.
THE THINGS THEY SAY
Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go — American writer William Feather
TODAY’S PAPERS
CARTOON OF THE DAY
Andy Davey, Torygraph
Reach titles lead the headlong plunge in year-on-year sales
Five national newspapers saw both their weekday and Saturday circulations decline by double digits year on year — and four of them are published by Reach.
These five were the Daily Express, Daily Star, Daily Mirror, Daily Record and the Financial Times.
The Daily Express recorded the biggest year-on-year fall, down 20% to 97,319 average issues. It follows the title also seeing the largest weekday circulation drop in September (down 19% to 99,861).
Next were the Daily Star (down 19% to 94,528) and Daily Mirror (down 18% to 158,521).
The Daily Mirror declined the most in Saturday newspaper circulation, down 18% year on year to 225,257, followed by the Daily Express (150,370) and Daily Record (46,931), both down 17%. The Daily Record had the lowest weekday (36,487) and Saturday circulations.
The Daily Mail continues to have the highest Saturday circulation (1,046,644), despite a 7% year-on-year decrease, and the highest weekday circulation (down 8% to 531,607).
Source: Press Gazette
Hot book about hot metal
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.
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. TIt 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.
HOW JOURNALISM WORKS
A BBC reporter at war
BBC International Editor Jeremy Bowen, in full body armour, takes cover from pre-recorded gunfire in a trench somewhere in Abroad … while a woman walks her dog on her way to the shops wondering what all the fuss is about
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.
You can tell that Ed Miliband really has got net zero between his ears. He is set to make the same 12,000-mile round trip to Brazil twice in two weeks to discuss reducing global CO2 emissions at COP30. By the time he has returned to Britain for a second time his four-leg plane journeys will have cost the taxpayer an estimated £22,000 – and created some six tons of CO2 emissions. This amounts to the average annual carbon footprint for a whole household in the UK across an entire year.
Apropos the above, the 56,118 delegates feeling guilty about the carbon dioxide emissions they have spewed out attending the conference must have had their consciences eased by the news that the world’s biggest polluters’s emissions have been flat or falling for the past 18 months. China’s rapid progress is thanks to vast increases in solar and wind power generation, which grew by 46% and 11% respectively in the third quarter of this year alone.
More on Dick Cheney the American vice president who had no fewer than five heart attacks — the first when he was just 37 — before his recent death at 84. In 2001, he was fitted with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, a tiny device that automatically delivers electric shocks to rectify irregular heartbeats, says Michael Natale in Popular Mechanics. Trouble was, security geeks worried that terrorists might hack into the device remotely and use it to assassinate him. So when Cheney had an operation to replace the implant’s battery in 2007, the doctors secretly disabled its wireless capabilities.
Americans are famous workaholics, often choosing to stay at their desks even if their company provides paid time off. In fact, 23% didn’t take a single vacation day over the past year, according to a recent survey from FlexJobs. Some 43% of respondents say their workload is too heavy to justify time away, while 29% feel too guilty or have been pressured to appear committed.
Following one of those job culls beloved of Reach higher-ups these days, Universal Music, which has shed or demoted around half its UK staff, had a brilliant idea to boost morale among employees left behind, confides Popbitch: drinkipoos on the office floor. At close of play a trolley came round offering bar service to thirsty staff. There was a catch, though, for those who had hung on to their jobs: they had to pay for their bevvies.
A total of 374 bagpipers gathered in a central plaza in Melbourne, of all places, to play AC/DC’s ‘It’s a Long Way to the Top’, setting a new world record for the largest ever bagpipe ensemble.
Why is yesterday’s model, Naomi Campbell, so up her bum? Ahead of her visit to a TV production company to hear a pitch for a show they were making, staff were told to stay at their desks in case their existence or roving presence upset Ms Campbell. Sadly, not everyone got the memo. One producer bumped into her on the office floor and greeted her with a cheery ‘All right, pet, how’s it going?’ She was not amused.
You will recall our asking what is going on in the Caribbean as the US dramatically increases its military presence to stop alleged drug trafficking out of Venezuela. Now Britain’s spy agencies and military have stopped sharing intelligence with the States about suspected vessels over fears the Trump administration’s lethal strikes on alleged smugglers are breaching international law.
Reach has paid out £16,000 to the frontman of Bob Vylan after the Manchester Evening News falsely reported he had performed Nazi salutes on stage. The statement was included only in a quote from the Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester and wasn’t echoed anywhere else in the reporting. Press Gazette comments: ‘This should act as a reminder that repeating what someone else has said is no excuse — news brands have the power to give words a huge platform.’
Mamma mia! Pasta produced in Italy is set to disappear from US supermarket shelves because of Trump tariffs, says The Wall Street Journal. Exporters say import and antidumping duties totalling 107% on their pasta will make doing business too costly and are preparing to pull out of stores in America as soon as January. The combined tariffs are among the steepest faced by any product targeted by the Trump administration.
It’s one of the perks of the job for valets at London’s top hotels: driving multimillion-pound supercars. ‘But things don’t always go smoothly,’ says Iain Macauley in Times Luxury. One had to own up after he bashed the wing-mirror of a £1.3m Porsche Carrera GT on a spiral car park ramp. Another crashed a Ferrari into a bollard after seeing a pair of sky-blue knickers stuffed down the side of the seat. Ooh er, missus but it could happen to anyone.
WFH, a shorter working week, jim-jams instead of suits etc. Addictive, eh? Some employees working for media conglomerate Paramount in the States have voted with their feet. When their bosses issued a directive requiring staff to work in the office five days a week, 600 chose to take a severance package.
The American penny, in circulation for 238 years, is no more. US treasurer Brandon Beach oversaw the production of the final 1c piece at the mint in Philadelphia. President Trump called time on the once-popular penny because each one costs nearly four cents to mint.
As someone who regularly travels along Ermine Street, the Roman road linking Bishopsgate with Lincoln and York, the news that the Roman Empire’s road network may have been almost 60% longer than we thought, is particularly fascinating. According to Margherita Bassi in Gizmodo, cartographers, using archaeological and historical records as well as topographical maps and satellite imagery, have calculated that the network stretched for 185,896 miles in total – around 68,000 more than previous estimates.
Authorities in rural Kansas have issued an apology and agreed to pay more than $3 million over a raid on a small-town weekly newspaper that sparked an outcry over press freedom. During the swoop on the Marion County Record, officials seized cellphones and computers from the newsroom and rifled through reporters’ desks. The action came after the paper dug into the background of a local police chief. The publisher's 98-year-old mother and co-owner of the newspaper was visibly upset as she witnessed the raid. She died of a heart attack a day later.
WatkinsWankerOfTheWeek: That’s Laurence Watkins, a 60-year-old Kiwi, who, unlike most of his clan, is a bit of a numpty. According to Laura Sharman on CNN, the prat has the longest name in the world. He adopted a total of 2,253 middle names, so many that he has never managed to memorise them all, when he changed his name in the 1990s. At his wedding it took the celebrant a full 20 minutes to read them all out – very sensibly in a pre-recorded message – beginning: “Laurence Alon Aloys Aloysius Alphege Alun Alured Alwyn Alysander Ambie Ambrose…’
NMPKT: Since 1947, there have been only two calendar years in which a Kennedy did not hold some form of federal office in the States.
It’sOnlyMoney: The debt-stricken Labour council in Blackpool spent £35,598.83 on rainbow road crossings in the colours of the Pride flag to celebrate ‘the long-established LGBTQ+ history and diversity’ of the Lancashire resort. The council’s debt is currently hundreds of millions of pounds.
Hearst is cutting 26 roles at the Dallas Morning News, a paper it acquired less than two months ago. Union The Dallas News Guild says the entire copy desk, including sports, is being eliminated. (D Magazine)
Manchester Mill is launching its first membership campaign, handing out 50,000 copies in the city in hopes of adding 1,000 pay-what-you-want subscribers in the coming weeks. (Linkedin)
A news reporter has been fired after requesting an investigation into their editor’s AI use. Florida nonprofit Suncoast Searchlight had four reporters tell the board their editor-in-chief was using AI editing tools and inserting hallucinations into drafts. (Nieman Lab)
Peers are calling on the government to block UAE-backed RedBird IMI from overseeing any sale of The Telegraph. Lord Fox said the group’s failed takeover attempt left “financial wreckage” and urging the investment group does not drive any new sale process. (The Telegraph)
The New York Times has severed its professional relationship with former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers after the disclosure of his extensive email correspondence with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. (Brit Brief)
Broadcaster Nexstar is seeking to acquire Tegna for $6.2bn, a deal that would make it the largest owner of local TV stations in the US. In its filing, Nexstar praised President Trump while urging regulators to relax ownership rules and fast-track approval. (Poynter)
The BBC has upheld 20 impartiality complaints after presenter Martine Croxall changed a script she was reading live from “pregnant people” to “women”. The BBC complaints unit said her “exasperated” facial expression gave an impression of her personal view. (BBC)
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.
NIBS
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Stand and Deliver
By Hermione Orliff
NEW TODAY
The notorious Blood Libel, a myth that has haunted Jews for centuries, has been uttered again. It’s an entirely false allegation that Judaism requires the murder of Christians, especially children, so their blood may be used in religious rituals. No one believes that nowadays, do they? You’d like to think so. Yet students at one of our great universities, UCL, were shocked when the antisemitic trope was repeated during a lecture. Some walked out as American ‘academic’ Samar Maqusi invited her audience to ‘investigate, draw your own narrative.’ How could this shameful medieval smear be repeated in Britain in 2025? What does it tell us about our country today? UCL has desperately tried to slam the stable door by reporting Maqusi to the police and banning her from campus. Too late! Too late! will be the cry.
An image I just can’t get out of my mind is that of a peer of the realm standing in the street in one of London’s poshest areas with his todger in his hand. ‘Lord’ Mandelson may have just been caught short but, in his arrogance, he was saying: Look, I can piss where I want —and on you if necessary.
Astonishingly, considering Starmer and Reeves are in charge of the abacus, Britain’s international reputation is as strong as ever, says The Economist. In PwC’s latest annual survey of 5,000 global business leaders, the UK was ranked the second most attractive country for investment after America. In a survey of 100,000 people worldwide to gauge what they think of different countries, Britain’s ‘brand’ came third, behind America and China.
We’ve all seen them, gin palaces bobbing in the briny at Monte Carlo or Marbella, St Bart’s or Swanage (Eh? — Ed). But today’s luxury super yachts are more luxurious and super than ever, says Ronda Kaysen in The New York Times. Coveted onboard features include basketball courts, underwater lounges, wellness spas and infinity Jacuzzis. For some, ‘one floating villa is not enough’. The richest owners now buy a ‘shadow yacht’ to come along behind with the helicopter, the submarine, the jet skis and the speedboat. Price: up to half a billion dollars; maintenance: roughly 10% of the boat’s value every year. Being rich, if you were in any doubt, is expensive.
Nepotism under Vladimir Putin has reached levels unseen in Moscow ‘since the reign of Tsar Nicholas II’, according to a new analysis by the investigative outlet, Proekt, which is banned in Russia. More than 20 of his rellies have been given plum roles in Russian government institutions and state-linked corporations.
More than half a million people in South Korea have just taken the country’s college entrance exam. All nine hours of it. It’s a serious business: Flights at every airport in the country were banned from taking off for 35 minutes so examinees could hear during the listening comprehension section of the English test.
A gold pocket watch recovered from the body of one of the richest passengers on the Titanic is expected to fetch £1m at auction. Isidor Straus and his wife, Ida, were among more than 1,500 drowned when the vessel sank after hitting an iceberg on April 14, 1912. His 18-carat Jules Jurgensen watch goes under the hammer in Wiltshire later this week.
The number of American adults who say religion is an important part of their daily life has dropped dramatically. A large Gallup poll reveals that it fell from 66% in 2015 to 49% today. Chile, Turkey and Portugal have had similar declines. But even more have turned away from religion in Greece, Italy and Poland. In the UK the figure is around 25%.
A company in Germany which tried to market ‘non-alcoholic Virgin Gin’ has been slapped down by the European Court of Justice. It ruled that a beverage called ‘gin’ must contain alcohol and juniper berries, and have an alcohol content of at least 37.5%. Just so.
Details of the high jinks that accompanied the celebrations of David Beckham being dubbed a knight are still dribbling (SWIJDT?) out. At the bash in a pub in Charlbury, near Becks’s Cotswolds home, youngest son Cruz sang ‘a specially written song’ with lyrics which, says Upshot, sounded like they’d been scribbled on the back of a fag packet five minutes before: King Charles came to David Beckham and knighted him my man/And why’s that? /Coz Sir Dave’s the man who can/You're a knight, you get my heart tonight. Why does that not remind me of Sonnet 18?
We’ve all been there: unable to get on a bus because it’s full. Derek Dunne, a 24-year-old Irishman, had his own remedy: he sneaked into the depot and drove a £345,000 bus 150 miles to Dublin, then abandoned it with no damage done and the key in the ignition. The judge gave him a suspended 18-month sentence, calling it a ‘very unusual offence’.
Remember when Trump announced that the US Department of Defense was being renamed Department of War? How’s that going then? Well, the cost is giving many pause for thought. $2 billion, no less. This incorporates the cost of changing signs, letterhead, identification cards, and a wide variety of other items, including updating the code for all departmental websites.
A fleet of new DLR trains introduced just six weeks ago has had to be withdrawn after braking systems were found to be faulty. One of the new, fully automated B23 trains overshot a platform on the Stratford International to Woolwich Arsenal line in wet weather.
You don’t get to command nuclear submarine without displaying a certain level of assertiveness. Paul Abraham, who has died, aged 64, was a case in point. And he didn’t like to waste time, says the Telegraph. Once, when he was commander of HMS Vanguard in Scotland, the sub’s departure was delayed because there was no crane to remove the gangway. Cast off, ordered Captain Abraham. Then he watched the gangway slide gracefully into the Gareloch. Dockyard officials, were not pleased but he was unapologetic. ‘I’m ready, you’re not, why should that be my problem?’ he told them.
No one was more pissed off when El Trumpo didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize than his old chum, FIFA president Gianni Infantino. Ah well, never mind. In other news, Gianni has just announced the creation of the FIFA Peace Prize for ‘individuals who help unite people in peace through unwavering commitment and special actions’. The inaugural award will be presented on December 5 during the World Cup draw in Washington DC, a high-profile event which, surprise surprise, Trump is ‘expected to attend’.
UntouchedByHumanSub: ‘At Morrisons, we’ve been sourcing wines from every corner of the globe.’ — TV ad.
TheThingsTheySay: ‘Too many people at BBC Arabic don’t understand what impartiality is: it is often recycling propaganda on behalf of Hamas.’ — Danny Cohen, former director of BBC television and a critic of the corporation’s Gaza coverage.
It’sOnlyMoney: The Scottish Government signed a £1.4 million four-year contract for taxis for civil servants in Edinburgh despite staff being told to use buses. Stoke-on-Trent Council spent £330,000 to pay for redundancy packages then subsequently rehired 25 members of staff.
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.
MIKE WALKS THE PLANK
TalkTV star is finally sacked over racist post
FORMER Expressman Mike Graham has been dismissed from TalkTV after he failed to cooperate with an investigation into a racist post that he posted on Facebook.
He had been suspended by the broadcaster after concerns were raised about the message which featured a picture of a statue of Winston Churchill, alongside a picture of a packed London underground train. It had the caption: “Tell me we’re not fucked by multicultural bollocks. Why are we surrounded by non-white people?”
He deleted the post claiming his account had been hacked.
Graham, 65, who also presents the Plank of the Week podcast, wrote on his X account at the time: “On Sunday night my Facebook was accessed and a vile message was posted on my page without my knowledge.
“It contained words that I would never write and an opinion I don’t share. As soon as I found out I immediately deleted the post and have taken steps to ensure my cybersecurity is enhanced.
“Obviously I am mortified that such a post could have gone out in my name and am now attempting to find out how it could have happened. I am equally very sorry for any distress it has caused to anyone.”
Staff were informed on Wednesday that Mike would not be returning to the channel, with bosses saying they had become “gravely concerned” over his alleged repeated failures to cooperate with an investigation.
A company statement said: “An abhorrent and vile post appeared on Mike Graham’s Facebook page in October. Mike Graham said this was not posted by him and he agreed to cooperate with a company investigation, using an independent forensic firm.
“He later reneged on several opportunities to cooperate with the company investigation.
“We have been gravely concerned at his repeated failure to cooperate on such a serious matter and the decision has been taken that Mike Graham will not return to Talk.”
John Mulcock
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.’
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.
Martin Townsend dies at 65
FORMER Sunday Express editor Martin Townsend died on Friday, 17 October, at the age of 65. He had been suffering from pancreatic cancer.
He leaves a wife, agony aunt Jane O’Gorman, sons Benedict, 31, and Oliver, 29, and daughter Cordelia, 26.
Jane said: “He fought a good fight. He fought every step of the way. He never gave up and did not know it was the end until the end.”
Martin’s former SX colleague Camilla Tominey, said: “Journalism has lost a giant and a gentleman. I have lost a dear friend and mentor, to whom I owe so much.
"Those who knew Martin Townsend will remember him as a creative genius, a maverick editor, and an unparalleled scoop-getter.
"He also wrote like a dream. He cared deeply about his readers and always had the courage of his convictions.”
Friends pay tribute to Maurice Hibberd ‘one of the good guys’
WE are sad to report that Maurice Hibberd, a former picture editor on the Daily Express and a noted photographer, has died at the age of 88.
His daughter Kerry Robinson posted on Facebook: “It is with sadness that I share the news of the passing of Maurice Hibberd.
“He introduced and helped many young photographers and reporters find their feet in Fleet Street and always considered himself to have the best job in the world.
“He had been suffering from ill health for sometime and died this morning.
“Mo”, dad, will be missed by his extended family and friends. He leaves behind his wife Margaret who cared for him through difficult times.
The funeral will be held on Friday 29th August at St. Mary’s Church, Horsell, Surrey, at 10.30am, followed by a reception at the Gorse Hill Hotel, Woking.
Mark Bourdillon said: “Such sad news. I’ll be always indebted to that lovely man for the introductions he gave me as a newbie in my very early days in Fleet Street. Maurice really was one of the good guys.”
Jim Steele wrote on Snapperweb: “In 1986 l was in my final year at photography college, I wrote to every picture editor on Fleet Street asking for advice.
“Maurice was the only one to respond, phoning me direct. We chatted for about an hour, talking about the business, finishing with him inviting me to visit with my college portfolio which I duly did.
“I’m sure dropping his name to my first boss, Tommy Hindley when I went to apply for a job at his agency didn't do me any harm and I got the gig that set me on my way. True gent.”
KELVIN SPIKED MY SPLASH
(Another case of F for you know what)
CHRISTOPHER WILSON was elated. He had a great story about Selena Scott replacing Anna Ford as ITN News At Ten’s token woman. Big news in 1980.
Trouble was, Daily Express night editor Kelvin MacKenzie didn’t like the story and a row ensued. But Kelvin being Kelvin they were pals again by the following day.
The Fens, where crime goes to the dogs
Police are to be praised for their swift reaction to the Huntingdon train stabbings, but it’s outrageous that the cops have allowed so many crimes such hare coursing to go undetected
Before there were subs …
A dust-covered TERRY MANNERS has emerged blinking in the sunlight from the depths of the British Library after unearthing this gem from the Huddersfield Chronicle, September 3, 1853.
It was clearly before subs were invented — the story is in the final sentence and the headline? Words fail.
A glass and a halfwit in every Tory bar
BONFIRE OF THE WRAPPER WRITERS: This chocolate bar masquerading in Cadbury livery was available at the Conservative conference in Manchester. What a pity Kemi Badenoch didn’t check the spelling before she signed it.
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)
SAVED FOR THE NATION
How our man Wilson rescued the only monument to UK journalism from being ground into powder
You may never have seen this magnificent sculpture but the fact that you can still visit it is down to one man — former Hickey editor CHRISTOPHER WILSON.
The monument, confusingly called The Three Printers, was sculpted by Wilfred Dudeney in 1954 and represents not three printers but one.
It stood for years in New Street Square, off Fleet Street, until Wilson noticed it had disappeared.
Some swift detective work located the statue in a Watford builder’s yard awaiting the crusher.
HOW PRESCIENT DO WE HAVE TO BE?
Just a day after we asked why there were so many black people in TV adverts it makes the national news
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has criticised Reform MP Sarah Pochin for what he called "racist" language after she complained about adverts being "full of black people, full of Asian people".
The Runcorn and Helsby MP apologised for her remarks, which were made during a TalkTV phone-in on Saturday, saying they were "phrased poorly" but maintained that many adverts were "unrepresentative of British society".
Speaking on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Streeting claimed Pochin had only said sorry "because she's been caught and called out".
The Right-wing MP was speaking after Drone columnist HELENA HANDCART first brought the matter up.
This is positive proof that your Non-Stop Super Soaraway Drone sets the big agenda!*
That’s enough superlatives — Ed
WHAT AN INSULT
Reach journalists who tuned into staff meeting to learn their fate are instead urged to buy a ‘beauty box’
Morale at the Reach national newspapers have plunged to rock bottom as the few remaining journalists fear for their jobs.
The publisher of the Express, Mirror and Star titles has announced it will cut hundreds of jobs as it pivots to video and plans to share more content across its titles.
There will 321 redundancies and 135 new roles in the shake-up.
One worried staffer told the Drone: “Those of us still currently employed at Reach were invited to a Town Hall with [Reach CEO] Piers North to update us on ‘Q3’.
“Someone called Emma popped up to tell us about ‘brand diversification’ including advent calendars and something called a ‘TikTok Viral Beauty Box’ which apparently are all selling fast — so staff who had tuned in to find out if they would be homeless by Christmas were urged to put our orders in straight away.
“Apart from anything else we have such a huge workload now we don’t have time to listen to such guff — I logged off the ongoing meeting to contact the Drone instead but my nose isn’t far from the grindstone. It’s so insulting.”
All Assistant Chief Sub-Editors on the Express have been put into a pool with downtable subs on both papers and a committee of chiefs are deciding who stays and who goes.
Only the Deputy Chief Subs from both titles (including the Sunday Mirror) are in a separate pool of six and two were going to be culled, but two volunteered and one was promoted to replace the Mirror chief who has taken voluntary redundancy.
Our contact said: “We’re not expecting to have much longer even if we don’t get the elbow this time.”
THE POWER OF DRONE
Palace acts TWO DAYS after we called for Prince Andrew to be stripped of all his daft titles
Alan Frame’s column on 14 October
Here’s proof that the Daily Drone is read in the highest social circles — including the King.
Just two days after our columnist Alan Frame suggested it was time to remove Prince Andrew’s titles the Palace acted — and did just that.
Fleet Street caught up last night …
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.
WHEN THE EXPRESS USED ITS LOAF
Fleet Street: The artists’ view
'Amongst the Nerves of the World' (1930) by Christopher RW Nevinson
(London Museum)
The modern world in old Ladybird books. ‘Fleet Street — the Street of Ink’ (1969)
Artist: Ron Embleton
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'.”
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—2025
