THE EYE AT 50 BLOG


About The Author Adam Macqueen is the author of Private Eye: The First 50 Years, an A-Z. He joined Private Eye on work experience in 1997, and has been there ever since, apart from two years when he ran away to become deputy editor of the Big Issue. He writes mostly for the Street of Shame and Media News pages, as well as compiling the Number Crunching Column.

His previous book, The King of Sunlight: How William Lever Cleaned Up The World, was a chosen title on both Simon Mayo’s book club on Five Live and A Good Read on Radio 4.



The Prime Minister’s first appearance Posted by Adam Macqueen, 19th March 2009

One thing that seems to surprise the various people I’m talking to in the course of my research for the Private Eye at 50 book (that’s not even really a working title, is it?) is that I’m slowly working my way through the back issues. All 1232 (and counting) of them.

I’m not sure why. It’s kind of necessary.

It throws up some nice surprises along the way. So far I’ve stumbled across the first appearance in the national press of Doctor Who’s K9 and an early look at a teenage Sharon Osbourne.

And look who’s just popped up in the New Boys column, almost certainly written by Christopher Silvester in issue 584, 4 May 1984:

Dr Gordon Brown

The new Labour member for Dunfermline East, Dr Gordon Brown, is typical of the brand of mediocre, middle-class careerists who make up an increasing proportion of the undistinguished lobby-fodder and whom Labour habitually returns from Scotland, though he has greater academic pretensions than most.

Brown shot to provincial fame on being elected as Edinburgh University’s first student Rector in the late 1960s and ever since his ambition has outstripped his ability. Although, in a tribute, his old history tutor Dr Paul Addison has stated that Brown was “always more than a swot”, it appears that he lacked certain essential social graces. He never fully recovered from his rejection as suitor by the lovely Princess Marguerita of Romania (who works as a computer programmer in the University’s Computer Department) and ever since has devoted himself obsessively to his political career.

Before becoming Labour’s Scottish Chairman (a meaningless appointment made on the “Buggins’ Turn” principle) Brown worked on a series of current affairs documentaries for Scottish TV which were so excruciatingly dull that he was mercifully taken off the air (he has two brothers in the Scots media).

Once again he has been exceeding his limitations in his new role as a Scots lackey in the outer limits of Kinnock’s kitchen cabinet. A recent Sunday Times article which he had ghosted for the new labour leader had to be withdrawn as “hopeless” by Kinnock’s press officer, Patricia “Harpie” Hewitt.

In June, Brown will enjoy a three-week CIA freebie trip to the USA (he will get $60 a day pocket money while out there.) Kinnock felt obliged to approve this unfashionable hostage to fortune because he himself had been on a similar trip some years ago.

9 comments » | Tagged with first appearances, politicians

Private Eye at 50 Posted by Adam Macqueen, 17th February 2009

In October 2011 it will be 50 years since the first edition of Private Eye was published.

Adam Macqueen – an Eye hack since 1997 – is working on a definitive history of the magazine, to be published as a lavishly illustrated coffee table book in time for the anniversary. He – oh, alright, I – will be making occasional updates on my progress here (and trying to avoid, at any point, using “blogging” as a verb).

I’m keen to hear from the readers who have been such an important part of the magazine’s history over the past 47-and-a-half years. Did you buy the first edition? Did you attend the Mass for Vass or campaign for Willie Rushton in the Kinross and West Perthshire by-election where he stood against Lord Home?

Did you purchase a Stuff Your Own Quentin Hogg Cushion Kit, as demonstrated by Peter Cook? Did you attend the Rustle of Spring or any of the other various legal-cost fundraisers over the years? Was your photograph used to illustrate a joke?

Or do you just have one fondly-remembered – or historically loathed – feature you feel ought to be featured in the book, and you think I might have missed?

I’d love to hear from you. Apparently you can leave a comment below.

17 comments » | Tagged with 50, anniversary, cover

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