Early on a June afternoon in 1996 I arrived at the new Punchoffices in London, directly opposite Harrods. The office atmosphere was rather languid and unhurried, though to be fair, the re-launch of the once-venerated magazine, first published in 1841, and whose contributors included Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and P.G. Wodehouse, was some time off.
There was no sign of the editor, with whom I had a lunch appointment. In the meantime I met some of the staff, including Mike Molloy, the design supremo. Most of the others were playing darts. There did not seem to be any urgent business to attend to. Occasionally someone would go to the huge fridge and produce a designer bottle of water, or beer, or white wine. Every now and again an attractive young woman in a short black skirt would float past, and another would appear. Intrigued, I asked what they all did. Everyone seemed mystified. The darts players, all male, shrugged, or scratched their heads.
Then someone said: "Does it matter?" This was not at all like working in The Irish Times.
The newly-appointed Puncheditor, Peter McKay, bounded into the room like an eager puppy and within two minutes we were having lunch in the Italian restaurant around the corner (of course), where the jovial Scotsman was greeted with cries of joy by the proprietor and seemed to know all the staff. Expecting some sort of talk about the new Punch, its aims and ambitions, I instead was entertained for the next couple of hours with the latest London media gossip, and was encouraged to respond in kind with the news from Dublin.
We finished the bottle of wine, and Peter suggested another. Not a good idea, I thought, if we were to talk any kind of business, so I declined politely. Peter stared at me sadly, looking like a dog denied the second half of his biscuit. Then he suggested just another glass. That seemed reasonable. The waiter materialised as if by magic, produced the two biggest glasses I have ever seen, and divided an entire bottle of wine between them. I felt I was in a Punchcartoon, with no caption necessary.
I cannot say the afternoon was productive, but it was certainly enjoyable.
Later I sat in at a conference to consider the latest developments for the magazine. My weekly article - "The Last Word" - was to be placed on the inside back page. Then Mike Molloy announced that the "LBA" would appear every week in the centre of the magazine, spread over perhaps two pages. "The LBA?" asked Peter. "The Long Boring Article", explained Molloy. There were to be a few of those.
The following September I attended the London launch of Punchalong with the glitterati of the city and a few liggers. The invitation featured Mr Punch (the puppet who featured on the magazine cover until 1954) and was printed on card a quarter-inch thick. The party was held in the Georgian Room restaurant of Harrods. It featured a three-foot-square iced cake, a mechanical Punch and Judy show, 12 sugar sculptures of Punch, and numerous huge ice swans from which waiters ladled out goblets of a lethal cocktail.
I bumped into Peter McKay. "Quick!" he said, "We have to get away from the suits!" So we moved off, but not before Peter appropriated a couple of bottles of wine. The 500 guests included a large sprinkling of media, a few MPs, various socialites and some of the writers. All awaited the arrival of our host, the new proprietor, Mohamed al-Fayed, who had bought Punchfrom United Newspapers for half-a-million pounds sterling to include the famous Punchdining table with the carved initials of numerous writers. The comic and mimic Paul Bremner had been hired as guest speaker, and as soon as his employer appeared, being chased furiously around the room by photographers, Bremner (biting the hand which fed him, and clearly enjoying it) launched an ad-libbed, mock-pitying rant, in most unpolitically correct pseudo-Egyptian accented English: "I am just small Eegeeptian man, loving England and its insteetutions, especially the Savoy, Harrods and Punch, so much that I buy them, and eet is hope someday England one day love me. God save the Queen". And so on, as the diminutive billionaire, pursued by the photographers, scuttled through the crowd like a demented hamster.
Sadly, the relaunched Punchlasted less than a year. It was a beautifully produced magazine, with no expense spared, but it became clear soon that there was no longer any great appetite among the British public for humour which was not lavatorial, vindictive, cruel or downright puerile, and circulation never reached the required numbers. A month after the re-launched, Mike Molloy departed, as did Peter McKay a month later. The greatly experienced manager Stewart Steven took over as editor, but while production levels were maintained the sparkle faded. Then came Paul Spike, husband of Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman (I know that is sexist, but let it pass) who spiked, or Spiked, all the regular contributions, and attempted to turn Punchinto a competitor for Private Eye. That too failed. The magazine eventually folded in 2002
Peter McKay, now with the Daily Mail, was always full of writing ideas. He once wrote to me : "A delightful piece about the opera. I could not make head nor tail of it, but it was very funny anyway."
That is the kind of encouragement that keeps one on one's toes.