated on their cuts’ style, uniqueness, overall performance and ‘mullet moves’.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
ONLY IN THE DRONE
Our great columnists
Stand and Deliver
By Hermione Orliff
NEW
The relentless march of the quangocrat continues apace. Amid the preposterous bollocks of the net zero agenda, energy quangos are seemingly out of control. Take four of the big ones: the Climate Change Committee, Low Carbon Contracts Company, North Sea Transition Authority, and Ofgem. According to Taxpayers’ Alliance scrutiny, the latter’s income has rocketed from £76 million in 2015-16 to £227 million in 2024-25, up 197 per cent. Its headcount soared from 907 to 2,276. Elsewhere, the Low Carbon Contracts Company had the largest headcount percentage increase at 382 per cent. The Climate Change Committee’s expenditure increased by 120 per cent with headcount up 89 per cent. The North Sea Transition Authority meanwhile saw their staffing costs increase by a whopping 173 per cent. The TPA says: ‘Britain has developed a sprawling energy quango state with soaring staffing costs and ballooning headcounts. As ministers continue pursuing net zero through arm’s length bodies, taxpayers are funding an ever-growing bureaucracy operating largely out of public view.
Why are Russians such a cruel race? Antony Beevor poses the question in The Washington Post as the war in Ukraine grinds on. Ever since the 13th-century Mongol invasions, Russia has treated terror, mass rape, looting and pointless torture as natural elements of combat, he says. We can do without the details but Putin and Co are almost as brutal with their own troops as they are with their enemies. Beevor says there have been 5,000 suicides a year among teenage conscripts because of bullying.
In 1980, Britain had one regulator for every 11,000 people working in financial services. Today, it's closer to one regulator for every 75. Tory MP Katie Lam says: ‘Bureaucrats always create more rules and always work to expand their powers.’
Ok, so Elon Musk is rich but how rich is rich? Rich. Best sit down. His fortune of $970 billion exceeds the GDP of more than 125 countries, including Thailand, Argentina and his native South Africa. Over the 31 years since Musk co-founded his first company, he has pocketed roughly $59,492 a minute, $85.7 million a day, or $2.6 billion a month. To earn as much as him, a household on the median US income ($83,730) would have to work for more than 11 million years.
We’ve all been to funerals and memorial services when the final piece of music is something jaunty or inspiring: Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life, My Way or, memorably, Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen. At the recent St Bride’s service for Dominic Prince it was The Bare Necessities, Baloo’s song from Jungle Book adapted for the organ. Prince was a character. At school he was known for dyeing OXO cubes green and selling them as hashish. He went on to have a fine career as a journo despite passing just one O level. His final school report said: ‘Rarely seen’.
What does this tell us about modern Britain? According to YouGov research, nurses, at 90%, are the most trusted and believable group. Politicians: 4%.
More people are going to the theatre than ever before. In 2025 that’s 37 million people across the UK; the West End alone welcomed a record-breaking 17.64 million. This was almost three million more than Broadway but there ticket sales also generated a record $1.9 billion in the 2025-26 season. That’s 3.5% up on the previous year as 1.8% more people saw live performances. Plays were particularly popular with attendance surging nearly 14% but attendance at musicals dropped 4.7%. Concert ticket sales are projected to rise 11% this year.
Spy chief Alex Younger, who has died from cancer aged 62 (he named his tumour ‘Putin’), was, how shall I say, secretive. He was criticised by his wife for not telling his mother he was a spook. So Younger, ‘C’ at MI6, decided to do so. ‘Yes, darling,’ she replied. ‘So was I’.
As railway nationalisation gathers pace in the UK my man on the draughty platform who’s just been told that all trains are cancelled asks: will it actually lead to better services for travellers? Supporters often point to Swiss railways as a great example of how nationalisation helped to create and maintain the world’s best railway system. Two points, though: Swiss efficiency and the fact that Switzerland invests €477 per capita in its rail system every year; the UK €116.
Brava to Rosamund Pike for bollocking a theatregoer for texting during the emotional finale of a West End performance. The Times offers other examples of bad audience behaviour: a group sharing a Chinese takeaway in the theatre, a couple having sex on the dance floor during a ‘mid-tempo number’ at the Secret Garden Party festival plus some up-your-bum aspirants bringing their butler for the interval picnic at Glyndebourne. So flash, darling. Then there was Simon Rattle who once, pointedly, restarted a performance by the Berlin Phil because a phone had gone off. Ahem! It belonged to someone in the orchestra.
Disney faces a proposed $5million class-action lawsuit alleging its new facial-recognition system at California theme parks collects guests’ biometric data without consent.
ClickbaitCrap: Two hapless Mirror hacks called Bethany Whittingham and Tianna Corbin foolishly allow their bylines to appear on a ‘story’ about BBC Question Time host Fiona Bruce bringing the programme to an ‘abrupt pause’ while she made ‘a surprise announcement’. Wow! What’s the news? World War 3? Just that the show is taking a summer break — as it has for the last 46 years.
TheThingsTheySay: ‘Count Binface and the Monster Raving Loonies were not asked to take part. The Greens’ woman did her best to make up for their absence.’ — Quentin Letts, Mail, on the Makerfield Question Time panel.
HeadlineOfTheWeek: ‘Extremely Dangerous’ Turtle On The Run In Wales — Mail.
TalesFromTheBackwoods: A female rodeo rider had her right hand torn off and suffered a broken jaw in a freak accident in Montana. Mother of two Presley Whittaker was roping a young horse when her mount bolted dragging her with it. Her husband, Kyle, who ran to her side, said: ‘I really thought she was going to die.’ Presley was airlifted by helicopter to hospital but surgeons were unable to reattach her hand. But she says that after further ops on her right arm she hopes to be able to have a prosthetic hand fitted. Atta girl!
WorldCupWatch: Bosnia and Herzegovina has introduced the world’s largest coffee pot to a tournament usually fuelled by a different brown beverage. The pot, which holds thousands of cups, made its debut at the team’s warm-up game v Panama in St Louis, home to the largest Bosnian population outside Bosnia and Herzegovina. Free coffee was dished out to fans.
UntouchedByHumanSub: ‘More than a million people fill the streets of Madrid, despite a scorching sun overhead.’ — Mail caption.
It’sOnlyMoney: NHS Blood and Transplant is seeking a Senior Inclusive Culture Manager. They will be tasked to ‘set clear direction, mobilise change and deliver ambitious, long-term programmes that help everyone at NHSBT feel they belong and can thrive’ and to ‘develop and deliver organisation-wide inclusive culture roadmaps’. Salary? Up to £77,368.
NIBS
NPR has laid off ten journalists and is reportedly buying out at least 18 news staff who accepted offers. Eight positions will remain unfilled with total reductions around 4% of NPR's content division. (Press Gazette)
The Guardian US made $81m in revenue in the year to 31 March, according to an internal presentation seen by Axios — the highest since it launched in the US 15 years ago as well as the most profitable. Some 70% of the revenue was from reader donations, with a quarter from advertising. (Axios)
Iconic Media (formerly National World) has bought regional magazine The Dalesman from its family ownership. CEO Malcolm Denmark said it "gives us an opportunity to continue investing in quality journalism and content focused on Yorkshire". (Hold the Front Page)
The Economist has launched its own ChatGPT app, "the first of its kind by a major consumer news publication”. The Economist – Graphs runs natively inside ChatGPT and allows users to interact with the publication’s data visualisations. (Nieman Lab)
So. Farewell then, Norman Balon
By PAT PRENTICE
Although he revelled in being the Rudest Landlord in London, Norman Balon, who supervised the motley staff of the Coach and Horses in Soho, was sometimes far different.
On my first visit to the pub, I unwittingly stood in front of a precariously-balanced black and white TV that was broadcasting tennis on a high shelf behind the bar.
Deeply menacing noises came from behind me as a couple of Maltese heavies ordered me out of the way because they were watching.
Before I could rashly respond that this was a pub, not Wimbledon, a tall, solid, lumbering man appeared from the doorway, noted the protesters, then went behind the pumps and pointedly reached up and changed channels to the cricket.
Nothing was said, as he nodded and quietly served me my pint of Burton Ale.
The Coach became a regular stop-off on my evening trips between Fleet Street and my Richmond home, as it was for many other hacks, spooks, spivs, luvvies, musicians, artists, pickpockets and literary miscreants.
Years later, after I moved to Greenwich to follow the Telegraph to the Isle of Dogs, my visits to the pub continued.
On one New Year's Eve, I told a newly-arrived landlord in Greenwich Marketplace that I was on my way to Norman's.
He had told me that he knew Norman well, a claim I wasn't sure I believed, and asked me to pass on his regards.
When Norman left his chess board later to go behind the bar, I passed on Vince's regards.
Norman's eyes watered and he disappeared upstairs.
Soon afterwards he came back, carrying a plastic supermarket bag containing a book and several mugs honouring the Rudest Landlord in London.
He urged me to keep two and pass on the rest to his old friend, with his wery best wishes.
And with eyes still watering, he thanked me wery wery much and shook my hand.
Nevertheless, the Softest Landlord in London he certainly wasn't, and his reputation was well-deserved.
Norman Balon, landlord of The Coach and Horses, Soho, died on May 31, aged 99.
That’s an Andy find, Johnners
IT’S amazing what you can find in wastepaper bins. I can remember wandering through the Features Department at the Daily Express Fleet Street offices and discovered a couple of scrunched up cartoons that Osbert Lancaster had thrown away, writes ALASTAIR McINTYRE.
I still have them somewhere, goodness knows where.
JOHN CLARKE had a similar experience at the Daily Mirror. He told the Drone: “Having discovered there was an active Reg Smythe fan group on Facebook I put up this Andy Capp cartoon I rescued from a Daily Mirror bin many years ago and was gratified to find that lots of people seem to like it. It's a back view, simple but very effective.”
Certainly is, Johnners, that’s probably worth a few bob. Now … have I told you about the Giles cartoon that came into my possession?
CHANGING FACE OF FLEET STREET AS JUSTICE QUARTER TAKES SHAPE
THINGS are changing in our old haunt of Fleet Street as this picture shows.
It is here that the City of London Corporation is building a new £596million “justice quarter”, also known as the Salisbury Square development, that will sit atop a three-storey basement up to 18.5m deep.
The development will include an 18-courtroom legal facility and the City of London police headquarters, as well as a commercial building, a renovated listed building and an expanded public realm.
The picture, which is a few months old, looks up Fleet Street towards the Strand and is opposite the old Telegraph building which, along with the former Express offices, are unaffected by this project.
As far as we know, no pubs have been damaged in the redevelopment.
DRONE BOOK CLUB
Dumas
be joking!
Free packet of fags and yesterday’s rancid beer slops with every issue.
Available from all lousy bookshops.
MAIL STAFF WAVE GOODBYE TO THEIR COMPANY CARS
HAROLD HARMSWORTH, the 1st Viscount Rothermere, and his brother Alfred, later the 1st Viscount Northcliffe, both saw grand limousines as a way of projecting the power of the newspapers they ran — not least the Daily Mail — and were chauffeured around in Rolls-Royce Silver Ghosts.
It's a sign of the times, then, that Jonathan Harmsworth, the 4th Viscount Rothermere — the present owner of the Mail — has lately decreed that he is no longer willing to give his staff company cars. They are now in the process of handing back their keys and reconciling themselves to life on the London Underground.
Whether his lordship will be joining them on the District and Circle lines out of High Street Kensington, the station closest to the Mail's London headquarters, remains to be seen, but it could be a revelation.
Lord Deedes, when he was still writing for the Daily Telegraph, turned down an offer of a lift back to the office in Canary Wharf in his then proprietor Lord Black's Roller, saying he had a column to produce and hadn't the time to sit in the capital's traffic jam
Source: Tim Walker’s Mandrake column in the Byline Times
NOW ONLINE:
A century of the Express 1900-1999
The British Newspaper Archive has announced that it now has all editions of the Daily and Sunday Express from the paper’s first issue in April 1900. The BNA said: “We are delighted to host these two very special papers right from their inaugural editions all the way up to 1999, with the two newspapers numbering over 800,000 new pages between them.”
Doorway to the past
IT’S amazing what you find in doorways these days. Brian Emsley spotted this while strolling through Cromer.
The doorway was once part of Mundays Library, which among other things, was a bookshop.
The titles listed next to the door include Lloyds, People and Reynolds News newspapers, Pearson’s Weekly, Tit Bits and Strand magazine.
They’ve all gone now except for the Eastern Daily Press.
Brian told the Drone: “I recall running to a newsagents in the late 1950s to get Reynolds News for my grandmother. Strand magazine? That one serialised Sherlock Holmes!”
Pictured right is the shop in Victorian times
DRONE TV
Mirror opens its new London HQ
A fascinating film of the new Mirror building in Holborn Circus, London shortly after it opened in 1961. It includes views of editorial and the printing process. Runtime is 11 minutes.
Straight from the horse’s mouth, how Star reporter George got thrown out of racecourse party
Wherever he goes GEORGE DEARSLEY makes friends and here’s a pic of him getting up close and personal with a yellow pillar box.
Yellow? we hear you ask. George is currently soaking up the sun in Northern Cyprus where they do things differently with post boxes.
Anyway, to get to the point, most of us have been thrown out of the smartest of places. In George’s case the defenestration occurred when he and photographer Peter Wilcock visited the Curragh racecourse on a mission for the Daily Star.
After getting their story they heard the sound of corks popping at party so they joined in but, you’ve guessed it, the intrepid pair were evicted by a famous trainer.
How silliness can run in the family
HERE’S proof that silliness jumps three generations. On the left is Drone editor Alastair McIntyre under his desk at the Daily Express in Fleet Street back in the 1980s. Note the lick of flame in the wastepaper bin blocking his egress. The fact that the pic was taken on the day of the news subs’ Christmas party is relevant.
On the right is McIntyre’s great-granddaughter Hallie who has retreated under the desk at her grandparents’ offices.
’Tis a funny old world and no mistake.
STILL STANDING (JUST)
The World’s Greatest Lunch Club celebrates its 100th anniversary
JOY and jubilation came to Covent Garden as the World’s Greatest Lunch Club celebrated its 100th meeting. Sadly its numbers were diminished since the palmy days when eight (subs pse check) of us sat down for a glass or two of lunch.
Three members managed to stagger to the Boulevard Brasserie. Pictured above are, from left, Alastair Mcintyre, Alan Frame and Roger Watkins (Miss).
Languishing at home suffering from a variety of ailments were Dick Dismore (hernia), Terry Manners (bad leg) and Pat Pilton (knackered).
Absent friends who have passed to the Great Nosebag in the Sky include Craig Orr, Terry Evans, Ashley Walton and David Eliades.
Glasses were raised to their memory.
Strictly Come Dancing and the Daily Drone: a statement
FEVERISH speculation that two Drone so-called diarists have been recruited by the BBC to host the popular television programme Strictly Come Dancing are unequivocally denied.
Lord Drone said: “It is true the Corporation reached out to Hermione Orliff and Helena Handcart to replace Helen Elizabeth (‘Tess’) Daly and Claudia Winkleman but they would prefer to write about showbusiness rather than be part of it.”
The Daily Drone now expects the speculation to end and the persistent harassment of staff by paparazzi outside our Walton-on-Thames headquarters to cease forthwith.
COCK-UP CORNER
The subs? They’ve run for the hills
COCK UPS like this from the Oxford Mail would rarely happen if a publication actually had some sub-editors.
Sadly this 2015 pic of David Cameron with Chinese president Xi Jinping, which has been resurrected on Facebook recently, illustrates the fact that few checks are made before publication these days.
Chris Cowley, former editor of the Oxford Mail, told the Drone the two men ‘were pictured at The Plough at Cadsden, near Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire. It's not even the Cotswolds!’
Correct, Risborough lies at the foot of the Chilterns.
As for the ‘ITV legend’ we haven’t a clue. Is Xi going to host a Chinese cookery show? We think we should be told.
What was that we said the other day about writing a headline to a picture?
Paddy Clancy dies at 82
ANOTHER big figure from old Fleet Street, former Daily Express reporter Paddy Clancy, has died aged 82.
Clancy, who was well known in his native Ireland for his broadcasting work, died on Friday, 23 January at Sligo University Hospital surrounded by his family.
He is survived by his wife Bernie, two daughters and a son.
The Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin said Clancy was "an enormous presence in Irish journalism for over six decades. His distinctive take on RTÉ's morning paper round up was essential listening.
"His reporting and columns were essential reading for many years in the Sligo Champion, Donegal People’s Press, Irish Sun and Mirror."
Retro Rambleshanks, author of the acclaimed Drone series Yesterday Once More, writes: Ashley Walton, LOTP, used to tell of the time when, as a new reporter, he was sent by Night News Editor Mike Steemson to fetch Paddy Clancy and fellow Irishman Mike O’Flaherty back to the office from The Cartoonist where they were ‘resting’.
‘How will I know them?’ he asked. ‘Easy,’ says Steemson, ‘they’ll be standing at the bar wearing just their underpants.’ And so it came to pass. When Ashley returned to the office Steemson asked what the response had been. ‘They said to tell you to go fuck yourself,’ reported Ash. ‘Oh, good,’ said Mike, ‘they’re coming back, then.’ And so, fully clothed, they were.
James Mossop
One of the great sports writers, James Mossop of the Sunday Express, has died aged 89.
Jim covered ten World Cups, eight Olympic games, dozens of world title fights, major golf tournaments and Formula One races.
He started his career on the North West Evening Mail and developed a passion for journalism that never waned. He spent most of his career on the Sunday Express before joining the Sunday Telegraph.
Alex Montgomery, former chairman of the Football Writers’ Association, said: ‘He was the very best of journalists, an outstanding football writer who had to be read and who was on so many occasions in a class of his own.’
The family, who are having a private funeral, have set up a tributes page.
CONTRIBUTE HERE
Gaiety at Eighty for Tony
IT was nosebags all round for the Class of 1970 when former Expressman Tony Boullemier took his old friends out to dinner to celebrate his 80th birthday.
Adding to the entertainment was Kelvin MacKenzie, who got married for the third time earlier this year. He confided that each time he marries he moves a junction or two of the M25. He is currently at Junction 11 and he confessed that he is currently considering Junction 16.
Pictured at the Queen’s Head in Weybridge, Surrey, are Kelvin MacKenzie, Julia Boullemier (Tony’s daughter-in-law), Alastair ‘Bingo’ McIntyre (appearing by kind permission of Lord Drone), Chris ‘Lady Bingo’ McIntyre, Craig Mackenzie, Lesley MacKenzie (Kelvin’s wife), Tony ‘Monsewer’ Boullemier, and his son Richard ‘Ric’ Boullemier.
The Drone is particularly sad to announce the death of one of the funniest men in Fleet Street, Express sub-editor John Mulcock.
Mullers, as everyone called him, died on 18 October at the age of 81.
Drone editor Alastair McIntyre said: ‘Mullers was a great and dear friend and our joint insanity helped to keep us both sane during crazy and stressful days on the Express in the Noughties. I grieve for him.’
Tony Boullemier said: ‘A top sub and an extremely funny man. If he wasn't firing off a quip, he was saying something that you just knew was leading up to one.
‘And when political correctness spread over newsrooms in the 90s, he was one of the last journos to ignore it.’
John Mulcock
TIMES READERS’ LIVES TRIBUTE
CRICKETERS IN THE FRAME
DAVID RICHARDSON, pictured above in sunglasses, has been clearing out his loft and come up with a few sporting pix involving Daily Express journalists. But who are they?
Lord Drone is honoured for 20 years of his Fleet Street organ
LORDING IT: Drone as imagined by Scott Clissold of the Sunday Express
THE Daily Drone is 20 years old? Shurely shome mistake. Believe it or not it is true and to mark the anniversary His Worship Lord (Bingo) Drone was presented with a magnificent caricature hand-tooled by Scott Clissold, talented cartoonist of the Sunday Express.
The ceremony took place in front of disinterested diners at the Boulevard Brasserie in London’s Covent Garden, the venue for numerous drink-sodden gatherings of the World’s Greatest Lunch Club.
The brasserie is a favourite with WGLC members not just for the excellent cuisine but also for the fact that Le Patron provides old-age pensioners with half-price food.
Lord Drone gave a long address of thanks to gently sleeping members which can be summed up as “thanks awfully chums”. He left shortly afterwards in a sedan chair after proffering his fondest thanks to Roger Watkins (chairman), Terry Manners, Dick Dismore, Alan Frame and Pat Pilton for their generous gesture. (Will that do M’Lud? — Ed)
Ivor Davis dies at 87
ONE of the big stars of the old Daily Express, West Coast correspondent Ivor Davis, died on Sunday 29 March surrounded by his family in Ventura, California. He was 87.
The Express assigned him to cover the Beatles in 1964 when the toured America for a month. His wife, Sally Ogle Davis, died in 2012, and they had two children Gideon and Rebecca. In 1969 Davis co-wrote Five to Die, the first book ever published about the Sharon Tate-LaBianca murders, and covered the trial for the Daily Express.
As a foreign correspondent, he traveled throughout the western hemisphere covering riots, floods, earthquakes, and politics.
As Editor-at-Large for Los Angeles Magazine, he and Sally wrote more than 100 major magazine and cover stories. In 2019, he wrote about his journey with the Manson Family title Manson Exposed.
Davis was the best selling author of books about his travels with the Fab Four —“The Beatles and Me On Tour” and three books about his experiences with the Charles Manson murder case. His latest book is “The Devil in My Friend —The Inside Story of A Malibu Murder”— about a friend who turned out to be a murderer.
John Smith told the Drone: “Sad news about Ivor Davis, and farewell to another of Fleet Street’s greats. Our paths often crossed when I was New York correspondent for the Daily Mirror back in the sixties.
“He was fiercely competitive when chasing a showbiz story, but always amiable and cheerful company, ever ready to give me guidance when coping with the Hollywood scene that he covered so brilliantly for so many years.”
Will the last sub-editor to leave the building kindly turn off the lights?
(Too late, they’ve all been sacked)
HERE is evidence that stories are being subbed by robots.
The caption on this pic of actor Johnny Briggs lying on the cobbles of Coronation Street reads: "An individual dressed in a dark suit and a blue shirt is seated on a cobblestone street, smiling and leaning back with his arms crossed.”
That is a classic example of Artificial Intelligence scanning a pic and writing what it saw. A human being was not required.
Terry Manners, who spotted this error on the MSN.com website, told the Drone: “This is the picture of former Coronation Street star Johnny Briggs this morning showing him in a clip from the series looking utterly distressed. But the caption has him smiling would you believe. The pic went with a story about Johnny suffering illness and leaving the show but the sub thinks he is just a bloke in a suit sitting on the cobbles and smiling. Ughh!”
Point of order, M’lud: Johnny Briggs died five years ago.
David Eliades, giant of DX foreign desk and brilliantly successful author dies at 92
THE Drone is particularly sad to report that David Eliades, who manned the Daily Express foreign desk for many years, has died at the age of 92 at his home in Switzerland.
There was more to David than just journalism. He was an author too and one of his works is still playing to audiences at various locations in Italy.
EXCLUSIVE
John Osborne hated gossip writers but the play he wrote lampooning them was an embarrassing failure
John Osborne was one of our most successful playwrights but he hated gossip columnists such as William Hickey with a vengeance. So he wrote a play attacking them. Former William Hickey editor CHRISTOPHER WILSON, writing exclusively for the Drone, said the battle came to a head on 5 May 1959, the opening night of The World of Paul Slickey, the much awaited follow-up to Osborne's blockbusters Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer.
The play didn’t go well. The audience booed and actress Adrienne Corri, raced downstage throwing V-signs at them and shouting "Go fuck yourselves!"
Among those booing loudest was Noël Coward, who later wrote in his diary, “Never in all my theatrical experience have I seen anything so appalling — appalling from every point of view!”
Farewell to the Great Eliades
CHEERS DAVID: Raising a glass to David Eliades are, from left, Kim Willsher, Alan Frame, Geoff Levy, Gill Martin and Chris Williams
By ALAN FRAME
Before David Eliades joined the Daily Express in 1963 he worked briefly one floor up on the SX. Until, that is, the ghastly old lecher John Junor called him in and said: ”I’m afraid we shall be parting ways” to which David replied: “Sorry to hear that, where are you going?”
That was one of the many stories told when friends of the great man celebrated the 92 years of his life in the St Bride’s Glee Club, more formally known as the Humble Grape wine bar at the rear of Fleet Street’s parish church.
The event was hosted by David’s widow Lamar, pictured, who had travelled from Lugano with her daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren who took in their stride the sight of old hacks drinking vast quantities of fine wine.
Kim Willsher arrived straight from the Eurostar that had brought her from home in Paris. She told of David persuading Nick Lloyd to splash on the news of the Chernobyl disaster (we led the way on the appalling effects of the fallout which lasted for decades) and ensured that she had a well-deserved pop at Nick in the process.
One of David’s great gifts was in encouraging young female reporters, in spectacular contrast to the likes of Mike Parry, and it was no surprise that so many of them were there to raise a glass to him; Liz Gill, Gill Martin, Melanie Whitehouse, Gill Swain and Jo Gourlay. Louise Court would have been there had she not just lost her father Monty, former news editor of the Mail and editor of Racing Post.
Sadly David Richardson wasn’t well enough to make it from Languedoc but his daughter Lucy dashed down from her job in the City to read a message from the old boy.
Two distinguished former Express defence corrs were there, John Ingham and Michael Evans who excused himself after a mere three hours to write a piece for The Times.. Chris Williams came down from Glasgow, the indomitable Kate Hadley from Cambridgeshire, as had Esther Harrod, and David’s goddaughter Emma Freemantle from Herefordshire. Somehow I made the seven miles from Gipsy Hill and David Wigg the three from the King’s Road.
It was a great show of the affection we all had for David; Sue Peart, Maureen Paton, Caroline Hendrie, John Burns, Jeremy Gates and Geoff Levy all shared their memories and if I hadn’t ended up in the Bell with Williams, Willsher and Ingham I might well be able to recount them.
Thank you Lamar, and most of all thank you David. You were a star!
The things they used to say on Boulevard of Broken Dreams
By PAT WELLAND
With nothing better to do, I’ve been re-reading a couple of books about the Boulevard at a time now seen – as one of the authors remarks – “as remote as the Byzantine empire”.
From political commentator Alan Watkins’ excellent A Short Walk Down Fleet Street, two conversations between Jack Nener, “a foul-mouthed bow-tied Swansea boy” who was Mirror editor 53-61, and his deputy, Dick Dinsdale:
1. “What we need on this paper, Jack, are a few Young Turks.”
Nener: “I can see we could do with a few new faces about the place, but why in fuck’s name do they have to be Turkish?”
2. “The sub-editors, like most people who work long shifts in unchanging company, had a number of catchphrases, or joke sentences. One of them – it comes from the film of Tom Brown’s Schooldays, rather than from the book itself – was: ‘Flashman, you are a bully and a liar, and there is no place for you in this school.’
Nener was overheard asking: ‘Who’s this Flashman, then, Dick?’
‘Flashman? Flashman? I don’t think we’ve got any one of that name on the paper, Jack. Is he a reporter or a sub?’
‘I don’t give a fuck what he is, but get rid of him fucking quick. He’s a bully and a liar’.”
3. From Matthew Engel’s equally enjoyable Tickle the Public – 100 years of the popular press: “There is a story that around 1926 John Logie Baird went into the Express office anxious to show his new invention (TV, as any fule kno) to the editor (Beverley Baxter). Baxter, in keeping with the paper’s reputation for percipience, sent down the message ‘Get rid of that lunatic. He may have a knife'.”
Peter ‘PJ’ Wilson dies at 87
Another well-known Fleet Street name, Peter ‘PJ’ WILSON, former news editor of the Daily and Sunday Mirror, died on March 18, aged 87.
He joined the Daily Mirror as a reporter in 1966 and left in 1987, weary of working for the then proprietor Robert Maxwell.
PJ’s friend and colleague Peter Miller wrote on the Mirror Pensioners website: ‘Three things made PJ an exceptional journalist: He could spot the potential in a story, then get the story, often against the odds, and finally write it so fluently that the sub-editors invariably ticked it through. Those rare talents made him a brilliant reporter and an inspiring news editor.’
GONG BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
AH, this fair takes a chap back to the old days when a bollocking from Sunday Express editor Eve Pollard earned the victim a medal.
This little gem was found in the effects of the late SX executive Phil Durrant by his widow Helen.
She said: ‘I have a lot of stuff to sort that was being stored. I found this with a safety pin on the back to wear as a badge, in Phil's stuff!'
Former Sunday Express exec Peter ‘Stewpot’ Steward told the Drone: ‘I don't know why everyone on the Sunday Express during Eve’s reign of terror didn't get one.’
Henry Macrory remembers that the 'badges' were created by the late Sheila Copsey.
The day I was told to rewrite Tom Stoppard’s copy (and share his ancient typewriter)
JOHN SMITH remembers a mad day at the Bristol Evening World in the 1960s when a gas explosion rocked the city. Tom Stoppard was one of several reporters sent to cover the drama. Trouble was that young Tom was not a news man and wrote far too much. Consequently a frazzled chief sub told Smith to rewrite the Bard’s lyrical prose.
GOOD NEWS (we think) Daily Star gets cash boost from website robots
THERE’S good news at last for the Daily Star. It has become one of the biggest sources of online advertising revenue for Reach.
The paper’s senior reporter Adam Cailler now works full-time on tailoring content for web portal MSN.com which, like Yahoo, republishes content from a variety of publishers and shares ad revenue with them.
MSN.com is the third-biggest English-language news website in the world and has been edited by AI-driven robots since 2020.
It is possible for publishers to earn higher rates via advertising from content published on MSN than on their own sites because MSN operates its own advertising system based on first-party data from logged-in users.
The success at MSN comes amid plummeting Google Discover referral traffic hitting digital revenue at Reach, with overall page views down by 8% in the second half of 2025 across the network.
Cailler has spent the past six months dedicated to managing Daily Star content on MSN, which he said at times surpasses the brand’s own website in terms of article views.
“I’m not just the first at the Star, I’m basically the first at Reach to just be dedicated to nothing but MSN for a job,” he said.
The role came about after Cailler realised a lot of Daily Star content could not be automatically fed through to the platform due to its strict filters.
“Thus my six-month journey through the joy of MSN and trying to figure out their filters and monitoring and making it… quite a big earner for us. And it’s just developed from there.”
His role involves monitoring what is working on MSN over a 24-hour period, tailoring content and commissioning stories aimed at this specific audience.
Source: Press Gazette
The Night Howls
Two members of the Daily Express news sub-editorial team fill their time after returning from the pub late at night in the 1980s. If memory serves, this was the final of the Arthriticson Howling Contest which involved shouting HERE DOWN PLEASE! in the manner of Foreign Sub Jack Atkinson an aged Ulsterman. By the look on the face of Lord Drone, left, he has received a high score from adjudicator Mr Robert ‘Algy’ Smith.
We thank you most kindly, as the late Mr Arthriticson would have said.
You must remember this Sunday upstart (but to be frank we doubt that you do)
NEWSPAPERS come and, regrettably, newspapers go — and one of the least remembered is the News on Sunday. It was a left-wing tabloid launched in April 1987 and folded only seven months later. Judging by its first splash, right, it’s not surprising.
The founders were former members of the left-wing group Big Flame and other radicals.
The idea of the paper was originally thought up by Benjamin Lowe aided by Alan Hayling, who became Chief Exec and Chris Bott who wrote the business and fundraising plan. They took John Pilger on board as acting editor but he left before the newspaper was launched. The decision to base its HQ in Manchester was criticised.
The paper had hoped to sell 800,000 copies but the first issue only managed 500,000 sales and by its eighth issue circulation had gone down to 200,000. The failure of the paper was attributed to inexperienced staff, bad management, poor marketing, a commitment to political correctness and ideological purity at the expense of news values.
The NoS was kept afloat during the 1987 general election campaign thanks to the extension of an additional loan from the TGWU, so that its folding would not embarrass the Labour Party. It went bankrupt immediately after the election and was purchased by Owen Oyston but finally closed down five months later, in November 1987.
Two ex-employees, Peter Chippindale and Chris Horrie, wrote a "withering" account of its demise called Disaster!.
NEW BOOK ALERT
Inside story of the kidnapping of Kelvin MacKenzie (up to a point)
ALLAN HALL, of this parish, has written another book, which will be published next January but can be preordered today.
He told the Drone: “Conceived in delirium, written in Berlin, edited in Bavaria, printed in Cambridge — The Duck Press is the incredible story of the kidnapping of one Kelvin Calder MacKenzie! AND it's NOT self-published! (Spoiler alert: Kelvin survives.)
“Other than that, it’s a bit of a romp featuring a grieving father who lost his only son at Hillsborough, a gay crimper called Desmond, a Saaarf London villain named Vic, a Sun femme fatale, a fired Sun hack, a compassionate detective, a man-eating lizard called Cecil and the biggest beast of them all, Keith Rupert Murdoch. Sun staff in the book are sometimes real, sometimes fictional characters.”
The author pledges to squander all royalties on strong drink.
Allan Hall is retired now but was formerly a crime reporter at the Daily Mail, chief reporter at the Daily Star, US editor for The Sun and US editor at the Daily Mirror. He is the author of 30 books on crime, mysteries and the paranormal, including the bestselling Monster about Josef Fritzl.
DX lawyer Stephen Bacon dies at 79
Stephen Bacon, one of the great Daily Express lawyers and a thoroughly nice man, has died. He was 79 and had been suffering from prostate cancer.
Stephen practised for 11 years in Manchester chambers before joining Express Newspapers from where he retired as head of legal. He later became a media law consultant mainly for The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun.
Stephen leaves a wife, Felicity, who is a retired Express features sub, and a daughter, Cleo.
Compton Miller dies at 8o
Richard Compton Miller, the last of the gossips from the great days of Fleet Street has died at the age of 80. He had been in hospital with pneumonia when he caught an infection and had also been suffering from Parkinson’s Disease.
The funeral is on Tuesday December 16, at 1.30 at the Temple Church, Middle Temple.
Fleet Street in the mist
Looks eerily quiet, doesn’t it? This slightly moist pic of Ludgate Circus taken from the foot of Fleet Street dates from 1972 and found by Terry Manners in his dusty drawers.
The photo was snapped by City copper PC Lew Tassle walking home after his beat in EC4.
He would have been standing outside the Albion so one can’t help wondering whether he had slipped into the pub for an out-of-hours snifter. Just about everyone else did.
PC Tassle often displays his pictures in the wonderful Spitalfields Life website which opens a window to how London used to be.
WE’VE GONE BANANAS, READERS!
Swim’ll Fix It for the Donald
FRUIT AND NUT
The cheesy grins say it all. Lord Drone’s magnificent organ has staggered to the rescue of Donald Trump as he waits for his Nobel Peace Prize. We sent our columnist Helena Handcart (Mr) to dress up as a banana and hand the President the 10 metre swimming certificate (s)he won in the 1950s.
The Halfwit in the White House (what’s left of it) looks well pleased with the gift, doesn’t he readers?
FLEET STREET GOES TO WAR
An atmospheric picture from 1915 showing men queuing in Fleet Street to sign up to fight in the First World War. It makes one wonder if any of these brave lads ever returned from the killing fields.
This pic was submitted by Tom McCarthy who spotted them on a social media site called Old England in Colour, which features colourised photos.
RUPERT THE RUTHLESS
Rupert Murdoch was a ruthless operator from an early age, says Andrew O'Hagan in The New Yorker. The media tycoon's first job in the UK was a summer placement at the Birmingham Gazette, arranged for him by his father through the chairman of the paper's parent company, Pat Gibson. The editor, Charles Fenby, later recalled that he took young Rupert under his wing, befriending him and showing him everything he could about the business. "And what did he do? He wrote a filthy letter to Pat afterwards saying I should be fired."
Peter Grosvenor dies at 92
PETER Grosvenor, long-standing literary editor of the Daily Express, has died two months short of his 93rd birthday. He joined the Express in 1962 when Beaverbrook was still alive and taking more than a passing an interest in his newspapers. He remembered one call in particular when the Beaver informed him: "Mr Grosvenor, we have more readers in the Social AB class than any other paper. So it's a very important job you do Mr Grosvenor.” There would have been a hint of menace in the Beaver's delivery.
Meine Güte! Vee have vays of making a groß cockup at Der Torygraf, Herr Springer
By DONNA N BLITZEN
DID anyone at the Telegraph think to remind the subs that their paper had been bought by a German publisher?
We only ask because, with incredible timing, the Second World War-obsessed title led its Review section last Saturday with a picture of Adolf Hitler and a swastika with a headline asking: ‘Why would anyone pay to own this?’
The cockup happened one day after Axel Springer, which owns a string of top Teutonic titles including Bild and Die Welt, agreed to purchase the Telegraph Media Group in a deal costing £575 million.
The Daily Mail and General Trust had proposed to buy the company in a £500 million takeover, but the government ordered an investigation on public interest and competition grounds. In the interim, Springer nipped in, with chief executive Mathias Döpfner saying he wanted to “preserve the distinctive character and legacy” of the right-wing paper.
Poignant story behind these three cobblestones buried in memory of DX showbiz writer Ian Lyness in the land he loved so much
By BRIAN EMSLEY
THESE three cobblestones have been interred bearing messages in fond remembrance of former Express showbiz writer, and my friend, Ian Lyness.
The Drone ran an obituary four years ago after he died aged 70 in Colorado, where he lived with his American wife Catherine. But he suffered terrible homesickness for England.
Ian had asked me back in 2011, after first getting lymphoma, that his ashes be scattered in Hadley Wood, near High Barnet. But when his ashes were sent to me by his widow they were blocked by UK Customs for paperwork reasons and ended up in a lockup in Utah. His wife had by then relocated to Maryland.
A profound patriot, Ian would be turning in his urn that he could not rest in England especially when masses of illegal immigrants pour in with no paperwork. So, to honour his request, I and another chum buried cobblestones in the wood, messages penned on them. One of his favourite films was I’m All Right Jack, hence one of the messages.
He was a great supporter of King Richard III, who as a teenager, commanded the Yorkist army that crushed the Lancastrian army on the same spot at the Battle of Barnet. So, I hope Ian’s happy!
A MONOCLE-POPPING MOMENT AT THE EXPRESS
Do you mean us, Annie?
WHAT-HO! Express subs Alastair ‘Bingo’ McIntyre, Bob ‘Algy’ Smith and John ‘Bertie’ Brooks enjoying a refreshing glass of supper some time in the 1980s
MUCH has been written on these pages about the madcap Dronery on the Daily Express during the 1980s and 90s and our man TERRY MANNERS has found more evidence.
He writes: While browsing yet more publishing archives I came across this revealing quote from an interview with a local councillor for Salisbury, named Annie Riddle, pictured, in the December issue of the digital magazine Inside Salisbury.
Sounds fascinating, eh?
Talking about her time as a sub-editor in Fleet Street, she says: “When I was at the Express. There were a bunch of young lads there, four of them, they were very good, but they used to push it.
“They had this thing called the Drones Club and would pretend to be characters out of Bertie Wooster with the monocles and this would go on for the whole shift…
“Fleet Street was very male-dominated then. Heavy drinking was the norm but there was a lot of fun and I worked with some really clever people.”
Who could she be talking about, I wonder?”
(Drone editor dives under nearest desk)
APRIL FOOL’S COCKUP
A dwarf at reception asking to see the Editor? Pull the other one say Mail
staff (exit a disgruntled Warwick Davis)
Actor Warwick Davis found himself unexpectedly in the tabloids last week as he was spotted out with a new girlfriend following his wife’s death a year ago, writes Popbitch.
Davis was apparently unhappy about the coverage, so he rocked up at reception at the Daily Mail on April 1st, asking to see the editor.
Reception dutifully called up to the paper, whispering that there was a famous dwarf at reception demanding to talk to the editor about a story.
The journalists upstairs rolled their eyes, told them something like “yep, great April Fool”. So no-one took any notice of the request.
After about another 15 minutes with no attention, Davis got back into his car and left, headed towards the US Embassy, where he was spotted attending an appointment shortly after.
Who the hell is that man gatecrashing our quiet lunch? McEntee? Nuff said
MAIL diarist John McEntee really put his foot in it when he arrived late at a lunch to celebrate his cousin Catherine’s 50th wedding anniversary with husband Mick.
So when he saw all the guests sitting at dining tables he wasted no time in addressing the assembled company.
But there was a hitch as the former William Hickey editor admitted.
He said: “l arrived late and all were seated including the happy couple their children Gareth and Andrew and two grandchildren plus childhood friend Majella Sullivan and her husband Nick. The upstairs room was chocka block with about 60 covers.
“Before the food was served and without Catherine I dashed to the front of the room banged a wine bottle with a spoon and called for silence.
“Addressing the throng I described growing up in Cavan with my cousin and how wonderful it was to be here with her family and friends marking her splendid milestone with Mick.
“I called for a toast just noticing out of the corner of my eye the lovely Catherine with her head in her hands. Returning to my seat nothing was said. Then during the dessert course I noticed that the room had emptied down to three large tables containing Catherine's invitees. Behind me were dozens of empty tables.”
Catherine explained: “They weren't part of our party. They were just people I don't know having lunch.” Doh!
DRONE PICTURE SPECIAL
My chum and colleague Ivor Davis, famed West Coast reporter for the Daily Express
Ivor Davis drives a robot in his car in pursuit of a story in 1984
BY PAUL HARRIS
THE death of Ivor Davis made me think of my life as a photographer from Barnstaple, North Devon, where I lived for 29 years too frightened to try and compete with Fleet Street.
In 1975 I sailed with my car to South Africa where there were lots of jobs as many white families were fleeing the country because of the fear of war.
I ended up in The Rhodesia Bush War but it was Terry Fincher who got me to Hollywood and Ivor Davis who enhanced my career in California.
STILL SNAPPING AT 79 Celebrity Photographer Richard Young has had his eye on the stars for over 50 years
CELEBRITY photographer Richard Young was a familiar face in Fleet Street newsrooms in the 1970s and 80s and he is sill going strong at the age of 79.
Former Expressman STEVE MILL who spotted this feature in the Mail On Sunday, told the Drone: “Nice to see Richard Young still out there looking fit and healthy at 79.
“I recall seeing him bowling into the Express sometime in the morning to review his work from the previous evening, usually in the Hickey office.
“I wonder if he still has any association with the Express? Incredible that he could afford to buy a house after having taken a few photos of Burton and Taylor.
“By his own admission Richard is not good with finances, but he's been savvy enough to retain ownership of all his own work.
“I recall a despatch rider pal of mine at the Express telling me about a colleague who was waiting outside a London royal residence catching sight of, (the then) Lady Diana, and the blurb was that she wasn't supposed to be there. The despatch rider was told later that if he'd have had a camera with him and successfully captured a picture or two of her he could have named his own price.”
Every picture tells a story
Which was why the Daily Express snapped this one up like lightning
THE Daily Express has always given prominence to good pictures and whole pages were often given over to PHOTONEWS (ask any flong sub).
Terry Manners spotted this pic, left, online which the Express had snapped up. He explained: “In Feb-
ruary 1971, a giant, forked lightning bolt lit up London and Colin O’Brien, a photographer in Clerkenwell, caught it by chance at cloud level on camera, snapping it from the top floor of a new tower block ‘Michael Cliffe House’ that his parents had just moved into. Colin walked into the Daily Express offices in Fleet Street the next morning with the picture and sold it at once. It became the PHOTONEWS page the next day. It is featured today on the website Spitalfields Life.”
ONCE MIGHTY PAPER POSTS £53m LOSSES
At the going down of The Sun we will mostly remember Kelvin’s great front pages
By JAMES BALL, writing in The New World
WHEN, in July 1995, Tony Blair controversially flew halfway around the world to give a speech to Rupert Murdoch and his top executives, he was not doing so to gain the endorsement of The Times. It was The Sun – then the most influential media outlet in the UK, and the tormentor of his predecessor Neil Kinnock – wot Blair wanted to win over.
Blair’s decision to woo Murdoch at the exclusive Hayman Island resort in Queensland, Australia, came with political cost. Murdoch had broken the print unions to move his operation to Wapping, and The Sun’s vile false front page the day after the Hillsborough disaster just six years earlier was still a relatively fresh memory.
Kelvin MacKenzie, who had run The Sun as a feisty, sometimes funny but mostly desperately racist, sexist and homophobic battering ram against Labour, had only departed as editor the previous year. Many within the Labour movement were appalled to see a fresh-faced, electable Labour leader even giving Murdoch the time of day, let alone flying to a private island to see him.”
But now The Sun is surely setting, just like its proprietor. Its readership is much diminished, its political power is all but used up, and it doesn’t even make money any more. Last week it announced losses of £53million in the previous tax year, up from £18million the year before.
Where once the paper was at the heart of the national conversation, it now barely reckons in it. Stop to think for a moment: what’s the last Sun front page that you can actually remember?
The truth is that newspapers as a whole have less power in 2026 than they did in the 1990s – in the internet era, there is simply a lot more competition for our attention. This has shown in their sales: in 2010 the Sun was the UK’s top-selling paper, shifting around 2.9m copies a day, a comfortable 800,000 copies ahead of the second-place Daily Mail.”
“Part of the cause of the Sun’s woes is the phone-hacking scandal, for which it is still paying compensation and legal costs more than 15 years after the scandal broke. The newspaper made a profit of £103m in its last accounts before the phone-hacking revelations, but has failed to ever turn a profit since – with cumulative losses totalling £1.3bn over the last 15 years.”
“The question is how much longer the Sun itself lasts. Insiders believe it is safe for so long as 95-year-old Rupert Murdoch is alive – but after that, it could easily be put up for sale, or even shut down entirely.
©The New World
DRONE TOOTHALIKE
DODDY CODDY
YOU will never see these two toothsome individuals in the same aquarium, would you readers? The reason, of course, is obvious — one is too large to fit in a tank and the other is dead. Which is which? We think we must … etc, etc.
The editor apologises because he cannot tell them apart so you will have to make your minds up yourselves. (Will this do?)
No, it’s bilge? My office NOW — Ed
The Daily Drone is published, financed and edited by Alastair ‘Bingo’ McIntyre with contributions from the veteran journalists of old Fleet Street, Manchester, Glasgow, Welsh Wales and the worldwide diaspora. Dedicated to scribblers everywhere.
©Lord Drone, Whom God Preserve 2005—2026
