THE THINGS THEY SAY
Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less — American author Rick Warren
WOODALIKE
STARMER PLANK
This lookalike is tough to crack. The biggest brains in the Daily Drone newsroom (Sid and Doris Bonkers) have failed to tell these two characters apart. Can you spot the difference between Sir Keir Starmer and plank of wood, readers? Answers on a postcard to your nearest loony bin.
JUST FANCY THAT
Eleven years ago this week Keir Starmer posted a picture of himself sitting in the House of Commons for the first time alongside two fellow Labour MPs. One was Catherine West, who threatened to trigger a leadership contest; the other was Wes Streeting, said to be planning a coup to replace the PM.
Source: Andrew McDonald in Politico.
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.
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.
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.
NEW TODAY
That young Badenoch seems to be making the Commons her own: another bravura performance in the King’s Speech debate. Witty, mocking and serious in turn. Starmer again like a rabbit in the headlights. How he must dread these exchanges. Streeting was also given a taste of things to come (maybe). ‘Get on with your job’, ‘Don’t give me dirty looks’. Who does that remind you of? Margaret Thatcher, avers Trinidadian Queen of Rap Nicki Minaj (do try to keep up). The prescient popette, known for her hit Super Freaky Girl, wrote online: ‘They will portray her in film and TV one day… just like they did with Margaret Thatcher.’ Watch this space.
Remember when we Brits used to shake our heads condescendingly about the political instability endemic among some our Continental neighbours? The French? Merde! OK, so they seem to have settled down of late but, remember, revolution was still in the air as late as the 1960s and who can forget the Fourth Republic’s 21 changes of government in 12 years. And Italy? Cazzo! The gorgeous, pouting etc Giorgia Meloni is leading the country's 68th government since the end of World War II. Now, though, they’re all laughing at us. Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak and Starmer. That’s six prime ministers in a decade and four in the last four years. And one to come. We’re diminished.
Imagine you’re a journalist treading in the footsteps of Stead and Swaffer, Wallace and Connor. After a gruelling day at the typeface you return home to the adulation of your family. What did you do today, Daddy, cry shiny-eyed children. ‘Well, actually, I shouted at ministers leaving a Cabinet meeting.’ Did you hear the hapless twat (said to be from GB News) bellowing maniacally? Ahem. Meanwhile, the Mail’s Quentin Letts casts a sardonic eye on the Downing Street scrum. Delightfully, he describes Sky’s Beth Rigby as ‘that most souffle-subtle of broadcasters’ and continues: ‘Beth was entangled with her boom mike, itself attached to a sound unit. Twang. As can happen with goats, she reached the end of her leash’s limit. “I’m tevvered, I’m tevvered,” cried poor Beth.’ Proper job though, isn’t it?
TheThingsTheySay: ‘Cruelly, as is the way with politics, Sir Keir’s passing will, when it happens, go largely unmourned. But there will be plenty of mourning to do for what comes next’. — The Times top leader.
Robotaxi firm Waymo is recalling nearly 4,000 of its driverless cabs in the States over dangerous behaviour on flooded roads. They were slowing but not stopping when encountering floods that they could not traverse. In one incident an unoccupied vehicle was swept away.
Forget Gogglebox, Love Island or Towie. Participation in the arts could slow ageing, according to a new study of 3,500 people. Theo Farrant in Euronews says UCL researchers found that people who embraced arts activities including gallery visits, choir rehearsals or pottery classes at least once a week appeared to age around 4% more slowly, at a biological level, than those who rarely engaged in them.
Seven tigers were ‘arrested’ when their owner, a gang leader linked to a notorious drug cartel near the US border, was detained in Mexico. Police also recovered weapons, drugs and cash. José Antonio Cortes Huerta, 39, was held following a swoop on a boat. Apart from the big cats, narcotics, cash, 10 guns, 11 vehicles and six motorcycles were also seized. Some Mexican drug cartels are known to keep exotic cats as symbols of power and, occasionally, to dispose of their enemies. According to a 2023 U.S. indictment, victims of one cartel were ‘fed dead or alive to tigers.’
The US fertility rate in the US hit a record low last year. The number of births per 1,000 women of childbearing age fell to 53.1, continuing a slow but steady decline since 2007. One reason is how expensive children can be these days. A recent LendingTree study revealed it now costs more than $303,000 to raise a child in the US, or $16,857 a year for 18 years. But, hey, it’s not all gloom and doom. California is giving away 40 million nappies this year to entice people to have more kids: that’s 400 for each baby born in the state.
As Royal Ascot approaches, a cautionary tale from Sophia Money-Coutts on Substack. She says that a friend ordered a dress for the meeting last year and, although she didn’t like it much, she decided it would do. However, she kept the label in it and cheekily returned the dress afterwards. SM-C adds: ‘An email arrived from the brand a few weeks later reprimanding her. She had clearly worn the dress before sending it back to them, they said: they’d found a betting slip in the pocket.’
The earliest known dental procedure dates back 59,000 years and was conducted by a Neanderthal, a new study reveals. Archaeologists discovered a molar in a Siberian cave. A deep hole suggests a sharp tool, possibly a toothpick made of local jasper, was used for the beginnings of a root canal. The process would have taken between 35 and 50 minutes, according to researchers, who conducted similar procedures on three modern human teeth.
Riffling through the Haitches’ Nice Work If You Can Get It dossier, what have we here? The taxpayer spent almost £30,000 sending Climate Minister Katie White to South America, where she enjoyed a full-day hike and a visit to a copper mine, reveals Guido Fawkes. The minister, her private secretary, a policy official, and a press officer were all flown out for the trip with flight costs totalling £27,582.38. It was business class for everyone on the long-haul flights. Adding medical and food costs the bill runs to a grand total of £27,582.38.
Two and a half centuries ago, Britain’s navy was ‘managed from a London townhouse bedroom’, says Ioannes Chountis de Fabbri in The Critic. In the summer of 1757, at the height of the Seven Years’ War, prime minister the Duke of Newcastle took to his bed. When William Pitt the Elder, his coalition partner and the minister directing the war against France, arrived to talk ‘blue water’ strategy, Newcastle invited him to take the adjacent bed. ‘The two most powerful men in the country thrashed out the direction of a global conflict from their pillows’.
A new fine dining restaurant in Lyon caters specifically for dogs. Canine customers at Dogstronomy stand at stainless steel platforms set with pretty bowls of food as their owners look on, says David Chazan in The Times. Menu items include a birthday cake filled with meat or fish (€17); Sunday brunch, such as eggs benedict on an oat biscuit or chicken pancakes with a blueberry sauce (€16); and a simpler weekday menu consisting of meat, veg and a carbohydrate (€6). Chef-owner Ornella Del Prado says she wants the dogs to enjoy a ‘real restaurant experience’. All barking mad (SWIJDT?) ain’t they?
NMPKT: June 1939 marked a significant first for the royal family: King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, while on a visit to President Roosevelt's estate in Hyde Park, New York, became the first British monarchs…to eat hot dogs.
UntouchedByHumanSub: ‘…sitting in the press gallery with the hoi polloi’. — Tom Peck, The Times.
HeadlineOfTheWeek: Banned Sports Star Who Blamed Her Grandad’s Strawberry Pudding Makes Dazzling Return — Star.
ThisSportingStrife: World Cup ticket prices. First the good news: ‘best available’ seats for the final are still on sale. Now the bad: they cost roughly the same as a 2026 Ford Mustang. That’s $32,970.
It’sOnlyMoney: Councillors in Cardiff have splashed out more than £5million on 12 electric bin lorries and a further £740,000 on charging technology. Denbighshire council spent more than £1million on just two vehicles and associated infrastructure. The Taxpayers’ Alliance says: ‘As families grapple with rising tax bills, councils are diverting precious resources away from frontline services and into costly eco-vanity projects.’
NIBS
Italian journalists are striking because their industry-wide contract hasn’t been renewed in ten years, with salaries losing 20% of purchasing power to inflation. (Wanted in Rome)
CNN is preparing to cut employees as part of Mark Thompson’s digital overhaul, with a reported push for “more employees fluent in product, streaming, audience development, and digital storytelling”.
Future has expanded its Future Collab project with "Editors in Residence" at Who What Wear and "Masters" at Marie Claire. The schemes embed social media creators into the titles’ editorial output.
Australia's ABC has switched to BBC programming as more than 1,000 staff at the national broadcaster began 24-hour strike action over pay and conditions. (ABC)
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
ONLY IN THE DRONE
Our great columnists
Stand and Deliver
By Hermione Orliff
NEW
As Starmer twists and turns in the wind, he protests that he ‘gets it’ but he doesn’t really and that’s the problem. The most nauseating part of his plaintive make-or-break speech was him parading his humble origins and ‘working class’ roots. Again. To people of genuinely humble origins and working class roots (many of his wider audience) it was patronising and insulting. To them (us) he’s just a middle class North London brief on the make. And as for the ‘reset’ speech to the media and some carefully selected nodding arselickers, it was 65% a re-run of his Labour conference address just eight months ago. Guido Fawkes reveals it contained the same family anecdotes (albeit without the signature ‘toolmaker’ refrain), the same attacks on Farage, the same education policy, and large chunks of the same phrasing. We really won’t miss him will we?
In a desperate attempt to shore up his crumbling rule, the soon-to-be former prime minister announces major appointments: Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman. Astonishingly, these two old fogies are appointed advisers to the Government. Gawd ‘elp us. What does that tell us about the quality of Starmer’s existing team? OK, so Hattie’s been around the block a bit but she’s 75, ffs. And never forget that Brown, known as Golden Bollocks in these chronicles, was the financial genius who sold a sizeable chunk of Britain’s gold reserves at £282.40 an ounce. Currently it’s hovering around £3,480 an ounce.
Wall Street’s all in a lather over the sex scandal that has been enthralling JP Morgan Chase, says my snappily dressed snout with a supply of little blue pills and a box of Durex Pleasure Me (‘just in case’). A female JP Morgan boss is accused of engaging in the sort of sexual behaviour usually reserved for male executives. Lorna Hajdini is said to have coerced married employee Chirayu Rana into having sex and that she spiked him with viagra, as well as subjecting him to persistent racial and sexual harassment. Once she is supposed to have shown up at Rana’s flat, removed her blouse and fondled her breasts, saying: ‘I bet your little Asian, fish head, wife doesn't have these cannons’. And they say romance is dead.
Police in the States quickly hunted down three hijackers who made off with a lorry containing $1.2 million worth of Apple products They were the only three people in a 500-mile radius with Apple Vision Pro headsets.
The Mail must think highly of Katie Hind. After all, she carries the grand title Consultant Editor Showbusiness. She obviously knows her way around the ethereal world of celebs; she gets stories; her contacts are impressive. But, but. Alas, Katie’s copy is stuffed so full of clichés that it makes the reader weary. Take the first five pars of her MoS account of the Vernon Kay-Tess Daly marriage breakup. We were served ‘popped the question’, ‘modest home’, ‘happy news’, ‘giddy with joy’, ‘tying the knot’. Then we had to suffer ‘working-class, salt-of-the-earth couple who loved a laugh’ and the unforgivable ‘head over heels in love’. Will no one with ‘editor’ in their title on the MoS do some editing and save their asset from herself?
You’re American, you’ve just been elected Pope and then you realise you need to update your address etc with your bank in the States, what do you do? Give them a bell (SWIJDT?), of course. Trouble is, a bank clerk in Chicago couldn’t get his head around this. Pope Leo XIV used his real name Robert Prevost, only to be told he would need to go to a branch in person. After a short back and forth, the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics asked: ‘Would it matter if I told you I am Pope Leo?’ At which point the clerk hung up. Happily, His Holiness asked a priest in Chicago to contact the president of the bank, who agreed to make an exception.
A man in Vienna ended in court after he was accused of offending public decency by farting in earshot of police. Two officers viewed the act as inappropriate and confronted him over his behaviour, according to Austrian magazine Falter. It didn’t exactly help when the man started laughing. He was fined a total of €300 for offending public decency and ridiculing a legitimate official action by laughing. But judges exonerated him on appeal. They ruled the act of breaking wind had been involuntary and that his laughter was within the bounds of freedom of expression.
They likes a laugh on Wall Street. TACO, meaning Trump Always Chickens Out, has been a solid guideline for traders throughout Trump’s second term, says Lee Ying Shan on CNBC. Today, they’re guided by a new acronym, to reflect growing scepticism that the president will be able to achieve his key war aims in Iran. It’s NACHO, or Not A Chance Hormuz Opens’.
Once, not too long ago, China actually looked up to the United States, says Jacob Dreyer in The New York Times. But when Trump visits the communist state later this month, he will arrive a ‘more diminished figure’ in Chinese eyes than any previous US leader. A presidential visit was once a ‘moment of global validation’ for Beijing. But the US president – through his abortive tariff wars, the conflict with Iran and ‘callow allegiance to financial markets’ – has accelerated America’s shift from ‘model to emulate’ to ‘troublesome distraction to be managed’. Deng Xiaoping used to say: ‘If China wants to be rich and strong, it needs America.’ Not any more.
A theatre has cancelled the showing of an opera after a single complaint about its colonial themes. The open air Minack Theatre in Cornwall pulled the Delibes work Lakmé after a US-based Hindu campaigner described it as ‘shallow exoticism based on prejudice’. Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, said it was ‘highly irresponsible’ for the theatre to host Surrey Opera’s production given the perceived cultural sensitivities around it. He added: ‘This was just a blatant belittling of a rich civilisation and exhibited 19th-century orientalist attitudes. The theatre “should not be in the business of callously promoting appropriation of traditions, elements and concepts of “others”’. A theatre spokesman said: ‘The Minack is an inclusive venue, welcoming people of all cultures and faiths. We do not condone racial or religious intolerance or misrepresentation in any form.’
More bollocks from the wonderful world of journalism: Israel’s actions in Gaza are genocide — official. At least according to press watchdog IPSO. It rejected a complaint about the term being used as a statement of fact in a newspaper article. IPSO ruled that publications are entitled to use the word genocide despite there being no such legal ruling and the risk of it fuelling antisemitism. The Campaign Against Antisemitism described the decision as ‘laughable’.
American popette Olivia Rodrigo’s really cleaning up her act. Her latest number one, Drop Dead, is her first in which she doesn’t sing fuck, fucker or fucking.
The paper ‘boy’ who delivers my favourite magazine is nearly as old as I am and sometimes forgets to, er, deliver my favourite magazine. Thus, I am currently ploughing merrily through not one, but three editions, of The Oldie. What a splendid publication it is, especially for one who views our milieu through rheumy and mature eyes. So much so that, from time to time, the Haitches intend to plunder, rip off and shamelessly lift lovingly reproduce, with due acknowledgement, humorous and quirky items in the Drone under the headline GoldenOldie. See below.
GoldenOldie: Griff Rhys Jones, who has just finished starring in I’m Sorry, Prime Minister at the Apollo, recalls long West End runs: ‘I once met a bloke who told me he had seen me 33 times at the Phoenix in Trumpets and Raspberries. He wasn’t a rabid fan — he was in the St John Ambulance.’
HeadlineOfTheWeek: Manager Of Scotland's First Alcohol Free Bar Crashed His Car While More Than Four Times The Drink-Drive Limit. — Mail.
NMPKT: Americans spent a record $38 billion on Mother's Day; the average person forked out $284.
TheThingsTheySay: ‘It’s not just carnage. It’s fucking carnage.’ — Red-Wall Labour MP sums up in the mood in the party to Dan Hodges in the Mail.
ThisSportingLife: Hotel bookings in the States in cities staging World Cup matches are way below expectations. According to the American Hotel & Lodging Association, 80% to 90% of hoteliers in Kansas City, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle are trailing behind a typical summer. Some industry insiders are calling the World Cup a ‘non-event.’ Airbnb bookings are also down. Meanwhile, in response to outrage over the cost of getting to matches by public transport, $150 train tickets from New York to MetLife Stadium in New Jersey have been cut to $105.
It’sOnlyMoney: The Royal Navy is to splash out up to £200,000 on a new uniform for female sailors because the present design is believed to have ‘inappropriately placed buttons’. According to The Times, the ‘old style’ ceremonial No 1 jacket would need to be exchanged for a new version. The present uniform, worn by Princess Anne at ceremonial events, has four rows of two buttons, with the highest row set in the same position as nipples. The new design shows all eight buttons placed lower on the chest.
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
