sir_guinglain

The death of Richard, sixth Earl Grey, on 10 September was marked by an obituary in the Telegraph which seemed too respectable. There was much about his activity in parliament as a prominent Liberal peer, his advocacy for small businesses and dutiful observing of elections in Zimbabwe, but surely there was another aspect to his career which they had forgotten..?

Trust a Murdoch paper to recall that there was. The Times (yes, I have paid the Murdoch shilling) have just obituarised the sixth Earl Grey, with details of his work with pornographer David Sullivan and his arrest in 1983 by the Obscene Publications Squad following the seizure of "350,000 sex magazines, books and videos" and his subsequent charge of living from immoral earnings, though the Director of Public Prosecutions chose not to pursue the case. What larks.

The Sunday Times is claiming that Guardian Media Group are considering closing The Observer. I'm surprised at the option of turning it into a weekly news magazine to be published on Thursdays, as I would have thought the markets were largely different, but think the continuing downsizing of the Sunday paper must be the more likely of the two; if, that is, this story has any more to it than one media group causing trouble for another in a light news week.