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Telegraph stoops to level of Ross

Posted by Grey Cardigan on 30 June 2009 at 20:34
Tags: Evening Beast

Page 8 lead in today’s Daily Telegraph reads: ‘Older women at risk in seeking IVF help abroad’, right alongside a picture of a smiling Lady Thatcher on her release from hospital after treatment for a broken arm.

Not even Jonathan Ross, who once disgracefully asked David Cameron if he’s even had a wank while thinking about the dear lady, would have dreamt of such a juxtapostion. Don’t they have page planners any more?

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OK? I don’t think so.

Posted by Grey Cardigan on 30 June 2009 at 15:55
Tags: Evening Beast

Hey everybody! Let’s celebrate the career of the King of Pop, the man who spread so much happiness with his music and dancing; the man whose untimely demise has saddened fans around the world.

And yeah, let’s use a cover pic of him already dead, being carted into the ambulance. In loving memory indeed. Still, there’s always the free souvenir DVD for every reader…

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Virgin on the ridiculous

Posted by Grey Cardigan on 28 June 2009 at 13:02
Tags: Evening Beast

In today’s News of the World, columnist Carole Malone sings the praises of Virgin Atlantic, comparing them favourably to British Airways: “It was just a week ago that British Airways boss Willie Walsh had the brass neck to ask staff to work for free for a month. But it’s a different story over at Virgin where to celebrate the airline’s 25th birthday Sir Richard Branson has just given staff a two-week pay bonus AND two free flights to add to the seven they already get a year. (The absence of punctuation is all theirs.)

But wait, what’s this? Elsewhere on the page dear Carole confesses that “I’m not one to show off, but I was part of a lucky group Virgin flew to New York  last Monday to celebrate the airline’s 25th birthday.”

Well I never…

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Life on the front line

Posted by Grey Cardigan on 28 June 2009 at 12:46
Tags: Evening Beast

If you really want to share the pain of a fellow journalist struggling through these troubled times, go to http://blunt-a-blog.blogspot.com, where the editor of a free weekly writes from the heart about what’s happening to his newspaper.

It’s not brilliantly written, it’s in dire need of a sub and it’s far more potty-mouthed than this effort, but if you want reality, it’s there in spades. Sadly.

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Why ad managers weep

Posted by Grey Cardigan on 22 June 2009 at 17:37
Tags: Evening Beast

This week’s issue of The Spectator. On Page 17 is a full-page ad for British Airways, promoting its long-haul business class flights to Hong Kong.

Page 16? You just know it. A full page from Chrissy Iley headed ‘My air rage is driven by righteous anger’ detailing her appalling treatement on assorted long-haul flights including, at length, those operated by British Airways.

Conspiracy or cock-up? Surely the latter. Not even the most precious editor would defend that juxtaposition in the current financial climate.

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The importance of agencies

Posted by Grey Cardigan on 6 June 2009 at 10:50
Tags: Evening Beast

In a week when Strand News, provider of court copy to every newspaper in the land, had to appeal to the industry for financial support to help it cover costs and stay in business, the importance of having agency scribblers in courts up and down the country was perfectly illustrated by the Case of the Sozzled Solicitor, as reported elsewhere on this site.

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Love and marriage in a Eurostar carriage

Posted by Grey Cardigan on 6 June 2009 at 10:24
Tags: Evening Beast

Is all well in the glitzy Hollywood world of our former proprietor and debt-defaulter Piers Morgan?

I ask because in her Daily Telegraph column, his ’squeeze’, Celia Walden, bemoans the impact of marriage on the art of conversation, citing an overheard exchange between a couple on a Eurostar train.

“They used to have signs up on the windows,” Mike announced to his wife. A pause. “They’ve taken them down now.” Seconds later, Mike is giving his armrest a rigorous shake. “Metal,” he concludes. “Thought so.”

There followed a 15-minute debate about the capacity of luggage racks that left me sobbing internally. Is it worth taking the risk of ending up like Mike and Sue – probably conversational virtuosos prior to their wedding day?

That walk down the aisle seems ever more distant …

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Pass me a can of that ‘wife-beater’

Posted by Grey Cardigan on 3 June 2009 at 20:32
Tags: Evening Beast

A classic case of left hand-right hand in yesterday’s Daily Mail.

On Page 29, William Leith poses the question: “Why do my son’s books tell him that all men are useless?”, happily posing with the aforementioned four-year-old, as he bemoans at great length the role of the hapless male in modern children’s literature.

Turn to Page 33 and you have a classic bunny boiler, as millionaire’s daughter Jeannie King is granted a spread to explain how she married beneath herself to a council estate brickie who embarrassed her by taking a six-pack of Stella to posh dinner parties with friends.

I tell you what … never mind men being useless. This poor bloke was so ruthlessly emasculated that she might as well have cut his goolies off and offered them as a competition prize alongside the cottage in France and the luxury lip-plumper for every reader.

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Grey Cardigan: Extract from the June column

Posted by Grey Cardigan on 3 June 2009 at 19:46
Tags: Evening Beast

IN WHAT was thought to be the last ever issue of Press Gazette (again), The Grey Cardigan found himself elevated to the post of Editor of the Evening Beast.

But we’re back (again), sharp-eyed and smiling, so whither the old boy? Is a Bobby Ewing shower scene from Dallas called for to restore the curmudgeon to his rightful place downtable? Hell, no. He’s been around long enough to deserve his chance of glory. Bring it on.

NEW Editors always get a honeymoon period of sorts. The weary staff smile sweetly at your glib platitudes about proper investigations, proper campaigns, and getting reporters off the phones, off the diary and out of the newsroom. Management tolerates modest expenditure, wanting to be seen as keen to support their new man, and wary of being embarrassed by a premature falling-out.

As part of my deal with our MD, the Eminence Grease, I have been granted an assistant editor, but not a deputy editor. (I asked him what the difference was and he replied: “Five grand and 500cc.”) This leaves me with the problem of Alistair, the deputy editor appointed by dear Crystal Tits.

I call him in from his glass cubicle. He knows what’s coming but it’s still like drowning a doe-eyed puppy.

On the way out of the building I realise that this is the first time I have actually sacked anyone. I’ve provided the ammunition plenty of times before, but never had to pull the trigger myself. This calls for a swift one in The Shivering Whippet.

What a strange reception. The place falls silent like a Wild West saloon when the gunslinger enters and I’m left to stand at the bar on my own. Eventually Mungo, the peripatetic Glaswegian sub who keeps a house brick in his desk drawer “just in case”, sidles over.

“So Grey,” he mutters. “You’ve taken the 30 pieces of silver?” His disapproval is apparent.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that in these straitened times, it was actually only 23 pieces…

To find out why Tanya ‘Bigfoot’ Gold could well be so bad that she’s actually good, and to read the worst press release of the month, you’ll have to subscribe to the print mag. See the new, more affordable, offer on this site.

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On Ilkley Moor, baht ‘atom bomb

Posted by Grey Cardigan on 30 May 2009 at 12:08
Tags: Evening Beast

The fact that Yorkshiremen are notoriously combative was illustrated this week by Sir Michael Parkinson’s rather pathetic threat to take legal action against his first newspaper, the excellent Barnsley Chronicle.

But a more serious incident of white rose aggression seems to have slipped under the radar, at least until this morning when the Daily Telegraph reported that a Radio 5 Live news reader had announced that North Yorkshire had launched a programme of illegal underground nuclear tests.

UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon is said to be ”deeply worried.” I bet they’re not too happy in Sheffield either.

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