Astute readers of newspapers at this time of year will have noticed an increasing preponderance of stories beginning, "Scientists in Alabama believe..." or, "Evolutionary experts in Geneva are working on the theory that...." No doubt those readers read on, in the belief that what the words before them are in some way related to reality. And they certainly are - if, that is, you believe that I have consented to be Mariah Carey's toy-boy, but only on condition that I continue to share my prodigious favours with Whitney Houston. Sorry, Britney; not tonight. Perhaps Saturday; and I don't take credit cards...
The only basis for these "scientists believe" stories is to be found in a small chamber, the Creativity Room, in a remote part of The Irish Times labyrinth, the entrance to which is guarded by Gurkhas whose tongues have been surgically removed.
Head-hunters
Most newspapers have such rooms, though they are not always guarded by soldierly Nepalese. Kerrymen are favoured as security by some, and there was a time when New Guinea head-hunters found favour, but they went out of vogue when they developed an appetite for sub-editors.
Now no one begrudges a lonely exile from Port Moresby the odd snack or two, and if they had confined their nutritional adventures to the occasional individual from the books page or sports, no one would really have minded - a sub, after all, is only a sub. But when the Guardian night editor turned up to find that all that remained of his night staff was a single femur being agreebly gnawed by security, with the chief sub's head glumly sitting on the spike, something had to give. The New Guinea lads had to go, and in their place came some West Side Boys from Sierre Leone.
There is a purpose to getting these rough-house lads in; for they have to mind the intellectual heart of the newspaper, the Creativity Room wherein some of the most brilliant minds in journalism are chained to the oars of a galley which roams the world of their fevered imaginations. You only see the fruits of their endeavours once August arrives, but just as the grapes of October are the product of a year's endeavour, so are the vintage stories appearing in August the product of 12 months of toil by these unsung heroes.
"Scientists believe that life on earth began in outer space" is a story which surfaced in newspapers this week, using quotes from the Indian Space Agency. We are rather proud of that story in this newspaper. It was dreamt up by our Debbie last December - she was given a road-kill pigeon as a special reward for Christmas dinner. We sold the story on right round the world in the Frankfurt Silly Season Story Fair last Easter, and Debbie's royalties enabled her to buy a mousetrap to increase her protein consumption. All she needs now is another corker of a story, and she'll be able to buy some cheese for it.
Hallucination
It's not that this newspaper is mean: it's just that we've found than an imagination works best when aided by a touch of famine-induced hallucination. Well-fed minds are dullard minds, is our motto; and so we have a policy that seems a little stern but in reality is simply is a recognition of market forces. Occasionally we ease up on our stern regime, just so as the inmates of the Creativity Room can see our human face; and there's no way of describing the pleasure we got from seeing our Debbie tearing into her Xmas feral pigeon, then picking her teeth with its tiny talons, finally crunching them as well.
Made us feel like Santa, I can tell you.
Anyway, the product of this policy is a fund of stories to sustain newspapers through the long lean weeks ahead, such as one of ours the other day: "An artichoke that grows in salty water could help create a revolution in world agriculture, according to research." That appeared in the Siberian Gazette, but only because it wasn't good enough for us. Debbie thought it up. It was so poor we fined her one mousetrap.
The Times had another one of ours recently: "A coffin and a mausoleum have been unearthed which may have contained leaders of the ancient Jewish monastic community that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls." Don't you just love the "may"? Our Debbie is a wizard with the "may". She knows just how to pitch it. She could have said "may" have been the place where the Virgin conceived, or "may" have been the place where Judas hanged himself.
Terrible day
The problem is that with really important "mays" experts start enquiring about the origins of the stories. There was that terrible day when The Irish Catholic - of all people - had to send in Little Sisters of the Poor commandos to garotte its entire CR workforce in order to conceal the origins of its "scoop" that a feather from the wing of the Archangel Gabriel had been found in a public toilet in Termonfeckin. A stupid, stupid story, for everyone knows there is no public toilet in Termonfeckin.
And you believe that stuff about Code Red virus? Debbie again. It was so good she got her mousetrap back. Now I'm off to France, and for the next couple of weeks of the silly season, Debbie will be writing the Diary, under different pen-names. If she's very, very good, I've promised her a piece of cheese. If she's not, I get my mousetrap back.