Red Red Wine

Here in the republic of Merseyside, it seems that the Liverpool Echo (traditionally an evening edition) is set to be published earlier in the day, which would put it in direct competition with its sister paper the daily Post (traditionally a morning publication).

This reminded me of my time in Birmingham where the Evening Mail was available before the last edition of the (morning) Birmingham Post owned by the same group. The Liverpool siblings and their Birmingham cousins were much of a muchness in any event, so I always thought that they might as well amalgamate.

This would inevitably lead to journalist and auxiliary staff redundancies (and to some extent this has already begun) but the future does look bleak for some local papers as falling sales, reduced advertising revenues and competition with free sheets make margins tighter.

The plight of local journalism is not helped by lazy, non-stories such as this in the Birmingham local. The startling piece of investigative journalism by Alison Dayani (good look with googling your name from now on) comes after a humorous post by Councillor Bob Piper on how to beat the alcohol ban at Edgbaston's cricket ground in time for the Third Ashes Test.

I say alcohol ban, but of course the ban is just on taking your own hop or grape concoction; expensive rat's piss and cooking sherry are readily available inside. Regular readers will know that I am a past master at smuggling my own water and/or wine onto aeroplanes so maybe I'll have to keep schtum from now on!

As Bob Piper explains in his follow-up to his original post:

• Anyway, for the cricketing authorities who just want to rip people off with their own alcohol sales, and the ground sponsorship from drinks companies, to have the bloody hypocritical nerve to suggest I am encouraging binge drinking, they must be taking the pee somewhere