THE RETURN OF THE KING OF GOSSIP

by Philip Parkin, Operations Director, Birmingham Press Club

Birmingham’s king of gossip is dead – long live the king! Yes, the legendary John Bright, formerly of the ‘Birmingham Post’, has been reincarnated, thanks to Birmingham Press Club.

For those baffled already, John Bright was the name given to a long running gossip column in the ‘Post’, which lifted the lid on the more interesting goings-on among Birmingham’s business community.

The Bright column was, for those who made an appearance in it, often highly embarrassing. Despite that, there were very few people on Birmingham’s business scene who didn’t relish being in it.

In fact, many of the city’s suits openly courted the main author of the column, the former business editor of the ‘Post’, the venerable John Duckers.

However, all good things come to an end, and when the ‘Post’ went weekly last month, Bright was abruptly dropped, no doubt much to the dismay of some of its regular contributors (what did Birmingham’s self-styled ‘favourite lawyer’ Adrian Hindmarsh make of it, for instance? Or ‘super-networker’ and otherwise humble accountant Tony Taylor?)

So, the ebullient Duckers decided to relaunch Bright as an online entity – with the backing of Birmingham Press Club, who are sponsoring the site (see story here).

There’s just one problem – the new website can’t be called John Bright, and that’s because the ‘Post’ is intending to re-introduce a Bright column in the New Year (although one imagines that may well turn out to be a pale imitation of what went before).

So, what to call the revelations of the guru of gossip, the titan of tittle-tattle, the wizard of whisper, the master of muckraking?

Well, he’s gone for ‘Duckers and Diving’ – and just in case anyone doesn’t see the connection, the website also goes under the slogan of ‘Birmingham’s brightest business gossip column’. Take a look here.

We all no doubt look forward to visiting the site and reading the latest revelations emerging from Birmingham’s business community – and if you’ve got any tittle-tattle to reveal, please let Duckers know about it via email (johnduckers@live.com), or else all we will read about are the latest events in the lives of Hindmarsh and Taylor. You can have too much of a good thing, you know!