Falling out of love with The Daily Telegraph

It may be my daily newspaper of choice. And I may well approve of journalists using a certain amount of subterfuge to get a story. But I'm afraid The Daily Telegraph has, in my view, overstepped the mark with their undercover activities concerning Lib Dem ministers.

It is clear that this is not investigative journalism designed to uncover some wrong doing. It is mischief-making pure and simple. Why? Because many of the Telegraph's senior staff and readers are dyed in the wool old school Tories. "Sharing" is a not word in their vocabularies.

But the fact is that the electorate voted in such a way that demands that our politicians share power and work together.

Back in May the Telegraph welcomed the coalition - albeit with a slight reservation. But now it has taken against the idea. Perhaps because it is working. Deep down right wingers such as Simon Heffer probably hoped it wouldn't work. But it has.

So what to do? Destabilise the coalition by waging war in an underhand way on the Lib-Dems. Does the Telegraph really think the Lib Dems will fold their tents and steal quietly away into the night and leave the Tories to run the country alone?

One thing the Telegraph has overlooked. If we the people had wanted a Tory government we would have voted in such numbers as to put one into power.

Now the big question is what paper do I change to for my daily read?

Oh, what a pun time we're having!

When teaching how to write a news intro, I offer students a selection of different styles they can utilise. One is the punning intro.

(a) Alesha Dixon waltzes away from Strictly's ballroom to have a ball on the beach.

(b) Brits face mayhem on icy roads today as the country slides back into the Big Freeze.

(c) When 21 budgerigars were stolen from an aviary and a champion stamped to death, the flutter it caused went far beyond the quiet world of bird breeding.

See they all do it But the question is from which papers do these intro come?

(i) = Daily Mirror; (ii) = The Sun: (iii) = The Daily Telegraph

Great minds think alike...fools seldom differ

So the Midlands of England are the obesity capital of the UK.  Not a fact that taxed the headline writers of The Sun or the Daily Mirror.  They both came up with the same headline for this story today:
Does my Brum look big in this?

Can you remember what you were doing when you heard that John Lennon had died?

It didn’t happen 30 years ago today. It was early on the morning of Tuesday 9 December 1980 that I was woken by the phone ringing in my flat in Dalkey, on the outskirts of Dublin.

Calling me was my friend Paddy Murray, who was newsediting the Evening Herald in Dublin. Before I could speak, he spoke:"You met John Lennon, didn't you?"

"Yes," I replied, "once".

"Can you do us eight or 10 pars on what he was like?"

"Why, what's happened?"

"He's dead. Shot by some bastard in New York."

Once I got over the initial shock and checked out the TV and radio, I set about writing my short tribute piece to the man who played such a pivotal part in my youth.  And that of many millions of others around the world. Where do you start to write a piece that has such an emotional charge for you? Every opening sentence seems wrong... even inadequate.

To this day, I have no idea what I wrote. I didn't keep a copy and typewriters had no memory or hard drive in those days! But I guess I recalled my one and only meeting with my favourite Beatle.

Toward the end of 1970, he and Yoko Ono were publicising the re-issue of her book Grapefruit. I had been lucky enough to be invited to a reception for them thrown by Yoko's publisher.

It was a crowded room and I could see Lennon and his wife at the far end. I elbowed my way forward and soon found myself standing face to face with John Lennon.

"Hi, have you got a copy of Yoko's book?" he asked.

"Err, no."

"You gotta get one, man."

I was lost for words. I hadn't come along to see Yoko or her book. He was the draw.

"I'll do that," I said eventually. "Do you and she write lyrics together?"

"Yeah, we're doing that. We've got some stuff out coming out that we wrote together."

"What about The Beatles? Do you still write with Paul?"

"I didn't really come here to talk about The Beatles, man. And Paul and I haven't written together for years. Tonight is about Yoko's book. What paper are you from?"

"I'm just a freelance from Dublin. I try and get stuff in papers over there."

"Well, write that people should buy Grapefruit by Yoko Ono. You got that, folks in Ireland, buy Grapefruit."

"Do you still go to Ireland?"

"Not a lot, but we still have the island. Maybe we'll retire there and grow potatoes."

I never did find out anything else. The PR from the publishers elbowed his way in an spirited my hero away to talk to other journalists.

On my way out, I picked up a copy of Grapefruit. It was only when I was on the Tube home that I flicked inside it and found it had been signed by John and Yoko in red felt pen. So the dream wasn't over, it had actually happened - I'd met my Beatle hero.

How much of this I shared with the readers of the Evening Herald, I can't recall. But today, 30 years after his murder, I have the day I met John Lennon as a fond memory.

* Read BBC's North-East Wales correspondent at the time, John Shone's, memory of 30 years ago.