Same ... but different

Welcome to my new blog site - it's almost the same, but still feels completely alien. This must be what it's like for Dr Who when he regenerates.

OK, how to kick things off in my new home? Probably best to start by talking about tomorrow's paper.

If only, if only, if only.... if only we could print all those stories that almost made it into the paper over the years before being spiked on grounds of taste, legality or truth. It would be the best thing you've ever read.

All newspapers have great stories that never get to see the light of day.

There's one publication not very far from here which has been trying, for the past few weeks, to stand up a story headlined 'Santa molested my pet dog'. It's still not quite got to the point where it is fit for publication, and sadly may never be so.

We had a similar tale this week. As soon as the newsdesk told me about it, I'd already mentally drawn up the front page.

Unfortunately the more we looked into it the more holes we discovered, and my hopes of a mind-boggling splash disappeared down the toilet. Which is quite ironic given what the story would have been about.

The other thing we had to decide this week was how to play the Sally Anne Bowman trial. It's a huge story for any paper, but has already received extensive coverage in the nationals and on our own website.

In the end I decided against leading with it, and only time will tell if that was the right decision.