Home Discussion North Wales Blogs Daily Post Editor

July 2007 Archives

July 30, 2007

A decond class dicket to dottingham

I've got one of those colds that feels like someone has inflated a lifejacket inside your head. I managed to disguise it during a business lunch today - plus the fact that I'm off my head on paracetamol.
Anyway, before you choke on the fumes of burning martyr, here is a flavour of what's in tomorrow's Daily Post....
The splash is about the first hunting prosecution in Wales which has ended in a great big row over what's seen as soft sentences - the pro-hunt lobby are unsurprisingly chuffed.
Best inside page leads? - we've great quotes from a Welsh teachers' leader bemoaning the dumbing down of education (with some priceless examples from the history syllabus which seems to treat students of any age like nine-year-olds). The Prince of Wales is also under fire - for breaches of etiquette. An expert in how to do things proper says Charlie-boy points too much, and we've got the photos to prove it.
Features: 50 years since the decision was taken to drown Tryweryn, Flashback looks at the National Eisteddfod through the years and David Banks joins the debate over the childless donkey derby - a story we broke last Friday which had huge coverage in the nationals a day later.
That's all for now, and if you don't understand the headline on this blog entry then you are clearly under the age of 35 and don't remember this line from a splendid advert for Tunes (they help you breath more easily).


 

July 27, 2007

Mud, mud, glorious mud

I'm back from the Royal Show although if you saw the state of my oh so slippery Vauxhall Vectra you would assume I have been on manoeuvres with the army on Salisbury Plain (and yes, I did need a tractor to pull me off the car park).
What a fantastic event, despite the deluge! I stood in my first poo within minutes of arriving and the fun just carried on from there. We started off at the cattle ring (hence the poo) and watched a judge agonising for an age over his choice of winner of the best team of three (a bull and two heifers) from Britain's native breeds.
And guess who won? Why, the Welsh Blacks of course, crushing rivals from Devon and Hereford. We celebrated later by eating parts of a Welsh black with some Chinese noodles, and very tasty it was too.
Away from the parade ring there's a host of weird and wonderful things to see. This is the country's biggest showcase for farm machinery and supplies. It's like walking round a car showroom but all the gleaming machinery on display is for doing various things to fields and crops.
You even have a rare chance to see all the marketing bull that farmers are targeted with, my favourite being a feed for young animals featuring the strapline "the best a lamb can get".
North and Mid-Wales cratfspeople and entrepreneurs were well represented in the craft village. One young lady from near Machynlleth was having the first outing for her fledgling business making jewellery from highly polished Welsh slate. It was beautiful and I needed the assistance of a burly young farmer to haul Mrs Editor away before she spent all my money on the one stall.
Our rural affairs editor Andrew Forgrave and photographer Robert Parry Jones have done a fantastic job covering the Show in the most trying of circumstances. Well done, gentlemen!
The big concern now has to be for the National Eisteddfod in Flintshire. I hear that the site is very wet and with 10,000 cars a day expected, the fear is that we'll have another mudbath on our hands.
It's a story we will monitor closely over the next few days.


 

July 24, 2007

Fark! The hits are coming in!

Today's daft Daily Post page three story (also on our website) about a North Wales poodle who has been made the victim of identity theft was this afternoon picked up by a website called fark.com which promotes weird and wonderful stories from around the world. Fark has a huge following and the hits are pouring into dailypost.co.uk from all corners.
We have a scarily powerful monitoring tool that gives us updated information every few seconds about how many hits we have had, how many people are visiting our website and what stories they are reading, even which town or part of the world they live in.
It's a bit different from selling newspapers. We have to wait for the return figures to come through the day after publication to find out how well a paper has sold.
I'm hoping a bit of good news might shift a few extra copies tomorrow. Our hard fought campaign for Samantha Cousins, a North Wales victim of the NHS postcode funding lottery scandal, has ended in victory. Sam, who has Hodgkin's lymphoma, will now have a potentially life-saving bone marrow operation, paid for by the NHS.
That's one newspaper campaign I am desperately relieved to have won and I wish Samantha and her young family all the very best.
Another story tomorrow features an interview with the driver of the Porsche involved in the tragedy on the A55 at the weekend in which a young dad died.
In his alternatively speaking column, assistant editor Mark Brittain is examining the literary achevements of zeppelin-chested DD-list celebrity Jordan.
You know what, I don't think he really rates her as a writer. He also ponders the choice of name of her baby daughter, Princess Tiaamii.
And we have two pages of coverage from the rain-savaged Royal Welsh Show. I'm heading there tomorrow in my ill-fitting boots and my horrible Vauxhall which has about as much traction as an ice skate so that's me stuck in a muddy field pleading for rescue.
Wish me luck.


 

July 20, 2007

Driven barmy by Benedict, BBC, Brunstrom, Branson

It must be down to Pope Benedict the Umpteenth claiming the other day that Catholicism is the only true Christian church, because everyone's getting all confessional. First BBC bigwigs rush forward wringing their hands and confessing they fiddled the results of Pudsey bear competitions, now Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and six other cabinet members have coughed up to smoking cannabis.
Notice however that they all admit to having tried it once or twice in their youth which means they were happy to scrounge a smoke off someone else without going through all the bloody hassle of buying the gear and skinning it up.
Bloody scroungers. Anyway, let's hope that this spurs Cameron to finally responding to all the rumours by issuing a complete denial or admission to nasally indulging in Colombian army marching powder.
If I was him I think I'd be rolling up a tenner about now, having seen the Tories' woeful performance in yesterday's two by-elections. You can't have serious hopes of office after coming third in two mid-term votes.
Not exactly a whizzbang week for Mr Brunstrom and his team, either, as we report a 17% increase in violent crime today, the second highest rise in England and Wales.
There were moments yesterday morning when the red mist descended and I thought I might be adding to those statistics. I had dragged myself out of bed to catch the 6.21 Virgin London train only to be told that it was broken in Holyhead. There was no chance of the 7.20 making it to Llandudno Junction either as it was stuck in the depot behind the broken 6.21.
"You'll have to drive to Chester and get a connection," said the bloke at the station, quite cheerily and without a hint of apology.
I hope Branson has more success with his rocket...."Virgin Galactic regrets to announce that the 6.21 Llandudno Junction to the Moon service is unavoidably delayed. Please make your own way to Low Earth Orbit where you will be able to join a connecting rocket."
Blimey, pass the spliff, Jacqui.


 

July 18, 2007

Don't make me angry...

I am absolutely bloody furious, hopping mad with those mealy-mouthed pen pushers at Health Commission Wales and their frankly appalling atttitude towards Samantha Cousins, the Wrexham mum who is battling cancer but who has been denied the chance of a potentially life-saving bone marrow transplant becuase of their stupid funding guidelines.
Samantha came to us with her story because she hopes that we can somehow intervene to put things right and get her the chance to have the operation without having to take the drastic course of action of moving to England.
I really don't want to let Samantha down, so we are going after the HCW with all guns blazing in tomorrow's edition. Politicians are queueing up to sign up to our campaign - and I hope you will to. It's OUR health service, not the bureaucrats', and if the NHS can treat people properly in England then it can treat them properly in Wales too.
It helps when you get the people at the very top involved. I was really pleased a few minutes ago to see MP Chris Ruane, who has been singing the praises of the Daily Post at Westminster, raise the issue of the coroners' report into the Rhyl cycling tragedy at Prime Minister's Questions.
The excellent news is that Gordon Brown, who praised the dignity of the families of the four cyclists who lost their lives in the accident in January last year, will personally examine the coroner's findings with his ministerial colleagues. Hopefully that will cause a few sleepless nights for the local authorities responsible for road gritting, the Crown Prosecution Service and North Wales Police.
I am proud that the Daily Post has done its bit in keeping these important issues in the public domain. Reporter Roland Hughes has done a particularly good job in this respect.
However I am a bit less proud of today's page nine. About the only good reason for featuring the BNP is to expose and belittle their small-minded bigotry and xenophobia. So why the hell have we put their logo in with details of their website?
Sorry for that folks, it won't happen again.


 

July 11, 2007

Tory on a slippery slope

WE are just sorting out tomorrow's key news pages..the splash at the moment is a shocking story about bullying at a primary school in Anglesey. We also have tributes to the North Wales pub landlord tragically killed in a motorbike crash earlier this week.
There's another two pages from the International Eisteddfod – it’s a big event for Wales but we'll be giving much more space to the National Eisteddfod next month.
The plan is for at least four pages of pictures and stories plus key results each day with lots of picture galleries and video at dailypost.co.uk - and pretty soon we will be launching a click-to-buy online photo order service. I'll let you have more details when the system goes live.
One amusing tale for tomorrow is about the Tories' new Welsh spokesman in the House of Lords who has admitted knowing nowt about the country’s politics.
Lord Glentoran, whose previous claim to fame was winning Olympic gold for Britain in the 1964 bobsleigh event (he was the Dixon half of the Dixon-Nash duo) has admitted he is very knowledgeable about the geography of Wales but not much more.
One of the few remaining hereditary peers, the Eton educated toff insisted he had “got his hands dirty” in the past when he worked on the shop floor at a Kodak factory.
Speaking about his younger days he added: “I went to stay, literally, with a working class family.”
Literally...and he didn't catch anything.
We’re going to have some fun with him. I wonder if he fancies a go on the toboggan run at the Great Orme ski centre?


 

July 6, 2007

Newspapers are still flushed with pride

Our internet audience continues to grow at a rate of knots. It begs the question: Is there some point in the future where we will no longer need printing presses because we can deliver all the news you want when you want it via the web.
To me, the decisive breakthroughs still required relate to hardware. And we cannot write off the printing press until computers pass the "loo test".
I am deeply suspicious of any man who would dream of spending time on the "throne" without something to read. Newspapers fit the bill perfectly - indeed the demise of the broadsheet has made life even easier, although I still have the pleasure of fighting and folding the Sunday Times into submission every weekend.
But there is NO WAY I am heading to the Smallest Room in the House with my laptop - that's a non-starter.
No. Until they event a computer which I can squash, fold in half and scribble with phone numbers and practice crossword clues, the heritage of Caxton lives on.
Also currently in the Editor's loo library: A guide to Chicago, which I'm visiting later this year; Therese Desqueyroux by Mauriac and a 30-year-old edition of the Penguin Book of Modern Quotations. Favourite quote?...from Thirties Hollywood bon viveur and wild woman Tallulah Bankhead: "I'm pure as the driven slush."
Priceless.


 

July 2, 2007

Face of the future

I had a moment's panic yesterday morning when I checked my invititation to Sunday night's Daily Post Face of the Future competition grand final and saw the words: "Dress code- stylish".
I was about to join a judging panel of hairdressers, catwalk coaches, dress designers and model agency talent-spotters. Frantic searching through the wardrobe revealed one rather heavy winter suit (dark brown) and a selection of jeans and anoraks from my "2004 dog walking in Snowdonia" collection.
Mrs Editor suggested I should make one last-ditch attempt to squeeze myself into my one decent suit - a rather natty pinstripe number from Jaeger which last fitted me about five years ago.
Thank goodness, all the dog walking has paid off - it fits again.
Mind you, I remained the ugliest bugger on the judging panel but we had a most entertaining day as we whittled down our 20 contestants to choose the Daily Post/Tommy's hair salon Face of the Future - and congratulations to Naomi Jones from Denbigh on her victory.
We left the fashionistas in the VIP lounge at Venue Cymru and headed back to the Liverpool Arms for a last orders pint - that's when the second panic of the day happened.
John Williams, our night editor, called to say that the computer system had failed, meaning today's paper was in jeopardy, Most of the pages were complete but the pictures from the model competition had not yet made it back to the office because of the system problems. And that meant we had ruddy great holes on pages one, six and seven.
Mercifully the system fired up again after 90 minutes and John did a fantastic job getting the pages finished off only minutes after our official deadline. You can see the results in today's edition.


 

Search this blog

April 2008
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
    1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30      
 

Older posts are in the Archives

  



Profile

editor.jpg

Hello, I'm Rob Irvine, editor of the best -selling newspaper in North Wales - the Daily Post. I reckon mine is one of the best jobs in newspapers - editing a paper with an incredible history, with fantastically loyal readers. And I get to live in one of the most beautiful places on earth with wife Julie and our dog Max. I'll tell you in this blog about life at the Daily Post office in Llandudno Junction together with some s

Recent Posts

Recent comments

Categories

Tag cloud...

Useful links

Archive