Abstract
This is an absolute corker of a book: I loved it. It is, bizarrely, part of the publishers’ Business Books imprint. To be sure, there are one or two slightly chewy technical paragraphs (at least to this non-business brain) about licensing arrangements, buy-backs and complex loan-fixing. But, while the book is full of deals and how to make them, it is handled with such a light touch the reader comes away thinking that any of us, with enough drive, the ability to get up every day for breakfast at 6am and a fair for snappy cover lines, could end up with a pile like Richard Desmond's. Hmmm, I don't think so.
This is a rollicking romp of a journey, full of swash and buckle before ending in a slightly quieter tempo (could Desmond ever be quiet?) as the author movingly embarks on a voyage into his Jewish past while dedicating himself more fiercely to his charitable work. Quite why Desmond hasn't been honoured yet is something of a mystery (well, maybe not in these politically correct days: after all, there are some quite fruity magazine titles and TV channels on his CV). But certainly in the early days of this century Tony and Cherie Blair pop round for dinner and ask Desmond's then wife Janet how she fancied being Lady Desmond. She turned down the offier saying they didn't hold with that kind of thing. Writes Desmond, “Tony and I exchanged looks.” But more's the pity, as he deserves a big gong considerably more than most of the media knights and barons who prop up the lists.
This book is also extremely funny, as Desmond plays up to his caricature as a loud-mouthed bully. Writing of his eye infection, he says the acute angular glaucoma “characteristically affects those of Far Eastern origin. Since my family originated in the Ukraine some will speculate about a distant relationship with Genghis Khan and his invading hordes. It seems unlikely because this Genghis Khan was a very aggressive fellow… and I always do my best to be agreeable.”
Desmond is at the Marmite end of the media mogul spectrum. He admits it himself: only a third of the people who read the book will like it, he says. Well, if that is true it's a great pity. Everyone should read it. But he has always divided journalistic opinion and the purse-lipped brigade has never much liked him. (Their mistake: he's founded environmental and gay lifestyle magazines, and supported them enthusiastically, and has long disliked the posh and the privileged). And there's a lot to Fleet Street “culture” Desmond doesn't like. He is brilliantly funny about the early days of his ownership of the Express titles, offices with, he says, “more booze than many off-licences”. (That was the sports editor's of course.) There is a hilarious episode when he discovers a “room full of scruffy people. We asked them what they did, but they said they couldn't tell us. After… more patient questioning, I managed to unearth the fact that they were the special investigations department. I asked what they were investigating and they said, ‘We can't tell you.’” Well, I can vouch for the authenticity of that: something very similar happened to me, quite possibly with the same people.
Although the core of the book is the big media deals of his mainstream career, he is superbly evocative of London in the 60s and early 70s with its clubs, scams, music and assorted shady characters. Desmond was clearly a brilliant salesman: after his parents’ divorce – his father was a high-flying executive with Pearl and Dean, brought low(ish) by booze and gambling – the young Desmond became the main breadwinner. While still a teenager he was pulling in £6,000 a year flogging magazine ads, a colossal sum then. No wonder the next step was to start building his own magazine empire. It wasn't always plain sailing and there were rocky times, peopled not least by some of the biggest media monsters of the time. Kerry Packer, Robert Maxwell, Paul Raymond, and Bob Guccione all make walk-on appearances, some poignant (Guccione), some hilarious and some scary (Packer).
Of course many of the best bits are in the rip-roaring account of the birth of OK!, which Desmond took from an under-nourished monthly, trailing its weekly relative Hello! by a mile, and turned it into a glossy weekly feast, making shedloads of money and smashing its Spanish-owned rival into the long grass. But he had to put his money right where his mouth was: he bid more than £2 million for the first pictures of Michael Jackson, his new-born baby, and a “wife” nobody had ever heard of. The account of how Desmond set up the deal, despatched Martin Townsend, then of OK!, to take delivery of the pictures in New York, then racked up the pre-publicity hype here before doubling the sale, is gripping.
His next big coup was the wedding of David and Victoria Beckham, spread over innumerable issues. After this, he realises, “success equals weddings and babies”. And of course the story of OK! is full of those faintly-remembered celebrities: Patsy Palmer, Grant Bovey, Anthea Turner and Snowfake-gate, with some Hollywood royalty too – Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas, as well as Sly Stallone.
This is a marvellous read, full of great insight into newspapers and publishing, as well as journalism itself. After all, this is a man who bought the Express group for a snip, plus two printing presses, and is making money out of them. If there is a fault, there is fractionally too much about drumming – Desmond is an enthusiastic drummer and raises millions for charity with his band RD Crusaders. But you know what they say about drummers. And they always drive the beat.
