Matthew Norman's Media Diary

Mary Ann, we bow down before you

AS ONE who repeats himself in print with such wearying regularity that he now and then drops off at the keyboard mid-sentence, I must raise my hat in awe to Mary Ann Sieghart. Although technically The Times' Bee Sting Correspondent (you will recall the endlessly intriguing sequence of items about the wound to the sole of her foot), Mary Ann enjoys full licence to stray into other areas of national concern.

This freedom she has indulged to contemplate yet again the clarification she was forced to make after correctly accusing Charles Kennedy of missing that Budget debate due to alcohol. The latest reprise contains an account of how she once took the young Charles under her wing, although whether this ordeal contributed to the problem that eventually ruined his career she doesn't consider. What she does acknowledge, however, is the pivotal role played by her title in the distribution of seats at the last election. "If we had toughed it out," she writes of the decision to clarify the Budget boozing claim, "perhaps Kennedy would have been ousted sooner, and a better leader would have won more seats at the general election."

Anyone less riven by self-doubt and incapable of blowing her own trumpet would have just come out and said it, of course, so let's say it for her: but for the cravenness of colleagues who bowed to pressure to make that clarification, there would have been a hung parliament with the Lib Dems holding the balance of power and Mary Ann feted across the land as the Warwick the Kingmaker of the bee sting world.

There now, doesn't that feel better? As for this much-loved ritualistic coded attack on her own paper, assuming that she avoids anaphylactic shock or other side-effects associated with insect venom, this is scheduled for its next outing on 7 February 2007.

* SPEAKING OF repetition, I was astounded by the ubiquity of an observation about the shadow Chancellor George Osborne last week. Mr Osborne went on the Today programme on Thursday to twitter his infantile fantasy about introducing ultra-high-speed maglev trains to Britain (God knows, these things are rare enough in the developed world) and during a moment of startling originality he referred to his desire for a "21st-century transport system". The following morning, at least four newspapers made the point that David Cameron once promised to shoot anyone who came out with that particular phrase. This featured prominently in the diaries of The Guardian, The Sun and The Times, although the Daily Mirror subtly downplayed it, limiting its coverage to a page lead and an angry leader affecting to believe that Mr Osborne's career had been endangered by the faux pas.

How so many people recalled Mr Cameron making such an apparently forgettable remark as long ago as October 2004 is amazing. Whether this group memory syndrome is down to some form of osmosis or even a kind of journalistic telepathy, it's hard to say, but one thing that absolutely doesn't explain it is some 12-year-old at New Labour HQ using a database to unearth this vital anomaly and passing it on.

* ANYONE CONCERNED about not making it to last week's Times Educational Supplement leaving do need not despair. Since the title was sold by Rupert Murdoch to a private equity group - and the more companies such as Exponent buy into the print media, the better for us all - one or two people have been encouraged to take redundancy, and the party was in their honour. Since the death of Norris McWhirter, it has become very hard to verify world records at short notice, but so far as we know, a leaving do for 47 people at least sets a mark in this industry. At time of writing it is unclear exactly where they've got to with the speeches, but the event is expected to go on until Friday week at the earliest.

* I AM thrilled to note my old friend Simon Heffer making an all-too-rare sortie into the world of satirical writing. On the comment pages of The Daily Telegraph, Simon drolly affects to champion John Reid as Tony Blair's successor - an eventuality seen as almost exactly as likely as Simon realising his own ambition to edit that title when they finally wheel caretaker John Bryant off to the sheltered accommodation in Rottingdean. Whether this encroachment on to the ground of the great Craig Brown will help Simon's chances seems a long shot, but a splendid display of versatility all the same. Well done.

* INCIDENTALLY, in the same piece, Simon alludes to the start of the shooting season (specifically to the partridge). By eerie coincidence, our first extract from volume two of his rite of passage memoir Son of PC Gone Mad!, dealing with his university days (Clubland Gout Press, £18.99; due to be published in late October), concerns the first time he ever went shooting. Without giving too much away, the episode involves a jaunt to Norfolk with his friend "Colonel" Andrew Roberts, the KFC franchise heir, during the chicken farmers' strike of 1980, to shoot Rhode Island reds, and this will feature here next week.

* NO OFFICIAL word yet from Simon, finally, as to whether he will be joining any strike held in protest at the sacking of The Daily Telegraph's popular foreign editor Alan Philps. He was spotted last week, however, being measured for a tweed donkey jacket in Savile Row. Meanwhile, six braziers have been ordered from a manufacturer in Doncaster on the account of WF Deedes.

m.norman@independent.co.uk