Stick It Up Your Punter! by Peter Chippindale

Author:Peter Chippindale [Peter Chippindale and Chris Horrie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571299713
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2013-02-27T16:00:00+00:00

Printed in large type was the number of Higgins’s direct line on the newsdesk. Higgins, who still had to do his normal work, was bombarded with calls from inside the paper as well as outside as the hacks joined in by posing as readers and ringing from their extensions. The next day the results were published under the headline ‘WE HATE HIGGY!’ ‘Screaming hordes of Sun readers took advantage of Higgy the Human Sponge yesterday. A thirteen-year-old schoolboy told he ‘must feel a right prat sitting there’ and a ‘well-spoken woman from Essex’ said: ‘My God. You’re so ugly. I’ve never seen anyone so ugly in my life.’

In all, the paper claimed, hapless Higgins received more than 1,000 calls but, true to form, was still smiling at the end of the day. The most popular caller with the hacks was the one who said he would like to do something to him with ‘the rough end of a pineapple’. Higgins did soak it all up, as predicted, but from that time on the divide in the office was even clearer.

MacKenzie’s power over the hacks had also been considerably strengthened by the ATEX computer system, which he had mastered immediately. MacKenzie christened the system the ‘scamulator’ and the terminals ‘scamulator machines’. He would rush up to hacks slaving at their terminals, and slyly instruct them to ‘give it a bit of that, eh?’ while he mimed an exaggerated action of playing the piano with an equally exaggerated nod and a wink. ‘Get the old scamulator working, eh?’ he would say. If the result was a story which went too far over the top, he would order it to be put back to be ‘de-scamulated’.

The various bugs had now been ironed out and the more computer-literate hacks were whizzing round the system, causing noisy disputes as reporters accused each other of hacking into each other’s terminals to steal stories and ideas. The cross-over into the News of the World, which was linked to the same ATEX system, sparked off more acrimonious accusations from both sides.

MacKenzie’s own password, which had to be typed into the machine before his terminal could be accessed, was ‘Lions’, Millwall football club’s nickname. He changed it later to ‘Spam’ – after the newspaper proprietor in the TV series Hot Metal, of which MacKenzie was naturally a fan. He loved the feel the new technology gave the office as much as the machinery itself. With the clattery old typewriters and filthy carbon copies left behind, the hacks now sat in rows in immaculate white shirts and ties, which he approved of just as much as the Boss. As they clicked away at their keyboards, with only the occasional discreet ‘beep’ indicating the immense new power under their control, the whole editorial floor looked less like a newspaper than one of the new City dealing rooms which were a parallel triumph of Maggie’s technological revolution.

As editor he had godlike access to all the terminals and could look in at any of the hacks whenever he felt like it.

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