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February 27, 2003updated 22 Nov 2022 1:04pm

Dog watches dog 27.02.03

By Press Gazette

Googlism reveals Moore’s R&B charisma

Never one to be first with internet frippery, Dog has only just been alerted to www.googlism.com, a site which offers a neat twist on doing a “Google” on yourself.

Simply enter your name into the search field and googlism gives a concise list of what sins and accolades the internet is passing off in your name.

The kennel has now become obsessed with finding googlisms on well-known editors – in this case of The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Star, the Bristol Evening Post and the Liverpool Echo – and will no doubt be returning to more in the coming weeks.

There is one we won’t be printing, though. How could anybody be so rude about Simon Kelner?

Charles Moore is surrounded by empty tear gas canisters.

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Charles Moore is now a proven hoaxer.

Charles Moore is a smooth charismatic R&B singer with lots of style and class.

Charles Moore is happy to announce to the public that his harness shop is in running order and that he is ready to do all kinds of work in that line.

Peter Hill is to provide the report once these cheques have been deposited.

Peter Hill is a pianist well known for his playing in difficult modern works and Bach.

Peter Hill is responsible for operating the boiler and carefully regulating pressures.

Peter Hill is said to have taken baskets of gold from the house.

Mike Lowe is the gateway to the World Iris Association and the Historical Iris Preservation Society.

Mike Lowe is a rotary expert.

Mike Lowe is 28 years old.

Mike Lowe is leathery.

Mike Lowe is providing a bizarre weekend for people who want to play at being prisoners of war.

Mark Dickinson is nearly invisible in the optical image.

Mark Dickinson is thanked for his help in the statistical analysis.

Mark Dickinson is currently touring in “a funny thing happened on the way to the forum”.

Mark Dickinson is doing my head in with his imagined love affair with some girlie called Ivanka.

Yelland’s recollections

David Yelland’s farewell party this week was enlivened with his recollection that not everything had always gone right for him.

“For some reason in my first year of editing we decided to publish a picture of Sophie Wessex topless,” he recounted. “When I went into the office that night everybody said, ‘Grr! great stuff!’ By 11 o’clock that night we were leading Newsnight and Nicholas Witchell was ringing my home saying, ‘When are you going to quit?’ By 6am we were buried. It was one of the worst days in the recent history of The Sun and I has two Daily Mirror photographers in my hedge.”

It got worse. The phone rang and Fiona (his PA) said: “It’s Mr Murdoch!”

With some trepidation, Yelland took the call to hear the familiar Australian tones asking: “Have you gone absolutely mad?”

Yelland stuttered: “I find it difficult, Mr Murdoch, not to agree with you on that.”

BBC fails in swoop for Thompson

It’s not unknown for a news programme’s top correspondents to be poached by their rivals, but you would have thought the BBC would have dreamt up a better offer to woo Alex Thomson away from Channel 4 News.

Earlier this month, Thomson, Channel 4 News’s chief correspondent, received a letter from the BBC thanking him for his application – he maintains he never contacted them at all – asking him to fill in an application form and return it “as soon as possible”.

While now might be a time when frontline staff are wishing they had a deskjob, ITN can probably rest easy that Thomson won’t be jumping ship for the position in question – administrative assistant.

That’s a scoop just burst in the door

Sometimes the stories just come to you, as Gainsborough Standard reporter John Rhodes discovered during his first week on the Lincolnshire paper.

Wandering to the back of the newsroom to find the source of a loud banging noise, Rhodes was shocked to be confronted by three police officers, one wielding a crowbar, looking for a group of car thieves.

Having piled in to the newsroom, they then stood around looking bemused.

“They had obviously got the wrong place,” said Rhodes. “One asked if they were in the bank. I told him it was the Gainsborough Standard. He looked crestfallen.”

At least, as editor Amanda McSorley pointed out, it’s evidence that the police are being proactive.

Sponsor Campbell

Dog caught up with Alastair Campbell at the Newspaper Press Fund lunch for an update on his Flora London Marathon training schedule. With a flourish of his space-age watch-cum-odometer, the PM’s official spokesman reveals he’s run 902 miles so far, and has managed 18 in one outing. Meanwhile Peter “Ephraim Hardcastle” McKay has been giving signatories to Campbell’s sponsor list a bit of a hard time in his column. Campbell is running on 13 April in memory of his late good friend Observer journalist John Merritt to collect money for leukaemia research. Would McKay be interested to know that one of the signed-up sponsors is his editor-in-chief, Paul Dacre?

Donation cheques can be sent to Leukaemia Research Fund, 43 Great Ormond Street, London or online at www.justgiving.com/alastaircampbell

NUJ pay dispute

The NUJ’s pay dispute in Bradford has had an unexpected fillip. Thornton councillor Valerie Binney responded to an e-mail by striking Newsquest Bradford FoC Bob Smith by writing: “Dear Bob, thank you for sending information re salaries of journalists. The amounts you quote of £12,000 for starting out journalists and £16,000 for a senior journalist sound very low to me. Is this for a full-time post?” NUJ regional organiser Miles Barter couldn’t resist a quote. He said: “I don’t often agree with Tory councillors but Valerie is spot on. Those wages are unbelievably low. And they are for full-time workers.”

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