Rantings

This Week It’s not too hot for the old folks back home, is it? One asks because the Grim Reaper has got another triple up, this week. Mike Kiddey remembers Eric Purnell of the Daily Telegraph (and elsewhere); Paddy Byrnerecalls running up against Terry Newell (Daily Mirror and other places);

This Week What you’re all bursting to know is how many times the royal wedding was mentioned in last week’s papers. You don’t give a toss? That can’t be right, otherwise those worthy charity workers at the Media Standards Trust, who are devoted to protecting the readers from declining levels

This Week What you’re all bursting to know is how many times the royal wedding was mentioned in last week’s papers. You don’t give a toss? That can’t be right, otherwise, those worthy charity workers at the Media Standards Trust, who are devoted to protecting the readers from declining levels

This Week We were looking at the factors that tempted old hacks into this (once) Great Game of ours. Harry Procter, who was a great name in the great game a generation or so ago, had been lured as a teenager by a book called The Street of Adventure and

This Week It was Wayzgoose yesterday and the entire staff took a charabanc down to the coast at Helvetica, went on the toot, and they haven’t been heard from since. Leaving the editor to mooch about, catch up with his reading and discover (in something he found in the litter

This Week It may be that it was the mention of a possible million-pound prize in our competition – announced last week – that drew in the responses. But that would be an unworthy thought… what people are going for is the first prize: a copy of The Ideal Occupation,

This Week So… how did you get into journalism? It’s a question you’ve surely been asked before, although it possibly started with ‘how on earth did you ever…’ What are (or were) we doing here (or there)? That’s a question we probably asked ourselves, possibly often. Why journalism? Were all

This Week Amazing thing, memory. Especially when it works right. There I was, making my daily dip into the Media Guardian blog to see what titbits Professor Roy had to offer and I was immediately transported back, half a century, to the Albion Street (Leeds) offices of the Yorkshire Post

This Week It was (although you might have slept through it) Oscar Week. And the nominations in the Best Excuse For Not Interviewing Colonel Gaddafi category are: Alan Dean, in I Missed Him In Three Countries and Didn’t Get Any Of His Loot… David Baird, for Close, But No Cigar…

This Week It was (although you might have slept through it) Oscar Week. And the nominations in the Best Excuse For Not Interviewing Colonel Gaddafi category are: Alan Dean, in I Missed Him In Three Countries and Didn’t Get Any Of His Loot… David Baird, for Close, But No Cigar…

This Week You couldn’t make it up… Neil Marr (ex Mirror, Mail, People), now living on the French Riviera, arranges to meet former colleague Ian Markham Smith and his missus in a local bar this week. The only problem is they haven’t met for maybe 40 years, so how will

This Week Seems a bit late, now, but a happy new year to all our readers and, especially, to our contributors. Thanks to everybody who picked up the challenge of our Christmas competition and submitted a book synopsis, or a chapter (even, in one case, a complete book) or the

This Week Prolific journalist that he is – and there have been very few days when at least one of his stories didn’t appear in some publication, somewhere – Arnie Wilson’s by-line is probably more familiar to readers of the Financial Times (where he has written most Saturdays in winter

This Week We’re indebted to Dermot – ‘there’s an awful lot of copy in Brazil’ – Purgavie for drawing our attention to a piece by Conrad Black who has reviewed three books for a website of which he’s described as ‘publisher emeritus’. It contains Black’s unique insight into the world

This Week You’ll be sick of hearing, by now, that it’s the 50th anniversary next week of the closure of the News Chronicle and the London evening Star. But there are two other significant closure dates that were overlooked in all that excitement. The Empire News (founded 1884 as The

This Week Attentive readers will be more than aware that this month marks the 50th anniversary of the demise of the News Chronicle. It is also, inevitably, the 50th anniversary of the closure of London’s then third evening paper, the Star. And across the years the date has been marked

This Week We gave old News Chronicle hands early warning, as long ago as August, that there’s to be a reunion this month to mark the 50th anniversary of the day the paper folded. It’s £25 ahead for lunch, and has been partly subsidised by a raffle of old Chron

This Week Newspapers are in such turmoil that former Fleet Street editor Brian Hitchen and I (pick a job title – I’ve probably done it) are setting up as consultants to help them out of the mire. Our advice has already been sought by the editor of the Daily Telegraph.

This Week Lunch may not be the same thing as journalism but to many of us, including this writer, there was a time when the two were almost inextricably linked. It’s therefore a delight to welcome, as the latest addition to the Ranters menu of journalism-related books and as a

This Week A couple of weeks ago we were asked by a reader (in Australia) whether anybody could define what a journalist is. Quick as a flash, Bernard Long replied (from Malaysia) that decades ago, when he was nobbut a lad on t’Batley News, he was told that a journalist

Gordon Amory died on Tuesday August 21. A constantly cheerful, conciliatory and loyal friend. Not a guy to complain about life or anything really, Revel Barkerremembers. Except, one afternoon… ‘You won’t get a chance like that again,’ Gordon’s headmaster told him. And, as Clive Crickmer, chronicling Gordon’s chaotic professional life,