Headlines

[hdw]

Newspaper sub-editors are some of the most skilled writers around, making up snappy headlines to sum up a story with the clock against them, but as their art is ephemeral they don't get the credit they deserve.

Two examples:

In 1986 the late Labour Party leader Michael Foot was asked to chair some European committee dedicated to banning nuclear arms. A Times report on the appointment was headlined "Foot heads arms body".

And here's a footballing one that everybody in Scotland knows - I'm not sure about the rest of the world. Remember the song "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" that Julie Andrews sings in Mary Poppins?

In February 2000 lowly Inverness Caledonian Thistle F.C. beat mighty Glasgow Celtic 3-1 in the Scottish Cup, and the headline in the Scottish Sun was: "Super Caley go ballistic, Celtic are atrocious".

Harry

[Amoxcalli]

The person who wrote "Foot heads arms body" should be given a medal, seriously.

Or at least a Pulitzer Prize. ;)

[Eric]

This time, the Times was more sober:

* Michael Foot, 1913-2010: an unquestionably good man

(Leader) * The Pen and the Sword - Michael Foot should be remembered for more than his leadership of his party

* High principles and a great orator - but too nice to win an election

* 'Mr Foot, what an awfully nice coat' (What the Queen Mother once said.)

*Dismal legacy forced Labour to reinvent itself

Plus a two-page obit. Rather a lot for a rightish newspaper about a left-wing leader.

[Bottle Rocket]

The New York tabloid newspapers, the Post and The Daily News, are famous for these, as was a supermarket tab called Weekly World News (now defunct).

The Post once led with HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR, about a murder in a strip club.

For generations, the Post was famously liberal even by New York standards (this changed dramatically when Rupert Murdoch bought it), and was the common turf of a long political alliance of black and Jewish politicians and interests, from domestic civil rights to US-Israeli foreign policy. So after a big snowstorm, no one was too amazed to see the Post front page:


COLD SNAP HITS NEW YORK
Blacks, Jews Suffer Most

This turned out to be an inside-publishing hoax, but there are still people who believe it was real.

When the Senate failed in 1999 to convict Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky impeachment, the Daily News had a winner with:


CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR


As for the late lamented Weekly World News, these will have to do:


WORLD'S TINIEST EARTHQUAKE DESTROYS JUST ONE HOUSE!

and


TIME-TRAVEL DOG FROM FUTURE HELD CAPTIVE!



:) BRocket :)

what I want to know is who figured out the dog was from the future, how he proved it, and what the dog told him about next year's Super Bowl that is worth holding him captive about.

[Eric]

Bottle lists some amusing ones.

I always wonder whether the headline Fog in Channel, Continent cut off was real or spurious. Compare the size of Britain with that of the Continent:

Continental Europe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Europe)

[Bottle Rocket]

Bottle lists some amusing ones.

I always wonder whether the headline Fog in Channel, Continent cut off was real or spurious. Compare the size of Britain with that of the Continent:

Continental Europe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Europe)The unquestioned sense that everything started or ended in London was real -- and I'm betting the headline was too. It has that whiff of disdain about it that you can't fake; at least, though, its deadpan wit is more satisfying than the "America, Fuck yeah!!" that has replaced old-skool imperialism.

One of the cleverest "reports" I've ever read of was from Charles Napier, general commanding in India in the 1840s. After the battle of Hyderabad, he subjugated and annexed the province of Sindh, disobeying direct orders only to put down the rebels, not conquer them. Napier is supposed to have despatched to headquarters a short, famous message, "Peccavi" ? Latin for "I have sinned" (a pun for "I have Sindh").


Not a headline, but clever enough to be.


:) BRocket :)

[hdw]

Today's Guardian carries a story about micro-chipping dangerous dogs, and the headline is -

Man bytes dog.

Harry

[hdw]

Today's Guardian carries a story about micro-chipping dangerous dogs, and the headline is -

Man bytes dog.

Harry