Mike Wafkowski wrote:
> Hugo - thanks for your slice of time...
>
> Nothing since has even come close to the Runyonesque feel of living in the
> depths of a daily newspaper, with the sports editor/bookie with his smelly
> big stubby $.10 cigar, the tough/socialite lady social section editor who
> told "blue jokes" with the best of 'em and the whole darned cast.
>
Thanks Mike for adding to the nostalgia soup. Sorry this reply is so slow -
ISP probs.
I had a chief sub whose variety of 10c stogies almost made me ill they were so
rank - had to sit opposite him in close confines copy-tasting hard copy from
6am onwards and several times I nearly tossed my breakfast. As for the
tough/socialite lady social section editor - had one of those on another paper
- she did tell the most marvellous stories. Amazing when you're just a kid
and these are the adults. In those days the best were "characters", the worst
were sad cases - like the ancient sub who sat with a brandy bottle in his top
drawer and you couldn't give him a story past about 10am (afternoon paper) as
he was too smashed. He was well on the way to retirement and for whatever
reason, unsackable.
The almost universal smoking and trash bins laden with scrap copy paper meant
that several times one or other of us discarded a cig butt and minutes later
the room would fill with smoke until we sussed someone's trash bin was on fire
again - stomp, stomp, open the windows - can still remember the smell of
smouldering copy paper that had been doused in cold coffee.
Of course, in those pre-Murdoch days, calling yourself a journalist still had
some degree of honour - however misplaced. Fun though.
On another paper there were so many rats in the old building, the night subs
used to have lumps of lead - about fist size - which we used to hurl at
passing rats as they scooted up and down along the exposed pipes that ran from
floor to floor. A hit was rare but well applauded.
Yes, Runyonesque is the word. Dickensian, almost - except this was Africa!
To keep this vaguely OnTOPIC, this was all way pre-Mac. The first computer
publishing system I encountered was the Meganthaller (sp?) 6000, which we
trialled in Johannesburg on The Star in about 1981, and I caught up with it in
full, wobbly flight again in Tasmania, Australia, in June 1986. Steam driven
code-based horror that literally made Macs (which I first encountered in Jan
86 in the shape of the 512K on a tiny black newspaper, The New Nation, in
Jo'burg) seem like rocket science - which they were, relatively.
All the best to fellow nostalgics with mercury in their brains, printers ink
in their veins and a yearning for the people, if not the technology.
--
Giles Hugo
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"I don't wear ties - they restrict the blood flow." - Steve Jobs
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