STRESS LEVELS at the Evening Beast are on the up, as Luddite sub-editors are forced at spike-point into training sessions designed to turn them all into Web Wonders (and the lettuce allusion is appropriate in many cases).

It can't be easy trying to teach technology to this recalcitrant rabble, some of whom still struggle to cast off three decks of 48pt Nancyboy Grotesque, the font of choice of the latest red-socked twat to dabble with our design.

I've tried to explain to them that their computer (aka "the magic box") will do it for them. Instead they struggle, tongues out, with an HB2 pencil and a piece of yellowing, contraband copy paper smuggled in by an ex-News Chronicle staffer who looted the stationery cupboard the night the paper closed in 1960. (By the way, if anyone wants supplies of carbon paper, bottles of Gloy glue or typewriter ribbons, I know just the man.)