David Cameron - a tall tale

• Posted by Rob Irvine at 9:55 PM | add or read comments (0)

It’s often been said of Margaret Thatcher, that she is much shorter in the flesh than you might have expected.
A great deal else, and far less flattering, has been said about Mrs T - but that can save for another day.
The point is, it seems surprising to see so towering a figure squeezed into such a small package.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting David Cameron and was immediately struck by how tall he was. A veritable beanpole.
Perhaps if he wins and runs the country for a decade he will shrink a few inches as his influence grows.
I was also struck by his fresh faced demeanour, and this on the day a Guardian poll had marked him down as one of history’s least popular Tory leaders.
Bad news must reverse his ageing process with only good fortune putting on the ravages of time, thus raising the prospect of a triumphant Cameron striding into 10 Downing Street with the crumpled mug of a John Prescott.

I’m writing this on the interminable train journey from Euston to Llandudno Junction after a couple of days in London which included the Cameron meeting and a gathering of Trinity Mirror editors. Is there a collective noun for editors? A grumble? A blather?

The London evening papers had acres of coverage about Jose Mourinho’s departure from Chelsea. The Evening Standard revisited some of his famous sayings which included the Special One’s memorable claim that “there is no shame in defeat, on the contrary, it shows that we are the best”.
There was also no avoiding Cherie Blair who has revealed she is planning to publish her autobiography next year. The size of her fee will depend on how much she is prepared to reveal about really went on between the then PM and his arch-rival at Number 11.
Does that mean she is prepared to dump her poison into the open during what may well be an election year, just to cover the cost of the nineteen grand monthly mortgage payment on the Blairs' new London home?
She really has no shame. One revelation already made is that when she and Tone reluctantly quit Number 10 she got her friends to do her laundry for weeks because she didn’t own a washing machine.
Never heard of Comet or Currys, Mrs B?
Like I said, no shame.

Exactly how many Airbuses has Rhodri bought?

• Posted by Rob Irvine at 10:30 AM | add or read comments (1)

I was glad to see that David Collins, the Labour election candidate who referred to Welsh as a "brain dead" language, has at last done the decent thing and quit his role as researcher for North Wales AM Ann Jones.
Such a view was quite alien to Ann's, a committed supporter of the language and, like myself, a learner. Mr Collins, however, needs to get his thoughts in order.
First he tries to write off the whole affair as a typing error (some typing error).
Not until he sees himself all over the front page of the Daily Post - twice - does he realise his position is untenable.
The he says he regrets "writing" his comments, with the implication that all would have been well with his career and political aspirations if he'd kept shtum about his dismissive attitude. That's food for thought for the Labour Party chiefs deciding the fate of his candidacy in Grangetown, Cardiff.
His departure makes today's front page blurb and the page nine lead. Page one is dominated by the death of a dad-of-three from Mostyn who left his family for a gay lover and has been found battered to death at a hotel near Heahtrow Airport. We'll have more on that tragedy for tomorrow's edition.
We also have a two-page spread today looking back on 10 years of devolution, including a not too convincing piece about the Assembly's marvellous achievements for North Wales penned by First Minister Rhodri Morgan. If one measure is "sustaining the success of Airbus" then I'll claim a similar stake for the Daily Post - we've bought just as many A380s as the Welsh Assembly!

Wales v Australia - pob lwc Cymru!

• Posted by Rob Irvine at 3:23 PM | add or read comments (0)

You can tell when I start flapping about my speech at the Daily Post Achievement Wales Business Awards that autumn has arrived.
The big night is on November 30 (yes I can flap for that long, it’s bilingual!) and we will soon be sifting through the applications.
Don’t fret if you haven’t applied yet as the closing date is next Friday (the 21st) but don’t leave it too long, you ambitious North Wales business folk.
Entry forms are available to download from www.dailypost.co.uk/achievementwales or you can get one by calling 0151 472 2570.
It all wraps up with a black tie do at Prichard Jones Hall over at Bangor University. If you’re there, pop over for a chat. Usually after the speech I am pretty friendly and relaxed (I find red wine helps).

I’ve been stuck in meetings all day and have not a clue yet what the splash will be tomorrow. Hopefully the news desk has a pretty good idea by now.
I know that we’re keeping a page open for the England v South Africa match tonight and we have discussed whether a drubbing for the World Champions might merit a mention on page one!
Good luck to our national side for tomorrow. Hopefully there’ll be no repeat of last weekend’s first half performance – I don’t think the Aussies will run out of steam like the Canadians. We've got a bumper match preview for you to enjoy in the pub waiting for the match to start. A win tomorrow will be a cause of mighty celebration and will smooth the passage to the last eight. Wales have turned the Wallabies over (can you turn a Wallaby over? Wouldn't it just bounce away?) and they can do it again.
Enjoy the match - and your weekend.

Brunstrom, fiendish sudokus and hoodies aged four

• Posted by Rob Irvine at 9:21 PM | add or read comments (1)

I know I shouldn't have but I couldn't be bothered sitting through the whole three minutes and fast-forwarded to the bit when the chief constable crumpled to the floor with a strangled cry of "bloody hell".
For someone who slags off the media relentlessly he is one serious media tart but the point was well made - there's nothing big or clever about being Tasered - and it took some guts to do it. We would have liked to have hosted the video on our shiny new website too but the police press office said no. I think they've fallen out with us because normally those guys just can't stop giving.
Well, despite a few technical hitches the relaunch of the website has gone pretty well. There has been a lot of work to do and much credit should go to our digital journalist Dan Owen.
We're also tweaking a couple of items in the paper. Hopefully you'll have seen the new nostalgia page in Thursday's edition which features articles about great games and toys of our childhoods plus images of adverts from Daily Posts of yesteryear. Some of them are just bizarre.
Fairly soon we will be improving the two page puzzle package in Thursday's paper which will include, in answer to high demand, a super-fiendish sudoku that took our best puzzle cracker Mark Williams more than an hour to complete. It's the enigma code of sudokus.
We're also busy recruiting staff for our websites and I'll soon be interviewing for a new news editor so that's filling the diary up along with a stack of meetings which all seem to be held in Liverpool. I'm doing that A55 run on auto-pilot these days and it's always great to be heading back (especially that moment when you drop down Rhuallt Hill and see the Clwydian range with Snowdonia in the background, fantastic).
Hope you enjoy tomorrow's edition - we have a great splash about a four-year-old girl who fell foul of a ban on hoodies (those pink cardies can look quite threatening).
And we have plenty of build-up to a bumper international sporting weekend. A double-victory wouldn't go amiss on the newspaper sales front!

Fresh look for the Daily Post online

• Posted by Rob Irvine at 11:27 AM | add or read comments (1)

Excuse the lack of blogs. I have been tied up with a number of Projects (note the AA Milnesque capital P to make Prosaic Matters seem More Dynamic, Exciting and Important than they Really Are).
Some of the projects are Top-Secret Hush, Hush (See, I am Doing it Again) but the one I can tell you about is our new-look website, which launches tomorrow (Wednesday).
As many of you shamefully fail to check my blog every day, the chances are that it is now Thursday or Friday in your world and you've already seen the website, been wowed by its brilliance and have eagerly signed up to our e-mail newsletter service.

The newspaper is still fighting fit and bristling with attitude about the way motorists are being penalised by draconian enforcement of car parking rules.
So it was much delight that we revealed today how council staff have earmarked plenty of free space for themselves in traffic-clogged Conwy with the aid of a plastic bag that is wrapped round the car park ticket machine at Conwy Council's Bodlondeb HQ, only to be removed at weekends as the traffic wardens move in for the kill.
Long-serving readers may recall that I was stung with a fixed penalty ticket some time ago at Bodlondeb when out walking my dog. At the time I thought the machine was always broken because it always had a plastic bag on it and never even noticed in the driving rain that the said bag had for once been removed. I didn't notice the traffic warden either - they must have been hiding in the bushes.
Then my wife pointed out that the bag only appeared on weekdays...and that sparked today's page three.
It's been a positive delight to tell all my friends who live and work in Conwy and who pay a fortune for parking that there is in fact plenty of free space Monday to Friday. Just try and get there before all the council people take all the spaces.
Perhaps we also need signs on roads into Conwy pointing to "free parking at council offices". That should give the tourist industry a lift and stop tourists' cars clogging up the roads round the town.