MEAT THE PRESS

WHILE OSCAR WILDE, THE FAMOUS LOVER OF YOUTH, was happy to be imitated as he considered it to be a form of flattery, it is with mixed feelings that I note that not only The Sun newspaper but also Private Eye magazine – upstanding, august and noble organs both – have filched headlines of mine over the last two weeks. These are “All the Way to the Banksy” and “Dive, Dive, Dave”. I can fully understand why this happened with the newspaper, as I was somewhat foolish in sending details of the address of this my journal to its “chat room” in the hope of recruiting thousands of undiscerning readers so as to then monetise my writing and retire from public life.

THESE EVENTS DO, HOWEVER, FORCE ONE to look more closely at what is going on in the British press at the moment, and I suspect that from the point of view of a visitor to, or admirer of, or – as is the case in hand when I teach students about the British press – a student of our society, our newspapers are, to paraphrase Churchill, a nipple, wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

HAVING SPENT A GOODLY AMOUNT OF TIME looking carefully at the issue, I have come to the conclusion that four of our newspapers seem to believe that The X Factor is news; two of them seem to believe that female breasts are news; all of them think that horse racing (the most difficult one for foreigners to understand) is news; two think house prices is news; one thinks socialism is about to destroy our society; and a final newspaper wonders whether we are dressed suitably for our day-to-day engagements, be they death in Afghanistan or taking tea in the morning room. Given, to paraphrase Wilde again, the dull nature of modern life, our newspapers flesh things out the way they see fit according to their “readership”. The style of the flesh varies from open topless to soft, back-lit art photos in the Sunday supplement. But in the end tits all the same.

(My picture shows a topless topless car wash. This is a car wash carried out by topless ladies, and in this case the car is also topless. The service was recently set up in an Eastern country. I thought this might be interesting; but is it news?)