After nearly eight years and a quarter of a million words, I bid my readers farewell

[Published in The Journal, Monday 5th January 2015] 

In 2007, when Brian Aitken, editor of The Journal, took me to lunch and invited me to write a weekly column, he was very persuasive. 

“What on earth would I write about?” I asked, flattered that anyone would ask me to contribute to such an important institution. 

“Your glamorous life,” he said. 

“It’s not remotely glamorous,” I said, thinking of our windswept farmhouse. I had moved back to the region a few months earlier with my then girlfriend, after 5 years in Los Angeles. Joanna and I wanted to get away from the world of entertainment to what we were convinced would be a rural idyll. It was a very hot summer when we visited on holiday – 2006, if you remember it. Jo thought this was the most beautiful place in the world. She was right - so we moved here. 

Having been brought up in Northumberland and schooled in Newcastle, I’d spent the previous four decades in London and America making television programmes. Finally I was home, with big skies, noisy sheep, and mud. Particularly mud. For it transpired that 2006 was a one-off. The cold reality of Northumbrian life was now ours; glamour was no longer on the agenda. 

“Just drop a few names,” said Keith Hann, my ex-RGS schoolfriend who had suggested the column to Brian. 

“Write about all the famous people you’ve slept with.” 

“I haven’t slept…” I protested, then, realising that Keith knew too much, murmured: “Well, they’re not that famous.” 

“Besides, you’ll only stick it for 9 months,” said Brian. “Then you’ll run out of material and start to repeat yourself. All columnists recycle their stories – look at Banksy.” 

Then he added without a hint of irony: “Not that anyone notices, of course.” 

And so it began. Nearly 400 editions and a quarter of a million words later, enough for several bad novels, it’s finally time to sheath the pen. Or, rather, quit the Word folder. For this is my last Monday column. 

As far as I know I haven’t actually repeated a story, and I hope I haven’t breached too many confidences. From Chris Evans to Amy Winehouse, David Dimbleby to Emma Thompson, I know I’ve namedropped for England, but you’ve been terribly polite by not complaining. I’ve written about Boris Johnson and Britain’s Got Talent, Russell Brand and Russell Harty, Simon Cowell and Syria. I’ve followed the recession and the weather, and I’ll always follow Newcastle United. 

But I’ve also taken the opportunity to share some heartfelt thoughts about the North East and how shabbily it is treated by our politicians, our media, and the rest of the population. This is my home, and I am grateful to have been given a platform to voice my support where I’ve felt it might be useful. 

Some characters have appeared more than others. Mum has made 29 appearances, Joanna, now my wife, has 78. But no-one has featured more than Izzy. Our daughter’s first entry was on Fathers’ Day 2008 (admittedly as Ozzy, for we weren’t sure if the newly-discovered embryo was a boy or a girl). Today is her 94th appearance. This chronicle of a little girl’s life through the eyes of an ageing father will one day inspire her to buy up every back issue of The Journal and destroy them. 

Today Izzy turns six and, as part of her birthday present, I have decided to gift her my Sunday mornings. Every Sunday of her life I’ve risen early, imbibed three double espressos, and faced a blank computer screen. Last week, on Boxing Day, we were playing 'Guess Who?' when Izzy started miming someone furiously typing. 

“Who’s that?” I asked. 

“It’s you, Daddy – always writing your article.” 

She’s right: 400 Sunday mornings is a lot of life to lose. So Izzy - this is the last time I tell you I’m busy; and Boots, Truffle and Mabel - Sunday mornings are now for dog-walking. Happy New Year! 

[I’ve hugely enjoyed the experience, and I’ll still be making occasional contributions to the newspaper. 

If you’re interested in reading my Monday columns from the very beginning, click here.  Or please visit this blog from time to time to discover the odd new chapter (or even sign up as a Follower to get alerts).   For now, though, thanks so much for following, and farewell.]

London (almost) Dead - the end of Jeremy Hunt's local TV dream

I hate to say “I told you so,” but I told you so. I’m only surprised that I’m telling you so soon after my last comments here (and here) about what I called Jeremy Hunt’s “crazy initiative for local television”.

Les Misunderstanding

A version of my previous post “How Was It For You? - The Worst New Year Ever” was published on Monday in the Newcastle Journal. On Wednesday the Editor received this letter from a concerned reader: 

Hello Mr Aitken, 

I was quite alarmed to read Tom Gutteridge's New Year article in yesterday's Journal where he openly admitted to watching a video of the new Les Miz film. Alarmed as it is not released in cinemas until Friday so it cannot be a legal copy, and surprised that such a reputable newspaper has published the crime!

A news deal for the North

On Friday I spent the day pitching what I thought were some pretty revolutionary ideas for transforming the content of our local ITV news coverage. It’s a privilege to have been invited to join the consortium of The Journal’s owners and its partners Ten Alps and The Press Association in their bid to win the independently funded news consortium pilot for the North East. I’ve watched the local news here since the first day of Tyne Tees Television and, frankly, I don’t think much has changed in those fifty years. Now we have a chance to do something about it.

This experiment, to be paid for by an unspent part of the BBC licence fee (because what could be more relevant to public service broadcasting than improving our vitally important regional service?) is an opportunity to try out something completely new: England’s first local multi-media news.

There are three million licence payers in our region who currently receive not a single locally produced network programme, so it’s only fair that we should be given the best regional news service. And, as Sir John Hall correctly pointed out in a public meeting on Friday afternoon, over the years we’ve allowed ITV to strip us of virtually all our much-loved local programmes. Now, with the aid of a substantial newspaper resource and a layered multi-platform approach, we could begin to turn the tide.

But first we had to convince the panel, led by former Radio Authority chairman Richard Hooper. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting them: they are not only extremely experienced, but are clearly committed to giving our region something special.

Certainly it’s been a more pleasant experience putting this bid together than the last time I tried for a regional television franchise. That was back in the nineties, when I put my company Mentorn up against the might of Greg Dyke’s London Weekend Television.

We didn’t win, despite fielding a team that included film producers Working Title and media giant Polygram. Greg dubbed us the Groucho Bid, because we planned the whole thing in a tiny room in the London club, toiling for two months with little sleep to produce a document hundreds of pages long. Our final task, 24 hours before the deadline, was the most important: a compulsory 8-page summary, outlining all our plans. It was the first thing the judges would read.

With addled brains, surrounded by a phalanx of lawyers verifying every word, we set about the task. At 1am, one hour before our print deadline, I typed in the last sentence. Everyone in the room applauded and a junior lawyer offered to go and make us all a cup of tea. On his way out he squeezed past the line of chairs and tripped over the cable connected to my laptop. The plug came out; the screen went blank.

We watched frozen as the machine rebooted. Not one word of the summary had been saved. It had taken 24 hours to write and needed to be at the printers within the hour or we’d be disqualified. The young lawyer burst into tears.

In desperation I rang the MD of Polygram to tell him the grim news. He was at a post-premiere party – you could hear champagne corks popping in the background. But this is where, even through an alcoholic haze, the class of a top executive really shows.

“The rules say it must be exactly 8 pages and contain a summary of our entire bid, but does it specify how many words on each page?” “Er, not exactly.”

So, over the phone, he calmly dictated a list of bullet points, each to be typed in large print across the document. It took him just ten minutes to fill 8 pages – and he listed every key fact.

When he finished he wished me goodnight, adding, “This time please don’t forget to save it.”

Follow-up from the last Post

My regular followers (I use the term in its technical, geeky blogspeak sense, not to imply evangelistic fervour) will know that I write a regular column for The Journal, a daily newspaper published in the North East.

Yesterday I told the story (embellished further in the post below) of my encounter with three diet-busting restaurants in the space of one week. What was supposed to be a jocular meander through my culinary guilt turned into a rather mordant, even truculent attack on one of our great northern eating institutions, Seaham Hall's White Room restaurant. I concluded that, despite its Michelin star, it has, quite simply, gone off.

In today's Journal my fellow columnist Keith Hann, who has been the victim of quite a few of my posts in the past, decided to base his column on mine. Here's an extract:

Few things are better calculated to lift the heart on a Monday morning than the emergence of a new North East winner. Though in truth what grabbed my attention in yesterday’s paper was not so much the Government’s carefully stage-managed leak about the expansion at Nissan as the unveiling on this page of our very own Michael Winner, Tom Gutteridge.

First there was his remarkably acerbic restaurant review, closely mirroring Mr Winner’s weekly contributions to the Sunday Times. Part of this at least earned a smug nod of agreement since, not so long ago, when I was lamenting the demise of GNER’s excellent restaurant cars, Tom sent me a spirited defence of the maintained quality and superior convenience of the National Express at-seat service. I was glad to read that he now agrees with me.

Always a generous host, Tom was once kind enough to treat Mrs Hann and me to one of those South Indian meals about which he wrote so enthusiastically yesterday, and it was indeed delicious. However, it seems only fair to add a warning that this cuisine can have less than desirable after-effects for some of us. I struggle to think of a way of describing these without causing offence, but if the “save the planet” cash-in merchants had erected one of their turbines in our vicinity, the Hann family could probably have powered a reasonably sized village for the next 24 hours.

But all this pales into insignificance compared with the statement that Tom is soon to get married wearing a cream suit a size too small for him. Not so much Four Weddings and a Funeral, then, as a comedy remake of Saturday Night Fever with Mel Smith in the title role, in the regrettable absence of Benny Hill. Time to think again, surely. Let me put on record that I am more than willing to lend Tom the black morning coat I bought in John Blades’ retirement sale for my own wedding. This would at least have the virtues of being appropriate wear for an Englishman and just about fitting him.

Now I had hoped that my review have been closer to the style of A.A. Gill than the proudly pompous Mr Winner. Michael once invited me for lunch at his favourite restaurant: some steak and oyster place in a smart street. I'm glad he paid, because it's certainly not my kind of food.

Behind the bluster I find Winner quite a jolly chap. However, I wonder why he mentions his money all the time, which he does, even with other wealthy people, at every opportunity. What innate insecurity makes a man presumably perfectly comfortable in his own wealth boast incessantly about the size of his mansion? Presumably his inability to take himself any more seriously than his readers is a virtue - it probably equates to a kind of perverse modesty. Maybe deep down lies a lonely, vulnerable man. But the success (or perserverance) of Winner's Sunday Times column is at least something to aspire to.

Not Benny Hill's dress sense, though. How can I politely tell Mr Hann that I would no more wear his morning coat to a wedding in 90 degree heat in California than I would go naked to the Savoy? Even if Mr Winner joined me. In my cream suit I suspect I shall be somewhat overdressed. Besides, I could always have worn my own morning coat, complete with tails and gold lining, which I purchased for my last wedding. I suppose I should have dusted it down and joined the other penguins at Keith's own wedding, which I described in detail in one of my earlier posts. But I was afraid the suit might have brought him bad luck -- my own marriage ended after just a couple of months, making it a very expensive bit of schmutter indeed. Besides, the new and last Mrs Gutteridge knows I carry far too much baggage with me already than to add to the load with a piece of old-fashioned, fusty clothing I know she would utterly detest. Rightly.