PINNED to the newsroom wall in a draughty northern newspaper office is a March 2007 front page from the Daily Express bearing the now legendary splash headline: A FOOT OF SNOW THIS WEEKEND.
Glancing at the intro, the casual reader – no doubt initially startled and perhaps even concerned by the prospect of an Arctic blizzard in the middle of March – would have soon discovered that only parts of Britain were to be affected by snow, and that the full foot was expected to fall only on the highest ground.
Daily Express readers who were planning to stride out across the summit plateau of Sgurr nan Ceathreamhnan or traverse from Conival to Ben More Assynt would have appreciated the extensive coverage. The rest of the newspaper-reading public either shook their heads sadly or laughed their socks off.
My view is that if you’re going to publish stuff like this then you can expect to be ridiculed. Like a fat lazy grouse clucking cheekily at a line of stout chaps with guns, you are fair game.
So that’s where this website is coming from. That’s what it’s about. Absurdity. Newsroom absurdity. Fat lazy grouse clucking at the public – and expecting the public to swallow it, and expecting to be taken seriously.
Bang. That’s one barrel discharged.
Perhaps you think I’m being a bit harsh. After all, journalists are doing only what they’re paid to do. And the public, bless them, keep coming back for more.
Beneath the now faded Express front page is another – from the same paper and dated April 9, 2007, only three weeks after the “FOOT OF SNOW” exclusive.
The splash headline clucks triumphantly: “BRITAIN WILL SIZZLE IN 100F”
Bang.
