Journalists, if no one else, will be interested in the news that Britain's once greatest newspaper group, now comprising the Daily and Sunday Express and the Daily Star, has just been bought by "porn king" Richard Desmond, who publishes titles like Asian Babes, Big Ones, and Nude Readers' Wives (as well as OK magazine).
Leaving aside all the business and editorial ramifications of the story, some people have asked why exactly a wealthy man would want to buy the Express and its Sunday sister, "the chronic invalids of the national press" as the London Independent described them.
The answer given was that ownership of the Express papers will confer a certain long-desired status on the new proprietor.
A colleague was quoted as saying that Desmond "is desperate to get away from the porn king image", and others agreed that his purchase of the titles fits in with a long-running pursuit of respectability.
According to another business associate, Desmond has always wanted to make a big personal impression: "When I've been to his office, it is an article about his business acumen rather than his porn empire that he has on his wall. I think that is telling."
Meanwhile the Egypt-born billionaire Mohammed al-Fayed has just sacked James Steen, editor of Fayed's Punch magazine, which in the past couple of years has concentrated on muck-raking. It appears Mr Fayed has been persuaded by his advisers that owning a scandal-sheet is unlikely to help in his long-running quest for a British passport, i.e. respectability in Britain.
What is it about "respectability" in British eyes that makes very wealthy people so envious of those who have it, and willing to spend millions to achieve it? Even his ownership of Harrods has not secured Mohammed al-Fayed the respect he craves. Thankfully, such a situation has never existed in this State. Indeed the situation is quite different here.
Many years ago a couple of colleagues and myself were quite settled in eminently respectable jobs in the Civil Service. We were all rising rapidly in public esteem (and this was before the Civil Service embraced transparency), but unfortunately our remuneration was not rising at an equal rate. We were becoming more and more frustrated.
Eventually we resigned, rather publicly. Stepping down from a State job in those days was unheard of, and it was straightaway assumed that we had done so for reasons of honour, though honour was the last thing on our minds. Our respectability quotient instantly shot up, merely increasing our frustration. And our income quotient naturally collapsed, which didn't help things either.
By this stage we were heartily sick of respectability. The only respectablity we craved was of the sort enjoyed at the time by, in descending order, used-car dealers, pest-exterminators, ladies of the night, rat-catchers, chicken-sexers and journalists. All we wanted was money, and lots of it.
We decided to go for broke, well, for riches, actually, and publish a soft porn magazine, whose name I have long forgotten. It was set to make us millions, and lose us instantly and for ever the awful millstone of respectability. We would be despised, and we would be rich. That was all we desired.
Straightaway, we began to make our offices into the seedy den of iniquity appropriate to our new venture. We tore down all the articles praising our business acumen and stuck up grimy pictures of dubious half-dressed ladies. We insulted our staff. We learned to make sexist jokes which we hardly understood.
To our horror, the whole venture was destroyed before it even got to the printing stage by an office minion, who somehow managed to get the wrong end of the stick, imagined we had been duped into producing the rag, and innocently thought he was doing us a favour by trashing it. The story got to the press, again the wrong way round, and we were hailed as the men who had saved the country from a river of filth.
Finally we were forced to admit defeat. Our financial crusade had failed. We trudged back to the Civil Service, where we were given a little less money and a lot more respect. The British way has its attractions, but they do things differently here.
Times Square will resume on December 7th