The Headliners’ performance in the notoriously tricky quiz was a vast improvement on last year’s dreadful show and the ten-strong team, boosted by the brain power of Alun Thorne, Will Ventham, Gary Church, Andy Coyne, Lisa Pilkington, Martin Guest and Julian King, finished in a respectable fifth place out of 40.

First place went to the general knowledge gurus on the George Green Dream Team, who came up trumps at the end of the eight-round heavyweight quiz.

The ladies in attendance were all delighted to discover the newly introduced fashion round, which the Headliners’ team captain, Dawn Roberts, managed to score an impressive ten-out-of-ten on, without the need to confer with her team mates. Looks like reading Grazia serves a purpose after all.

Other highlights included the food round, when many a team was caught out by the ‘smiling nut question’. Despite appearances a ‘smiling nut’ is apparently a pistachio and not a cashew.

After the quiz came the auction, when two generous souls entered into a feverish bidding war for a meal for six at the chef’s table at Opus, which went for a whopping £2,600 in the end. A good result for Marie Curie.

Then came some light entertainment in the form of the King of Pop, better known as Michael Jackson impersonator Anthony Edwards, who wowed the crowd with his vigorous hip thrusting (hee-heeee) and sequined blazer during performances of Billy Jean and Thriller.

The night was rounded off nicely with the drawing of the raffle, when Al-whom-the-gods-love-Thorne won his usual hotel mini break prize and tickets to see Evita at the Hippodrome.

A good night was had by all and most importantly, Marie Curie raised some much-needed funds.

ENDS

Sadly, it turned out to be little more than a lengthy attack on Trinity Mirror’s stewardship of the two main newspaper titles in the city, the Mail and the Post.

This was despite Press Club chairman John Lamb pleading at the outset for an honest and open debate about all aspects of the state the region’s media finds itself in, and what needs to be done to improve matters.

Let me say at this point that it is clear that the Midlands media is going through a tough time – there have been cutbacks and job losses at the region’s newspapers, business magazines, television and radio stations.

In my view, this is a result of three things: the recession, global or otherwise, which has helped kill advertising; the empire building of the BBC; and the advance of the online sector, including of course the Internet, but also newer developments such as Twitter and the blog community.

To be fair to Trinity Mirror, they have acknowledged the advertising downturn and reacted to the online threat by embracing it as much as they can. They have also warned about the BBC and the fact that other media cannot compete against it, particularly in the current climate, because of its privileged position and secure funding.

Unfortunately, there was little sympathy for Trinity Mirror, either from the panel or the floor – among the more interesting suggestions I heard were that the Post and Mail should be put into administration; that the two titles should be handed over for free by Trinity Mirror – not clear to whom.

Then there was the suggestion that the titles should be run by philanthropists, rather than the ‘greedy b***ers’ that run them now. Or the rather strange suggestion that the Post and Mail should be printed in all manner of different languages, from Urdu to Swahili and back again.

Among those who this struck a chord with was free newspaper entrepreneur and panellist Chris Bullivant, who believes that the future is free (not surprisingly really – he was one of the people behind the relatively short lived Daily News, a free newspaper in Birmingham which launched back in 1984).

Unfortunately, the cost and practicalities of a multi-language free newspaper would appear insurmountable, in my view.

You’d probably have to get rid of all the journalists to pay for the translation services, for one thing.

And also, how will you make sure Mrs Wong at no 23 gets the Cantonese version, and Mrs Patel at no 21 gets the Urdu version? As I recall, those sort of issues didn’t trouble the Daily News delivery boys – their speciality was dumping piles of newspapers in the nearest canal (allegedly!)

Must mention a few more curious suggestions from the floor – one was that Advantage West Midlands should prop up the Post and Mail, and another was that the city council should get involved.

An incredulous Nigel Hastilow, panel member and former Post editor, could hardly contain himself at those suggestions, and shot them down in flames pretty quickly, on the basis that proper newspapers must retain their editorial independence and can’t be in the pocket of local politicians.

And so, to finish with one final comment from the floor: a complaint actually, that teenagers aren’t reading the newspapers these days. Tut tut, it’s really not good enough.

“Actually, teenagers never did read newspapers,” said Hastilow, correcting another false impression.

And that was it. Not a very inspiring level of debate, and nor did it answer the fundamental question: what are we going to do about the crisis in the local media? Answers on a postcard please, in Urdu, Swahili, or whatever.

…and here’s a few quotes from the panel at the event:

Chris Morley (National Union of Journalists): “I’m probably the chief whinger on the panel.”

“There has been a debauchery of profit taking by media companies without an eye to the future.”

“Journalists need to be properly resourced. It shouldn’t be just about filling space; it’s about quality journalism. People will gravitate to quality”

Nigel Hastilow (former Post editor): (referring to the Birmingham Post) “No more blood left for the stone to give.”

Jonathan Guthrie (Financial Times): “Ownership of local newspapers resides with private owners.”

“People feel less local than they did. They’re not as interested in local news.”

Chris Bullivant (free newspaper entrepreneur): “Future of regional newspapers is free.”

The story in question concerns well-known pornographer David Sullivan, who is also the co-owner of my favourite football team (not), Birmingham-based Small Heath Alliance FC.

‘Insider’ reports that Sport Media Group, of which Sullivan is honorary publisher, has today announced a cost cutting exercise at its Manchester headquarters, as it bids to reduce debts of £12m.

For those who don’t know, Sport Media Group is the publisher of the ‘Daily Sport’ and the ‘Sunday Sport’. What can one say about these two? Well, I suppose you could start off by being factual, saying that the latter commenced life in 1986, followed by its stablemate five years later on.

They are newspapers in the loosest sense of the word – there is really no news in them, they are mainly devoted to soft porno pictures and adverts for adult goods and services. Oh, and what ‘news’ there is seems to consist largely of made up nonsense such as ‘World War 2 bomber found on the moon!’ (complete with faked picture, if my memory serves me correctly).

Other ‘classic’ stories from the ‘Sport’ include: ‘5 stone mum gives birth to 8st baby’; ‘6st girl beds half ton man’; ‘16-stone toddler crushes gran to death’. 

During 1989 I was working on a publication in London, and we received word about a man living in a Skoda on a main road in Finchley, together with several hundred mice. We checked it out, and it was true – the occupant of the car was a former police sergeant, who had sadly gone a bit doolally. Because of the man’s mental issues, we decided against running anything – not long later, the story turned up in the ‘Sunday Sport’. 

Someone from my publication had clearly sold the story to the ‘Sport’ (we never found out who) – they ran it as I have described, although they did tack a fictitious quote onto the end of it, purportedly from the resident of the Skoda revealing that he had not had sex for ten years. 

Thankfully, that’s my only experience of the ‘Sport’, which the aforementioned Lord Porn of Small Heath ran until he flogged it in 2007. Well, now he’s back, it seems, according to ‘Insider’. And judging by his latest comments about Small Heath Alliance FC (as published here by www.tribalfootball.com), he’s got the fantasy world of the ‘Sport’ mixed up with reality.

He has declared that his aim for the current season is sixth or higher, and thus qualify for Europe. Well, I’m sure all Villa fans (and nearly everyone who knows anything about football) will have had a seriously good laugh about that.

And that’s not all – Sullivan adds: “We’d also like to win the FA Cup”. Well Mr Sullivan, all I can say is that the only newspaper likely to carry that story in the near future is…(need I say it?)

The ‘Post’ pen portrait is a bit of a talking point in our office, as it poses a number of standard questions which the subject has to answer – and the problem is that most people give the answers which they probably think ‘Post’ readers want to see.

So, you usually end up with terribly politically correct nonsense – for example, the question ‘Best thing about Birmingham/West Midlands?’ is often answered by some reference to how wonderful the cultural diversity of the place is, and how fabulous that you can be out of the city and into the countryside in about 20 minutes.

 And then there’s the ‘First thing you would do if you were (city council leader) Mike Whitby?’ question – the answers to that range from the ridiculous to the bizarre. For example, someone suggested recently that Whitby should build a Metro system in the sky, to alleviate the transport problems on the ground.

Hmm, yes that sounds perfectly feasible – actually, it reminded me of that old film ‘Fahrenheit 451’, which featured such a system.

Anyway, enough of that, onto the pen portrait:-

 Name: Philip Parkin

 Age: 53 (groan)

 Job title: Partner, Headline Communications

 Best thing about Birmingham/West Midlands? Aston Villa FC

 Worst thing about Birmingham/West Midlands? Birmingham City FC

 First thing you would do if you were Mike Whitby? Get rid of the tramps and ‘Big Issue’ sellers from the city centre – god knows there are enough of them.

 Who are you heroes and why? Jimi Hendrix – the world’s greatest guitarist – and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. We’ll need another Margaret Thatcher to clear up the mess left behind by the current incumbent.

 What was your childhood ambition? I wanted to be an airline pilot – trouble was, I was hopeless at maths, so that idea got canned.

 What are your ambitions now? To win the lottery.

 Central Library: stay or go? Reminds me of the Clash song – ‘If I go there will be trouble, and if I stay it will be double’ …and all that. Yes, if it goes there will be trouble because it just isn’t the right climate to spend millions of pounds on a new library. And if it stays there will be even more trouble, because the current library is such a phenomenally monstrous building.

 Favourite phrase: two from the old Stiff Records of the 1970s – ‘Stiff Records, where money makes money’ and ‘If it ain’t Stiff, it ain’t worth a ****.’ Classic!