View tag: Fleet Street

Fleet Street tales

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Thursday 22nd December 2016

What a brilliant way to start the festive season. Lunch at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street with some of my best pals from the old Evening Standard days, followed by a drink or two at one of our favourite haunts, the Punch Tavern. As the drinks flowed, the years rolled away and the stories got wilder. We reminisced about the days when mobile phones were the size of bricks, ...keep reading

Commuter life

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Thursday 3rd December 2015

The last time I worked in an office Prince Charles was still married to Princess Diana (just), mobile phones were the size of bricks and cappuccinos were unheard of outside Italy. In those days journalists started their careers in the provinces, honing their skills on local papers, learning 100wpm shorthand and bashing out stories on tinny typewriters. After a couple of years loads of us hotfooted it to London, clutching our prized ...keep reading

How to be a journalist

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Wednesday 5th August 2015

Rooting through my old files I’ve just found a piece about journalism that I wrote as a young reporter. I can’t for the life of me remember who it was for but here, completely unedited and slightly dated, is an account of my route to Fleet Street. Don’t even contemplate going into journalism if you are highly-strung, sensitive to the slightest criticism or expect to be on the 6.03 train ...keep reading

From Fleet Street to The Riding House Café

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Wednesday 8th April 2015

“Goodnight sweet prince,” muttered my son as our trusty Gaggia coffee maker finally gave up the ghost. He twiddled a few knobs on the machine and the illuminated display declared that the machine had made the grand total of 7,197 cups of coffee in its time. Blimey, I thought, that’s a heck of a lot of coffee. We’d had the machine serviced regularly but the coffee had definitely been getting ...keep reading

My newsroom days

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Tuesday 13th August 2013

Watching BBC One’s brilliant The Field of Blood last week was like stepping back in time for me. Stepping back to the Eighties when just like the characters in this gritty TV drama, I worked as a hard news reporter. Adapted from Denise Mina’s The Dead Hour, The Field of Blood was set in Glasgow. But even so, the scruffy, paper-strewn newsroom, whisky drinking hacks and clattering typewriters were uncannily similar ...keep reading

Countdown to the royal baby

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Thursday 4th July 2013

The newspaper picture took me straight back to my royal reporting days. Rows and rows of metal stepladders have suddenly appeared outside the Lindo Wing of St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington – ready for the royal birth. There are still two weeks to go before Kate Middleton’s baby is due but Fleet Street’s finest aren’t taking any chances. The photographers have been camped outside the hospital night and day since ...keep reading

Hankering after my old job…

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Thursday 28th June 2012

Tony Blair reckons he’s better equipped to be PM now than he was during his Downing Street years. He says he’s learned “an immense amount” and would love to have another go, even though it’s unlikely to ever happen. I was never a Blair devotee, but his words – during an interview with Evening Standard editor Sarah Sands – made me think. In my 20s I worked as a news ...keep reading

My dream office – and jackets on the backs of chairs

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Tuesday 20th March 2012

Tyler Brûlé is a publishing phenomenon. A war reporter turned fashion editor, he launched the ultra-hip style magazine Wallpaper* in 1996 and the following year Times Inc bought it for a cool $1.7 million. He writes the Fast Lane column in the Financial Times and has also founded an upmarket monthly magazine called Monocle. His latest venture is based at chic headquarters in Marylebone, where everything is so stylish that ...keep reading

Why aren’t there more women reporters in Fleet Street?

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Monday 5th December 2011

I’ve never met a journalist who isn’t obsessed with their byline – for the uninitiated, that’s the line between the headline and the story giving the name of the person who wrote the article. Maybe it’s because hacks are an insecure bunch, or maybe it’s because we’re preoccupied with seeing our names emblazoned in lights. It’s certainly why an article by Kira Cochrane in today’s Guardian caught my eye. Back ...keep reading

Working the night shift – and memories of Fleet Street

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Sunday 9th October 2011

On Saturday and Sunday mornings I wake in the grey light of dawn, fretting that my student daughter has got home to her flat all right. She’s working weekends in a chic Shoreditch bar from seven pm till six am and I can’t help worrying. Actually, I didn’t even realise bars stayed open till six, but then again I don’t think I’ve been inside one since about 2002. The upside ...keep reading