Those of you in the know – by which I naturally discount any non-Indonesians with the word “Java” on their CVs – will be aware that Beijing has hosted an event long-predicted, not without controversy and of which many were sceptical of its ultimate viability and veracity.

Yes, dear reader, I have quit the wonderful world of teaching idioms to oriental teenagers and returned to the far plusher groves of journalism.

I have finally despaired of working with barely-literate adolescents with hygiene problems and an inability to turn up to class on time。 Yeah, but that’s (nearly) enough about my fellow TEFL teachers – many of whom would have been better suited to becoming residents of little-lamented Brookside Close where I could have gleaned their guilty secrets at the right end of a cathode ray tube rather than having to share a staff room with the buggers.

Martin: making a guest appearance later

So now I’m getting to sample business journalism, Chinese style. An interesting difference that struck me on my first day was the fingerprint recognition system that obliges you to digitally clock in and out each day.

Perhaps significantly it scans two fingers rather than one – presumably on the basis that work-shy Chinese journos might lop off one finger for a few extra hours in bed, but would draw the line at two. I suspect any attempt to introduce such a system to UK journos would also involve matters dual digit-ary…

Aside from my decampment from academia-dom, the other rather prominent item of newsworthiness is of course the arrival of legions of ill-garbed ruddy-faced white boys and their fat wives who are now cluttering up our spangly new subway system, whilst looking up the Chinese for “velodrome".

There are also one or two ill-advised gangly American teenagers annoying our loveable Chinese beat bobbies (of which there are, admittedly, quite a few) by unfurling ostentatious “Freedom for Tibet” banners in the now largely tank-free Tiananmen. Presumably return fares from the States to Beijing are cheaper than those to Baghdad, Grenada or Guantanamo．

I suspect whoever has been advising the CCP (the Chinese Communist Party for the acronym-ically challenged among you) on PR may not be asked to re-pitch for the business. This normally laid-back city has gone security-mad –with spot checks on foreigners, the mandatory-closure of the da pai dans (outside drinking and barbecue areas), the x-raying of all luggage on the subway and an enormous upsurge in uniformed ubiquity.

"Left past the shops, you can't miss it."

In perhaps typical Chinese fashion, the subway luggage x-raying brigade knock off at 7pm – but, fortunately, the Sarin gas-wielding terrorists (that they are presumably protecting us from) don’t seem to have an evening shift either.

Other changes are more subtle… Prior to the world’s focus shifting to the GMT+8 time zone, the CCP initiated a mass re-education programme to promote English literacy in the city. It also arranged for all of the city’s many beggars, petty criminals, drug-dealers and good time girls to be “involuntarily re-located” far from the lenses of the world’s media.

Incidentally, it is believed that the LCC planned a similar initiative for Merseyside, but the logistics proved overwhelming.

Going for Gold? No just Going for Good This Time! ( well hopefully…)

I am sure that many,  however, are more than happy that my return to journalism has not marked a return to the North West, not that the region seems short of publishing opportunities as the pages of How-Do have paid just tribute to of late…

Take those lovable rogues over at The Magazine. Those cooky chicks seem completely unfazed by the fact that they go down more regularly than an ambitious young display exec with 12 pages to fill on deadline day.

Many would be embarrassed by being involved with more re-launches than, say, the lifeboat crew on Stevie Wonder’s World of Glacier’s “Just say ‘no’ to Radar” International Titanic Anniversary Booze Cruise and Grill, but not these plucky Alvaston Angels.

Lovable rogues?

However, I thoroughly expect to be taking the piss out of their latest faltering incarnation come the Autumn. In fact I suggest that any putative How-Do year planner features The Magazine’s quarterly relaunches in a hefty font size in bold.

This will at least allow the printers, freelancers and photographers unwise enough to be involved in the project to adjust their financial projections well in advance.

Love Me Tenderer…

Another date I’d suggest for our ubiquitous How-Do wall planner would be September 1st – the deadline for applications to be the editor of the NWDA’s 315 magazine.

Not only is the tender document wholly inappropriate – just how many would-be journos walk around with ￡5m worth of professional indemnity cover to their name? – but the whole think smacks of the characteristic bone idleness of largely unaccountable employees of quangos with no real bottom line.

In the Real World, whoever prepared this tender document would be in line for a Real Bollocking. Instead of spending time customizing the tender document for the individual requirements of the position, whichever f***wit was charged with responsibility for recruiting for this position merely cannibalized the standard tender document, regardless of its singular inappropriateness – and – with the risk of going all Littlejohn here – you’re paying for this.

1) Tenderers(sic) will be expected to use unduly large photographs of ethnic minorities, unattractive women in senior roles and the disabled. This will be regardless of editorial content or merit and merely to display the NWDA’s ongoing commitment to tokenism.

2) A commitment to providing interesting headlines or pull-out quotes is to be discouraged. Tenderers should take 72pt headlines from the June edition such as “Agency unveils ERDF programme” and “Thrill seekers head for Cumbria” as the benchmark. A special one-off investiture payment will be made to the successful tenderer who can provide a duller and less comprehensible pull out quote than: “Manchester Stands Out As The Most Important Capacity Constrain Across The North’s Rail Network.”

3) Any candidate who can demonstrate an understanding as to the role of this publication and its value to the region aside from letting the Chairman’s mum see a photograph of him above a ghosted column with gratuitous use of words such as “transformational” and “sub-national” is clearly bonkers and can, therefore, start straight away.

4) Undue precedence should be given to any story regarding a present, past or future employee of the NWDA and its affiliate bodies moving from sinecure to sinecure.

5) Knowledge of grammar and syntax is strictly optional, however serious candidates must demonstrate the capacity not to become visibly vexed and nauseous when asked to include the phrase “englandsnorthwest” with irritating frequency in the publication.

Just say: “Noooooooooooooooooooooo!”

Nostalgia time now and those of you of a cinematic bent will know that a very special occasion is almost upon us – Saturday 23rd of August has been officially recognized by the World Comedy Foundation and the Institute of Entertainment League for Dodgy Statistics as the 25th anniversary of the last time anyone laughed out loud at a Steve Martin movie.

Yes this historic half-chuckle took place a quarter of a century ago on a wet Thursday in seat G37 at the former Odeon Cinema Washway Road in Sale during a screening of The Man With Two Brains.

I believe a blue plaque is scheduled to be installed there in what is now the ladies showering area of an a LA Fitness Centre – at least that is what you can tell “the Beak” you were looking for when you find yourself unaccountably up before him.

Probably not Steve Martin fans

There is a scene in the aforementioned movie when Steve Martin, playing recently a recently bereaved brain surgeon, prays to his dead wife for a sign as to whether he should marry the new love in his life – on cue a gale force wind, hits the room, his dead wife’s portrait whirls round and round, the candles blow out and a disembodied voice wails “Noooooooooooooooo!”

Quite apart from the thinking (or lack thereof) behind the concept and the distinctly lackluster dummy they’ve put on-line, you have to ask, what with portents like magazines going to the wall, cutbacks across the board in advertising spend and newspaper groups planning compulsory redundancies, why was there no voice wailing “Noooooooooooooooooo!” in the Ampersand boardroom when this fantastically coffer-emptying non-idea was first bandied forth?

Ampersanders - if you really have so much cash you desperately want to dispense with, then why not send it to Manchester Radio On-line, c/o James Stannage and allow him to purchase a new CD to complement the only three tunes the ad-free internet station has so far deigned to buy him (“I Am the Resurrection”, “How Soon is Now?” and One-that- I-don’t-recognize-but-sounds- a-bit-like-a-Verve-b-side)

Alternatively they could send their cash to Wilmington Publishing, owners of the Press Gazette – who have just announced that after 43 years as a weekly they are converting it to a monthly. Wilmington has only owned the title for 18 months. Expect it to be an annual within six months. And history within 12.

Wilmington has never had much luck with its media-related publishing – but then what would you expect from a group that grew out of Maxwell Business Communications?

In the dark days when MBC owned Media Week, front cover stories such as “Captain Bob buys new hat for limbless orphan” were de rigueur. Should have stuck to the markets you knew boys – like “What Test Tube?” and “Best Potato”.

Crunch Time for NW Business Media

Sad that journos should be one of the trade groups not represented by a dedicated b2b publication, especially as, as How-Do currently bears witness to, stories in this sector abound.

Competition is hotting up

Crain’s apparent plans to start charging for its on-line services is a tacit admission that, although NW business folk may profess to loving the weekly business newspaper, they don’t love it enough to spend any money on subs or ads.

Perhaps significantly, a brief perusette of the publisher’s State-side sites indicates that a similar policy doesn’t apply for its Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland or New York webizodes. I wonder how long it will be before “pressure from our readers” sees Crain’s Manchester as an on-line only offering?

Insider too has been forced to ‘up-vamp’ its on-line presence, whilst reducing its efforts in securing paid-for subscriptions. The end of a paid-for only push is the inevitable casualty of unwelcome competition coming to town.

I suspect Insider will survive the next tough couple of years but – with property, professional services and executive recruitment advertising being slightly thinner on the ground than page impressions on visitGeorgia.com – these are not going to be glory days down Chorlton Street way.

All in all not so much belt-tightening time as time for ebaying all of your leather goods and investing in some pant-retaining parcel twine. And a dog.

The Evening News, obviously, has a wider potential revenue base than either Crain’s or Insider. However, its problems run slightly deeper than either a move to increased daily business page pagination or a pink tint seems likely to resolve. Why the speculation as to it needing new recruits on the business desk to facilitate its fourth business page? Just how many people does it take to remove the unnecessary upper-case lettering and a couple of superlatives from a press release these days?

Tony Murray’s book “My friends in the North West Media World” is said to be the third thinnest book in the world, beaten only by “The COI Guide to Good Pitch Practice” and “The Collected Chimp”. You can e-whine him on tonymurray37@hotmail.com

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Comments (20)

1  By Alex Blyth , on 20-08-2008 09:29 I couldn't agree more with your comments about the tender document for 315. As a freelance business journalist based in Manchester who has substantial experience of editing similar publications in the North West I was interested in the opportunity.  However, after one read-through of the tender document I felt more like going and throwing myself in the Ship Canal than in applying for the position.  In fact, what I did was get on with all the work I've got from private sector clients, for whom I don't have to complete such irrelevant, pointless and soul-destroying application forms - I just get on with the job of providing them with the copy they need.  Sadly, with such a half-baked approach to procurement the NWDA has no chance of finding a high quality journalist to fill the post - and as you say, it is a great shame that it's our taxes paying for it all. Report

3  By Alex Case , on 20-08-2008 14:13 What an unreadable load of tripe- almost as bad as Guardian Media. You do win the worst TEFL related joke of the year award though, congratulations. Report

6  By Alex Case , on 23-08-2008 15:45 I see that lack of wit is a general problem rather than just a one off. A few points:    - It was a comment, not a post  - As the T in TEFL stands for Teaching, obviously there is no such thing as a TEFL student  - Almost everyone is a native speaker in something Report

12  By Alex Case , on 16-09-2008 01:27 Tony    If you have ever looked at a modern TEFL or EFL (the term you were looking for, as in EFL student) grammar book such as the Cambridge Grammar of English (which I doubt), you will clearly see that it takes a descriptive rather than a prescriptive view of language and therefore is far less "preserved in aspic" than a journalists' style and usage guide (assuming you've ever seen one of them). Therefore I am quite aware that post can be a noun.     Another thing you are probably not aware of is that there is rarely such a thing as a real synonym in any language and any two words have some difference in meaning, formality etc. In this case, the words "a post" and "a comment" both exist to make the distinction between the thing the blogger writes at the top and the things the readers add at the bottom (when commenting, funnily enough). Clear enough for you?     So let's summarize:    You are passing yourself off as a journalist despite having no mastery of the English language, writing about the media despite confusing the simplest of internet jargon. You then decide to start writing about TEFL as well, a field you quite clearly know nothing about. Is groundless arrogance enough to sustain someone on its own in your profession? Report

14  By Alex Case , on 17-09-2008 01:26 Exactly the kind of superiority complex I was talking about. What exactly have you achieved that makes you love yourself so much? Been a Director of Studies? Me too. I decided that it needed less skill than being a TEFL teacher and turned down a promotion to go back into the classroom. Report

18  By Alex Case , on 19-09-2008 00:33 Well, your witty ripostes have really put me in my place Report