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THE THINGS THEY SAY
It takes 20 years to build a reputation, and five minutes to ruin it — Warren Buffett
TODAY’S PAPERS
CARTOON OF THE DAY
ANDY DAVEY, Torygraph
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FT Weekend now costs more than a large glass of pub wine as newspaper prices soar 10%
NATIONAL newspaper cover prices have increased by an average of 10.2% compared to January 2024, nearly three times the rate of other prices — and a copy of the FT Weekend now costs more than a glass of wine.
Daily newspapers’ weekday editions saw prices rise by an average of 11.2% compared to a year ago, while Saturday editions increased by 8.4% and Sunday editions were up by 11.2%
Consumer price inflation was reported as 3.6% in the year to December 2025, with food and non-alcoholic beverages up 4.5% and alcohol and tobacco up 4%. Inflation did not rise above 3.8% throughout the year.
Six editions kept their cover prices the same throughout the year, including The Times’ Saturday edition, The Sunday Times, all editions of The Daily Telegraph and The Financial Times.
FT Weekend, which remains the most expensive title among UK-wide national papers, increased its price in the past year by 5.9%, after it kept its price level from January 2024 to January 2025. It has overtaken the average cost of a 175ml glass of wine in the UK since last year.
Press Gazette’s comparison is for the main UK-wide national newspapers, excluding Scottish papers like the Daily Record.
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.
Now is the winter of the People's lost content
The Sunday People saw year-on-year print circulation decline of more than a quarter for the second month in a row, according to the latest ABC figures reported by Press Gazette.
The Reach tabloid shares content with the Sunday Mirror apart from three pages. It was down by 25.2% year on year to an average weekly circulation of 35,649 in December. In November, it had dropped by more than a quarter for the first time in 2025, down by 26.4% to 36,594.
The Sunday People was among 11 publicly-audited national newspapers that reported double-digit year-on-year circulation decline in December.
The Sunday Mirror saw the second-biggest drop, down by 22.7% to 116,664, followed by the Sunday Express (down by 22.5% to 87,293) and Sunday Mail (down 20.4% to 33,466).
Three papers saw single-digit drops: Daily Mail down 8% to 619,480, Mail on Sunday down 7.7% to 517,598 and the Financial Times down 6.5% to 101,940.
Metro and the Daily Mail were the only papers to see average circulation climb month on month, both up 0.2% (Metro to 952,332).
All remaining titles saw month-on-month circulation figures drop, most significantly for the Sunday Post (3.7%), Sunday Express (3.6%) and Sunday Mirror (3.3%).
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.
NEW
As the so-called ‘second city’, Birmingham has often under-performed except when it comes to fucking it up. Forget the year-long bin strike, the Labour-controlled council has spent millions trying to fix a botched £170 million IT upgrade that left its finances in chaos and did contribute to the bins overflowing. Some £2.5 million has been spent employing about 20 people manually to correct accounting errors made, a freedom of information request by the Sunday Times has revealed. Since the accounting team was employed in 2023, a year after the failed system was introduced, they have spent nearly 100,000 hours attempting to sort it out. No surprise, then, that the council declared itself bankrupt.
Labour assumed power pledging to recruit 1,300 extra police officers by 2029. OK, so it’s early days but how’s that going? According to Home Office figures, in the year from September 2024 to September 2025, there were 1,318 fewer police officers on the books. And it’s not just bobbies on the beat. Police staff (Full Time Equivalent): down 529;
Police Community Support Officers (FTE): down 204; special constables (head count): down 514; volunteers (head count): down 429. It will be all right though, won’t it?
You’d think Downing Street director of communications Tim Allan has enough to do trying to rescue the Government’s reputation after Mandelsongate. But no. According to Guido Fawkes, he has commissioned a redesign of HM Government’s Coat of Arms to make it look more ‘accessible.’ The emblem is updated at the start of each monarch’s reign and denotes the authority of the government to act on behalf of the monarch. But Allan is said to believe it’s ‘too fusty’. As Guido says: ‘Does this government have the capacity to leave literally anything well enough alone?’
What a smashing chap David Eliades was. The Express foreign desk supremo and author is remembered fondly elsewhere in the Drone. One story that won’t figure in the obits, though, is one he used to tell himself. David once lived in Twickenham, directly on the route from the rugby stadium to the Cricketers pub in Richmond. One Saturday evening, as crowds thronged past after an international match, there was a friendly knock on his door. He opened it to find members of the Express back bench, caught short and having a communal piss on his front lawn.
The phrases ‘the world’s most successful airline’ and ‘Ryanair’ don’t usually share the same airspace. But the carrier travellers love to hate could, indeed, be the former. It is easily Europe’s largest carrier with roughly twice as many passengers as easyJet and three times more than Wizz Air, says The Economist. It accounts for a fifth of the continent’s entire capacity and enjoys a net profit margin of around 15%, compared with a worldwide average of just 4%. Since the start of 2023, its share price has risen 130%. The rest of the airline industry? Around 50%.
A SCC’s item about Fleet Street’s Murder Gang, a cohort of elite (at least they thought they were) crime reporters, nudges a correspondent to wake up and reminisce about doorsteps of yesteryear. He recalls encountering the Gang after a grisly sex murder in the South Wales valleys when he had beaten the pack to obtain a pick-up picture of the victim from her family. He was subject to all sorts of blandishments including cash, a job in Fleet Street and even one hack’s young sister (Surely not —Ed) in exchange for the snap. On another occasion, another murder, he met a star from the News of the World called, aptly, Ron Mount. Which leads to the story of the legendary Peter Earle, who knocked on a witness’s door and announced: ‘I’m from the News of the World!’ The woman inside asked tremulously: ‘Can you prove it?’ ‘Madam, I’m admitting it.’
John Humphrys recalls in The Oldie (as usual, a right riveting read) his first big Today interview with Margaret Thatcher. He set out to lay a cunning trap which would catch her off guard and ‘have her begging for mercy’. Not an easily answered query about the economy but a seemingly innocuous question about her Christianity. It would be bound to induce a response about ‘love’ or ‘charity’. Then he would pounce: ‘Ah, you talk of charity yet, under your leadership, the poorest have been plunged even further into poverty etc…’ So he fired his big shot: ‘Mrs Thatcher you have always described yourself as a devout Christian. What is the essence of Christianity?’ ‘Choice,’ she replied. Collapse of arch inquisitor.
A maths teacher has become Scrabble champ in the UK, scoring 1,000 points more than her opponents. Natalie Zolty outsmarted Scrabble ‘grandmaster’ Gary Oliver by playing the word ‘zendiks’, which means heretics or unbelievers. The 61-year-old from Solihull won 12 out of 15 games at the competition in Reading. Any tips? Learn two-letter words, she says: there are 107 acceptable ones in the Scrabble dictionary.
Barnsley has been named the UK’s first ‘techie town’. It has been selected by Tech Sec Liz Kendall as a guinea pig for ‘how AI can improve everyday life’, says Robert Booth in The Guardian. Microsoft, Google and the rest will help the council introduce AI tools to schools, hospitals, GPs and businesses. The Yorkshire town was chosen because it has enthusiastically embraced AI including introducing bin lorries that automatically scan for potholes and robot delivery dogs (Eh? — Ed).
Isn’t it pathetic when companies try to suck up to customers? Take Tesco. A branch in Cornwall decided to put up bilingual signs in English and Cornish (ffs). Trouble is they used Welsh rather than Cornish. So shoppers were pointed to bwyd môr (seafood) rather than boos mor in Cornish and tatws melys (sweet potato) not aval dor melys. Please do try to keep up! Tesco apologised and removed the signs.
A pissed off publican is pouring pints of a ‘beer’ called Rachel Thieves in protest against the Chancer of the Exchequer’s tax raids on pubs. Water comes out of the taps but, as Chris Ghazarian, landlord of The Green Dragon in Flaunden, Hertfordshire, says: ‘Of course I don’t charge for it but if it was a real beer it would be very bitter, not very pleasant and the most expensive thing in the bar.’
Boffins in Slovakia are on the brink of making the age-old dream of flying cars a reality. Klein Vision, which has spent the past three decades developing its AirCar, has already completed more than 170 flight hours and 500 takeoffs and landings. Now it’s ready to start production. Its vehicle was one of the first of its kind to receive a certificate of airworthiness back in 2022. It can transform from a four-wheel car into a fixed-wing aircraft, with the two wings retracting and folding in on themselves, in under two minutes. Top speeds: 124 mph on the road and 155 mph in the air. Maximum flight range: 620 miles.
When Super Bowl LIX kicks off in New Orleans 30 seconds of advertising will cost at least $7 million with some companies paying upwards of $8 million. That’s more than $233,333 a second and a staggering 21,233% increase on the price of an ad during the first Super Bowl in 1967. Back then, a 30-second slot cost $37,500. Adjusted for inflation, that would be $352,195.73 today.
GlobalWarmingHotline: Thousands of iguanas have been frozen solid by cold temperatures in Florida and have begun dropping from trees, reports the Telegraph. The Sunshine State is experiencing record low temperatures, with the mercury touching -4C in Orlando – the lowest recorded in February since at least 1923.
HeadlineOfTheWeek: Bum-Disposal Squad Called For A&E Patient’s Explosive Ailment — Mail. On story of health alert over man arsing about with live bomb up his bum. As you do.
TalesFromTheBackwoods: Don’t know what this says about Trump’s America but the sheriff of a rural county in Wyoming is running an ultramarathon to raise money for new communications kit for his department —radios and the like. Alex Bakken’s 100-mile race through the Bighorn Mountains will take him nearly 21,000 feet up and down in elevation and give him 35 hours to complete it.
TheThingsTheySay: ‘I urgently need 20,000 pounds ($27,521) for rent today. The landlord has threatened to go to the newspapers if I don’t pay. Any brainwaves?’ —Sarah Ferguson email to Epstein published in DoJ dump.
TheThingsTheySay: ‘Virginity is like a balloon: one prick and it’s gone’. — graffito on a Putney Common bench recorded in Jilly Cooper’s diaries and recalled by Joanna Lumley at the author’s memorial service.
UpYourBumBylines (all new; all genuine): Mekaylah Yowpp-Harnacki, Alexandra Michler Kopelman, Lauren Santo Domingo, Julia Sarr Jamois, Madeline Harper Fass, Chris Dispresso Morra, Anna-Lisa Mabsley, Léïna Mariani-Jung, Thespena Guatieri.
NIBS
Hickey ed sacked for his addiction to lunch
FORMER William Hickey editor CHRISTOPHER WILSON remembers his predecessor Richard Berens, friend of royalty, habitué of Boodles, who was seldom spotted at his desk.
Legend has it that the recently late Tom Stoppard once wrote about a Morris 1,000 Traveller for The Western Daily Press. He described it as a "half-timbered car".
Eric Price reputedly scoffed later that it proved he would never have made a proper journalist. Allegedly.
News Group Newspapers, publisher of The Sun and defunct News of the World, has agreed to pay “substantial damages” to Chris Jefferies, who was wrongly arrested in 2010 for the murder of Joanna Yeates, over the invasion of his privacy. (The Guardian)
Former media commentator Roy Greenslade and TV producer Paddy French have launched a crowdfunding bid to pay for publication of a new book looking at the exploits of former News of the World journalist Mazher Mahmood. (Go Fund Me)
BBC Middle East editor Raffi Berg is suing Owen Jones for libel over an article published on the Drop Site website about the BBC’s coverage of Gaza. Jones said he looks forward to “vigorously defending my reporting”. (Jewish News)
Stand and Deliver
By Hermione Orliff
That, frankly nauseating, TV footage of Starmer glad-handing Mandelson as they walk along a corridor towards the camera. What a pair. What a team. It reveals more about the Prime Minister than it does about his then newly-appointed Ambassador to the United States. After all, if the rest of us had long before sussed out the so-called Prince of Darkness, why hadn’t he? And the rest of the Labour hangers-on? Didn’t the fact that he twice had to resign from the Cabinet ring any warning bells? It’s all about terrible judgment. Or misjudgment — as the latest Epstein revelations attest. One thing is certain: Starmer can’t go on for much longer like this. And as for Mandelson…
It may look a chaotic shit show, a succession of random, impromptu demos. But much of the violent unrest in Minneapolis is, in fact, meticulously choreographed. Astonishingly, no fewer than 65,000 Minnesotans have received extensive civic protest training in the past year. They are taught how to handle Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, what facial-recognition systems they use and how legally to observe their raids. Some sessions focus on ‘direct confrontations’. Charities which run these workshops aren’t actually organising the protests, says Robert Worth in The Atlantic: ‘This is a leaderless movement. There is obviously profound unease about what’s happening. But there’s also hope that it can provide the rest of America with a model of democratic resistance.’
It’s stupid to deny climate change is happening but it’s even more stupid for hand-wringing zealots to exaggerate its effects. As Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, passes its 20th anniversary, how are some
of his predictions standing up? Ice free Arctic Sea? Not yet. Kilimanjaro snow vanished? Hmm, no. Breaking Greenland ice sheet leads to massive sea level rise? Dismissed as ‘distinctly alarmist.’ Pacific islands residents forced to evacuate because of rising waters? Not so far. Correlation between CO2 and temperature? Presented in a misleading way, say experts. Meanwhile, Gore was still peddling his ‘truths’ at Davos.
Apropos the above: It wasn’t all work at Davos, you know. There was some play, too, says Anne McElvoy in Tatler. The Swiss ski resort was drunk dry of 1983 Château Lafite Rothschild, Nigel Farage partied with Kimberly Guilfoyle, the ‘glamazon’ former Fox News host and now US ambassador to Greece; Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry, Tony Blair, Matt Damon and Mariella Frostrup hung out into the small hours. Rachel Reeves was even spotted taking on Rishi Sunak in a 1am game of speed chess. She won.
Much excitement on Facebook as February began with A Very Important Anniversary. Agog and caught up in the rapture as we are, let’s also record that the month started on a Sunday and will end on a Saturday. So, calendar-wise, there won’t be any wasted space. No empty squares at the beginning or end. Just a perfectly constructed four-week grid that no amount of firefighters, pin-up girls, or puppies could improve upon. Even pencilling in a doctor’s appointment will be akin to drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa. Last time this perfect calendar happened: 2015; the next: 2037.
A word to the wise. It’s best to sit down, take a breath and brace yourself for two stats I share, courtesy of Alice Thomson in The Times: Some 28% of children who start primary school don’t know how to open a book – many jab it with a finger as though it were a device. And 67% of 15-year-olds see no reason to leave home at the weekend, preferring to stay in their bedrooms and fart about online. Just consider: Between these two cohorts is a generation of children hopelessly addicted to smartphones, tablets and social media. Yikes!
I’m not having a elephant (Surely you mean giraffe? — Ed) but weight-loss drugs are expected to save airlines a fortune in fuel costs. As passengers slim down, planes will need less juice to generate the thrust needed to fly. A study in the States predicts that the annual saving for the four largest carriers – American, Delta, Southwest and United – could soon total $580 million.
Pity Richard Hetherington, head of music at the Royal Opera House. He gamely stepped in when the lead fell ill during a performance of Puccini’s Turandot. The former tenor sang from the wings, dressed in his chinos, trainers and a quarter-zip. The production’s choreologist covered his movement on stage in costume. Alas, when Hetherington wisely, you may feel, omitted the challenging aria, Nessun dorma, some wretches in the audience booed and walked out. Twats.
A mountain lion captured wandering the streets of San Francisco will be returned to the wild. The two-year-old cougar was tranquillised near an apartment building in Pacific Heights. Resident Roxanne Blank captured video of her encounter with the lion. She said: ‘We locked eyes for over five minutes. I was actually really honoured that he didn't eat me and we just had this nice, long gaze into each other's souls.’ Bless.
You can often tell parents by their offspring. Take the children of that man Trump. James Jung recalls on Substack meeting Don Jr and Ivanka when he was a ski instructor in St Moritz many winters ago. Once, they went to a restaurant where there were strict Downton Abbey-type rules: instructors (aka ‘the help’) had to eat downstairs while the rich clients enjoyed the fancy dining room above. Says Jung: ‘When they discovered this, Don and Ivanka immediately came with me to the cafeteria instead so that we could all eat together. I remember laughing over fries and thinking how normal they were.’
Cream cakes and sparklers among the pot washers in the Drone Executive Restaurant kitchen as the Queen of Innuendo, aka Nigella Lawson, joins telly’s The Great British Bake Off as a judge. We’ve already given you a flavour (SWIJDT?) of her fruity comments such as custard needing to be ‘warm and voluptuous like an 18th-century courtesan’s inner thigh’. Nigella, who calls her kitchen the Pleasure Palace, has also confessed to finding it hard ‘to have lamb without cumin’ and once complimented a chef on his ‘artistic package’. And after finishing a dish with time to spare before her guests arrived, she said she’d have a ‘last-minute fiddle at the table’.
Nearly 5,000 young people, aged 6-14, from across the UK have voted for Peace as the Oxford Children’s Word of the Year for 2025. It beat two other shortlisted words, AI and Resilience.
TalesFromTheBackwoods: A horse missing for seven months in the remote Wind River Mountains of Wyoming has been rescued from 7ft of snow. The horse called Mouse was spotted high above the snowline by a huntsman. He called on volunteers who dragged the steed to safety using specialised snow machines and a river raft.
OldJokesHome: I wanted my personal trainer to teach me the splits. He asked how flexible I was. ‘Well, I can’t do Tuesdays,’ I said.
NMPKT: History records that Graf von Hülsen-Haeseler, head of Germany’s military secretariat in 1908, died of a heart attack at a Black Forest hunting lodge while performing a ballet dressed in a tutu, before a male audience including the Kaiser.
UntouchedByHumanSub: ‘A contradition in terms if ever I heard one.’ — Littlejohn, Mail. ‘Steady the buffs’. — Jan Moir, Mail. ‘He had unleashed the dogs of war’ — Andrew Neil, obviously not a Shakespearean, Mail. 'Brilliant war film with suburb performances’ — Mirror.
StatsAFact: The US spends $82.3 billion on foreign aid each year. Britain? £15.3 billion, which is expecting to fall in next two years.
TheThingsTheySay: ‘I now consider it a good day when I don’t step on my boobs.’ — Joan Rivers.
UpYourBumBylines (all new; all genuine): Sophie Dearden-Howell, Lila Flint Roberts, Ellie Allen-Eslor, Daisy Shaw-Ellis, Laird Borrelli-Persson, Leah Faye Cooper, Laia Garcia-Furtado, Ciarra Loren Zatorski, José Carriales Unzueta.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Paddy Clancy, 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.
OUT OF REACH
The ones that got away
THREE’S COMPANY: Bob Watson, Shaggy Shearer and Dolly Dalton
By BOB WATSON
DOOMED news blooper group Reach may be hurtling towards oblivion —but it didn’t stop a select band of former hardy Daily Express subs from raising a glass to the good old times on Monday.
They convened at The Kings Arms in Roupell Street, a salubrious back-street boozer in the shadow of the London Eye and Waterloo station.
One cynical hack — who spent more than 20 years at the paper when it was reputedly the world’s greatest organ — said there was undoubtedly more at the gathering than in the decimated Express newsroom after Retch’s countless cuts down the years.
He sighed: “We Expressians always knew how to party so it was nice to have a wet re-run with a few old chums along with a few laughs. It was slipping down a treat by the end!”
The star studded line-up included Collette Harrison, Nick “Dolly” Dalton, Chris “Shaggy” Shearer, Andy Jones, Jon “Smudger” Smith, Tony “Boggy” Reid, Bob Watson, Ray Williams, Bill “Hat and a Hat” Dickson, Rab Anderson, Allison Randell and Andy Waller.
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 upcoming 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)
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.
Hot metal, hot off the press
PETER PHEASANT, pictured, who retired as night editor of the Nottingham Post five years ago, has turned his talents to writing.
His debut novel, Manfishing, is about the exploits of an ambitious young reporter on a weekly newspaper in the dying days of hot metal.
Manfishing is set in the fictional Midlands town of Brexham when stories were bashed out on typewriters in smoky newsrooms, long before the age of the internet.
It follows the exploits of Simon Fox, a small-time reporter with big ideas. Anything that’s fit to print makes the pages of the broadsheet Brexham Bugle, from court cases and council reports to weddings and whippet racing.
As Fox seeks out the next front-page scoop, he meets a cast of colourful characters, including a disabled pensioner who is being terrorised out of his home and an Auschwitz survivor pleading for help to save her sick grandchild.
But he knows nothing of the secret alliance between a corrupt detective and a violent skinhead.
Meanwhile, Fox is grappling with tragedy at home. And when the Bugle’s century of independence ends with a takeover, he is on a collision course with the new owners.
Stand aside le Carré, Seed’s written another spy thriller
"Where The Past Lies" is the fifth political thriller from ex-Daily Mail and TV journalist, Geoffrey Seed.
Former Mirror executive, the late Revel Barker, published Seed’s debut novel which led an Amazon best-seller list for three months.
Seed's wife says writing books is just his way of pretending he's no longer on the road. This is his side of the slur.
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)
EXCLUSIVE FROM THE DRONE GRAINY PIX DEPT
London Evening News staff meet for lunch, 45 years on
By BARRY GARDNER
Forty-five years after it closed the London Evening News managed to assemble most of its first team for a celebratory Christmas lunch on Tuesday (Dec 9).
Brilliantly organised by the last LEN News Editor Charles Garside, twenty-one former members of the ‘happiest office in Fleet Street’ gathered at The Punch Tavern, just around the corner from the old Associated Newspapers offices.
There were toasts to absent friends as several dozen bottles of wine were demolished.
As a mark of appreciation for his skills in corralling the motley crew of reporters, subs and feature writers Charles was presented with a rare copy of the last edition of the LEN, dated October 31st, 1980, signed by everyone present.
“Still a bloody good read,” he said.
Those at the lunch: Mike Ryder, Guy Simpson, Lee Rodwell, Paul Henderson, David Meilton, Colin Adamson, Helen Minsky, Kevin Murphy, Mia Scammell, Michael Crozier, Peter Dobbie, John McShane, Spencer Bright, John Blake, Charles Garside, Andrew Hogg, Jeff Edwards, Simon Brodbeck, Stan Slaughter, Ann Morris, Barry Gardner.
A Gran tale about Fleet St
Another day, another great book, this time a tale about Fleet Street by former Daily Star columnist Cathy Hollowell.
Beginning as an apprentice reporter on the Brighton and Hove Gazette in 1968, she worked her way through national agencies, night shifts at the Daily Mail, and the Daily Express before landing her dream job on the Star, interviewing extraordinary people from every walk of life.
Hollowell, who wrote under the name Cathy Couzens, now lives in Texas, with her husband, Don.
Forsooth! Here’s a clue, you silly arses
Another headline question to which the answer is No
NAMES WHO MADE THE DAILY EXPRESS GREAT
TOM BROWN reports: Cleaning out old files including some historic newspapers, I came across the attached memo. The subject matter — expenses in 1977 — is of course important. But the real interest is in the list of names — some of the most outstanding journalists ever who every day made the Express the marvellous paper it was in those days.
The memo is signed by the late, great Morris Benett.
The things they used to say on the 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'.”
A TOPPING TALE IN THE TIMES
WE wouldn’t normally feature a story about farting in the Drone but if it’s good enough for The Times it’s good enough for Lord Drone’s mighty super soaraway organ.
But the following item in the TMS Diary yesterday is too funny not to share:
WIND OF CHANGE
The era of gender-neutral lavatories has its perils. The cricket commentator David Lloyd says he recently went into one and was embarrassed when he suffered a stentorian attack of flatulence.
Such things might go unremarked upon in the gents, but it would be dreadfully embarrassing if a lady were present. Lloyd was comforted and amused, therefore, when the woman in the next stall piped up and said: "Is that you, Maureen?"
The Drone picture desk was asked to provide a suitable illustration for this story but we are not sure the result, left, is entirely appropriate.
Go on, dear reader, you decide — oh and apologies to all Maureens.
A PLAGUE ON YOUR PLAGIARISM
Daily Express nicked our stories, say two writers
Two journalists have accused the Daily Express of plagiarising their stories and publishing the copy under another reporter’s byline.
Daniel Puddicombe, a freelance journalist, said he is livid after his Telegraph feature on a coast-to-coast train in Mexico was was apparently copied by the Daily Express site. The piece is under another journalist’s name, and was published six days after The Telegraph.
Puddicombe said he is certain it is his work that has been lifted as he is “the first and only non-Mexican journalist who travelled on that railway line and to have been in contact with the military and the Navy”.“There is absolutely no chance that anybody else could have done that,” he told Press Gazette.
He added another piece he wrote for the Telegraph about “Portugal’s Presidential Train” has also been “recycled” for the site, but it “at least references me and my original piece”. This second article did not appear to be written by AI, according to Pangram.
Both of Puddicombe’s articles lifted by the Daily Express were published on 18 October. He received an offer of £100 per article after reaching out to the Daily Express, which he declined and described as an “insult” as “less than one-third” of what he was paid per article.
Another journalist, who asked not to be named, claimed the Daily Express lifted their piece and published it under someone else’s name. It did refer to the journalist’s original work, but they were prompted to invoice the Daily Express by a journalist Facebook group. They were again offered £100.
Mind the steps…
MALCOM TATTERSALL says that if Justice Secretary David Lammy really wants to end the long delays in our judicial system, he should bring back “the police station steps”.
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.
Express sales plunge after puzzles redesign cock-up
SALES of the Daily Express have haemorrhaged after an ill thought out redesign of its popular puzzles pages.
Frustrated readers deserted the sinking ship after changes to bring puzzles in line with the Mirror to save cash.
Bosses were forced into an about-face and published a grovelling apology promising to restore puzzles into their old format.
What the powers that be have failed to understand that readers hate redesigns, taking the view that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
The Express has undergone many rejigs over the years, including a switch from broadsheet to tabloid which did little to stem the relentless plunge in circulation.
Meanwhile they can’t even get the Page One blurbs right with one reading: “FREE Family size bottle at of Coca -Cola.”
An insider told the Drone: “Everyone is struggling with this new regime. The subs are swamped.”
That’ll be all my good man: Daily Mail’s butler retires after 46 years of service
THINGS are getting serious at the Mail, not only have they made 16 reporters on Femail redundant, they have also lost the services of the in-house ‘butler’.
The gentlemen’s gentleman, who padded round Northcliffe House with a silver tray laden with pink gins, has retired after 46 years. He was known as the Fleet Street Jeeves, a misnomer if there ever was one, because Jeeves was never a butler, he was a valet.
There is no word yet if the butler will be replaced but the Drone understands that Jacob Rees-Mogg doesn’t have much on his plate at the moment.
In other news, The Mail’s putative purchase of the Telegraph hasn’t even been announced as a done deal yet, but DMG’s bosses are wasting no time marking their territory.
Up on the second floor of DM towers, staffers have noticed a new publication has been added to the lightbox of the organisation’s titles.
Right next to the logos for The i Paper, Metro and Weekend Mail - welcome to … The Telegraph!
Observer Sport hits rock bottom with this daft front page
Look, we on the Drone enjoy schoolboy humour as much as the next man but this front page of this week’s Observer sports section has crossed the bounds of acceptability.
It’s not funny, it’s not clever and it has no relevance to the story to which it refers, England’s poor cricketing performance so far in the Ashes in Australia.
In fact it doesn’t refer to cricket at all and the pic has no connection with the sport.
The rest of The Observer was well subbed and attractively laid out so maybe the Sports Editor and his minions should go back to journalism school.
As more and more experienced journalists are shown the door, this is the sad result.
YOU READ IT HERE FIRST!
Caroline Waterston to step down as Mirror editor just as we predicted
Chloe Hubbard, left, is replacing Caroline Waterston
THE news that Mirror editor-in-chief Caroline Waterston was on the way out — was broken by the Drone THREE DAYS before it was officially announced.
Waterston, who will leave at the end of the year, had been in the job for less than two years. She will be succeeded by Chloe Hubbard, who has been UK editor at The Independent since the start of this year.
Hubbard’s start date will be announced later. Her remit, like Waterston’s, will also mean leading Reach’s magazines team including OK!.
FIRST WITH THE NEWS (FOR ONCE): Our original story
Waterston’s departure comes shortly after a shake-up at Reach that saw Express editor-in-chief Tom Hunt become editorial director (brands), with the editors of the Mirror, Express and Star reporting to him. They remained “responsible for maintaining and developing distinctive brands with growing, loyal audiences”.
The Mirror was understood to have been among the hardest-hit titles by redundancies at Reach this autumn.
DRONE TV EXCLUSIVE
On film: The London Evening News office from 50 years ago
STEVE MILL has produced some grainy footage of the Evening News newsroom from the mid-1970s which the Daily Drone is proud to publish.
Steve said: “There was a fair bit of jiggery pokery to get the video from an old dvd recorder hard disk, and you'll no doubt have experience with file sizes, quality and compatibility. Hope the file type is workable.”
It is workable and we extend our thanks to Steve for completing this task which we know from past experience how difficult it can be.
McEntee and chums, out on the toot again
It’s a grand life being a Daily Mail Diarist. Just ask John McEntee, pictured left, who writes the Ephraim Hardcastle column.
Dash off a few pars, leave the subs to clean it up, and saunter off to the pub.
This is the life of John McEntee, who wrote on Facebook: “After Richard Compton-Miller’s funeral in the Temple Church there was a grand reception nearby where we raised numerous glasses to Rochard [sic].
“I made the mistake of sneaking downstairs on arrival ignoring the cloakroom and availing of the disabled toilets. I dropped my trilby into the nearby washbasin as I commenced to Pee and heard this gurgle as the single tap automatically activated and gently filled my upturned hat.
“Did not diminish the joy of seeing my old friend and Daily Mail legend Geoff Levy with the evergreen Liz Brewer, My colleague Helen Minsky and the inestimable Adam Helliker. Lovely afternoon of memories and refreshment.”
I think we all felt refreshed for that. Thanks John.
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.
BARRED BY BARDOT
THE death of Brigitte Bardot at 91 has prompted Sue McGibbon, wife of the late Robin, to reveal a meeting he arranged with the actress at her rustic seafront villa in Canoubiers Bay, St Tropez.
Sue told the Drone: "We combined it with a little break and drove down to the French Riviera town bustling with luxury yachts, designer shops and celebrities.
"It was a blistering hot day and Robin had arranged to see Bardot at her home to discuss publication of a book on her life. We parked at the gates at the allotted time and I stayed in our white Jaguar as Robin got out and spoke to someone on the intercom.
"The gates opened and suited, booted and sweating, he walked up the drive carrying his burgundy briefcase that had held so many manuscripts.
"At that moment I heard a vehicle bouncing up the unmade track behind me and a jeep driven by a very pretty young man, with a little blonde sat next to him — and about six dogs of various sizes in the back.
"It skidded past the Jag and screeched to a halt, then I heard this very loud voice shouting at Robbie in a strong French accent: 'I doo not know yoo! Off my land!' Obviously Bardot.
"Worse. The dogs jumped off the jeep and were barking madly at Robbie trying to explain. She wasn't listening.
"Robbie managed to tell her to check with her agent before speedily walking back to the car, the barking dogs all around him.
"We found out later that Bardot's agent had left a message with her housekeeper that the meeting was taking place, but she forgot to pass it on.
"Over a much needed drink somewhere quieter and more welcoming, Robbie and I agreed. Her driver looked more like a film star than she did!
"Robin did not attempt to rearrange our date."
FRONT PAGES FROM 1997
How papers change yet strangely stay the same
THE DAILIES
THE SUNDAYS
There have been big changes in newspapers in the 28 or so years since these front pages were printed in 1997 but they are still recognisable today.
The Times, The Independent and The Guardian were all broadsheets and the tabloid/compact titles had mostly dropped the definite article from their names. Quite what the point of this was unclear to most of us at the time. If the powers that be thought it would increase circulation it didn’t. Readers dislike change and the experiment was dropped.
The Sundays all look much the same today, except that the News of the World was retitled as the Sun on Sunday. The Sunday Business was turned into a magazine in 2006 and later merged into The Spectator which converted it into the monthly Spectator Business magazine.
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.
SPOT THE DUMMY
STARMER
LORD CHARLES
DUMMY
STARMER
This is not much of a competition, is it readers? The facts speak for themselves and there’s no budget for a prize.
But as there’s not much happening news wise (apart from Reach predicting annual profits of at least £99m for 2025 despite a 1pc fall in digital revenues) we thought we’d bung these pix in for a laugh.
We admit we should have splashed on the Reach story but it’s a bit boring. We showed it to Lord Drone and he still hasn’t woken up.
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."
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
