It’s OK – this isn’t another blog about the domestic life of the popular young Leader of the Opposition or his Shadow Chancellor or, for that matter, Ozzy’s mildly disgraced younger bro, who, it’s alleged, is setting up a bookmaking business in his parents’ Notting Hill home while he can’t be a doctor.

I just want to use the headline before the subs on the Sun, the Mirror, or even one of the junior ShagRags get round to it.

The truth is, you see, that like several other thinking folk who ought to know better, I do have a sneaking admiration for the punning art of the tabloid headline writer.

Consider the brutal frankness of the headline that topped a story of Prince Philip dropping a clanger in China, when he asked some British students who’d been there a while if they’d developed slitty eyes…

GREAT WALLY OF CHINA

Or the sports sub who headlined a report of a tiny Scottish league member, Inverness Caledonian Thistle unexpectedly beating the mighty Celtic in (I suppose) a Scottish FA Cup match. The team is known affectionately as ‘Caley’ – pronounced ‘Kally’; the ingenious headline writer produced…

SUPER-CALEY-WERE-FANTASTIC-CELTIC-WERE-ATROCIOUS.

M’dear old friend, Frank Keating is so old that he remembers a headline from the late ‘50s, era of the kitchen sink drama. It headed a frankly minor story which dealt with a shortage of funds in an Essex library leading to a paucity of books on the shelves…

BOOK LACK IN ONGAR

I can think of few jobs I would enjoy more than sitting around thinking up horrible puns to headline tabloid stories, although I imagine doing it every day would pall and lead to some kind of mental disfunction.

When my book News of the world? Fake Sheikhs & Royal Trappings came out, and Mazher Mahmood threatened to sue, I anticipated the headline…

SHEIKH RATTLED AND ROLLED

But although Mazher’s ire was reported, no one used the obvious tag (or never thought of it).

When George Bush fails to invite some notable to his farewell party in the White House, will the Sun say…

SNUBYAH!!

Or when a Premier League footballer breaks his ankle just before the big Boxing Day match…

I’M DREAMING OF A SHITE CHRISTMAS

This headline writing seems to me an underrated art which deserves more recognition than it receives at present, to the extent that I am proposing to set up an award to reflect the skill and ingenuity displayed by its highly paid (probably deeply flawed) practitioners – the Pun of the Year award, which will be known as a POTY.

Sponsors and nominations are very welcome.

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