WELL, it all went off pretty well, since you ask. Lacking anything remotely resembling a punch-up, the customary bread roll barrage or even the traditional drunken hectoring of the presenter, I bet the new, improved hit-’em-with-the-awards-before-they-get-pissed Press Gazette Gong Show will have left the Boycott Brigade feeling as jaded as I was the morning after.

A good spread of victories for Britain’s comics, both large and small, rewarded the Bash Street Kids equally as well as it did Lord Snooty and His Pals.

The Sunday Times scooped the most awards while The Guardian was named — almost inevitably — Newspaper of the Year.

And those bruising, boozing rivals The Sun and Mirror — their tables carefully positioned at opposite ends of the Dorchester’s ballroom and kept apart by a thoughtfully constructed Berliner Wall of posh folk — were each given three trophies so they wouldn’t squabble.

A controversial decision to ease the overload of paying customers by relegating the freeloaders (assorted judges, Yours Truly, Jean Morgan and the like) to a distant scullery served with a closed-circuit television feed was abandoned after howls of protest led by overfed LBC gabfester Nick Ferrari.

I was, I confess, rather disappointed at the organisers’ backdown on the issue of sending us to Bad Boys’ Corner. In my breakfast radio days I delighted in closeting myself grumpily in splendid solitude while the station’s news director Paul Connew, effing and jeffing his way (at full volume) through a series of early morning phone calls, competed with an irritatingly cheery Ferrari’s booming jokes, which he accompanied with his own laughter track.

At the Dorchester, I would happily have settled for a comfy broom cupboard, a light sandwich supper, a couple of brown ales and a black-and-white portable so I could watch the footy.

After all, they could easily have given me a wake-up call in the event of me being summoned onstage to shed tears à la Paltrow as I received a long overdue, but well-merited Lifetime’s Achievement Award…

FREELANCE photographer Edmond Terakopian’s images from the 7 July London bombings really wowed the Photographer of the Year judges, not just for their stunning quality, but also for their rarity value.

“He was snapping for 15 to 20 minutes before the police winkled him out,” veteran Scots smudge-judge Arthur Foster told me, admiringly.

Apparently it took British police years to adopt the kind of press controls that have been commonplace for decades at major incidents in the US. Snappers at Kennedy’s assassination, for instance, were corralled in a press bus travelling BEHIND the motorcade. Our boys in blue have got the hang of it now, though.

PIC-TIP: Scene of Crime Officers (cops with camera training) have forsaken modern digital for old-fashioned film because clever briefs are persuading juries that digi-pix are a doddle to diddle.

If this argument catches on, where the Plods have trod might the paps have to follow?

Published in Press Gazette, Thursday, March 23, 2006

MUSING AS I WASon the topsy-turvy, Left-Right-Left-again life of major meejah maestro Roy G the other day, I happened upon a Tom Lehrer recording which seemed to afford an opportunity to burst into song.

So, with a sideways glance at the brilliant American cynic’s “Whatever Has Happened to Hubert?” I found myself humming:

Whatever became of Roy Greenslade?

Whatever has happened to him?

Once a fellow who wrote mighty essays of note He was cut down in strength to a filler in length

Why ever did Roy leave The Guardian?

The Telegraph’s no place for him.

Why’s he looking so solemn? They won’t run his column And Campbell can’t find a home for his spin

So Roy placed on The Guardian website

What the Tele saw unfit to print

Now he’s back where he started, wishing they’d never parted

And Rob(ber) Roy STILL makes a mint!

DO I DETECT that the recent yen for media columns in national newspapers (Guardian, Observer, Independent, Telegraph, Evening Standard et al) is waning? The Guardian’s introduction of a complete meejah page to its finance section has shrunk to what is often little more than half a double column, usually concerning PlayStation or mobile phone stories, or tales of television takeovers that never seem to happen.

Maybe the media is realising that this myopic preoccupation with itself is merely pride-filled preening that turns off “ordinary” readers.

Or perhaps the revival of Press Gazette has filled a need in our industry for news and gossip? I hope so, especially since Max Clifford and I have embarked on rather ticklish negotiations with management to increase our meagre stipends to Blunkett-Of-The-Sun proportions.

THE CASE of the Lancastrian fined £50 for putting junk mail in a litter bin raises interesting questions: the sight of Mrs Banks or me exiting a newsagent’s shop and heading for the nearest bin to dispose of sheaves of free-standing inserts and unwanted sections is not an uncommon one.

But in doing so are we committing an offence in disposing of “household, recyclable material” in a council litter bin? And are we responsible or is it the newspapers from which these noxious contents come from which should bear the blame and the fine?

If I want to stop receiving “junk” mail I can write to the Mailing Preference Service and marketing organisations will refrain from deluging me with their unwanted rubbish. So will it be long, now that fines are being handed out, before demands are made for publishers to organise a similar opt-out for those of us swamped by shoals of unwelcome Dell computer leaflets or Cotton Traders catalogues?

OKAY, I GIVE IN: after reading last week’s Press Gazette report on bloggers I, too, have decided to inflict my random and maddeningly inconsequential thoughts at www.banksysblog.co.uk. Should you wish to comment, email me at davidbanks@pressgazette.co.uk.

Published in Press Gazette, Thursday, March 16, 2006

Hmmm . . . it occurs to me that in my last post I boasted that I was forced to write a column on the demise of Sunday Telegraph editor Sarah Sands having already completed my YK Press Gazette column for that week . . .

Well, not entirely true. In fact, I had barely started to write (a little essay on the flak that’s flying over The Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Tessa Jowell and her husband, David Mills) when I was relieved to hear that there was some breaking news upon which to comment.

So the answer to the headline above is . . . into the recycle bin. Nothing so old as yesterday’s news.

But wait! Thanks to the miracle of the blogosphere, of which I am now part, I can STILL share my thoughts, or at least some of them. I had three basic questions:

1.  How did David Mills manage to hand over £350,000 for his mortgage without being asked, as are the rest of us, for proof that he was who he said he was (and if he WAS challenged, how did he know where to find an old gas bill without asking the Culture and Media Secretary)? 
2.  Did Miss Jowell remonstrate, only to be told winningly: “Calm down, dear, it’s only a commercial transaction!”? 
3. And is this why they call a tax avoidance scheme that earns the full backing of the government . . . a TESSA?

Answers, please in a post below, or catch me every Thursday in the UK Press Gazette (davidbanks@pressgazette.co.uk)

Lunchtime, Tuesday March 7. I had just completed my Banks’ Notes column for UK Press Gazette, the trade paper and ‘bible’ for British - and quite a few other varieties of - journalists  everywhere when my editor texted the news: Sarah Sands, for eight months editor of the 650,000-plus circulation Sunday Telegraph, had been fired.

Relaunched as a more feminine, snappy, gossipy title under Sands’ direction in November 2006, the ‘Stellagraph’ had achieved an initial sales boost which dwindled - as do all newspapers - over the Christmas/New Year period but which had failed to reignite through February.

Interestingly, perhaps awkwardly, Sands’ husband is the former Telegraph Group editorial director Kim Fletcher, who left his job following her promotion last year to avoid a possible conflict of interest.