'So farewell, then, News of the Screws.........'

To quote Oscar on the death of Little Nell, ’At scenes so tragic I could scarce forbear to laugh!’

We are witnessing the death of a British institution, but I don’t suppose the mourning will last long. Time was when the ‘Screws’ concentrated on naughty vicars, cottaging Scout Masters, and respectable housewives running bordellos in Wimbledon. The undercover (and possibly uncovered) reporter of the latter would always end his piece at the moment critique when ‘I made an excuse and left’, a phrase that has achieved immortality. As children of the long-vanished ‘respectable working class’, we were not allowed to read it. It was reserved for Father, which of course made it all the more tempting and desirable. It had some good hacks, like Arthur Helliwell, and generally it was all pretty harmless and amusing.                           

Shame that the old girl was so utterly corrupted not so much by Murdoch as by the people who wanted to read its garbage.

Mountains of merde will be cleaned out of public life with its demise. The title may be sold one day, but at this time it’s ‘not worth a bucket of cold spit’.

So let’s try to devil out why the Dirty Digger decided to take such a drastic and immensely expensive course.

For starters, I predict that the shredders will be on reheat enough to fill an entire toxic waste tip, every computer will be cleaned bare, records will disappear and people will be scattered as sackings take place. So any police or public enquiry might find the gathering of documentary evidence a tad difficult.

Then it may well be that the whole affair has Murdoch fingerprints all over it, with the evidential trail leading dangerously close to young Jamie. At this time Rebekah Brooke survives. Why has she not fallen on her sword? Can it be that she knows where all the bodies are buried? (I really must watch these clichés).

Is she going to reveal all about her life and times with Dave and Blair?

I can’t wait!