MACKAY GETS A STAB IN THE BACK FROM HIS WIFE
Veteran
Mirror journalist Don Mackay is a lucky man. Not only does he get to
come home to his actress wife of 19 years, the lovely Nichola
McAuliffe, but she has just bought him the pub sign from his old local,
The White Hart, as a present.
The pub, known to Mirror
journalists as the Stab in the Back because of the treachery of a
former editor, was turned into a Pizza Express after the old Mirror
building at Holborn Circus was bulldozed.
McAuliffe was driving
past when the pub was being demolished and decided to salvage a memento
of one of Fleet Street’s most famous boozers.
After returning
with Mackay, and a bottle of whisky for the workers, the pair managed
to transport the inn sign back to their Dulwich abode. It is due to be
unveiled at a party this summer by former Mirror editor Richard Stott.
McAuliffe
said: “It’s one of the most historic things about Fleet Street. It was
the most famous pub and probably associated more than any other with
one newspaper.
“There weren’t the fights like there were at the
Popinjay when the inkies used to throw tables at each other, but it was
the last of the great Fleet Street pubs.”
She also recalled a
sliding scale of bribes needed to make barmen tell callers “I haven’t
seen him”: £1 for the newsdesk and £2 for wives.
She said: “I once phoned the pub looking for Don and they said he hadn’t got back from lunch yet.”
The
News & Star in Carlisle splashed on this heartwarming story of the
65-year-old Rev Brian Flux getting married to his rather younger
sweetheart from the Far East.
Nice work, then, from the
advertising department, which placed the ad underneath for the Oriental
Buffet Restaurant’s Senior Citizens Special Offer.
PR gets a journalist hanging on every word
Press Gazette’s recent piece about dealing with PRs rang a bell with freelance journalist Sally Flood.
Particularly the part about their most annoying habits.
As this e-mail that she sent to Borkowski PR shows, her experience could be a contender for the PR Hall of Shame.
PUBLICATION: C Weekly
JOURNALIST: sally flood (freelancer)
DEADLINE: 20-June-2005 at 18:00 (GMT)
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
QUERY: Urgent message to the PR called Rebecca who called me this afternoon about the CW business continuity feature…
HANG UP YOUR PHONE!
While
I’m very much enjoying listening to you and your colleagues chatting
away about your holiday plans, I have work to do and sort of need my
phone.
PS – good luck getting the time off in August.
thanks
story about the similarities between a Sunday Express splash and a
previous story from its sister daily led one Dog fan to suggest that
perhaps all the newsdesks at Express towers are mucking in together.
Certainly
these stories about the England women’s football team from the Daily
Star of 4 June and the Sunday Express of 12 June had the headline
writers in accord, but, unfortunately, by the time readers digested the
latter piece, our lasses had already been eliminated by Sweden the
night before.
Desmond’s OK! juggernaut continues to steamroll its way around the
world. And after six successful launches in various continents, the
Express boss’s attention is now focused on the big one: America.
Having
had to dig deep to buy Brit editor Nicola McCarthy out of her contract
with Us magazine, he is gearing up for a summer launch.
Cash
offers have already been made to the likes of Tom Cruise, Michael
Jackson and Paris Hilton for exclusive stories. In the latter’s case,
$2m is the alleged amount, for the rights to her wedding.
The US competition is feeling jumpy.
“It’s
juicing a system that’s already overheated with money,” one nervy
executive from Wenner Media told the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
It’s
also clear that Desmond is keeping his faith with UK journalists. Word
reaches Dog that McCarthy’s deputy is also being poached from a UK
magazine, and that visa formalities are being completed.
Challenge, a six-a-side football competition played between teams of
journalists at Scotland’s national stadium last week. Sky News emerged
as winners of the tournament, beating The Scotsman 2-0 in the final.
But before then drama erupted at the tense semi-finals stage when
the team from Radio Clyde, including ex-professional players now
working as pundits – Andy Walker, Fraser Wishart and Tosh McKinlay –
sensationally quit the competition.
Someone had pointed out that
the three stars had been wearing “blade” studs – which the rules
specifically forbade. Rather than changing footwear, the team walked,
paving the way for the Scottish Daily Mail to take their place.
That’s the trouble with hacks – they don’t mind kicking you, but will complain soon enough when you kick them back.
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