apologia pro epics mea

The Braveheart movie again.
Mel Gibson playing me, is hacking his way through a field of English warriors during the battle of Sterling Moss.
In the middle of the field he meets a newspaper boy who says: "Ere Guv, read this."
The newspaper boy gives Mel a clipping containing an article from the financial section of the Irish Independent.
The article was written last weekend by Laura Noonan.
Mel puts down his sword and reads:
"Troubled Uk media giant Johnston Press has put its 14 Irish newspapers on the market, the Irish Independent has learned. The titles for sale include The Leinster Leader, The Kilkenny People, The Nationalist, The Limerick Leader, The Tipperary Star, and The Tallaght Echo. The group's printing presses in Limerick and Kilkenny are also understood to be covered by the sale, which is being carried out by Dublin based Raglan Capital. The total package is expected to fetch upwards of 70 million Euro, leaving Johnston Press with a hefty writedown on the estimated 250 million Euro it spent compiling its Irish portfolio."
Mel skims the rest of the article.
The details blur past his consciousness.
In addition to what Braveheart's just read, Laura Noonan notes that in Britain the Johnston Press owns 18 daily newspapers along with 300 weekly newspapers. She refers to the Johnston Press as Britain's second largest newspaper group. She recalls a Malaysian tycoon's purchase last Summer of 20 percent of the Johnston Press. She notes that the Johnston Press has net debt of 460 million pounds sterling. She fails to note that since firing me a year ago, the Johnston Press share price has fallen from about four quid a share to a few pennies a share. Meaning that the entire Johnston Press company is now worth less than it paid for the Leinster Leader.
Let us leave Mel on the battlefield at Sterling Moss scratching his head and grinning ruefully.

Ah yes.
Independent Newspapers reportage of the Johnston Press.
Where to begin.
I remember the Indo reporting the Malaysian billionaire's investment last Summer. I remember the Indo suggesting that the Malaysian billionaire might buy the whole company. I postulated that Tony O'Reilly's minions at the Indo had suggested this just to p-ss me off. One thing I know about Malaysian billionaires, is that they don't become billionaires or stay billionaires, by throwing good money after bad. I considered a Malaysian billionaire buyout of the Johnston Press unlikely in the extreme. Although I didn't rule out the possibility that Tony O'Reilly's Independent Newspapers might be interested in an alliance with the Johnston Press themselves since their coverage of the Johnston Press seemed, shall we say, sympathetic.
So the Johnston Press owns a whole host of British newspapers.
Let's be clear folks. We could all own 300 weekly newspapers and 18 daily newpapers, if the idiot banks lent us hundreds of millions of pounds to buy em.
There's no achievement in it.
I mean, I fail to see the achievement in getting idiot bankers who are about to collapse the entire world banking system, to divvy up limitless sums of money so that you can buy newpapers which have nothing whatsoever to do with you, and whose workforces never agreed to work for you, and which have traded for over a hundred years without you, and whose balance sheets almost immediately go into meltdown once you've taken them over.
Now that's what I call voodoo economics.
I mean what's so great about that?
And the Indo estimates that the Johnston Press spent just 250 million buying Irish newspapers.
Ha, ha, ha.
I estimate they spent a little bit more.
And the Indo thinks the Johnston Press will get 70 million for the lot now that it's put them back on the market.
Ho, ho, ho.
I doubt there'll even be a buyer.
But we'll see.

My prediction for the Johnston Press is that because they fired me from the Leinster Leader in November of 2007, the entire group will go bust and all their titles be lost.
I believe God will smite them.
Smite them good.
Smite them right in the balls.
Perhaps I'm not an objective judge.

Well, well, well bold readers.
The Johnston Press.
Leaving Ireland with their tails between their legs.
As us Braveheart scholars always say: "We sent them home to think again."

And Heelers looked on the borders of his empire and wept.
For there were no more worlds to conquer.