I do like a bit of sub editor wit.
We have all heard of headless body in topless bar.
Today I saw a good one in the Australian “Trump raid: FBI on frission expedition”
The Sydney Roosters ,a rugby league team were on a hot streak. The headline “Poultry in motion”
A mate of mine worked at London’s Independent for a while. He dines out on when a Norwich player walked out ,to a fierce rival, and he had declared he was getting a percentage of the transfer fee. So Norwich transferred him for nothing. The headline “Canary goes cheap”
Inverness Caledonian Thistle beat Celtic 3-1 in a Scottish Cup game.
The headline in the Sottish Sun next morning read:
Super Caley Go Ballistic Celtic Are Atrocious
a headline reporting that Michael Foot had been appointed to chair a parliamentary committee on military sales … “Foot Heads Arms Body”
Not a headline but a photo caption. After Gloria Estafan was badly injured in a tour bus accident the Sun printed a paparazzi snap of her outside hospital in a wheelchair. The picture ran in Tuesday’s paper and the caption read Sick Transit Gloria, Monday.
I seem to remember Lenny Henry performing Othello, resulting in the Guardian headline…
An audience with the Dudley Moor
Coverage in the inkies of summer festivals:
Oh! T’is Reading.
Picture caption in 1992 of two young muddy grungers- “Is that Nirvana dear?” “No, it’s mudhoney.”
Oh I like that one!
I used to live near, and frequent a pub over the road from, the Otis Lift Corp. in Reading.
Many a happy 10p was spent calling reception from the phone box outside the pub. “Otis, Reading, how can I help you?”
Drink had been taken.
Another “drink had been taken” phone call.
Phone the Best Western Hotel, when they answer saying “Best Western” say back “The Magnificent Seven”
Ha! I used to work for AT&T (U.K.) during the short few years they had a U.K. arm. Indeed OTIS was a user of their services.
I did enjoy looking at the billing data for ‘Otis, Reading’. Sadly no customer was called ‘Alan, Lancaster’.
Susan, Hampshire
Max, Hastings
Nick, Kent
Julie, London
Bertie, Worcester
Michael, York
Alan, Hull
Ben, Dover
Randy, California
Michael, Bolton
Mick, Fleetwood
Felicity, Kendal
Glen, Tipton
Tina, Weymouth
Tony, Blackburn
Crocodile, Dundee
Freddie, Mercury
Greta Van, Fleet
Does anyone know if the yoghurt manufacturer Mueller has an office in Kintyre?
Kim, Deal
Nick, Cave
Nigel Tufnel
Eric, Clapton
Michael J, Pollard
Mike, England
My favourite headline came from these very pages. England beat Latvia 20-0 in the women’s Football.
@milkybarnick offered the headline “Quiet Earps”.
(Earps is the surname of the England goalie)
Cheers!
Well if we’re doing the classics:
“British Push Bottles Up Germans”
“Girls’ Schools Have Something to Offer- Head”
Students get first hand job experience
In reference to limited promotion opportunities. Women Widen Crack In Glass Ceiling
I don’t think it was intentional.
Loathe the paper with a vengeance one might, but the subs on the Sun are masters at this sort of stuff “Elton takes David up the aisle” was one of their most risqué ever
From thirty years ago, the revelation of extramarital shenanigans by the leader of the Lib Dems…
It’s Paddy Pantsdown!
Ditto, but you have to had it to them on their headlines occasionally. When a whale got lost up the Thames causing crowds to gather, the next days’s headline was “Celebrity Big Blubber”
A friend of mine with the surname Partridge was once arrested for criminal damage and was awaiting trial. I told him that if he was sent to prison the headline in our local paper would be “Partridge Gets Bird.”
Bloke beaten up in Brighton chipper.
Man battered at fish shop.
A running magazine I worked on many years ago did a photo shoot with, amongst others, an athlete called Don Lennon. There was also a snap of the photographer. Caption? ‘The man who shot Don Lennon’
Not a headline but ‘England couldn’t find a chink in the defence’ reported a rag on what must have been a challenging England v China international.
Or as the punchline to a joke dating back to the iron(monger) age has it
Nuts screws washers and bolts
Scathing review of Pet Shop Boys’ 1988 feature film ‘It Couldn’t Happen Here’ was titled ‘It Shouldn’t Happen Anywhere’.
Scathing NME review of Frankie GTH’s second album Liverpool: ‘Not Much Kop’
From around that time, a Q reviewer who found Courtney Pine somewhat derivative: ‘The great ‘Trane robbery’
I may have mis-remembered this, but on being asked what he thought of the Pet Shop Boys’ “Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can’t Take My Eyes Off You)” Bono replied – What Have I Done to Deserve This?
One for the kids
I Am A Camera – “me no Leica”
sadly two of my favourites are apocyrphal:
Titanic Sinks – Yorkshire Man Drowned
and
Fog In Channel: Europe Cut Off
Both are mine, both unaccountably rejected by the editor. And I’m still sore about it years later.
On a piece about a videogame featuring a ferret (at the height of Oasis mania): Mad Ferret.
On a story about Rio Ferdinand’s new car: Our Rio’s Speed Wagon.
That second one keep me awake at nights. I mean, come on!
Bravo on Our Rio’s Speed Wagon.
Many years ago, a housemate of mine had a job pitching dross TV show concepts to Channel 5. He could never figure out what they actually wanted and was always soliciting ideas from his mates.
On one night out, some utter genius came up with the concept of a reality show consisting of taking a former Arsenal striker out to a tropical island and having him teach racquet sports to a collection of supermodels.
Thus, my housemate strode into work the following day and gleefully pitched “Dennis Bergkamp’s Tennis Bird* Camp”.
The rest is history. It was commissioned and is currently in production for its tenth season. My pal retired aged 30 and now lives a life of splendid opulence in a part of the world famous for low taxes and high times**.
* A different era, so it was.
** Some or all of this may be untrue.
Off topic but legend has it a bunch of screenwriters were sitting around pitching deliberately stupid movie ideas at each other and one yelled out, “Snakes on a plane!” and the others told him that was actually pretty good. The rest is history.
Also many years ago, a mate of mine left school for his first job at the Stockport Express (no idea if it’s still going, this was in the late 70s). Even though he was the definition of a cub reporter, he was given the task of covering Stockport County’s next match, possibly because no-one else wanted to. As well as writing the match report, the task included composing the headline, which pretty much wrote itself when the winning goal was scored by County’s infrequent net-botherer, full-back Steve Sherlock. Inevitably, my mate’s report was headlined: SHERLOCK HOMES IN
It would have been ace if he’d ventured ‘No shit, Sherlock’ 😏
I once suggested one here years ago to FUCK ALL response.
It was around the time Paul McCartney finally ditched his auburn hair colouring and started appearing naturally grey. It seemed to cause a brief and minor media moment that was given blog time here.
I suggested a headline ‘Yes To Dye’
Nowt. Not a ripple.
Very droll.
But if Macca had stopped the use of dye surely it should have been..’ ‘No To Dye’
Or ‘Dye Another Day’….
Surely “Live And Let Dye”
Can’t dye me love
Or
Just Another Dye
L’Oréal Love
Happiness Is A Warm Garnier
Some of you may remember the occasion many years ago when Bob Monkhouse’s joke books were stolen from him and held to ransom? They were quickly returned, ransom unpaid.
The headline from The Sun was “Police Bag Bob Gag Blag Toe-rag.”
Response to threatened Essex Library cuts in East London paper:
‘Book Lack In Ongar’.
Oh I say, 👏👏👏
Not real so probably doesn’t count, but I read it as a joke headline feature somewhere about 20 years ago and it still makes me lol when it pops into my head occasionally.
The (fake) story was along the lines of, actor Mr T confuses Paul McCartneys testicles for percussion instrument leading to fisticuffs (understandably).
The headline – ‘BA Baracus in Maccas Knackers Maracas Fracas’
Similarly, but true story albeit pub talk rather than headline, a mate of mine is in the local table tennis league and turned up late one night after finally defeating a difficult opponent whom he described as being ‘like King Kong’, an enormous man from a former British territory.
I took a deep swig of my pint then said, ‘So it was a Hong Kong King Kong Ping Pong ding dong?’
Fantastic. How many chances do you get to say that in a lifetime?
If memory serves (and if it doesn’t someone will no doubt correct me), Q mag once headlined an article about Led Zeppelin, “The Hoarse Foremen of the Apocalypse”
Maybe not clever but certainly intriguing.
It all happens in Spalding.
My home town. Not recommended.
Back in the early 80’s, the great Zaheer Abbas was one of the first batsmen to score 1,000 first class runs in the cricket season. After he posted yet another century, The Guardian headline was: “Happy Day, Zaheer Again”. I always hoped the sun-editor got a bonus for that one.
The S*n, in its ’90s glory days of subediting:
A Doctor Who fan was buried in a TARDIS coffin carried by his friends in appropriate cosplay.
“INTER ME, MATE”
Absolutely brilliant one in yesterday’s back pages. A knowledge of the recent travails of Manchester United will be useful.
TOP: Arr! Raul A Real Treasure
(This captioned a picture of Wolves striker Raul Jiminez who had concocted a complex pirate-themed goal celebration involving adjusting his protective headband to look like an eye-patch and picking up a costume hand hook from behind the goal and waving it around).
MAIN: Accompanying a picture of Harry Maguire sucking a lemon on the United bench.
CAPTAIN HOOKED! HARRY COULD BE ERIK IDLE A LITTLE LONGER.
Absolutely fantastic triple-punning punchline folding the Jiminez line, the United manager and Harry’s bench-warming into one fantastic sub-ed masterpiece. Triples all around.