Dog’s dinner made of swinging slang
Dog is chastened by an e-mail that finds its way through the
kennel’s anti-porn filter. It’s from the People, whose reporter Liz
Knight we accused of mixing up the terms “bogging” and “dogging” last
week.
“While The People would normally bow to Dog’s superior knowledge of
Britain’s thriving swinging scene, it appears that on this rare
occasion, he is barking up the wrong tree.
“Fortunately, our reporter is not so slapdash. Both Liz and the
photographer had the terms explained fully. Dogging is the term for
watching others have sex outside – and occasionally taking part.
Bogging takes place indoors and those who enjoy it do NOT take part,
they simply watch.
Related
“Funny that Dog should confuse ‘innocent’ with ‘informed’. Dog’s
advice was to send Liz ‘back to covering the village fête and Women’s
Institute meetings’.
“Our advice? It might be time to put down this old hound and install a slightly sprightlier pup.”
Quite right too. Even though Dog could find no reference to it on
the internet, he is happy to bow to The People’s expertise. So here’s
that definition list in full: Dogging: outdoor sex involving people
pretending to walk their dogs; Bogging: the indoor version, without the
participation; Flogging: what national newspaper groups do to their
remaining journalists after laying off loads of staff to pay for extra
marketing.
Content from our partners
Red faces all around at Trinity Mirror’s Newbury and Thatcham
Chronicle this week. The front page featured shock news that a teenage
lad from Thatcham, Berkshire, had been electrocuted on the railway at
Cobham, Surrey.
Rival media outlets were on the case, with news editors around town demanding to know why their teams had missed the story.
A couple of phone calls soon revealed that the lad was in fact from
Fetcham, a village about six miles from Cobham – and an entire county
away from Berkshire.
Estuary English strikes again.
Mandrake causes biographer blues
The Sunday Telegraph’s tale of the love child actress Wendy Craig
had by playwright Sir John Mortimer, caused splutterings into breakfast
teacups around the country.
But nowhere more than in the households of Valerie Grove and Graham
Lord – the two biographers competing to be first with their accounts of
Mortimer’s life.
Both, it seems, had known all the sensational details – but had made
the fatal mistake of believing the tale would keep until their books
were published.
“I think it was extraordinarily naïve of both of them, because it
was something that Sir John had told his extended family about,” said
Tim ‘Mandrake’ Walker, who broke the story after hearing that “a very
close friend” of Sir John was “nauseated by these biographers’
sanctimonious attempts to try to sell to Sir John the idea that they
had his best interests at heart”.
“To his great credit, when I telephoned him on Saturday, he
said, ‘oh well, if it’s going to come out, I’d sooner it was The Sunday
Telegraph than any of the others’.”
Customs boundaries are Poles apart
Boating journalists attending the Southampton Boat Show this week
seemed to have a world exclusive on their hands, courtesy of HM Customs
& Excise – a redrawing of the boundaries of the European Union, no
less.
Customs officers, it was explained, would be on hand to explain to
visitors how much booze and fags could be brought back from trips
abroad. It would be of particular interest to “those about to take
holidays in one of the new EU countries, like Turkey”, said the press
release.
Strange that the country’s admission had escaped the attention of
the continent’s media. The reference to Turkey was hastily changed by a
scribbled correction on the day – to Poland. Easily confused, those two
countries.
But to be fair, the release did contain a disclaimer at the end: “If
using specific facts contained in this release, please check that the
information is still current.”
Or vaguely accurate.
Copycat cover can’t match cringe factor
Last week’s piece about the Daily Mail’s, er, homage to a feature in
Maxim magazine prompted the staff at Bizarre to send us copies of their
June cover along with the most recent edition of Front. They suggest
the two could be related. Dog has no comment, but wonders whether
Bizarre’s third coverline is the most revolting of all time.
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
