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June 9, 2005updated 22 Nov 2022 3:39pm

Dog watches dog 10.06.05

By Press Gazette

MOS SWEEPS ALL BEFORE IT IN FOOTBALL LEAGUE

Are
the Mail on Sunday the Chelsea of the Fleet Street football league?
That’s the question being posed by deputy editor Rod “Bites Yer Legs”
Gilchrist (wearing number 16) following a season in which the side was
undefeated against national newspaper opposition. Teams from the FT,
Express, Mirror and the Lobby all fell victim to its swashbuckling
total football style. But most humiliating of all was the 7-0 rout of
sister title The Daily Mail. Dog can’t imagine the daily title taking
such a defeat lying down, though. Expect big money signings in the
transfer window. Meanwhile big number 6 Mike Richards, MoS assistant
sports editor and fixtures secretary, has issued a “come and have a go
if you think you’re hard enough” challenge to any other Fleet Street
sides who fancy their chances next season.

A case of déjà vu in the Express

Oh, the diligence of our exclusive-hungry national newsdesks as they sniff out great stories for an appreciative readership!

Take
Daily Express royal correspondent Richard Palmer, for instance, author
of Monday’s splash “Spy Chiefs Quizzed In Diana Mystery”.

This
disclosed that Lord Stevens, heading the latest inquiry to establish
whether Diana really died in a botched abduction attempt by aliens, had
had a chat with John Scarlett and Elizabeth Manningham-Buller.

Palmer
apparently had to scour the previous day’s Sunday Express, right the
way through to page 16, where he managed to spot a downpage nugget …

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“Spy Chiefs Quizzed Over Diana’s Death”.

Let’s hope he will be able to allowed to submit an expenses claim of £1.20 for his copy of the Sunday Express.

Ebayers score with Liverpool

It’s
not just the Liverpool Daily Post and Liverpool Echo that have done
well out of the football club’s astonishing triumph in the European Cup
final – the Echo topped 200,000 the day after the final, and the Post
was up more than 100 per cent. Those canny scouse readers have also
spotted the opportunity to make a few quid. In the few hours after
publication on Thursday, copies of the souvenir editions were being
flogged on ebay for upwards of £8 – Far Eastern buyers apparently
proving particularly keen.

And even nearly two weeks after the match, the auction site is doing a steady trade in copies of the Echo specials.

PIN pain for NUJ members

It’s a classic case of “new technology baffles pissed old hacks”.

The
NUJ’s new press card system requires members to memorise a self-chosen
Personal Identification Number. Unfortunately, more than 500 of them
couldn’t get their goldfish brains in gear, and the NUJ’s office was
swamped with requests for reminders.

With typical union efficiency, the NUJ had to ask someone else for the numbers, as its membership manager’s email reveals:

Dear Mr xxxxx

Further to your email concerning the PIN which you chose for your NUJ National Press Card.

Please
accept our sincere apologies for not providing this in time for the
election. I regret that we were swamped with more than 500 such
enquires and could not process these in time.

Your
PIN is not held at this office and we will need to retrieve this from
the company that produces the card. There may therefore be an
additional delay in sending this information to you.

Yours sincerely John Eaton, NUJ Membership Manager

PA’s brainteaser for Bryson

Bryson
said, as an American, there were many confusing things about Britain he
had to learn, but none was more puzzling than a bit of PA copy which he
was asked to sub about British fish stocks.

Among the reports the
name of a British train station kept cropping up. He said the riddle
was only solved when a PA correction came through later. It read: “In
earlier report for Crewe Station please read crustacean.

‘Just popping back to work for a bit’

There
once was a regular mid-morning routine when many a Fleet Street
reporter would leave their jacket on the back of their chair in a
none-too-subtle ruse while they nipped across the road to the pub for a
“conference quickie”. But Dog has now learned of an extraordinary
variation on this theme.

Recently legendary Mail on Sunday
political columnist Peter Dobbie, feeling the need to return suddenly
to the office, inadvertently left his jacket hung over a chair in an
adjacent hostelry. Realising his mistake and missing his wallet and
mobile phone, the resourceful Dobbie rang his mobile and persuaded the
crime correspondent, Martin Smith, to return the jacket and its
contents.

Smith duly obliged, but not without some difficulty
from Associated Newspapers’ security, who were perplexed by a man
wearing one jacket and carrying another.

And the pub in question? The Greyhound, affectionately known by local hacks as “The Dog”.

Press
Gazette’s former sister title Mediaweek bade a fond farewell to Croydon
last week as its staff moved up to Hammersmith to new owner Haymarket.
Their touching parting shot, as the last removal van left, was to
demolish most of the car park wall. Must have been difficult to see
clearly through those tears.

Goodbye Hello!

A feather in the cap of the Carlise News & Star evening paper and its sister weekly, the Cumberland News.

When
Border Television’s news anchorwoman Fiona Armstrong wed Major Sir
Malcolm MacGregor of MacGregor, 7th Baronet, and the 24th chief of the
Clan MacGregor, she turned down an exclusive lucrative deal with Hello!
and instead invited the News & Star to cover her nuptials.

Fiona, 46, is enjoying her job at Border after the former goldfish bowl role as a presenter for ITN and GMTV.

 

At last. A Maxim coverline that tells it like it really is

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