Wonder why Woolies is filling Jane Moore’s column?

Posted by Axegrinder on 26 November 2008 at 01:17
Tags: Catherine Ostler, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Daily Telegraph, Evening Standard, Gary Farrow, Gordon Ramsay, Jane Moore, Liz Hunt, Sue Carroll, Tana Ramsay, The Independent, The Sun, Virginia Ironside

As expected, Fleet Street’s women columnists have leapt on the Gordon Ramsay ’scandal’ like a pack of vicious, sharp-tongued hyenas. 

Leading the assault in recent days have been Allison Pearson in the Daily Mail (“As his monumental hypocrisy was revealed, the 42-year-old Celebrity Father of the Year could at least have shown some embarrassment, even a little shame”); Sue Carroll in the Daily Mirror (“Any man who doesn’t understand that a secret lover, left to simmer unattended, will one day finally explode like a toxic stew can only be described as totally naive or completely arrogant”); Liz Hunt in the Daily Telegraph (“If Gordon has strayed … then I hope, in private, that pots are being hurled, that a few kitchen knives have found their way out of the block, and the F-word is issuing from Tana’s mouth rather than his”); Catherine Ostler in the Evening Standard (“Somewhere in this sorry saga is a victim, but who? Surely it’s Tana Ramsay”) and Virginia Ironside in The Independent (“He’s been a complete wally, and no one would blame Tana for giving a bollocking rather more fiery than he would deliver in one of his restaurants”).

Meanwhile, over at The Sun,  Jane Moore wrote in her column on Tuesday: “My local Woolworths has just closed down and now the entire chain is on sale for £1.”

Er, quite.

As readers of Axegrinder on Monday will know, Gordon Ramsay’s press spokesman is Gary Farrow, head of The Corporation PR agency. Farrow is also married to Jane Moore.

Not all Standard writers will worship at new mecca

Posted by Axegrinder on 25 October 2008 at 17:10
Tags: Andrew Gilligan, Anthea Massey, Evening Standard, Katie Law

The new £1.6 billion Westfield shopping centre opens in West London on Thursday, and the Evening Standard’s writers seem unsure whether it’s a good or a bad thing.

In an article in the paper’s Homes and Property supplement last week, headlined “Biggest and best in the west”, Anthea Massey calls it a “temple to shopping”, adding that “new transport links will bring benefits to the area”.

Elsewhere in the supplement, Katie Law labels it a “merchandising mecca” while the headline calls it “a new homeware heaven”.

But a day before the supplement appeared, Andrew Gilligan warned Standard readers: “Take a last look around, West Londoners. Only a week to go now until you’re hit by the retail equivalent of the neutron bomb, leaving your area physically intact but destroying all organic shopping life within a five-mile radius.”

Sadly, Gilligan is unimpressed by Massey’s talk of “benefits” brought by “new transport links”.

“There’s a good chance the area’s traffic, already the worst in London, according to TfL, will seize up,” he writes gloomily.

With 260 new shops, 30 restaurants and a 13-screen cinema all set to be wooed by the Standard’s advertising team, Axegrinder wonders if, from now on, Londoners will read more about the “mechandishing mecca” than the retail “neutron bomb”.

Curse of Standard’s Blackhurst strikes HSBC

Posted by Axegrinder on 25 October 2008 at 15:44
Tags: Chris Blackhurst, Evening Standard

Talk about bad timing. On Wednesday, in a piece headlined “The bankers’ banker who put safety first and came out ahead”, the London Evening Standard’s City editor, Chris Blackhurst, profiled HSBC chief executive Mike Geoghegan.

“Geoghegan, 55, and HSBC have had a good war,” he told Standard readers. “While the other banks have twisted and turned and, in the end, gone cap in hand to the Government, HSBC, the country’s largest bank and Europe’s biggest by market value, has remained aloof, seemingly untroubled by the crisis.”

Later in his article, Blackhurst concludes that HSBC “has weathered the storm”.

Two days later, HSBC’s shares fell 13.5 per cent to a five-year low of 696p.

Poor old Geoghegan, “untroubled by the crisis” until struck by the curse of Blackhurst.

Capello cock-up at the Standard

Posted by Axegrinder on 2 September 2008 at 14:51
Tags: Evening Standard, Uncategorized

There are some red faces at the Evening Standard this week after a spot of picture confusion.

In the paper’s Homes & Property supplement, Richard Compton Miller reported in his “Who’s Moving” column that England soccer boss Fabio Capello had now settled in to his £4,500-a-week two-bedroom flat in Knightsbridge and his “gangly figure” was now familiar to those living in the neighbouring Duke of York Square, where the bespectacled Italian takes his wife to dine in a local restaurant.

Sadly, his face is not familiar enough to the Standard’s picture desk, which illustrated the story with a picture of Irish builder Michael McElinney, a Capello lookalike. Compton Miller says of the mix-up: “A remarkably small number of readers spotted the difference.”