AMONG those Channel 5 documentaries with titles like "My Name's Dave And I'm Six Months Pregnant" and "I Tattooed a Swastika On My Baby's Face", there are occasionally programmes on hoarders.
Now, hoarders are those obsessive compulsive types who would keep quite a tidy house were it not for the quarter-of-a-million newspapers stacked floor to ceiling high in the living room, blocking all the natural light. Hoarders say they will have the big clear-out as soon as they've catalogued and indexed all those Daily Telegraphs they've saved since 1976. In the meantime, could you just excuse them for two hours while they crawl through a gap in the papers to reach the toilet?
Journalists are low-level hoarders. Empty coffee cups and old newspapers in the car are a speciality. Emails are also especially well-suited to being tossed aside and dealt with later. Typing this, there's a number on the left of the computer screen. It's the only thing that's in red and it looks angry, or at the very least a bit naggy. It's showing that the inbox has 1653 emails, and that's only the ones which haven't been read yet. There's another wee number down in the bottom of the screen: 23,574. That's so big it would have to be spelled out on the Grandstand videoprinter: TWENTY THREE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FOUR. It's the sort of number which makes you avoid eye contact with the IT guys. Half of them must be emails saying there are too many emails.
Anyone who writes a column on Scottish football looks at their emails with the wariness of someone checking their dog's poo to find a swallowed wedding ring. Bigotry, the big tax case, EBTs, cheating, the IRA, liquidation, new club/old club . . . all the classics have stirred folk up over the years. Going through this email Everest confirms that nothing beats an angry reader. Messages that arrive in a coloured typeface - especially green or red - instantly let you know you're in for it. Thoughtful and pleasant feedback is a joy and mercifully there is plenty of that from you enlightened Herald readers. But, truth be told, getting stick is better for staff morale; it gives the rest of the office a right good laugh.
For years, one regular admirer has started every email by hitting the caps lock. "ATTENTION: MR MICHAEL GRANT CHIEF FOOTBALL WRITER THE HERALD GLASGOW SCOTLAND". In four consecutive messages he had me as "chief football writer", "chief sports writer", "senior football writer" and "senior sports writer", a series of promotions and demotions the Herald management must have told him about, but not me. Every message barked me awake with "ATTENTION". Every opening sentence got straight to the point. "Dear Mr. Grant. I read your above article on the Rangers International Football Club PLC or whatever they call themselves." "Dear Mr. Grant. I see that the Evening Times had no mention of the 45th anniversary of Celtic winning the European Cup on their webpage today." "Dear Mr. Grant. Don't you think it is about time this whole FIASCO on the Rangers Football Club comes to an end soon? Not only are you the Chief Football Writer of The Herald I think you are a diehard Rangers fan."
Never clearing the inbox shows that his first message was in 2004, the most recent two months ago. Apparently Thomas Kelly Donnelly emails other football writers too, but he's by far my favourite. After years of his entertaining but relentless criticism (I gave up replying years ago) a message arrived one day which said: "Dear Mr Grant. Would you please pass this e-mail on to Mr Chris Jack at your news organization, I have tried to e-mail it to him but it keeps getting knocked back. Thanking you."
Craig Whyte once phoned the sports editor to describe one column as "complete pish". Such inappropriate language for The Herald. Dermot Desmond had more class, sending a letter in 2001. "Dear Mr Grant. Thank you for your letter. I appreciate your interest but regret that I have no wish to be interviewed for your newspaper or indeed any other newspaper. Yours, sincerely..." He's been true to his word, to be fair. Abuse comes with the territory but there's no hiding place when a reader points out some imprecise use of language or grammatical error. Herald readers have their standards, no matter how hard some of us have lowered them.
Anyway, there is sort of a point to all this. After 16 years at The Sunday Herald and The Herald this is the farewell column. It's time to leave and see what the quality of reader feedback is like somewhere else. For the last few years myself and the golf correspondent - the poor soul who fills the back page column every Tuesday - have exchanged haunted looks at the end of every week. "You got a column idea yet?" "Nope." "Please God let something happen over the weekend." "Why do they need a column every single week?" Somehow we limp through to that moment when the word counts clicks up to 900 and it's done for another week, or in this case for the last time. The best part of every Monday column is the three words which appear underneath it: Tomorrow, Nick Rodger.
In the meantime, ATTENTION . . . and all the best.
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