THE EYE AT 50 BLOG

Private Eye Till I Die Posted by Adam Macqueen, 22nd July 2009

Michael Jellicoe, a “life time reader” of Private Eye, passed away earlier this year. His partner, Naomi Wright, sent us these photos of his coffin, which was decorated with his favourite things in life…

Clearly a man of impeccable taste.

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Black and white and read all over Posted by Adam Macqueen, 24th June 2009

Here’s a rum do. Ian Burrell, of the Independent, gets it bang-on about about the Eye’s digital strategy (or pointed lack of one).

But – writing just a couple of months back – he refers to the mag’s “monochrome presentation”. And when I mentioned this to someone else who probably looks at the magazine as regularly as Burrell does, his reply was “it is still black and white, isn’t it?”

Private Eye has been printed in colour for more than a decade now. Here – lovingly fished from a bin by me in the knowledge that they’d come in useful at some point – are some of the practice covers produced in March 1998 as the mag prepared to wave goodbye to black and white forever…

Next week: how much hacks on the Independent enjoy the Secret Diary of John Major and Jeff Bernard’s racing column in the Eye each fortnight…

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Vicar demands more fucks Posted by Adam Macqueen, 22nd June 2009

Reverend George Pitcher misses the point of a joke and takes issue with the Eye’s last cover in his Daily Telegraph blog here.

Just to prove there’s no no-fuck policy, a quick reminder of December 1993.

And to prove there’s no objection to buggery in the Eye office either…

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Hack falls to floor at Eye lunch shocker Posted by Adam Macqueen, 4th June 2009

A nice account of one of the fortnightly Private Eye lunches at the Coach and Horses in Soho from Iain Dale here.

Yes, alright, I’m only posting that because he says nice things about me…

The rather peculiar entry for Private Eye on that ever-reliable site Wikipedia states with some confidence that the lunch is known as “The Old Crappola”. They provide a reference for it and everything, so it must be true. Despite the fact that no-one at Private Eye has ever heard of the phrase…

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The big stories, 22 years ahead of their time… Posted by Adam Macqueen, 13th May 2009

See that baby being flourished by the Labour hierarchy as what they hope will be an election-winning tool? That’s Georgia Gould, of Erith and Thamesmead candidature fame, that is…

Reports I will be identifying every bystander ever to appear on the cover of the magazine are thought to be exaggerated. Although I’d love to hear from anyone who’s ever found themselves with an unexpected claim to fame courtesy of the Eye…

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Private Eye on Mastermind Posted by Adam Macqueen, 9th May 2009

Private Eye 1990-2008 was the specialist subject of one contestant on last night’s Mastermind on BBC2. Viewers in the UK should be able to watch it on iplayer here for the next week.

I knew more answers than he did. But I didn’t know all of them. Should I be worried?

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From the vaults Posted by Adam Macqueen, 30th April 2009

This is the Fritzl-esque space where much of the Eye’s past is stored. Everything from the background workings on scandals of yesteryear…

to lovingly-curated reader contributions…

to frankly terrifying figures from the past…

Goldsmith lived for many years in the main editorial office, frightening visitors. Richard Ingrams made his cardboard debut – alongside an equally two-dimensional Ian Hislop, Reverend Tony Blair and others – at the Eye’s 45th birthday party. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time going through old files in this dusty cellar recently. These make me jump out of my skin with frankly pathetic frequency…

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