What’s the intro? By Geoffrey Mather Intros – now there’s a challenge, and a sure cause of wretchedness, and nausea and deep, deep depression. People have had trouble writing intros since… oh, at least since Job. How does the Book of Job begin? ‘There was a man in the land

This Week Before we broke up for the hols, we encountered a problem. It was the sort of predicament they don’t have in today’s Fleet Street. In an attempt to solve it – you’ll quickly notice – we have slightly changed the format. This is an experiment, but if it

This Week Let’s start by getting the terminology right. First, Wayzgoose(origin obscure) always falls on Maundy Thursday and is the traditional day off work for daily newspaper people because – in our day – there were no papers on Good Friday. Second: old hacks celebrate it because (a) it’s as

This week A random survey of Ranters readers showed that only one person in ten who have visited this site has actually clicked across to the Ranters Bookshop (it’s over there in the column on the left). So, to encourage the rest of you to take a peek at the

This week Another week, another book. And this one has nothing to do with newspapers or journalists – except that it is written by one. If you were wondering what had happened to Maggie Hall since she left the Mirror newsroom, the newsdesk, and the New York bureau, and thinking

This week Geoffrey Mather reacts to last week’s Rant about the failure of journalists to bother about writing obits for their colleagues. And ends up writing a good one, albeit a bit late, for a much-missed workmate. Tony Delano’s second classic book on how Fleet Street achieved real scoops, about

This week Letter from the editor: Introducing the do-it-yourself obit. Letters to the editor, with a complaint: Get your facts right. And lost Art is found. More complaints? Inspector Watts finds Barker’s new book ‘the most repetitive book I have ever read.’ Possibly, even, ‘the most repetitive book ever written.’

This week It must be wonderful being the author (or the publisher) of a book that every media student – there are 13,500 applications a year – needs to buy; one that can’t be sold on, second-hand, because it’s out of date as soon as it’s published. Revel Barker looks

This week Harold Heys remembers happy days spent mainly snoozing on the Press Bench. Nick Jenkins adds some memories, and some tales about the way it was, to our earlier tribute to Ken Smiley. Bryan Rimmer picked up the ball when Colin Dunne dropped it, and kept running towards the

This week Another saunter through the groves of Ranteria. Lucky dogs, that’s what we were, to have experienced the greatest of the great days. And Alasdair Buchan picked up a genuine lucky dog. But was anybody out there, reading about it? It’s a question we often ask ourselves. Ignore the

This week Putting the boots in: There not much that’s surer to get fingers to keyboard as a mention of exes (Ranters, last week). Desmond Zwar and Jeff Blyth remember the gumboots story, among many others; Tom Brown demanded a rewrite. Derek Jameson remembers subs getting exes… More prompts from

Gentlemen Ranters is a blog that publishes a charmingly eccentric compendium of fond reminiscences and tall tales from the glory days of the old Fleet Street. – Professor Tim Luckhurst, Centre for Journalism, University of Kent Is splg necy? Can reporters spell? And is it even necessary for them to

This week: cockle-warming It warms the cockles when the in-tray fills up after a Ranters edition with copy that was prompted by the current week’s content. Roy Stockdill’s account, last week, of his trip to Denmark with that self-promoting peer and all-round tosser Lord Longford mentioned how he said he’d

So… where were you? When Stalin died, Cassandra wrote a piece saying: ‘Few men by their death can have given such deep satisfaction to so many.’ But, as Liberace used to say, ‘That Bill Connor sometimes has rough edge to his tongue.’ Continuing our Where-Were-You-When theme, last week’s reference to

This week Last week we asked whether you remembered where you were, when… and mentioned the name of Kennedy. Phil Harrison knows precisely where he was when JFK was shot. James Mahoney remembers where he was when Churchill died, and how he almost blew a scoop. Ann Farrell recalls her

This week Remember when New Technology was… new? Jon Churchman does. From new technology to old techniques. Joe Morris tells younger readers where stories used to come from on slow news days. Old technology? Gordon Amory’s first editor used to come to work on horseback. And where were you when

This week Remember Woman’s Mirror? You should, it had an all-star cast. And it is set for a reunion next month. Anthony Peagam is issuing invitations. Former Daily Telegraph business editor Roland Gribben recalls the days before he was on the Manchester Evening Chronicle or even the Lancashire Evening Post,

That reminds me… This is how it’s supposed to work. We had two tales last week of reporters being scooped on their own stories and this prompted two more. And a book review of Ladies of The Street reminded Gordon Amory of an incident involving a lass in chilly Tynemouth,

This week Editor’s letter (please read) Harold Heys follows last week’s note about a reporter who invented his own list of mourners at big funerals with a cautionary tale about inventing quotes for vox pops. Last week’s piece about the Border Wars in Carlisle also reminded Stan Solomons about the

You couldn’t make it up After last week’s Australian extravaganza, we have Garry Steckles this week writing on how he avoided going there (he went to Canada instead, and thence to St Kitts, so he obviously didn’t much mind missing the boat). But we seem never to be far from

This week ·Editor’s letter – Revel Barker ·        Gerard Kemp – Peter Smith goes on the road with a professional ·        Bob Warren – Tom Crone is in the office and on the fairway with the old hand from the Screws. ·        In a well-travelled career,Peter Laudfound himself in Birmingham,