Chris Blackhurst: Is the Independent editor a bit of a cunty?

Jemima Khan

I have no idea. But given that blogging and journalism are about nine-tenths hearsay or speculation or gossip or plain wrong, we should not permit mere complete absence of any knowledge whatsoever to inhibit a voyage into the fog bank.

A story in the Guardian today informs us that Jemima Khan has departed the Indy for the New Statesman and its sexy former mascara'd New Romantic editor Jason Cowley. Apparently, Jemima - who as guest-editor this year single-handedly reinvented the Staggers by showcasing Hugh Grant's espionage skills in the phone hacking scandal - was disinclined to tolerate de facto demotion and reduced column inches as decreed by Indy new editor Chris Blackhurst.

Troublingly, these saddening events were preceded by 'warm' praise for Khan from Mr Blackhurst.

This reminds me of the fate of Richard Ingrams. The former Indy columnist reported a reassuring lunch with Mr Blackhurst, but the pabulum had scarcely reached the ex-Private Eye editor's sigmoid colon and he learned that he had been dropped by the paper.

Now, we've all done it as editors. Not been entirely straight with contributors before the axe is swung, usually to get the publication through a tricky, holiday-strewn Christmas or mid-summer schedule. But Mr Blackhurst must beware of saying one thing and doing another: not only is the Indy supposed to be nicer than the rest of the Dacre-alikes but he is alienating luminous revengers. No one forgives surprise dismissal, constructive or otherwise, and the tentacles of tit-for-tat spite are without end, though I'm sure Mr Ingrams and the investigative Goldsmith plutocrat are honourable exceptions.

Mr Blackhurst didn't entirely do himself credit in the Johann Hari scandal, either: there he was on Newsnight gamely attributing Hari's mishaps to a lack of journalistic education while the viewing public scoffed on their sofas. I'm afraid even the rather pleasant face of Mr Blackhurst betrayed a little of his own inner-scoffer, as the smiles waxed and waned a little too readily.

It pains me to write this as the Indy has been so sweet about Madame Arcati in the past. Then again I always question face value, as we all should in these uncertain times.

Johann Hari: As I said, scandal will do him no harm whatsoever

As I wrote on June 28, the fuss over columnist Johann Hari will do him no harm whatsoever. So I told you so. Many privately assured me that he would lose his job at the Independent but I knew better. Once you understand that newspaper editors are craven in the court of celebrity - even a micro-celebrity created by themselves or predecessors - it was rapidly deducible that a laundering formula would be found to retain Hari's services which did not include the words 'You're fired!'

What impresses me most is that Hari has clearly paid attention to Madame Arcati. In my piece (linked above), I lectured that a celeb interview is an 'encounter' not an 'intellectual portrait' as he self-servingly put it: so, in yesterday's apology, what word does he use to display his new wisdom and describe a celebrity interview? 'Encounter'. He learns fast. No wonder he's good at exams.

At heart is not Hari's lack of journalistic education - as his new editor claimed ludicrously last night on Newsnight - but his very low opinion of journalism. You don't stuff up your interviews with quotes from elsewhere and then pass them off as your own work unless you think that no-one will notice or care. You don't pinch someone's name to attack critics on Wikipedia unless you imagine colleagues are stupid. Ease of career passage has bequeathed Hari nothing but contempt and cynicism. His 'apology' is a lesson in cynicism.

Hari does not need yet more education. What he needs is to find a new career he can respect.

The Independent - still obsessed with feasting on bunnies!

"How'd you like me cooked, doc?"

Four years ago Madame Arcati drew attention to a disturbing foodie trend at the UK Independent. It has a morbid passion to gorge on bunnies. You'd think a liberal leftish newspaper would make a virtue of tofu and sprouts. But instead it stews, boils, fries, bakes, sauces (etc) flopsies even though hardly anyone else eats them.

After my first report in 2006, the paper's chefs gave bunnies a rest (I like to think). But in the past year or so its pages have once again hosted an appalling glut of bunny recipes - more so than in any other British newspaper.

Please remember a bunny is basically a vegetarian cat. Its fur is soft and silky, its ears velvety strokable. It's super-cute - ask any child actor seeking a huge fan base.

Here's the selected Indy indictment:

Rabbit with new-season garlic, artichokes and white beans (Mar 14, 2010): Something called Skye Gyngell loves farmed flopsies for their mild flavour and suggests you feast on them just because artichokes are in season. He advises that you get your butcher to cut the corpse into sixths - or 666s as I prefer.

Wild rabbit in green sauce (April 3, 2010): Unlike Skye, Mark Hix hates farmed bunnies and prefers 'em wild and tangy: "Wild rabbits have such a good flavour but they rarely get used today, which is a great shame, because there are so many of them and they need to be culled." The green sauce looks like Shrek after a blender accident.

Fried duck egg with rabbit offal and spring leeks (Apr 3, 2010): Hix suggests celebrating Christ's crucifixion by adding the entrails and internal organs of a bunny to a sunny side up egg. He also wants you to "toss the leeks" - a practice Madame Arcati cannot condone. 

Minor British Institutions: The British Giant rabbit (June 26, 2010): No recipe, but the author exemplifies the Indy's attitude to all things bunny. We are told satirically that "The British Rabbit Council ... is not made up of buck-toothed rodents." Lamentable. In any case, the rabbit is not a rodent but a lagomorph.

Whipped potato with rabbit and wild mushrooms (Nov 27, 2010):  Hix again, who mentions a Moscow visit as an excuse to moan about a lack of mushrooms there. The idea is to balance bunny fillets on a mash potato mountain, which reminds me of Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind whose disturbed character also builds mash potato mountains. His excuse is extra-terrestrial suggestion.

Wild and wonderful: Isn't it time to stop being squeamish and tuck into rabbit? (Dec 9, 2010): The Indy now tries to desensitise its readers to the horrible biz of murdering Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail. Sabre-toothed Clare Hargreaves is unleashed on Britain's bunny warrens for a spot of mass slaughter just before Christmas. "Lack of demand for rabbit meat has meant it attracts a pitiful price," she moans against trend. She then interviews a man draped with bunny corpses who "supplied 100 rabbits for a 'wild' wedding reception." I expect to see Mr & Mrs Leatherface in the divorce court soon enough.

Memories of rabbit dinners (Dec 20, 2010): A reader called Sara Neill of Tunbridge Wells confirms my impression that the Indy is a bubbling cauldron of bunny fat. She rhapsodises on rabbit meat and affectionately recalls, of her childhood in the 40s, "the sight of the poor bloodied furry corpses hanging in bundles in every butcher’s shop." Even her cat "had a fresh rabbit’s 'scut' to play with every few days." Presumably not called scutnip.

Wild things: Why foodies are hunting for game (Jan 6, 2011): Big cats are rumoured to roam the British countryside and are not to be confused with Clare Hargreaves. There's nothing with a wild pulse she won't stalk and eat: lock up your pet chinchillas! Rabbits are "tasty and economical" she drools. And squirrel "tastes a bit like rabbit.". It makes you want to believe in reincarnation.

My first piece on the Indy and bunnies, click here.

Madame Arcati's Top 10 Sexiest Posts of 2010!

Kevin Spacey CBE: bio post is No 1

Happy New Year, poppets! 2010 was the year Madame Arcati retired and then resurrected herself. I would love to say that my comeback owed to a public clamour but in fact, as in all things, my own moods played dictator. Blogging in itself serves no useful purpose beyond adding to the online cacophony. The only point to Madame Arcati is I get read.

Now I know you love lists, so here's my top 10 Madame Arcati posts of 2010, with a little commentary.

1. In terms of reader comments, most surprisingly popular post was my piece on the world's first Kevin Spacey (CBE, hon*.) biography, authored by famous Spaceyphile, Robin Tamblyn, click here. If you only read the books pages of our newspapers and literary mags, you'd never know that Hollywood's most secretive actor finally has an unauthorised Boswell. Self-published books always pose a challenge to book editors: who's to tell them if the book's any good? Mostly, these whores of journalism take their cues from their friends in publishing and from publishers' imprints. God knows what they'd make of the Bible were it submitted anonymously for consideration.

2. While bloggers serve no useful purpose in the general sense, they can be useful as trend muscle. So when Madame Arcati joined the online campaign against a plan to appoint Rod Liddle as editor of the Independent, one knew the war was won. Why anyone thought that a right-wing fool could be saviour of a leftish newspaper was beyond comprehension. Did someone forget to eat their spinach? So I was delighted to write the headline: "Rod Liddle won't be editing the Independent". Click here.

3. Sheila Vogel-Coupe - crazy name! This porno star and prostitute, octogenarian granny of an X Factor starlet already almost forgotten, brought tens of thousands of readers to the blog, much to my amazement. I made her my woman of the year. The link should indirectly take you to the site where you can view her engaged in various sex acts, including a copious money-shot. Click here.

4. Saddest exclusive ran on June 17 when I announced the death of Sebastian Horsley. A few journalists thought I'd made it up. A mutual friend tipped me off instead of running to the newspapers. I think Sebastian would have approved. I'm still getting over the photo of him having sex with an amputee - I wonder if I should put it up. Click here.

5. Another surprisingly popular read was my post "Rachel Johnson's A Diary Of The Lady: Masterly at the authorial hand-job". Rachel, editor of the old cunties' weekly The Lady, wrote me a fan letter informing me that Madame Arcati had a page in her book. How expertly she plays the ego. It was only correct that I review the tome, click here. Her book is a Madame Arcati favourite bathroom read along with Albert Speer's memoirs and a bio of Anna Wintour.

6. Most cynical post of the year was "Justin Bieber's penis: a post-modernist approach to blogging". I'd read that the tiny virgin megastar was one of the most searched names on Google so I Arcatised him to draw in a new generation seeking celebrity cock. They will have been disappointed but enlightened of irony, blogging, journalism and celebrity obsession. Click here.

7. "Reward Showbiz™: The 10 most pointless celebrity books and TV shows" proved a lure. So many TV shows and books are created simply to reward celebrity, just ask Joanna Lumley or Michael Palin. So this spawned yet another sleb list. Click here. Sorry.

8. Kate Reardon's appointment as Tatler editor introduced me to the concept of a spinning vagina. I offer this piece as an antidote to churnalism - the writing-up of PR announcements in our newspapers. Click here.

9. Duncan Fallowell gifted me a wonderful anecdote about the fashion designer Valentino; something about his elaborate relationship with the wind. Click here.

10. Permanent fiancee Molly Parkin published her Mollywood memoirs this year, and included in them a sweet, true reminiscence about the two of us. I'm sorry her family don't take us seriously: but that's what families are for, to look out for one. Read my review, Dodging the Conventional Cunts: click here. Do follow the labels on Molly: her interview with me on cocks and spirituality could change your life. In February 2011 all of Moll's erotic novels are reissued by Beautiful Books - they're as freshly witty, sexy and funny as the day they were born.

And on that note, have an austerity-free 2011 under the most miserable and wretched of governments. x

*Shouldn't he have got a knighthood, hon.?

Stefano Hatfield at i: Are you young, dumb and full of it?

Stefano Hatfield

Happy days again for Stefano Hatfield who will oversee the Independent's mini-me daily, i. Hardly a surprise appointment given that this former Campaign editor helmed the doomed thelondonpaper a while back and made a habit there of preferring young inexperienced hacks to the tried and trusted - cheapness and compliance being the former's two big pluses. I do hope he's now up to speed on the law on workplace ageism, though I doubt it.

So here's a bluffer's briefing. The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations of 2006 make it unlawful to discriminate against workers under the age of 65 on the grounds of age. The rules affect recruitment, training, promotion, redundancy, retirement, pay and pension provision.

It was therefore unfortunate that MediaGuardian of February 5, 2007, felt compelled to note that 'Hatfield ... freely admits that he has chosen to hire journalists of a similar age to his target twenty-to-thirtysomething readership [at thelondonpaper]. No veteran hacks moaning about the good old days here, it seems.' MediaGuardian is itself an ageist medium so I wouldn't be expecting much sense from that quarter.

i is targeting young urbanites and has a featherweight budget. Expect, then, a deluge of recruitment of novice regionals (and their friends) in the immediate future. Any examples of ageism at i (or anywhere else) will receive a fair hearing at Madame Arcati.

Stefano Hatfield is in his mid-to-late 40s.

i spy: Does the time-poor newspaper reader exist?

The Independent people have launched a mini-me newspaper called i. It costs 20p and is a digest of sorts of its ailing maxi-me (price: £1), targeted at 'time-poor newspaper readers' (ie professional youngies who live at Pret A Manger).

The birth of the first national print paper in a generation must of course be celebrated as a happy event in itself but ... does the 'time-poor newspaper reader' actually exist?

Of course not. Don't you know a rhetorical question when you hear one?

What one does with one's time is a general matter of choice dictated by personal interest and priorities. If someone under the age of 30 says to you, apropos not reading newspapers, 'I am a time-poor person', then this is not a statement of fact but an advertisement of self-importance. She or he is actually saying:: 'I have better things to do because my life is so busy.' Busy-ness in this context is rated a virtue because it implies solvency, sexiness, engagedness and I'm-booked-up-ness. Being seen reading a newspaper suggests you have time on your hands - you saddo.

The reality is that the life of our 'time-poor newspaper reader' (TPNR) is as time-rich as that of anyone who loafs about the house all day calling themselves a freelance writer or video game designer. The several time windows in a day include thumb-twiddling lavatory longueurs, yawny rail journeys to and from (with delays and no-shows for free-time enrichment), mental and physical office truancy (for smokes, googling, gossing or just standing about in Cafe Nero queues or chomping muffins), etc. All large-paned time windows afford potential hours for the reading of newspapers.

But there's just one problem. More and more Pret A Manger-bound youngies would rather do something else. Like read a newspaper free online or on their iPad. Or grow fat on muffins.

So good luck to i. And my condolences to the Independent.

The Independent makes mad, passionate love to Madame Arcati

My favourite newspaper (du jour!), the Independent - whose owner is the handsomest of the newspaper proprietor breed (competition includes the lissom Barclays and sultry Rupert Murdoch) - kindly draws its intelligent readership's attention to a Madame Arcati story.

After praising the author of MA in terms I cannot repeat, but with which I concur, it recounts the conversation that took place between Paul Dacre and Allison Pearson prior to her scarpering off from the Mail to the Telegraph. However the Indy states that the reported exchange was imagined by me. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The words spoken were repeated to me from someone who has permanent hearing damage from Mr Dacre's dynamic office interventions.

When they do the autopsy on my source, imprints of "cunt" will be found on his or her ear wax.

I have already remarked on the allure of the Indy's deputy editor Adam Leigh (is that his name?); so my curiosity is whetted as to the proportions and pulchritude of the media sage who authored the eulogy to Madame Arcati. Cannot it be long before yet another fiance(e) is added to the list?

The Indy and 40 thousand smackers

Over lunch a Derry Street habitué mentions that the Independent has been paying Freud Communications £40,000 a month as its PR guru; or nearly half a mill for a year's work. Yum yum. Money well spent I'd say.

However, the paper's deputy editor, sexy Adam Leigh, tweets me: "Now that truly is 24-carat cobblers".

The Independent's new look: Madame Arcati review

Certain darling Arcatistes have messaged me privately imploring me to cast my eyes on the redesigned Independent. It's not as if I haven't other things to do. I'm busy. But as I sit here drinking a lunchtime latte mocchiato from my Tassimo coffee machine - barcoding has never been put to better use - I succumb to blandishment and compromise by summoning up the front page. Only.

To quote the No 1 single of the moment: omg! I am utterly appalled. Return editor Simon Kelner simply has not a clue about visual seduction. The Mail grabs and molests and you yield against better judgement; the Telegraph emits a tractor beam with its high-low mix of hoity-totty. Even the ghastly Express catches your attention with a waggle of a varicose veined pin before you hurry past. But the Independent! I just don't want to look at it. It makes me feel all Hannah Montana and want to go ew!

Why can't Kelner simply steal some ideas from other papers if he can't master the idiom of sexy look?

Now, of all the papers, the Indy is my least unfavourite. Its mind is in the right place, it does not demand the return of the Coliseum, it doesn't hire tomb-toothed loony James Delingpole; atheistically, it's on the side of the angels. The case for the Indy is a good one. New owner Alexander Lebedev potentially has a great asset here. So why the hell (to use a Carole Malone-ism) can't it get its face right?

Where to start? First, why all that white space to the right of the headline? How many trees were felled for that art statement? A front page must demand our instant interest; there's no time for lolling. If a paper wants stylised it must commit not omit. The only case for white space on a front page is a signposted area for reader shopping lists or moustache doodling - a playpen for idlers. And is "Goldmans" literate? Is the plural accepted use for Goldman Sachs? It just doesn't read right.

And what's with the fancy font for the new Viewspaper? You expect to see those squiggles on wedding invites or Valentine's cards or in a movie starring Margaret Lockwood - for lickle sticky-out finger occasions when silly tarts dress like Jordan and the men breathe in for the cummerbund.

Logically and aesthetically, the front page makes no sense. The Indy primarily is a read paper. One way to signal this fact is to have plenty of words on the page and several stories. What we have instead is the one story body copy squashed down at the bottom in favour of a hideous great plane and a dumb monster screamer (with tabloid exclamation mark). The overall sell is basically tabloid though the product is broadsheet all but in size. What is Kelner thinking of?

The only thing going for this front page is the come-on for Gauguin's Girls in the bottom right hand corner, featuring a patch of female pubis: an advert for the editor's cock-cunting inclination no doubt because it would be hard to imagine, say, a naked Alex Reid here with his flaccid four-incher hanging down like a rotten corgette.

Oh no. Must do better. The overall impression is that of a local newspaper with airs. This may work if the paper does go freebie. But not if you're looking for cash.

Greg Dyke to be next editor of The Independent

I hear on good authority that the BBC's former D-G Greg Dyke is about to be signed up as the next editor of the Independent. I wholly approve of this appointment if true. He has newspaper savvy and he is not pig ignorant.

New proprietor Alexander Lebedev has gone up in my estimation even if he toyed with Rod Liddle.

The Independent editorship: 'Jeremy Paxman meets the Lebedevs'

On January 23, Madame Arcati broke the story that Jeremy Paxman had been offered the Independent editorship - many thought I was joking. Now the Guardian confirms that Paxman has met likely new owners the Lebedevs to talk about his possible appointment. He's not the only name on Alexander Lebedev's wishlist - Greg Dyke's there too, more in need of a big job than Paxman I should have thought. Apparently Lebedev seeks a star to edit the ailing paper - like Napoleon, he has this fantasy he can hitch a lift off another's X factor. Would you buy a paper just because it was edited by Dyke or Paxman - or Simon Cowell for that matter? Such a ludicrous idea.

Rod Liddle to Suzanne Moore: 'Sorry I called you a "fucking hypocrite"... '

Rod and Suzanne make up ...

One would have to have a heart of stone not feel some sympathy for Rod Liddle, what with the vitriolic Facebook campaign against him over the Independent, Madame Arcati's exclusive on his unseemly Facebook row with the darling Suzanne Moore, Roy Greenslade's Guardian vendetta, and, oh, lots of things. How did all this pressure affect Rod - did it get to him?

I've just hacked into Suzanne's email account and among some priceless exchanges between her and Rod is this line from him apropos their Facebook face-off: "But I'm sorry I called you a 'fucking hypocrite'. It's been a rough week. Hypocrite would have done."

Let's send him healing prayers ....

'Rod Liddle won't be editing the Independent' - thanks to Madame Arcati

Alexander Lebedev - a man of incomparable wisdom. He is Madame Arcati's Man of the Year. And it's only February

Rod Liddle will not be the next editor of the Independent, the Guardian reports. The paper claims that Alexander Lebedev had a change of heart.

I have little doubt this was due to Madame Arcati: Mr Lebedev is a follower of Arcati on Twitter and visits this site regularly for about 0.3 seconds per ingress. For a man of his intelligence and scope this would be sufficient time to scan the educated hostility to fag-ash Liddle whose politics, demeanour, temperament and flakiness (and hairstyle) are the subject of much concern.

And it was Madame Arcati that exclusively ran the Facebook row between Liddle and Suzanne Moore: while she was the model of civility, preparing to cook lunch for her little poppets, he ranted and raved like, er, someone who thought he was a national newspaper editor already.

Anyone who writes a column for the hideous and bullying Sunday Times is, as a matter of course, unsuitable for the Independent. Incidentally, does anyone know where the ST's editor now lives?

Rod and Suzanne

Mr Lebedev goes up in my estimation. He is clearly a man of tremendous insight, of wisdom, of worldliness. My God, Geordie Greig was right about Lebby! The Guardian better be fucking right. Meantime, Alexander should consider Suzanne Moore for the Indy editorship - unusually, she combines a left-wing sensibility with haute personal style and grooming: she is well-shod proof that you can make a good living from the politics of selflessness.

And please, Alexander, abandon the idea of Jeremy Paxman. He wouldn't survive five minutes. Plus, he's molto sensitive.

'Jeremy Paxman offered Independent editorship'

Well, that was the rumour at Groucho's last night. No idea if true or whether Paxman is even interested. But it's said Alexander Lebedev is impressed by the crashing snob.

Suzanne Moore for editor: She's Independent, are you?

Make this woman the new editor of the Independent and stop pissing about.

She's a liberal-leftist icon and she makes lots of money from Lord Rothermere by offending him every week in one of his own newspapers. She's proof you don't have to become a rightwing 'mare to coin it in journalism.

And she's no Labour lapdog. When last year the New Statesman made Alastair Campbell guest-editor she resigned from the magazine on highly publicised principle. How could a publication which opposed the Iraq invasion get cuddlesome with one of the war's chief mongers? She's of the left but no apparatchik. Just what we need as virtually every British newspaper right now takes dictation from Andy Coulson.

She's indie down to her legendary fuck-me shoes. She is Madame Arcati's most interesting choice.

Her name is Suzanne Moore. Google her.

(Meanwhile, Rod Liddle's skin colour problem)

Founder of the Rod Liddle/Indy Facebook protest replies ....

Dear Madame,

Came across your blog post while Googling around and wondered, as the founder of the Facebook group, 'If Rod Liddle Becomes Editor of the Independent, I Will not buy it Again' if I could briefly respond to the points you made?

"I don't recall a Facebook campaign against the Indy's present editor Roger Alton..."

A couple of things to say to that. If I'd thought of the idea back then and thought that a Facebook group might actually be able to block an editorial appointment (as it may do in this case...), I probably would have tried to prevent the job going to Alton for exactly the reasons you mention.

Protests don't just happen by themselves - they require someone to actually do it and work themselves ragged in the process - even with all these easy-to-use online tools. And they require sufficient people to feel aggrieved enough to take part in it (which sometimes requires repeated insults). So it doesn't really make much sense to argue against a protest on the grounds that the protestors should have protested something else as well. Maybe they should have?

"What standards in the British press?"

Well, quite. That's the point of making a stand for them! Liddle isn't just about to be given another column in which to be loathesome but actual control over the content of a major national newspaper.

Support us!

Best wishes,
Alex Higgins

Dear Alex

Thank you for your letter. You are to be admired for your derring-do (ie, for going to the bother) but I take the view that newspapers by and large have outlived their usefulness, are generally bullying and vulgar, and do more harm than good in their present form.

Liddle perfectly fits the spec of a national newspaper editor: a red-faced boor whose insular perspectives are unrelieved by the slightest sign of big-heartedness or reflection. Like the many excitable clowns whose fat arses occupy the leather-bound swivel chairs of newspaper editors' offices, he has created a personality caricature of himself which to complacent reader-gigglers and -hoppers is (in his case at least) digestibly entertaining. Provided he plays up to their humdrum prejudices, that is.

If Liddle's rumoured appointment has the effect of speeding up the Indy's closure then let it be. Neither it nor he serves any useful purpose.

But my best wishes to you and your idealistic Facebook protesters.

Madame Arcati

Rod Liddle and the Indy: A rather daft Facebook campaign

The Facebook campaign against Rod Liddle's rumoured appointment-to-be as the next editor of the Independent amuses me. Over 3000 people have signed up to the protest so far - amazing really, considering Liddle's rumoured champion, Alexander Lebedev (the Russian oligarch presently burying alive the London Evening Standard), has yet to buy the paper.

It amuses me for many reasons. For instance, I don't recall a Facebook campaign against the Indy's present editor Roger Alton at the time of his appointment - he'd war-mongered for Blair on the liberal/leftist Observer during the Iraq invasion just because the government paid court to him and one of his ignorant sidekicks.

"Make a stand here for standards in the British press," say the Facebook petitioners. Yet Liddle has made his plastic name writing silly posturing things in The Sunday Times, the Spectator and elsewhere. What standards in the British press?

Oliver Duff - and it's fuck off from Blair, Burchill, et al

The Independent's gosser Oliver Duff is relinquishing the Pandora diary page to become deputy home news editor - I can't imagine anything more boring. Monday's his last day and sweetly he informs all that he has no decent story yet for his swan song. His email contains an entertaining litany of encounters with foul-mouthed celebs ...

"I've told you it's not true and yet you continue to write it."
- Matthew Doyle, official spokesman for Tony Blair

"Are you following me? Fuck off."
- Alastair Campbell, following a chance encounter at the urinals in The Arts Club

"I didn't fucking come here to be interviewed by you! Now don't fucking cry about it! Just fuck off!"
Ewan McGregor

"What are you leaving her a message for? Why are you asking? Why do you want to know? Perhaps you should email Julie to apologise. You are an absolute prick .... asshole ... Why don't you fuck off and get an actual story. Moron."
Julie Burchill's assistant

"You have got about as much chance of seeing him as me growing a penis by tomorrow morning. And if you tell anyone what I just said I'll break your bloody legs."
Spokeswoman for Her Majesty's Prison Service says that Pandora must cancel plans to hold a birthday party for Ronnie Biggs

"The article in The Independent said we were merry - a terrible euphemism - when we'd hardly had a glass. That journalist obviously has no stamina himself."
Christine Hamilton, on stage at the Edinburgh Festival

"Ga!! Diarists!" [Phone: click]
Rt Hon John Prescott

"Great to meet you."
Lord Levy

Where is the wonderfully named Joy LoDico?

An Arcatiste writes: "This week's diary in the Independent On Sunday was bylined Matthew Bell, the little boy they employed when the rather fabulous Joy LoDico departed. He didn't write it, though, as he is on holiday. Peculiar." Someone had better explain ...

Wine, women and a literary editor

I was sorry to have missed the incident at John Walsh's party involving his partner Carolyn Hart - apparently she threw red wine over another woman known to John. That's as much as I can say.

Meanwhile, I wonder who this following message may apply to?

"There was once a literary editor who was enraptured (I think it went like that) by my downstairs neighbour, when she was 41 or so, and well the rest is history. Oh yes. Actually it's a great story. He never slept with her, though, so maybe it doesn't count. He flirted, charmed, got her all worked up, waited for her kids to go to bed and kissed her for ages in the living room, then said he simply couldn't, etc, and left. It went on for ages and ages. There was a 26-year-old girl from Peckham, or somewhere, in the story, too. And the glamorous poet. And his wife, scribbling away in the garden shed, all those short stories... I heard terrible things he said about his wife."