Friday 8 June 2012

Quotes of the Week: From the allure of Leveson QC Robert Jay to napalming your career in PR

Robert Jay... plus beard
Robert Jay...sans beard
Judith Woods in the Daily Telegraph on Robert Jay QC, lead counsel at the Leveson Inquiry: "I barely registered him at first, but sustained daily exposure of him at the bar has increased his allure. He’s clever, sardonic and an exemplary listener; frightening if he’s straining forward to skewer you in the witness stand, but marvellously flattering if experienced in real life. He doesn’t know I exist, which is, of course, the ultimate aphrodisiac, so much so, I’ve even stopped wondering what he looks like without a beard – I’ll take him as he is, no questions asked. Please, Robert, no questions."

Suzanne Moore in the Mail on Jeremy Hunt: "He misled Parliament over the nature of his relationships with the Murdochs. It appears he could not judge a tiddlywinks match impartially or without flurries of sycophantic texts from lobbyists. Worse, Hunt looks dishonourable, sacrificing a minion to keep his own job. Not a man you would want to be on the front line with, for at the first hint of trouble he would run away or hide shiftily behind a tree, as he did once to avoid journalists."

Dominic Lawson in the Sunday Times: "Neither The Sunday Times nor the newspaper industry as a whole can declare war on another country; it cannot demand up to half its readers’ income, with the threat of a prison sentence if they do not hand over the money; it cannot pass a single law, or make any parliament do so."

Andrew Jennings in the British Journalism Review: “When I visit British journalism schools I quote the late Louis Heren’s advice to a young reporter to find out 'Why is this lying bastard lying to me?', and Lord Northcliffe’s 'News is what somebody, somewhere, wants to suppress. Everything else is advertising.' I invite the students to chant these calls to arms back at me – and they do. It’s very heartening.”

Grey Cardigan in Press Gazette: "I sometimes wonder what it must be like inside the mind of that gelatinous gobshite Piers Morgan. Beating Serena Williams at tennis one week, climbing Everest in  his vest the next, and all the while presiding over the greatest television show in the world, ever. Not so much self-delusion as fucking fantasy. (In the intrerests of objectivity, I should point out the lardy cheeked chancer owes me two grand)."

Jeremy Clarkson on Twitter: "Watching Leveson and I have it in my mind that both Hunt and Jay drive Toyota Priuses."

Jeremy Clarkson on Twitter on what he thinks Lord Justice Leveson drives: "I've just decided Leveson has a Jag. Possibly an XF."

Tory MP for Reading East, Rob Wilson, rains on the BBC's Jubilee River Pageant reporting: "Seems we all agree on terrible BBC coverage. Low grade, celebrity driven drivel. How did Beeb get it so wrong?"

Adam Tinworth "Adders" on his One Man and His Blog blog:  "My trust in corporates is broken. I genuinely believed that if I worked hard, focused my energies on the success of the business, and fought for what I thought was right, I would be rewarded. Instead, I was made redundant. I am no longer capable of trusting an employer like I did then. The noble words of valuing people can be proved empty in one, formulaic, soulless meeting in a bland little meeting room. It's likely that I'll take a corporate job at some time in my future, but I'll understand the provisionality of that job on both sides much more fundamentally."

Rupert Murdoch on Twitter: "Privacy! Google just hacked millions of home computers in UK, presumably bank accounts, fotos etc while screening streets for Google maps."

Stephen Glover on Rupert Murdoch in Standpoint magazine: "This industry is now threatened by endless circulation decline and the dearth of online advertising — as well as by the possibility that Lord Justice Leveson may further strangle it with statutory regulation. His lordship seems not to understand that he may be regulating a corpse.  Will the pornographer Richard Desmond get the Sun? Or a Chinese billionaire The Times? Will anyone fight to keep Rupert Murdoch's newspapers alive and thriving as he has done? Of course he has had too much power — but blame successive governments for giving it to him. Anyone who values the press, and is not a score-settling politician, should regard the prospect of his retreat from Britain with regret."

Lambeth Council PR Sam Masters sets fire to his job and resigns after tweeting: “Having spent a considerable amount of time in Streatham, my solutions for supporting the High Road mostly involve napalm.” 

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