I’ve always liked reading MediaMonkey, as regular readers will know, but this tickled me so much that I’m going to have to reproduce it here:

On this sunny Friday afternoon, Monkey has nothing better to do than rifle through the departing editor’s email inbox and has decided to run a competition for the most entertaining exchange of the last five years. And the triple crown goes to Piers Morgan, the new proprietor of the former journalist’s bible, the Press Gazette. We start after MediaGuardian.co.uk ran a story that Jane Goldman, Jonathan Ross’s wife, was in the running to take over from the Mirror’s TV critic, Charlie Catchpole. Sit back and enjoy…

13.19. 26/03/2001. From p.morgan@mirror.co.uk
“She was never on the bloody list. EVER. Why on earth would she be? You’re worse than Sunday Sport you lot. At least they ring and check if I’ve had a kinky threesome with Anna Nicole Smith and Pamela Anderson. They still run it, but they CHECK. Which makes them one step ahead of you, who just flies it.”
After an email explaining it came from a good source.
“Dear Clueless, It’s so wrong as to be laughable. I don’t want anything from me on there denying something that’s bollox. I was merely advising you of the fact. And please spare me the ‘good sources’ claptrap. Since the first I have heard of Ms Goldman’s name was on your website perhaps you could explain who these people are and I will fire them and send them to you lot for retraining as incompetent retard luvvies.”

Ping. A further exchange.

“Listen luv, I am obviously not getting through to you very well. Rusbridger might not know what his arse and elbow are doing in the newsroom when it comes to hiring and firing due to the ‘collegiate’ atmosphere of your tawdry little rag – but I take more of a Corleone view. If someone gets ‘whacked’ or ‘made’ then I clear it. And I am telling you, for the last time, that Jane Goldman has never been considered for the job. For the simple reason that she has not and never will be a bloody TV critic. Now I know it’s hard to admit you’ve dropped a complete clinker but just remove the fucking thing from the website before you make yourself look even more stupid than I am beginning to suspect you might be. Then just sit there quietly drinking your Ethiopian expresso and munching your lentil sandwich and hold your head in disgusted shame. Which is, I believe, a preferred mode of expression for you these days.”

Oh dear, Piers is beginning to make the former Sky TV boss, Sam Chisholm, look like a charm school graduate.

Ping. Another email arrives.

“I wish to deny that I have AIDS, syphilis and herpes (Though I admit it would make me an incurable romantic). Now just remove it for god’s sake. IT’S A LOAD OF BOLLOX.”

Just for the record then, it was a load of bollox and Monkey is down on all fours (as requested) with a belated apology to the new owner of the Press Gazette.

Since ‘leaving’ the Mirror, Piers really has done well for himself, and you have to admire the fact that he’s making numerous puditry appearances here and there, instead of fading into relative obscurity. Well done him. And good luck to him with the Press Gazette, too.