Friday, November 28, 2008

[private eye] in this edition


I don't know when Private Eye actually hits the news stands but I usually pick up my copy every second Friday. In this edition, the bit I liked best was Just Fancy That!

Drivers who challenge speeding fines should have to pay their legal costs, even if they win. So says Justice Minister Lord Bach, likening people who hire lawyers in lower courts to 'parents who pay for private education'. [Lord Bach is an alumnus of Westminster School.]

Glancing over the Hislop story, these were amusing:

In 1986, when Ingrams declared that Hislop would succeed him, there was apoplexy. Nigel Dempster, who wrote gossip items, said: "I don't think people like midgets, especially pushy midgets." Did Hislop finally earn his critics' respect? "No," he says simply. "I sacked most of them." Piers Morgan famously [once] denounced him as a "moon-faced little midget".

The other side of him:

When there are no cameras around, Ian Hislop wears black-rimmed glasses rather than contact lenses. And in between series of Have I Got News For You he sometimes grows a full-set beard – Naval in style and grey in colour. There is a difference, then, between his public and private identity.

To get the measure of Ian Hislop, you need look no further than the magazine he edits: part funny, part serious, highly judgmental and quite moralistic. For his own part he describes himself as "easily bored".

2 comments:

  1. He was extremely popular at school as I recall and clearly destined for fame or greatness. Also as head boy he was greatly admired for his prowess on the cricket field, despite his stature.

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  2. That is a nice profile of him.

    It comes out on Thursdays, I am often tasked with getting as soon as it hits the news stands.

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