New editor, better security

Someone, I blame the magazine's new editor, has locked me out of the Spectator website.

Many of the articles are behind a paywall. You get in with a subscription to the mag.

Last year I subscribed. Dirt cheap offer. Cancel any time. I let it run for a few weeks, but then tired of the offensive bile. I had a brief exchange with the editor, Boris Johnson, about some distorted reporting by Rod Liddle that irritated me. Then I cancelled.

But by then I was registered on the website. And for months and months had access to the online version. The fun-loving shambles that Boris ran wasn't geared up for such mundanities.

Now I've been rumbled - the locks have been changed, and I'm denied access without stumping fifty quid. Which I won't be. It's a moderate shame, because I did sometimes pick up odd leads from there. But not fifty quids' worth of shame.

Talking of Boris. He fell off his bicycle. Sprained the jolly old wrist. How do I know this? I read it in a national newspaper.

NS media columnist Peter Wilby reckons that the Daily Telegraph's acting editor, John Bryant, is "an amiable technician who produces a competent paper, but one that lacks distinction". If Boris tumbling off his bike is worth mentioning, the paper doesn't just lack distinction. It lacks news.

Les