As a former Lobby hack, I had to laugh at the appearance in today's Guardian of this sparkling new column about Lobby life written by someone calling himself "Bill Blanko." I think that's what we in the blogosphere know these days as a sock-puppet.So which Guardian political hack is it? Is it a Guardian hack at all? Suspicion will undoubtedly fall on veteran former Pol Ed "Sir" Michael White, if only for the fact that whoever it is has obviously been around long enough to remember the infamous Lobby Bad Taste competition which used to be held annually at whichever party conference happened to be in Blackpool.
As "Blanko" points out, the winner was whoever managed to purchase the tackiest souvenir from the resort's many tacky souvenir shops. The last contest I recall was won by Jon Craig (now of Sky News) for an imitation penis which you strapped to your ankle so that it protruded from the bottom of your trouser-leg.
Presenting the award in the Press Room at the end of the conference, the Tory MP Alan Duncan announced: "And first prize goes to Jon Craig for confirming what we always knew about him."
4 comments:
I don't know about the identities of sock puppets, Paul, but I do reckon that Amy Winehouse song sounds like Abracadabra by the Steve Miller Band.
The truth is nowhere near this interesting. Blanko is a composite. Someone goes round the Grauniad and picks up bits-and-pieces; it all gets edited together...low-cost copy, no need to spend a fortune on a pundit.... (Or so my friends on the Graun tell me...."
I tend to agree that it is almost too amusing for Michael White to have had any contact with it whatsoever...
Although initially I thought the whole thing was a Rory Bremner style spoof...
Yes, way too humorous to be Michael White.
My suspicion is that it might have started partly in an in-house parody of Simon Hoggart's ever increasing tendency to refer to booze in his articles ...
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