Spent part of the afternoon writing to the editors of the Chronicle/Journal suggesting they could make their journos redundant and employ me on a part time basis from Ramsgate.

It would seem their combination of inovative reporters spend their entire days writing stories in the morning, only for the sister paper to then tag a line in that the morning or previous days exclusive are indeed 'well wide of the mark'

The number of times that Alan Oliver has written that would be enough to retire on if I got a quid for each time it appeared

Only this week it was the journal, I think running some headline about two russians, with the afternoon's Ronnie then saying it was far fetched.

Then the inevitable wide of the mark routine from alan about swifts Colombian - with the list of all our south american imports listed as justification of us not signing another.

Could write the articles from here without knowing any truths from the toon

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2001

Answers

Well, yuo know that this is the classic approach taken by lazy or incompetent journalists. When you can't find any news - either through lack of effort or because you're just thick - you write your own. And then you write another story denying the first one. Then you get a third story about how the first one might have a grain of truth in it after all. And so on and so on. The two rags of which you speak are particulary adept at this approach.

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2001

If Alan Oliver was any good at his job, he wouldn't be working for the Chronicle. Especially when amateurs like Alison Rudd can work for the Times.

-- Anonymous, November 23, 2001