---

---

It must be true, it was in the papers
- but check the date

Now you see it, now you don't: the lamington cake in Smythe's watercolour is missing from Steele's

Tuesday 1 April 2014

Have you noticed how names sometimes suddenly come into vogue and then vanish? Not only the exotic Divine Poppy Pumpernickels, but also the old favourites. There used to be Johns all over Wesminster - Major, Smith, Reid, Prescott - and Michaels - Foot, Howard, Heseltine, Fabricant. Now they've disappeared (oh yes, there is one left) and we're in the era of Eds and Nigels.

Another name that has appeared from nowhere is Avril. It is the 2,095th most popular name in Britain, which means it's not popular at all. Only 13 babies were given the name in 2012. Yet this morning, she is everywhere: commenting on the possibility of fracking in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, on the design of a new Union Flag without the Saltire, and on inquiries from the UN for a block booking at her guesthouse in September. 

Flora (404th most popular with 116 baby registrations in 2012) is also having a good day, with bylines in both the Express - Flora Pilo on a story about square eggs - and Flora Poli in the Telegraph for a picture caption of the new Scottish £1 coin.
The papers seem finally to have woken up to the fact that the Scottish referendum is only just round the corner. Apart from the Telegraph's Alexander Salmond £1 and the Mail's red and white flag, we learn from the Independent that the UN is preparing to send a purple-bereted peacekeeping force (UNPPICT) to Hadrian's Wall in case of trouble after the vote.

---

The Times has  discovered a pretender to the Scottish throne - a German archduke renowned for wearing a kilt over his lederhosen - and the Guardian reports on a huge operation to enable the Scots to switch to driving on the right overnight, as happened in Sweden. Not only that, but nationalists are apparently planning to rename their motorways S roads and have the signage ready, using a new font called Proclaimer.

All this may, of course, have something to do with the date. Paolo Frils has been doing a shift on the Mirror, reporting on Un Direction - a ruling that if the 1D lads want to go to North Korea (why would they?) they will be admitted only if they have their hair cut like the mini Dear Leader. Oli Polfar meanwhile reports in the i that the Royal Mint is to produce a 30p coin - which just happens to be the price of that newspaper. In Australia the Guardian's Olaf Priol caused a stir by producing "proof" that Queensland's beloved lamington cake was actually invented in New Zealand.

There is a gulf between good, ok and slapdash journalism on March 31, just as there is on any other night when newspapers are being put together.
If you approach your story with conviction and involve all appropriate departments you will end up with a much better package than if you just ask a reporter to "bash this out".  
Pictures and graphics are essential, the writing needs to be stylish and, as with all good reporting, avoid clichés and lame puns. Positioning is key. SubScribe  is surprised that the Mail chose to put this exclusive on a lefthander - page 8 - as it's clearly got the whole story sewn up:

---

Undercover pictures taken at Flagmakers of Chesham, Buckinghamshire, show a red and white design exactly as described on the Downing Street papers. 
Manufacture is going ahead despite the fact that no vote will be held on Scottish independence until September 18, and no decision has been made in Scotland yet on whether to keep the Union Jack or use only the Scottish Saltire. 
Machine-room workers at Flagmakers are believed to have produced hundreds of Scot-free versions and are confident they can meet demand if necessary. 
Changing the flag would require both political and royal approval. It is understood the Downing Street strategy maps out a timeline to include liaising with Buckingham Palace.

The Sun was also concerned with Buckingham Palace - and its energy-producing prospects. With its usual larky approach, the Queen becomes ER Ewing, complete with stetson, on page 5. 
The Sun's page 3 is, of course, always occupied, so this was the best show Her Maj could expect.  The Mirror was, however, happy to place Paolo's 1D story at the bottom of page 3, and the people scrambling for Flora's square eggs found a similar berth in the Express.

Tom Whipple's Holy Grail story in the Times also had page 3 written all over it.  This was just the sort of piece that has readers double-checking the date, so preposterous was the idea of pilgrims trooping to an out-of-the-way little Spanish museum to see a fancy glass goblet. And what was all that stuff on Tunbridge Wells and Waitrose? That must  have been a spoof? 
The putative King of Scotland  was sensibly placed as a single on page 9, alongside a photograph of our own dear Queen. Such a pity, though, that they didn't have a picture of Ferdi in his kilt and lederhosen. 
The Times has generally stood aloof from the fanciful stories that appear at this time of year, but there is one to make the reader pause at the foot of page 9. Murad Ahmed reports that Apple is working on a transparent smartphone so that obsessive texters can tap away while they walk without tripping over. Oh do come on! We weren't born yesterday.

---

Back to the serious issue of Scotland, Bruce Roberts on the Guardian's page 5 shows how far advanced are the plans for the aftermath of  a Yes vote. Some 58,000 road signs will be scrapped and there is even talk of renumbering the roads at the same time as the M and A roads are redesignated as S (for Scotland) and N (for nationalist).

---

Independence strategists are believed to have sought advice on the plan from Stirling University professor transport semiotics, Lana Gocaireachd. 
'It's exciting, it gives us a clear difference from the English and is a tangible manifestation of a new, vibrant and independent nation,' said one official close to the scheme. 'A more conscious uncoupling, perhaps.'
Speaking on condition of anonymity, he revealed that if the proposals were to swing the needle towards the yes camp then the next stage would be revealed: switch driving from on the left of the road to the right - on the first day of independence in 2017.

Roberts goes on to explain that transport planners have been drawing up plans for a series of spiral interchanges at the main border nodes. These will move drivers to the correct side of the road, whether going north or south, to avoid cross-border crashes that would be "a PR disaster worse than horsemeat haggis".

The Guardian's reporters are certainly on song. Down Under, Wikipedia had to update its entry for lamington - a confection of cake, chocolate and coconut - after Olaf Priol produced incontrovertible proof that the cake originated in New Zealand, where it was known as a Wellington. The proof came in the form of a painting by the 19th century watercolourist J.R. Smythe. His 1888 work Summer Pantry clearly shows the cake in the foreground, predating the earliest previous record of 1902. 

The cake was reportedly named after Lord Lamington, who was governor of Queensland at the turn of the last century, but Auckland University researchers have apparently discovered an old newspaper cutting from his Lordship's visit to Wellington in 1895, when he was said to have been "much taken with the local sweets provided him by local bakers AR Levin".

---

Among those sweets, the article states, was a Wellington – a double sponge dessert, dressed in shavings of coconut intended to imitate the snow capped mountains of New Zealand.”
Dr Arun Silva of the centre for academic knowledge, excellence and study at the University of Auckland, said the news clipping and Smythe watercolour made it “inconceivable” that the Lamington was an Australian invention.
What we have here is conclusive evidence that the Lamington cake was in fact a product of New Zealand. The documentation of Lamington’s visit and the pictorial evidence in the watercolour prove it without a doubt.

Such assertions are bound to arouse neighbourly rivalry, and Australian readers of the Guardian's website were horrified, going to any lengths to reclaim ownership of the coconut bun. One declared that it was time to move to a war footing, another suspected it was a Putin plot to distract attention from Crimea. A third went so far as to provide a link to a photoshopped version of the Smythe painting, in which the cake has disappeared from the plate, and attributing the work to one Louis John Steele. 

The Guardian should be used to this, for its reports from the Antipodes have long  been met with scepticism. Take its special report on the twin Indian Ocean islands of San Serriffe - which bear  more than a passing resemblance to New Zealand - in 1977. 

This was the most thoroughly researched piece of journalism, displayed across an eight-page broadsheet supplement (if only SubScribe had not lost the office copy), full of detail about the topography, geology and geography of Caissa Superiore (Upper Caisse) and Caissa Inferiore (Lower Caisse). 
The supplement told us everything we could wish to know about the major towns, Bodoni, Villa Pica and Garamondo, the peaks of Mt Flong, the southernmost tip Thirty Point, and the little offshore islet Ova Mata.

Maybe there is something in the spring air that brings out the best of investigative journalists at the beginning of April. Look at the BBC, for example, and its explanation of how spaghetti found its way into those long blue paper wrappers back in 1957. Until then, we really had no idea where it came from. We were a pretty insular society and for most of us spaghetti came in red sauce in tins with 57 on the front; the long white stuff being foreign and largely unobtainable. Then along came Panorama with its enlightening harvest documentary and we never looked back.

Even sports reporters come into form at this time of year - the anticipation of the end of the Premiership season and all those cup finals stir them into a buzz of creativity. This morning the Star ran a story on the front page about Manchester United planning to sell the naming rights of Old Trafford to Nike for £500m.
Like the Holy Grail story, this was plainly bonkers. Then there was the one at the top of the Mirror about a replica England World Cup replica shirt costing £90. Honestly, you expect something better of the Mirror. Who's going to believe that? You might as well put up a story online about six-legged lambs.

The strangest thing is that the best football story of the day didn't even make it into print. We know that the Express was unlikely to be deflected from the seven-a-day-makes-you-live-forever lead, but this was an exclusive that really should have been given some welly. Yet it didn't even make the sports pages of the newsprint edition, appearing only online. If SubScribe were the editor of the Express, it would have been the splash. The fruit and veg could have displaced that nonsense about square eggs, and bob's your uncle. Here is James Dickenson's masterpiece, with every fact in place, every figure adding up. Definitely the pick of the day:

---

Spurs have shelved plans to build a new stadium to replace White Hart Lane and will instead move in with their local foes.
Arsenal agreed to the stunning collaboration after crunch talks with Spurs chairman Daniel Levy.
It is thought that Levy - acting alone - met with as many as 10 Arsenal officials for a series of negotiations before sealing the deal.

Dickenson explains that Levy's focus switched after a number of setbacks for the plans to redevelop White Hart Lane. Arsenal were also disappointed that they had failed to win approval for a hotel development at the Emirates, so agreed to the £40m a year deal. 
That will give Arsene Wenger a war-chest to buy new players and Tim Sherwood will also be able to venture into the transfer market now that the club won't have to spend £400m on the new stadium. Dickenson says supporters were expected to be against the plan - and especially  the idea  of the red seats turning blue every other week - but that they might come round if it gave their clubs a better chance of winning something to put in the empty Emirates trophy cabinet.
 At least the most important person is on board:

It is understood Wenger was heavily involved in the talks and even made a personal call to Levy from a London telephone box to ensure the move went through and Arsenal secured their annual payment

The ways of the Express have always baffled SubScribe, but this blinder beats everything. What editor with a story like that in his or her hand would fail to put it into print?
James Dickenson, you wuz robbed.

The Panorama spaghetti harvest of '57. Photograph: BBC

---

---

comments powered by Disqus

---

Please sign up for SubScribe updates  
(no spam, no more than one every week or two)