One of the jobs we’ve all done, usually as a keen trainee, is the trawl through the classifieds in search of stories.
The Evening Beast is no different – it’s still a job that is a permanent fixture on the daily diary.
After all, who knows what might lurk within? ‘Wedding dress, size 22, never worn’is always a winner. The angry wife denouncing her straying husband is usually good for a laugh. And then there’s the ‘Gobbling Teasmade”, definitely a daybreak bargain at £9.99.
However, it seems that the posh papers no longer persevere with this discipline. And that is why only sad bastards like myself will have spotted the story of the day in the BMDs of last Saturday’s Daily Telegraph.
It read thus: ‘ARCHER – on 28th July, 2008, to Katy (nee Jones) and EDWARD, a daughter, Florentina Emile, a sister for Georgina, Christopher, Charlie, Clementina, Gabriella, Montgomery, Cordelia, Angelina, Seraphina, Decima and Delphine.”
OK, newshounds, so there’s an unusually large family of 12 in these straightened times – worth a tale or not, especially given The Daily Telegraph’s newly acquired Daily Mail values?
And while I know that one shouldn’t jump to conclusions, it does seem unlikely that a family which includes children called Cordelia and Montgomery will turn out to be the benefits scroungers so beloved of the tabloids. Who knows, maybe that’s why they didn’t follow it up?
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