BEATEN TO THE LAUNCH

AS this newspaper passes away and a new one is in gestation just a week before delivery, we’re beaten to the punch by the launch of The Herald this Thursday. It’s what Donald Trump would call a fake newspaper. It features in a new six-part BBC drama, Press, as a stately broadsheet, sharing the building with its sleazy tabloid sister called The Post, set in the internet age. It’s written by the screenwriter of the lauded Doctor Foster. There’s violence, sexual infidelity, illegal drug-taking, petty jealousies, bullying, duplicity and bribery – and I guess that will feature in the fictional Herald too.

Actually, newspapers have changed out of all recognition from the rumbustious, hard-drinking, highly-competitive, brawling, character-filled days before 24-hour news and social media mauled circulation and advertising revenues. But these days are something the one-time, short-lived editor of the Daily Mirror, Roy Greenslade, knows about. He’s the editorial adviser on Press, as well as being a journalism professor, and Roy has gone through his own highly-dramatic reinvention. I remember him as a Red Book carrying Maoist, a member of the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) which backed China in the spit with the Soviet Union and then Albania’s despot Enver Hoxha. Greenslade used to stupefy NUJ meetings and conferences with his quotes from the chairman and calls for class warfare, but while Mao anticipated Twitter by keeping his pronouncements to under 140 words Roy was under no such stricture. Later he moved rightwards and, for a time, became Alastair Campbell’s best pal. None of which will feature in the new show.

RAIL LINES AND SICK NOTES

SOME ScotRail services were disrupted on Thursday because of an unexpected rash of illnesses to staff. Unexpected? Just check the fixture list. Celtic and Rangers were both playing in the Europa League. Could it be true? Unexpected becoming expected with crucial staff taking sickies to watch the games? Only the travelling public suffered and, whatever the reason for the mysterious bout of lurgy, no doubt the company management and the RMT union will have nothing to say about the inconvenience.

FAIR SCUNNERED

BETFAIR? It’s a breach of the Trade Descriptions Act. I like the occasional wager, it makes TV sport more interesting as well as politics, but all in moderation of course. I’ve done it online through Betfair for the last eight years or so. No longer. A few days ago, with my account in credit I tried to put on a bet – which would have netted me £150,000, or so my lawyers will argue – and got the message that the account was suspended. There had been no warning, no email, letter, call or carrier pigeon.

The woman on the phone couldn’t tell me why but insisted that I now had to provide photo ID, proof of address as well as funding. Being a curmudgeon I refused, and said just close the account and put my winnings into the bank account from which I’ve always deposited money. She said she would. But of course it didn’t happen. So I called again a few days later and asked where my cash was, to be told I couldn’t get my own money back until I had sent them a scan of my passport, the deeds of my house, the details of my bank account so they could verify I had money, as well as a DNA sample. I exaggerate, but only slightly.

Now some might think that providing sensitive and potentially usable information to a company is fine, but not me. It’s my money and I want it. I serve notice on Betfair that I shall be referring this to the Gambling Commission, taking them to the small claims court (it isn’t all that much money) and launching a judicial review on their practices. I will, of course, be crowdfunding that.

DYING TO REPRESENT YOU

YOU wouldn’t think lawyers would need second jobs (stop girning about legal aid rates, please!) but some of them certainly do, from driving lorries to opening restaurants, none more bizarrely than Glasgow lawyer Stephen Fox, who defends people during the week and buries them at the weekend. He’s a partner in undertakers Malone and Fox which has three places in the city. Well, the competition is stiff!

BOOM AND BUST

EARLY last week I was in court to hear the eloquent QC Gary Allan, a man who has been called one of the finest legal brains in Scotland. In 2012 he was one of a three-man panel which imposed a transfer ban and a substantial fine on Rangers, then in administration. The panel members were supposed to be kept secret but after then-manager Ally McCoist demanded to know their names, and in the fervid atmosphere, they were leaked. Allan then received credible death threats. Just weeks later, of course, Rangers went bust and a couple of years later Allan went the same way and declared himself bankrupt with debts of more than £200,000. Ironic, although I doubt Gary finds it so.

WILLIE’S A RIGHT CARD

WILLIE Collum is a religious education teacher, which is fine. He’s also a football referee, which is not. He’s a card sharp, whipping them out like he’s playing the crowd at a conjuring convention. He was at it at Rugby Park last Saturday when he precipitately sent Kilmarnock’s Gary Dicker off and ruined what was left of a dire game – and if he does the same in the Old Firm clash today there could be mayhem.

I’ve counted the cards over the last five seasons and Collum – excluding this one – has sent off 60 players and booked over 700, brandishing a card roughly every 20 minutes per game. Hearts, who were the beneficiaries of the red card last weekend, even muttered three seasons back that he wasn’t just incompetent he was biased against them, so perhaps he was just rebalancing?

But thank goodness we don’t have the Italian sanctions system or, believe me, there wouldn’t be a player on the park by half-time if teacher Willie was in charge. The Udinese midfielder Rolando Mandragora has just been given a one-game ban for – not going over the ball, play acting or preventing a goal-scoring opportunity – but blasphemy! He was caught on camera mouthing to himself “Dio cane”, which is literally, “God is a dog”, but perhaps better translates to something like “Jesus f*****g Christ”. Willie just wouldn’t be having that.

AND FINALLY ...

ANDREW Jaspan, the founding father of this newspaper, writes elsewhere in these pages. But I’m sure he won’t be mentioning the time when, cycling home in Edinburgh, someone driving past hit him slap in the coupon with a fish supper. Or the night when he was locked in the loo for four hours calling for help (I deny any responsibility). He was a brilliant and fastidious editor, although exasperating at times, as all the good ones are. I was there at the launch of the paper and now at its end. The feeling of sadness, and there certainly is that, is overwhelmed by all of the great memories.

The paper launched on a dreich February 7, 1999, from the old Express building, the Northern Lubyanka in Glasgow’s Albion Street, where I had worked in a previous life. We all had those new-fangled iMacs, the bulbous blue ones, on our desks and somehow it all worked. Sitting in the chair next to me was the polymath and chanter Pat Kane, although I can’t recall him ever giving us a song. I’ll stop before it gets maudlin. It’s been marvellous. It really has. But on with the future.