My work experience at the Evening Standard: Tantrums, sick jokes and paranoid conspiracies

Posted by Axegrinder on 19 October 2009 at 10:38
Tags: Evening Standard

Harlow College journalism student Alex Plough decided to tell-it-as-it-is on his blog while still on a work experience placement at the Evening Standard.

Standard vox pop probes the parts other regionals avoid

Posted by Axegrinder on 28 July 2009 at 20:39
Tags: Evening Standard, Jasmine Gardner

The London Evening Standard may have stopped calling itself a “national” paper for ABC purposes, but its content continues to set it apart from your typical regional evening papers.

Whereas a vox pop in a regional might be expected, for example, to ask punters for their views on a local planning issue, Tuesday’s Standard carried one that asked Londoners: “Have you ever used a sex toy?”

After references to “dildos”, “handcuffs” and “cock rings”, saucy hackette Jasmine Gardner got a “yes” reply from Jeff, a 29-year-old consultant. He explained: “Wrong, bad and horrible things happened. I put it somewhere and things came out that I wasn’t expecting. Lessons were learned and I will never go back there.”

Too much information? Even for Londoners?

Is Evening Standard’s Nicholas de Jongh ready to kiss and make up with Kevin Spacey?

Posted by Axegrinder on 17 December 2008 at 12:18
Tags: Evening Standard, Kevin Spacey, Nicholas de Jongh

Theatregoers who read London’s Evening Standard must be feeling pretty confused: A couple of years ago, the Standard’s Nicholas de Jongh wrote angrily: “Is it time for Kevin Spacey to hand over his crown? The Old Vic’s latest show is a flop and there are no new productions to fill the next few months. If the theatre goes dark, its artistic director should resign.”

The theatre did indeed go dark for some considerable time.

But recently, in a piece reporting on the Evening Standard Theatre Awards, readers were told: “A lesser man than Spacey might have quit in the face of so much hostile criticism… But it was now that Spacey displayed real character, sticking to his guns, and leading from the front… For bringing new life to the Old Vic with a combination of chutzpah and true grit, Spacey is the worthy winner of the Special Award.”

It would have been nice to see on this piece the byline of de Jongh – who was a member of the judges’ panel for the 17th year – but actually it was penned by Charles Spencer. 

So are de Jongh and Spacey ready to kiss and make up? Maybe not. After all, the Hollywood star famously said that taking advice from de Jongh on how to run a theatre was “like taking advice on war strategy from Donald Rumsfeld”.

Standard takes work experience slave labour to new level

Posted by Axegrinder on 17 December 2008 at 08:53
Tags: Evening Standard, Newspapers

The Evening Standard has taken work experience exploitation to a new level by charging a budding journalist £1,500 for the privilege of spending a week toiling on its newsdesk.

It was one of the winning lots in the Standard’s annual Christmas auction - which raised £200,000 for the charity Greenhouse.

It comfortably beat lunch with Sebastian Coe - £1,120 (Axe would rather spend a week on the Standard newsdesk than spend a lunchtime with odious Coe any time) and lunch with Robert Peston - £1,071.

The top lot was a game of table-tennis followed by dinner with Standard City editor Chris Blackhurst and Goldman Sachs co-chief executive Michael Sherwood with fetched £14,600. This was rather more than the £3,600 bid for dinner with editor Veronica Wadley at The Wolseley.

Evening Standard retreats from Medway towns

Posted by Axegrinder on 3 December 2008 at 17:24
Tags: Evening Standard

Strolling down the rather beautiful High Street in Rochester, Kent, on Wednesday afternoon, Axegrinder popped into a shop to buy an Evening Standard. 

“Enjoy it while you can,” said the newsagent. “We’ve just heard that from Monday it won’t be distributed anywhere in the Medway towns.” 

Quickly turning to page two, one finds an article explaining “changes to printing times and distribution”, but no mention that the capital’s evening paper has decided to say farewell to Rochester, Chatham and Gillingham. 

Next year, the introduction of new high-speed commuter trains to St Pancras International will make places such as Rochester a mere 30-odd minutes from London. 

It’s strange, then, that the Evening Standard should now decide to abandon the old cathedral city.

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.”