Tuesday, April 04, 2006

The Entertainer. A couple of bits

Twenty One
We were sat around the pool drinking wine or beer. The band was setting up in the corner. One of the rockers, known as The Fat Man, held out a copy of his new newspaper, The Entertainer. A Spanish journalist friend looked it over with surprise. 'You've got the adverts at the top of the page', he said, 'they're meant to go at the bottom!'
Mike (as he understandably prefered) said that he had wanted to start a radio, but the police chief had explained to him (through my wife who was interpreting) that the 'Ley de Fraga' stated that foreigners weren't allowed to own a radio station. How about a newspaper instead?
The first edition was a scissor, kitchen table and shorthand affair, put into final form at the printers in Almería. It was to be a weekly, it needed funding. It was April 4th 1985.

A few people were going to make a fortune out of it (if not the one who put a fortune into it).

Twenty one years later, the name survives in various not always wholesome forms.


*The rest of this article has been removed to comply with a court injunction

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