upfront; biggob

IF MOVING house is one of the most traumatic events in a person's life, shifting office is worse. That is, if you are a male tabloid journalist in touch with your sensitive side.

The Sunday Herald and its sister papers weren't the only Scottish press on the move recently. Down at Glasgow's Anderston Quay, the nation's favourite tabloid was undertaking an operation more delicate than the lifting of the nearby Kingston Bridge months earlier. While the newspaper in question didn't manage to move upmarket, it succeeded in shifting upriver - at least by a few hundred feet.

But the apparent ease of the move masked a stooshie in the mens' room. After years of knowing who was likely to appear beside him at the neighbouring urinal, one of the paper's journalists was suddenly feeling all at sea. He could cope with sizing up to any of his superiors in the staff toilet, as long as he knew what to expect. What he couldn't deal with was getting the old chap out in front of the new boys. The last thing he wanted was some young accounts exec showing him the money when he least expected it.

Gone was that comfortable knowledge that, even if one of the senior managers gave him a verbal kicking on the editorial floor, he might get his own back in the little lads' room. The urinal is the great equaliser, after all, and you only know you're going to win if everyone has shown their weapons. There's nothing the IT support team can do about inadequate equipment of that sort.

The feeling of unease didn't stop there for the reporter, who has uprooted some of the biggest stories in the business and is used to getting his hands dirty. He confessed that he might even have to go so far as to start putting toilet roll down on the seat, simply because he didn't know who had been there before him.

In one swift move, he has learned that life is tough at the cutting edge of Scottish journalism and if you can't hack it, put a knot in it.

Copyright 2000
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