The VNU years: Cup of tea?
Like jumping from the frying pan onto a lukewarm electric cooking ring
In pre-mobile phone days, disappearing to the pub during working hours was a lot easier to do. Bear with me.
I’d joined a businessy tech trade weekly magazine called PC Dealer in 1990, as a news reporter run by VNU, a Dutch publisher based in a large and ageing red brick building on Broadwick Street, in the heart of London’s Soho.
PC Dealer was one of two main papers operating in the IT trade space (the other being Microscope, run by Dennis Publishing). On my first day I was taken to lunch by Guy Kewney, editor in chief and pioneering tech journo from the 80s. Anyone who knew Guy will understand me when I say the conversation didn’t flow (he wasn’t big on small talk) but despite that we did seem to get on OK.
In the office he sat in front of a whiteboard. He occasionally used it for work but mostly for sayings and jokes. For some reason, one has always stuck in my head:
Murphy’s Law - things happen at inopportune moments.
Cole’s Law - mainly cabbage, thinly sliced.
Guy was perhaps one of the most well-known IT journalists around at that time (along with Jack Schofield at The Guardian). In 2006, he shot to even wider fame. Guy had been invited by BBC News to comment on the Apple v Beatles court case, but another Guy - Guy Goma, who had turned up to reception for a job interview - looked stunned as he was ushered into a guest seat.
The resulting interview went viral, much to Guy Kewney’s dismay. [see below]
In the mid-to-late 70s, Guy worked on Computing and went on to work at a number of other top tech titles, including Personal Computer World. Guy unfortunately died of cancer in 2010.
At PC Dealer he was always looking for a scoop. He knew lots of tech people. He took it all very seriously, and on the whole, was good at it. The editor and legendary comms and security journalist Steve Gold on the other hand was a little different. A jolly, “alright matey” kind of bloke, Steve was more pragmatic and certainly laissez faire when it came to management (and writing) style.
“You off to the pub? Good man. Have one for me matey.”
Steve Gold was also well-known for being one of the UK’s first hackers. In the mid-80s, Steve (and Robert Schifreen) were charged and convicted of hacking into Prince Philip’s personal messaging account. They were later acquitted and the incident was a factor in the Government introducing the Computer Misuse Act in 1990.
Steve unfortunately died in 2015.
Like any place of work, it really is about the people, good and bad. Only a year earlier, VNU had been subject to a lengthy journalist strike. Understandably it was a little sensitive to talk of trade unions and collectivisation (which didn’t put off one young revolutionary on the team) and this seemed to effect the culture. I didn’t know anyone that had been involved in the strike at that time but the sense of ‘them and us’ still remained, if only in stage whispers.
VNU had seen the likes of Danny Finkelstein (editor of Connexion) and James Cleverly - yes that James Cleverly (ad sales) - pass through its doors during the 90s but there were plenty of other characters that made the place interesting, not least of which was Mike Magee (co-founder of The Register, scourge of Intel, drinker, smoker, spiritual thinker).
We worked together at “castle despair” (his usual term for VNU on Broadwick Street) and often found ourselves (only occasionally, honest) having ‘features meetings’ in the Star and Garter on Poland Street.
“Cup of tea?” Mike would ask as he walked passed my desk at three in the afternoon, his Aberdeen accent a mild twang that would become more pronounced after a second pint.
It was hardly the stuff of spy fiction. We weren’t that hard to find if needed (it was a stretch that I was ever really needed that much. Mike on the other hand…) but on one occasion we heard the barman on the phone (landline) and he was looking in our direction, a broad smile on his face.
“No there’s nobody here at the moment…if I see them, yes of course, I will do…”
We later discovered the editor had been ringing around the local pubs to see where we were. Honestly, it would have been easier to just walk.
Sadly I was going to interview Mike for this piece and then he died on me. I think he would’ve seen the funny side. In a tongue and cheek way he saw himself as the Shane McGowan of tech journalism. He could be cheeky, funny but sometimes difficult and occassionally cutting - to colleagues as well as Intel spokespeople - and certainly liked a drink. RIP Mike.
Like Kewney and Gold, Magee was one of the older heads in tech media, surrounded by a large number of twenty-something hacks trying to find their way in a new and rapidly changing industry. The average age of VNU during this period must have been somewhere in the region of 25. Maybe today it’s no different.
After a short stint as a reporter, I suddenly found myself being promoted to Features Editor. A meteoric rise (at last, someone had recognised my obvious natural talent for tech) that was probably shaped more by my ability to plug a hole at a reduced cost. Outgoing features ed Steve Mansfield was certainly more tech/industry knowledgeable and savvy than me but hey, you have to start somewhere right.
I found a couple of old issues from 1991 and 1995 (see below) - front page news for brands that (mostly) no longer exist in the tech industry.
In our heads we were probably doing some great work but it’s quite painful reading over old articles. I guess in today’s money that’s what people call ‘a journey’. Well, I’m still on mine. Cup of tea anyone?
Next time: Locked in a room and falling asleep with Michael Dell
Wow, this article took me back. Our firm (Dabs Direct, dabs.com) featured regularly in PC Dealer's pages in the 1990s. Dave Atherton
While Guy's talent as a journalist (Kewney, not Goma) was legendary he was also great company, which is why he had so many good, reliable contacts. My first long-haul trip as a journalist involved sharing a flight and a room with him for Comdex Spring in Atlanta - which was a very memorable week both in terms of what I learned professionally at the show and the time we spent in Atlanta which a couple of his long-term local contacts. Soul food in Little Five Points in Atlanta (location for some of Driving Miss Daisy) and jazz at Blind Willie's were too highlights.
But his real talents were missing deadlines and making up absurd (late-homework-absurd) excuses, with deep cover stories... The (invariable) absence of Newsprint was explained by having left the carrier bag of press releases on the tube or the dog having thrown up into the bag. And, on one occasion - already late and in response to our latest attempt to chase him - he simply renamed a .com file .rtf and - when we we told him what he has sent was corrupted (we later change the extension on a hunch and ran it) - claimed it was the only copy and he'd have to write it all again from scratch...