Watching brief - Amanda Platell faintly praises the laploid Indy
Published 06 October 2003
As I write on my little laptop, it occurs to me that the new, miniature Independent is not a tabloid but a laploid - convenient at times, but never your first choice
OK, so I might have been wrong last week about the Independent tabloid, a bit hasty perhaps. After I found a copy at Heathrow Airport on launch day - the newsagents had forgotten to put it out, not quite knowing what to make of it - I was pleasantly surprised. It's really quite good and terribly serious.
The headlines are the same as in the broadsheet, as is the copy, by and large. The biggest losers are what used to be a great strength of the Indy: the pictures. They are heavily cropped in the tabloid compared to the broadsheet and the cartoonist Dave Brown suffers seriously in the smaller size. But the words have not been cut, maintaining the impression of quality. There is no way this tabloid is trying to compete in the middle market.
I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when Simon Kelner told his columnists that they would no longer appear side by side, as they do in the larger-size paper. The second leader page spread in the tabloid feels rather second-best, although this, given the running order, is where some of the paper's best columnists will end up.
As I write this, on my little laptop, it strikes me that this is what the tabloid Independent really is - a miniature alternative to the real thing, not a tabloid but a laploid, convenient at times but never your first choice. However, I shall watch developments with interest.
Most of the Independent's rivals ignored the launch, but the Guardian could not resist, advertising on its front that it was now available in three sizes: the broadsheet, G2 and Gf. Gf is the smallest paper in the world; it is also an attempt at a joke.
It's always so sweet when the Guardian tries to be funny, a bit like when Gordon Brown tries to crack a joke.
The search is on for Nigel Dempster's replacement as columnist for the Daily Mail. Clearly, the Mail's Peter McKay cannot be spared from the indispensable Ephraim Hardcastle column, but the whisper is that John McEntee, who writes the Mail's Wicked Whispers, is a contender. So is Richard Kay, the paper's royalty expert, although with the arrival of the young princes on the media scene, it is hard to see how he can be spared.
Adam Helliker, currently of the Mail on Sunday and formerly of the Sunday Telegraph's Mandrake, is in with a good chance if he's up to the gruelling pace of six times a week. He learnt at the knee of the master, having previously been Dempster's deputy.
Outsiders are Andrew Pierce, author of the now highly regarded Times People column (she would say that, wouldn't she?), and the excellent Tim Walker on the Sunday Telegraph's Mandrake column.
Princess Harry, they're calling him in Australia, and that is one of the more polite terms. Whether it was the little prince or his minder who threatened to leave Oz, there is not enough natural sympathy for the Windsors in Australia these days to give Harry the benefit of the doubt. Who can blame the media for trying to film him on the ranch? It's the first time they've seen a member of the royal family working.
In less than a week, Prince Harry has been dubbed the Outback Jillaroo. Despite great strides in the battle of the sexes, the greatest insult to any red-blooded Aussie is still to call him a girl.
It's a real shame Harry got off to such a petulant start, as that country could be the making of him. In Oz, he would be stripped of the coterie of sycophants who pass as his friends and courtiers in Britain. Australians are egalitarians. They'd look at him and say: so you're rich, so you're third in line to the throne, but what have you done with your life, what kind of bloke are you and how many pints can you drink?
The Tory chairman, Theresa May, dazzled on the GMTV sofa on Sunday in a lollipop-pink leather jacket, outlining the dreams (sorry, plans) of the Tory party at the next election. I searched the fashion pages for the jacket's origins - the papers are bursting with fashion specials at the moment - and found her inspiration in the back of the News of the World magazine. It is none other than Carol Smillie, resplendent in pink leather in an advertorial promising that "your dreams could come true". If only, Theresa, if only.
Ulrika, I've got it! Her new column in the News of the World is really a Swedish agony page. She demonstrated such kindness and compassion last week in an open letter to Posh and Becks after her host newspaper revealed that David went out to a nightclub twice in a row and talked to his PA. Ulrika offering marriage advice to the Beckhams is like Tony Blair advising on pacifism or Michael Portillo on loyalty. "You have the world at your feet," she wrote, "and one of the best-looking husbands in the world (I have the other)." The only difference between them is that Mr Beckham works for a living and so far Mr Jonsson has yet to find anything worthy of his talents.
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