The salt of another earth

IT was the second shock of the evening and it rocked the building. The first was the resignation of Fabio Capello as England manager. That caught everyone on the hop.

But we rallied instantly and ripped apart the Front Page. The previous splash – a story about more deep cuts at Nitherley Borough Council – was relegated to Page 7 to allow Capello’s face to glare gloomily beneath a banner headline that said CAPELLO OUT: REDKNAPP IN?

The page was finished for 10.30pm. We sat drinking coffee and watching the press reviews on Sky News, unaware that an even greater quake was about to shake us from our chairs and dislodge ceiling tiles.

One by one the front pages of the nationals were held up to the camera. Capello was there, his spectacles glinting, his downfall sudden and complete. Then came the surge of magma that cracked the walls – the Daily Express’ splash headline:

8 INCHES OF SNOW IN NEXT 24 HOURS

Editor: “Jesus fucking Christ. What the fuck are they on at the Daily Express?”

Leek Man: “Another fucking planet, that’s what.”

Big Bernard: “It’s fucking winter. It fucking snows in winter. That’s not news.”

Deputy Editor: “Absolutely splendid. Another bizarre Daily Express weather-related front page for my burgeoning collection of bizarre Daily Express weather-related front pages.”

That was last night. The world has recovered and the tectonic plates finally settled. I rise mid-morning, and after breakfast glance at the online version of the Express, just out of curiosity. The intro reads:

BRITAIN is braced for up to eight inches of snow today as temperatures fall to -15C.

I glance out of the window. It’s raining softly here in the North-East and feels quite mild. I might do a spot of gardening. But the second paragraph leaves me scratching my head.

It will be so cold that even the salt spread by gritters may not work.

A strange use of words. Does salt work? Can it be broken or malfunction? Would you return a packet to the supermarket and say: “I’m sorry – but this salt doesn’t work”? Perhaps the Leek Man is right. They’re on another planet at the Daily Express. A very cold one. Where the salt doesn’t work.

Going out of style

IT’S late at night and the office is empty. I’m waiting for a phone call from a man eighty miles away who, I hope, is going to tell me he’s received all the pages for tomorrow’s edition of the Nitherley Observer and Bugle and his press is rolling. Then I can go home and sleep.

I’m browsing the internet and have landed on a site called Grammar Party. It’s a blog about the finer points and intricacies of the English language, written by a young woman who is obviously passionate about the subject. She’s just uploaded a piece called Titles of works: italics or quotation marks. She delves into the Chicago Manual of Style and The Associated Press Style Book.

When you care about words, how sentences are constructed, how to get your message across with clarity and accuracy, you read stuff like this. It reassures you. It touches a nerve in your brain that warms your body because the realisation dawns that there are other people in this world – perhaps thousands of miles away – who share your concerns. So I read her piece as I wait for my phone call.

Then I leaf through this morning’s paper, and in a story about illegal travellers’ sites notice the word Gypsy spelt in two different ways. And I recall a conversation from the previous evening.

Trout Man: “I say, how do we spell Gypsy these days? Dashed if I can remember.”

Mrs Strop: “Upper case G with a Y.”

Trout Man: “Could have sworn it was lower case G with an I.”

Mrs Strop: “No, it’s upper case G with a Y. They facking changed it.”

Trout Man: “Gosh. Just as well I asked. Things do reinvent themselves rather rapidly these days. Can’t keep up.”

There was a time when we adhered, with an almost religious fervour, to the Westminster Press Style Book, as did most British regional newspapers. Style was upheld, it was the identity that shaped your product, a benchmark of quality – and it was enforced by an angry man with an em-rule who barked across the office if you inadvertently spelt “advisor” with an E instead of an O.

Now style has become a casualty of the headlong race for the digital Holy Grail. It’s lying in a ditch at the side of a road while people who don’t give a toss about the English language upload badly-written copy onto newspaper websites in the unproven belief they are the vanguard of the future.

Meanwhile, people like me – sitting in an empty office while the rest of the world sleeps – are being made redundant in their hundreds, while clinging stubbornly to the certainty that readers don’t just want a stream of real-time information, they want quality, an experience, and reassurance that values still exist and are zealously defended.

The phone rings and a man says: “Wi hev aaahl yer pages, marra. Divvent hing aboot. Get yersel hyem.”

The English language: it bends and it flexes, it plunges and soars – it binds and enlightens. I switch off the lights and walk through a dark and empty newspaper office, comforted by the knowledge there are tiny beacons of hope all around the world.