BACK in October, much attention was given in York to what became known in these quarters as the Mystery of the Silent Bell Tower.

You will recall that the volunteer bell ringers of York Minster were asked never again to darken the Bell Tower, and that the peels fell mute.

Since then we half-learned the truth and fully learned nothing much. We half-learned along the way that a ‘more professional’ system would be introduced next year, and the Dean of York, the Very Rev Vivienne Faull, went on BBC Look North a couple of times and looked Very Rev’ly uncomfortable as she failed to shed much light on what had happened or why. Health and safety was mumbled about; and it was further mumbled that “this sort of thing” couldn’t be allowed to happen, without further elucidation as to what sort of thing it might be.

We also learned from Canon Precentor Peter Moger that the Minster had a “volunteer agreement and social media policy” and that this had been contravened.

This muffled mystery has resurfaced again as someone at the Minster appears to have noticed that Christmas is around the corner and a few bells might be a nice idea.

So, have they reached out to the excluded bell ringers and suggested a spot of Christian-minded rapprochement? Er, no. A report by Mike Laycock on my old newspaper reveals that the Minister authorities have instead tried to poach the bell ringers of Leeds Minster.

Mike’s report says: “Andrew Aspland, who is understood to be tower captain at Leeds as well as president of the Yorkshire Association of Change Ringers, has written to members, saying he has received a formal request from the Dean and Chapter of York Minster for the Leeds ringers to ring at various Christmas services. ‘Sam Corley, our Rector, has given us the go-ahead to help out at York,’ he said in the letter, which has been posted on Facebook…”

A Minster spokeswoman said: “Oh, shit – you’re not going to ask me about those bloody bells again are you?” Or rather she said that the Chapter of York was “progressing plans for future bell ringing arrangements at York Minster”. She added that “one of the things that we have learned in recent weeks is that Yorkshire has many wonderfully talented bell ringers”.

Including, at a guess, the 30 you just got rid of.

Not for the first time, I am reminded why my mark-two plan to work in public relations was doomed from the start: the job involves saying such rubbish, and saying it with a smile and sprinkle of corporate sugar on top. And while York Minster might not be a corporation, it seems to have behaved like one throughout this affair.

Asking bell ringers to travel from Leeds when you already have bell ringers who know the job here sounds like the sort of idea the newspaper industry is always coming up with.

Why have sub-editors working here in York when someone could do the job 220 miles away in Newport in Wales? Incidentally, the jobs that went to Newport are now beginning to disappear from that place; and two or three jobs came back to York, although I hear that one has since disappeared.

Now I drive to Howden two days a week to help edit an Irish Sunday newspaper, which is enjoyable but further evidence of the mixed-up ways of the world.

While the newspaper industry has the benefit of being able to use the internet to convey editorial information, York Minster needs someone there in person to ring those bells.

To complete this parallel of absurdities, perhaps some of our bell ringers could travel to Leeds to help cover for theirs who are coming over here.

YOU know how the House of Commons occasionally bursts at the seams with MPs whose egos rise into the air and bump each other like so many over-filled balloons. Well, yesterday there was a debate on violence against women and the place was almost empty.

MPs who presumably thought that this wasn’t a topic worth hanging around for, or perhaps turning up for, therefore missed a speech by the independent Scottish MP Michelle Thomson that was remarkable for its bravery and serenity.

She told colleagues, some of whom were moved to tears, that she was raped at the age of 14.

Thomson, who was elected as an SNP member but withdrew the party whip last year, said to parliamentary colleagues who could be bothered to turn up: “I’m not a victim. I’m a survivor.”

Speaking about the assault, she said: “As is common, it was by somebody who was known to me. He had offered to walk me home from a youth event and in those days everybody walked everywhere. It was quite common to do that.

“It was early evening. It wasn’t dark. I was wearing – I’m imagining, I’m guessing – jeans and a sweatshirt. He told me he wanted to show me something in a wooded area and at that point, I must admit, I was alarmed. I did have a warning bell – but I overrode that warning bell because I knew him and therefore there was a level of trust in place.”

Thomson said she felt “absolutely numbed” by what had happened, but she “bottled it all up” – “I didn’t tell my mother, I didn’t tell my father, I didn’t tell my friends and I didn’t tell the police.”

Her speech was a calm reckoning. In her sense, her grown self was addressing the confused and hurt child she had been. “I, of course, then detached from the child up to then I had been,” she said. “Although, in reality, at the age of 14 it was probably the start of my sexual awakening, at that time, remembering back, sex was something that men did to women and perhaps this incident reinforced that early belief.”

I saw Michelle Thomson’s speech to the Commons on the BBC news last night. That was presumably how most of her parliamentary colleagues saw it, too – that’s assuming they watch the news – as they weren’t there in person.

It was a speech remarkable for at least two reasons: the steady authority of the speaker; and the almost total lack of anyone to hear in person what she had to say.

A colleague or two shuffled along the empty green benches to console her or offer their sympathy. Mostly the place was empty.

The poor showing for this debate did not detract from what Thomson had to say, but only because the TV cameras were there to record her. As a piece of symbolism, it was perfect and shameful, suggesting that MPs gave a low priority to a debate on violence against women.

Hold a debate on Europe or immigration or whatever, and the place will be packed to the rafters with human bubbles of busybody pomposity.

On one level, politics is a soap opera with a familiar cast list – what Theresa really thinks about Bad Boris; and on another it is an everyday story of mostly good people trying to do the right thing.

The trouble is, the gap between the two sometimes seems unbridgeable.

Anyway, all praise to Michelle Thomson, a woman I had never heard of before but will not forget in a hurry.

Here is the story that never was.

A newspaper agreed to publish the feature and seemed keen on my new approach, having previously put the dampeners on a less personal way into the topic.

Basically, they wanted to hear the human story rather than talk to academics who had carried out what seemed to me interesting research connected to an upsetting disease.

I knew of such a story, approached someone and they agreed to talk. The feature was written, then written again, as is the way with me. It was the finished article, or so it seemed. I emailed the features desk and said the feature would be arriving soon, once I had made a further visit.

It was a sobering visit and afterwards I went home to tinker with my words once more. Again, it seemed like a decent piece of work. That’s the thing with this job sometimes. You want a story because stories make the world go around. You want a story to put a few more pounds in the freelance pot. And you want to see your words published.

Your words but someone else’s life. That’s where this affair fell apart. The person I had interviewed no longer wished to see their story in print. On reflection, the whole experience was far too upsetting and they weren’t up to having their life shared in this way.

My first reaction was reasonable in terms of a frustrated freelance: that’s 1,300 words gone to waste; and unreasonable in terms of being a decent human being: it was my story but someone else’s life.

I have given no fuller details here. To do so would be unfair and unethical. Also, my disappointment made me question the ways of journalism for a day or so. Don’t be surprised if in my lecturing gig next term, I come up with a topic called: “Your story but their life.”

A sympathetically written story about someone else’s difficulties can help and often people are happy to share their struggles. The story that never was concerned something it is common to fear nowadays. Sharing would have been good, I thought. I was left frustrated by the wasted effort, and then felt shamefaced. All I had lost was one piece of work and one fee. The people I had been trying to write about had lost so much more than that.

I don’t often tackle difficult topics and most people are pleased to see me when I turn up with my questions and my digital recorder. The artist I went to see this week was thrilled to be interviewed. I think I’d still be sitting there if I hadn’t made my excuses and left. It was very cold in that studio.

My conclusion to all this is to remember that other people’s lives belong to them and not to you. It’s not exactly a useful motto for a journalist, but it’s a wise thought to keep in mind.

IT’S called a ‘trust deficit’. We trust people less than we used to. Only 24% of you lot trust me for starters. You trust bankers and estate agents more than you trust me, for heaven’s sake. But as a consolation prize, you trust politicians even less than you trust me.

It’s not about me in truth. This trust business is general, but it is easy to take these things personally; easy and a way into writing a piece.

Journalists are often looking for a way in. A way into a story. A way into your front door if you are foolish enough to admit them.

If journalists come second bottom only to the Boris brigade in terms of trust, nurses are top. These are the findings of the annual Ipsos Mori ‘veracity index’ which has been running since 1983 and each year assesses “which roles are most trusted by the public”, reported last weekend’s Observer.

I choose to trust the Observer. The newspaper was 225 years old on Sunday and held inky celebrations to mark the occasion. I worked there for three of those many years, but only on a Saturday. They seem to have overlooked my mighty contribution, but I am big enough to take that.

These polls are interesting and infuriating in the same breath. For instance, television newsreaders are trusted by 67% of you lot. How inconsistent, as newsreaders are journalists who are filmed while they get to stay in the office. This poll suggests they are trusted more than the reporters whose items they introduce, which seems inconsistent. And more than a little unfair as it is the reporters who go out and do the proper work.

A survey can only reveal so much. For instance, are we talking about newspaper or television journalists? Which newspapers do they work for? I reckon it’s not journalists people distrust so much as newspapers, or some newspapers, but journalists and newspapers do go hand in hand.

Just to complicate matters, journalists don’t always trust the newspapers they work for.

Another slant on this is that people don’t trust journalists but they do buy newspapers, or read what journalists have written on websites (and generally without paying for the privilege).

Life never stands still, to pull a convenient phrase from the cliché draw, and it is noticeable that some people are turning against newspapers. There is a lot of noise in some quarters about the Daily Mail – a successful newspaper, if not often a pleasant read.

Social media shit-storms are always being stirred up against the Mail or the Sun. Those orchestrating the internet polls seem to believe that views other than their own should not be tolerated, which is worrying.

I dislike the Mail a lot and don’t often read the Sun, but still feel the world is better for their presence. It’s all part of the mix and you don’t have to buy them.

There is something missing from this poll, with its post-truth findings and suspicion of experts – as famously voiced by Michael Gove, who having failed in his ludicrous bid to be Tory leader, scuttled back to journalism and turned himself back into one of those experts he professed to despise.

What’s missing is this: nobody ever asks if people trust pollsters. Seeing as the polls constantly fail to predict almost anything you might care to think of, this is a pertinent gap.

And what about the politicians at the bottom of the table? Distrusting politicians comes naturally to many people, sometimes for sound reasons and sometimes for unfair reasons. But I shall tell you this for nothing: distrust of politicians lies behind the rise to the US Presidency of surely the most untrustworthy candidate in the history of American politics. Sometimes we should be careful about who we fail to trust.

THE things those slippery bastards say (part 153). As train fares rise again, this time by an average of 2.3%, fares on Virgin Trains East Coast will increase by 4.9%. Only it’s not a rise of more than double the average. Don’t let your fact-seeing eyes deceive you. That rise isn’t a rise at all. Virgin Trains is only tackling “historical anomalies” – a phrase that comes so greased with slippery-bastard-ness that it almost slips through your fingers.

Is this the anomaly that once train were reasonably cheap? That was a long time ago, it’s true. From January, an off-peak single from London to Newcastle will set you back £130.70. Do you get a share in the company for that? Nope, and you might not even get a seat.

Perhaps the “historical anomalies” include the fact that the line was put back in public hands after National Express failed to stump up its whopping franchise bill. East Coast ran the line for five years as a public entity, and most people seemed happy enough with that arrangement.

When Virgin and Stagecoach took over, the then Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin, a man with a passing resemblance to the Fat Controller, said: “This is a fantastic deal for passengers and for staff on this vital route. It gives passengers more seats, more services and new trains. I believe Stagecoach and Virgin will not only deliver for customers but also for the British taxpayer.”

The same taxpayer who was already receiving the profit from the state-owned East Coast.

Mind you, I have never really understood rail privatisation, John Major’s parting gift to the country when he went off to spend more time with his copies of Wisden. Are train services better or worse than they were and is there a non-slippery-bastard way of measuring that? Has rail privatisation saved us money or cost us money? Again, who knows.

McLoughlin has moved on to spend more time in the cake queue. His successor is Chris Grayling, a man followed wherever he goes by a cloud of smug annoyingness. Grayling says today: “I intend to start bringing back together the operation of track and train on our railways”, adding: “In my experience passengers don’t understand the division between the two.”

This may well be true. In my experience, passengers don’t understand anything much about rail privatisation and who owns or does what.

Grayling wants each rail franchise to be jointly run by the train operating company and Network Rail. He also says today that passengers “just want someone to be in charge. They want their train to work. I agree with them”.

Plain and simple words without a coating of slippery-bastard-ness. But is the intention behind those words slippery? Grayling has made a statement so glaringly obvious that no one could disagree with it; the tricky part is whether his plans will make any difference, or end up criss-crossed with more complications than Clapham Junction.

It’s easy to come up with these statements. “People just want there to be a road to drive on when they get in their car. I agree with them.” “People just want there to be air for them to breathe. I agree with them.” “People just want politicians to stop talking to them as if they were five years old. I agree with them, but if you don’t stop fidgeting, playtime is banned today.”

The story about sharp fare increases being the correction of an historical anomaly sat on the page next to one with the headline: “Osborne unabashed at being paid £320,000 to give five speeches.”

Former chancellor George Osborne said his US tour speaking to bankers was normal behaviour: “It’s not different from what previous chancellors have done, Labour and Conservative. The difference is that it’s disclosed. And I think that’s a positive step forward.”

Well, that’s one way of putting a gloss on how our politicians sometimes hoover up lottery-style winnings thanks to the job they did for us. It’s tempting to say that ‘Unabashed’ is George Osborne’s middle name. His real name, as we all know, is Gideon, but you can’t blame him for having preferred George since the age of 13. His public-school mates are said to have called him “Giddy”. And now it is his bank balance that is giddy. As well as our envy.

ANOTHER Sunday, another guest I have yet to meet. Another Sunday and another pile of headlines to skim. Another Sunday buffered between all the other days of my mixed-up week (working Friday and Saturday and a bit of Monday, with freelance filler in the gaps, plus a bit of toast-and-tea making).

This guest is in York to visit her daughter who is a student here. That’s pretty much all I know. She booked for two nights but cancelled the first one at the last minute. We only have one more Airbnb guest booked for December, so it’s thin times at the impromptu Cole B&B.

I am taken this morning by headlines with a Brexit theme, while fully realising that this topic seems likely to exhaust us before it has got started. That itself is a danger, with eyebrows being raised as people sigh and go, “Oh, Brexit – that’s so yesterday”, before we have even set one foot in the free-world waters of post-Europe Britain, a place of proud magnificence (or so the Leavers have it) or a big and cold world in which we become a small-minded island of prickly insularity (as some of us fear).

The Mail on Sunday has rather a good tale this morning about how Downing Street – in other words, Theresa May – has ordered the ‘Cabinet Enforcer’ Sir Jeremy Heywood, also here nicknamed Sir Cover-Up, to spy on Ministers who spill secrets about Brexit.

The MoS has fun publishing what is says it a leaked Cabinet Office letter saying that there must be no more leaks. The leaked note warns that anyone passing on government secrets will be sacked, even if national security is not compromised.

Apparently, ministers and officials are being banned from using their own mobiles for official business, making it easier to monitor what they are saying. One government source describes the edict as “quasi-totalitarian”. Can you be partly totalitarian; isn’t it more of an all-or-nothing thing?

Over on the Sun on Sunday, Eurosceptic ministers accuse Mrs May of planning what is being called a “grey Brexit” – I am guessing that this is like a soft Brexit, only a bit smudged. The Euro-raving brigade aren’t impressed as only a hard Brexit will do (whatever that is). I am amazed they are surprised by this. Mrs May is a grey woman in many ways and she is likely to choose a Brexit in her favourite colour. And when she is cross about leaks and the like, she probably sees through a grey mist.

On the front page of the Observer, meanwhile, a group of senior Conservatives warn that a hard Brexit could cost them the next election. They urge Mrs May to “speak above the noise of the Brexiteers”, which is good advice although it is a job that will take some shouting.

Our guest emerged downstairs for breakfast a paragraph or two ago, so coffee has been brewed, muesli laid on and chit-chat exchanged. I never say too much about guests because that wouldn’t be right. This one was a head teacher from Norfolk, and we exchanged a pleasant bit of breakfast banter, not least because we used to live in the same part of south London half a lifetime ago.

I DID a session with my Monday-morning students this week entitled: “It’s all about angles.” This morning’s papers offer what would have been a perfect example.

I think some of them found the topic a little too abstract. The idea was to explain the angle in terms of how a story is written – “a story is like a needle, it needs a sharp point” – and the way different angles can be taken on the same story. Or if you wish, how a story can be forced to fit a sharp angle (just glance at the Daily Mail any day of the week).

The Policy Exchange think tank has conducted a poll of British Muslims and its findings are covered “three ways by three papers” it says in the BBC website review of the papers – my starting point on a slow brain day.

The Times takes what you might call a socially optimistic approach to the story, beneath the front-page headline: “Most Muslims want full integration with British way of life.”

…Apologies, I had to step away there for a moment as I was at risk of burning my toast. Accidental incineration is a hazard of writing a blog at breakfast time. As, too, is burnt porridge…

The Times says of the research, which involved polling more than 3,000 Muslims, that they “broadly share the views and priorities of the wider population, rather than being shaped by supposedly ‘Islamic’ concerns”.

The paper adds: “Ninety-three per cent feel a fairly or very strong attachment to Britain and are likely to identify the NHS, unemployment and immigration as the biggest issues facing the country.”

To the Times, the survey is seen to have come to a positive conclusion. Not so the Mail which ferreted around in the findings until it could find something more to its taste – “Only 1 in 4 British Muslims believe Al Qaeda carried out 9/11 attack, says think tank.”

Now isn’t the Daily Mail just like one of those miserable people who always strive to see the worst in everything. Perhaps that is why so many readers buy the bloody thing: what they read confirms their worst suspicions that the world is a half-empty glass containing something they’d rather not sip.

“Some 31 per cent thought the American government was behind the strikes on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon,” the paper says, giving the Times a nasty jab in the ribs.

“Another 7 per cent said it was a Jewish plot, while 58 per cent did not know.”

In other, less inflammatory words, nearly 60 per cent of those asked had no view or opinion on the 9/11 attack, while a tiny proportion of nuttier Muslims thought it was a Jewish plot. If a statistic can have a wrong end, you can be sure the editor of the Daily Mail will grab it.

The Guardian takes a cautionary approach under the headline: “British Muslims have separatist tendencies”. David Goodhart, co-author of the report, says: “British Muslims as a whole continue to live somewhat more separately than other large ethno-cultural minorities – in neighbourhoods and schools, in terms of women not working, and in terms of attitudes and religiosity.”

One survey and three contrasting reports. It’s all about angles, you see.

It’s time we all went a bit more Danish. I am not talking pastries here or dark-hearted crime dramas on BBC4. No, this is a two-wheels-good, four-wheels-bad wish to be more Danish.

I have just read – and, yes, it was on the Guardian website – that bicycle sensors in Copenhagen have this month clocked that there are now more bicycles than cars in the heart of the city.

“In the last year, 35,080 more bikes have joined the daily roll, bringing the total number to 265,700, compared with 252,600 cars,” the report says.

Let’s stop to think about that for a moment. The Danish capital city has more bicycles than cars at its centre. What a fabulous achievement that is; and what a lesson to British cities, including this one.

York tries to be cycle-friendly, and the Millennium Bridge – across which I cycle often – was a fabulous addition for cyclists and pedestrians. A great bridge, but it was built years back.

Cycling around York is a mixture of pleasure and peril, with good lanes – such as the one near Clifton Bridge – and rotten lanes, such as those almost anywhere else. The poor examples squeeze bicycles into a narrow strip of often rotted tarmac at the edge of the traffic.

Here is one of my common cycling routes, from the west of the city to the university (for a twice-weekly game of squash). After coming down the hill from Acomb Green, the road is busy but okay. As you toil up the hill at Holgate, the journey becomes more perilous – especially if those council rubbish lorries are thundering past.

At Holgate’s iron bridge, a tricky right-hand turn takes you to Tadcaster Road. Once across this junction, the journey is on peaceful side-streets, with one main road to cross before reaching the Millennium Bridge. This part of the ride is to experience a mini-Copenhagen effect: cyclists and pedestrians and no cars at all.

Hospital Fields Road is usually thick with traffic near the junction and a degree of hazardous weaving may be required to reach the traffic lights. Once over the always-busy Fulford Road, a good track passes through the barracks and then crosses Walmgate Stray, where in early summer frisky cattle present the biggest danger (on dark evenings the baton is passed to students dressed in dark clothes who blend into the night without a shadow).

After the stray, there is a twisty path through the trees that brings you to the sports centre. Mostly a good cycle route and one that compensates for all the awful ones.

That’s one journey is the sort-of cycling city of York. Over in Copenhagen, proper and long-term efforts have been made to create a true cycling city, and in the past 20 years, bicycle traffic has risen by 68 per cent. Plenty of exercise and no pollution (apart from the sweat from all those wheeled hordes).

Since 2005, new cycling infrastructure in the city has included several bridges for bicycles and pedestrians, as well as the Cycle Snake, an elevated orange bike lane that wriggles over the narrow streets. This sky-bridge has two lanes for cyclists, leaving pedestrians to walk below unhindered. What a genius idea.

I don’t know enough about Copenhagen to tell you if that city has the equivalent of our anti-cycling types who bore on about bikes with no lights (sometimes true, often not) or people cycling on the pavement (sometimes true, often not).

Are there car-obsessed Danes who hate everything about cyclists? I couldn’t say, but it seems less likely than in York and other British cities. Are there Danish idiot motorists who drive by with half an inch to spare? Again, I couldn’t say.

By the way, I am not one of those anti-car cyclists. My trusty bicycle does not sport a sticker saying: “One less car on the road” or whatever. I have a car and drive it often at present, due to circumstances. For preference, I would cycle everywhere, but Horsforth in Leeds and Howden are not within pedalling distance. And only a few of my freelance jobs are cycle-friendly.

More cycling is good for everyone. It’s good for those who choose to cycle. And it’s good for drivers as there are fewer cars on the road. As for York, it’s a lovely place to live – but it could do with being a bit more Danish. Or indeed Dutch, as in Amsterdam 48 per cent of city-centre trips are said to be pedal-powered.

Health advice is as abundant as it is confusing. A skim of today’s headlines reveals that I am going to die early thanks to bad sleeping and live longer because I play squash. I wonder if one cancels out the other?

If you wish to believe the front page of the Daily Express – well, that’s a slippery slope for a start. Scientific studies have shown that believing the front page of the Daily Express is the first sign of succumbing to a marble-free mind. This study was conducted by me and for me, and wasn’t perhaps scientific in the strictest sense. But the findings still hold.

“DRINK COFFEE TO FIGHT DEMENTIA,” it says today on the front page in big shouty capitals (perhaps Express readers are a little hard of hearing). Three cups a day does the trick, “cutting the risk of Alzheimer’s by more than a quarter, research shows”.

‘Research shows’ is such a useful phrase for newspapers as someone is always researching something or other. Sometimes the findings are important and sometimes they are not. Perhaps you should make yourself a coffee and have a think about this one.

The Express likes the “coffee beats dementia” story, as the review of the papers on the BBC website points out this morning. Three days ago, the tabloid ran a different three more cups of coffee for the road story – and on October 4 it reported that three cups of coffee “can stave off dementia in women”.

Perhaps the editor hasn’t been drinking enough coffee lately. Incidentally, you can tell when the editor of the Express has been drinking too much coffee: that’s when those rabid, anti-Europe, pro-Farage stories break out like a nasty rash (probably got from going abroad – dangerous place, abroad).

In the Guardian, tennis is reported to be the best physical activity to help you “stave off death”, citing a study from the University of Oxford. Andy Murray is pretty much immortal then. The Daily Mail’s headline to the same story says squash is the best activity, while the Times suggests that tennis, swimming and aerobics “are the secrets to a long life”. Meanwhile, the i cautions that the positive impact of running and jogging may have been underestimated. As too perhaps has the impact of running around in circles while trying to follow health advice in the newspapers.

I like coffee and have no wish to succumb to dementia, so perhaps I should believe the Daily Express for once. The only thing is that all that coffee keeps you awake. Which brings us to another survey.

Research firm Rand Europe reckons that sleep-deprived workers are costing the UK economy £40bn a year – and they “face a higher risk of death”. Well, I don’t wish to get all morbid on you, but strictly speaking we all face the same risk of death. Sleepless people may face a greater risk of an early death, but sleeping is not the route to immortality. Because if you’re sleeping you can’t be playing tennis or squash. Or drinking all that coffee as prescribed by the Daily Express.

The BBC reports this finding from Rand and says the “calculation is based on tired employees being less productive or absent from work altogether”.

Bad or interrupted sleep has seen me miss one day’s work. Years ago, I stayed awake all night until 15 minutes before the alarm went off at six. It was a busy day so I went into work. That night wasn’t much better, so two awful nights added up to one day off work, and I still feel guilty about that.

I don’t feel inclined to believe that figure of £40bn as such calculations always appear to have been scribbled on the back of whatever it is people use nowadays instead of a fag packet.

Sleeping badly is a bind and some days are shrouded in a headachy fog, but you get used to it. Apologies about those wasted billions, even though I calculate that my poor slumber has cost the economy approximately £1.53.

I have been wondering what sort of a restaurant my old employers at Newsquest might run. After all, no newspaper job is secure nowadays and everyone must prepare for new opportunities.

As it happens, reports have reached me of an exciting new venture based round a “simplified” dining process in the Newsquest Bistro.

I shall let the dining manager explain: “In an effort to get even more your food on our plates, we would like to invite our customers to cook their own food at home and then bring it along to our restaurant. Cook your food as close to the style of food that you wish to eat and then bring a container to our restaurant. We will then put the food on a plate for you and you can dine with us for a minimal charge.

“This streamlining process should give this restaurant the chance of a bright new future. Working together in this manner, we can bring food and diners together in an exciting new venture.”

As any passing journalist probably now knows, this story is true – expect that for food you should insert a different ingredient: news. Press Gazette, an online-only trade magazine, reports that in south London a Newsquest editor, Andy Parkes, has invited his readers to submit their own news and photographs for publication in his newspapers. These publications have been hit by “widespread editorial cuts, redundancies and industrial action”, reports Press Gazette, and are not in a good shape.

In a column for readers, Andy says: “…write your article as close to the style of a news story as you can, making sure you include details of the what, who, where and when. Attach any photos you’ve got to go with it and then click send.”

Naturally enough, the National Union of Journalists is not impressed, with executive member Andy Smith saying: “If Newsquest believes it can substitute experienced journalists, who understand media law and know how to put together a news story, with contributions from readers and produce a quality product, it must be very foolish and desperate.”

Foolish and desperate for sure – but experience shows us that this union, however well intentioned, has little effect in halting such unhappy ‘advances’ in the newspaper world.

Here are two ways of looking at this latest piece of nonsense. One: asking readers to write the news for a paper they then shell out money to buy (in some cases; free in others) is an act of evil genius brilliance. Two: Andy Parkes is a pragmatic man who has put a brave face on the only way he could see of putting something in his newspapers.

By chance, I met Andy on a training session for young journalists earlier this yet. From that brief acquaintance, he seemed like a decent man, so I suspect that the second point is more likely than the first. Nevertheless, this remains another step down into the damp of basement of newspaper decline.

In fairness, I should point out that none of the three Newsquest dailies in the north, including the one I worked for, are following suit. At least not yet, although something similar has already happened with photographs, which is why newspaper photographers are rare beasts nowadays.

The seeds of such thinly sprouted newspapers were sown in the early days of the internet. At the time, newspaper managements couldn’t decide whether the internet was a threat or an opportunity and this put them into a panic (understandably). In headless manner, newspaper bosses lost faith in newsprint too quickly, while never quite working out how to put the business online.

Early optimists saw great money-making potential in the internet, only to then discover than the likes of Facebook and Google had all the money sewn up, leaving more meagre pickings.

Facebook hoovers up the money – and then hoovers up the news, too. And as more people turn to Facebook for news, they are served clickbait news ‘chosen’ by algorithms designed to favour clicks over news value. The more people click, the more money is made by advertisers – so the truthfulness of a story can be of secondary importance.

In the social media world, if someone clicks on something it counts; and if they don’t, it fails to register.

In this value-free, unregulated sphere, fake news is as relevant as actual news, hence the rise of misinformation online, as illustrated by Mr Misinformation himself, Donald Trump, being elected president of the US.

Please take your seats now in the self-service canteen of news (health warning: the management accepts no responsibility for any upsets caused by the consumption of post-truth stew).