Some plugs for A.I

Apologies for continuing to bang the AI drum, but here is a piece I wrote for the current edition of Press Gazette as a follow up to the sponsorship of Interviewer of the Year at the BPA by Access Interviews.

And here is a piece for The Independent last month about the continuing importance of the 'interview' to the promotion of all genres of modern media.

All this is part of my on-going mission to spread the good word about the website.

Prescott's money sewer

I note - with no real sense of sympathy - that John Prescott has revealed he was bulimic. This comes a few weeks after the release of details of MP's expenses showed that he munched through a gut-busting £4,000 of groceries in one year.

So, in summary, Prescott threw (up) tax payers' money quite literally down the toilet.

Hmmm, shame. If only the Government had known at the time, it could have cut out the bloated middle man altogether and simply thrown a pile of cash down a sewer.

Lineker is no Master

Daft really, to reach out like this, but I have just tuned into one of my favourite events on the sporting calendar - the Masters golf from Augusta - and I am irate enough to react with an angry blog. I had forgotten who is the host these days. Gary bloody Lineker.

Quite simply, he does NOT fit this event.

I felt it in my gut last year. I even reached for the blog back then. There has been much press about Midlands accents of late. Well, I for one don't want one talking me through this golf tournament. Every time he says "Masstas" I want to club him. I can't be alone.

Thankfully, I will be on holiday tomorrow and will miss the Masters this year. The only consolation is that I won't have to watch Lineker at the helm.

Steve Rider get yer bouffant back 'ere.

Tebbit, you're havin' a laugh

I nearly just choked on my morning pastry a moment ago after reading Norman Tebbit's intro' in his article for today's Daily Mail about Spitting Image. He says, most proudly - to no doubt show us that he has a sense of humour and is one of the lads who can take a wind up - that he liked his puppet. Yeah, rght.

Those of you with the girth and grey hairs of age will recall that he was portrayed most unfavourably as a dark-eyed, brutal henchman - Thatcher's heartless enforcer.

I appreciate that this is not a matter of State importance, but I am highly irritated by Tebbit's assertion and hereby accuse my Lord of telling a big fat porky. But how do I know?

My first celebrity interview was with Jeffrey Archer in 1986 when I was a reporter on the Wimbledon News. Our conversation turned to Spitting Image and he said firmly: "I can tell you - but this must be off the record - that one person who is most hurt by his puppet is Norman Tebbit. He doesn't like it at all."

Being a wide-eyed beginner I was quite emboldened by the fact that Archer had trusted me with something (at the time) so potentially newsworthy, albeit off the record. I faithfully guarded it for 20 odd years (as if it was worth it, eh).

Despite the fact that dear Jeffrey went on to become something of a world class fibber himself, I have no reason to doubt his account. Hence, this needs to be said: Norman Tebbit hated his puppet and it is no laughing matter that he should pretend otherwise in a family newspaper for filthy lucre.

These politicians, eh, they simply can't break a habit of a lifetime.