Good news, everyone – I have returned from a journey into the newspaper archives with more than 500 cuttings and a completed manuscript in hand! There will still be more work to do before the book is released, but we’re closer to the end than the beginning now.

 

The Press Gallery (the book) is a museum (The Press Gallery), dedicated to the wonder of newspapers and the folly of humanity. Here you can peruse The Cabinet of Complaints to see collections of people grumbling that nobody wants to work anymore or that kids today are spoiled. You can pop into The Hall of Blame and spend time considering how we love blaming everything bad on anything new, like jazz or bicycles or potatoes.

 

Stroll over to The History Hall and enjoy nine collections of some of history’s stranger moments, like our obsession with trying out every sport one-by-one on ice, or our compulsion to submit so much poetry about the sinking of the Titanic to newspaper editors that they had to beg people to stop. A visit to The Anatomy Galleries will tour you through different parts of the newspaper, from names and mastheads to obituaries and advice columns, like this letter printed in The Washington Post in 1919:

 

 You can take a break at The Café to experience the excitement and confusion of encountering pizza and hotdogs for the first time, and exit through the gift shop for a potpourri of final treats from the archives.

 

I’ll keep you updated as we get to the finish line and then you can take your own trip to The Press Gallery. I can’t wait to show you around.

Paul Fairie