Talk:Private Eye

Splitting project, list of regular mini-sections

• I have commenced what will probably be a rather large and time-consuming project of splitting this article to manageable size with child articles of worthwhile size, by splitting out the list of mini-sections, which appeared the most self-contained and logical. It is not sufficient, when splitting an article, to simply duplicate all the information across dozens of different articles. In the case of this article so far it has merely created a persistently long main article surrounded by several stubs. Lists of separate bits seems to me to make far more sense, as in the section I have just split. Does anybody support or oppose the continuation of a project like this, and for what reasons? Jdcooper 17:32, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Breaking out in-jokes section

Hi everyone, I have just broken out the section about "other jokes". Bear with me on the tidying up and formatting, I know there is lots of tweaking to be done, but basically I think the article is better for that, that section was very long, and contained a lot of repetition and confusing formatting. We are going to have some problems finding reliable and independent sources to back up some of the information, but the parent article was far too long anyway, and it would all have had to have been sourced eventually whichever the case. Jdcooper 16:25, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

• Oh, and plus, lots of the stuff in that section wasn't supposed to be in that section, I will likely merge some of it back across upon sorting. Jdcooper 16:26, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

(Lack of) Editorial Position

My assumption has always been that when presenting extreme positions on various issues (the Hirohito visit, for example) PE is actually satirising the position of various newspapers. By satirising left and right wing papers as they see fit, the magazine appears to swing violently left and right. I'm reluctant to add this view to the article since it's assumption/original research (though to be honest I see much of the current article to be on the same lines already!). Anyone else think that this is the case? TrulyBlue 09:04, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

• I agree, and I think that is probably such a central tenet of Private Eye that someone somewhere must have written about it. If we can find such a person and place then I think some comment on this issue would be a good addition, but without a source it is totally WP:OR, and although you are right about other OR in the article, two wrongs don't make a right! Jdcooper 06:19, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Prime Ministerial Decree

I had a go over the (brief) description of the Prime Ministerial Decree column, which has apparently become this premiership's incarnation of the St Albions/Secret Diary/Dear Bill column. The Broon-ites, as a comic strip, doesn't seem to be in the same vein, so I moved it down to the comics section. I left Prime Ministerial Decree as a redlink, but don't think it has got enough media attention yet to warrant its own article. Robin Johnson (talk) 12:34, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

• If/when it does the redlink can surely be filled. A redlink seems fine for the moment. I agree regarding the Broon-ites. Jdcooper 06:17, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Jammy Fishpaste

This was certainly used as a nickname for the late James Goldsmith, though there's no reliable quotable source on the internet and I don't have an old enough copy of PE to hand to reference. I'm going to add this back in with a citation request. Here are a couple of less reputable, but independent, sources to be getting on with: A blogger and another blogger. TrulyBlue 12:24, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

I've got back issues of the Eye, back to 1992 or so. Would some issue numbers suffice as a citation? Would it help / be allowed to quote some Eye content, including the use of this nickname? Djce 09:39, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Djce for the offer. I'm not an expert on wiki rules about quoting a publication to show evidence of this kind of thing, but a couple of Issue numbers and page numbers would do it for me. If you've got issues from the build-up and aftermath of the 1997 (May 1) election they are proabably full of his European referendum campaign. BTW, the nickname is in Goldsmith's own wiki TrulyBlue 12:24, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

NP TrulyBlue, I'll try to dig them out. They're a bit buried, it might take a while to reach them :-) Djce 12:43, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

• Eye 907 (20 Sep 1996). P5 (Colour Section). "Now that the victory of Sir Jammy Fishpaste's Referendum party is assured by the addition of zoo-keeper John Aspinall to its candidates' list, Jammy is checking his members more carefully."
• Eye 908 (4 Oct 1996). P6, "Referendum Party News. Sir Jammy Goldsmith's briefing session for more than 100 Referendum party faithful ...".
• Eye 909 (18 Oct 1996). P11, "Referendum Party Special": "[Robert Shrimsley of the Daily Telegraph] forgot to mention that his late father, Anthony Shrimsley, was editor of Now! magazine (prop: Sir J. Fishpaste)".

Djce 11:11, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Francis Wheen and Hypocrisy

This section seemed a bit odd to me, so I whittled it down a little. I was going to delete it completely, but thought I should canvass other opinions first. I've got two worries. First, that the charge of hypocrisy doesn't really fit Private Eye as it is not known for pushing any one political perspective (and this is actually noted as a 'criticism' in the entry. Second, the 'Street of Shame' section, as well as all the others in the first two thirds of the 'eye' are anonymous. There is no way of verifing whether Wheen wrote one particular column or the several particular columns you'd need to verify any charge of hypocrisy. If nobody objects, i'll delete the section in the next couple of days.