When no news is bad news

THE LAST STRAW: A newspaper is, in many ways, like a great sailing ship. It is no coincidence that the top of the front page is called the "masthead," for example; or that the "galley", as well as being a Roman warship with sails and oars, traditionally rowed by slaves, is also a piece of printing equipment. But above all, like a sailing vessel, a newspaper is notoriously dependent on wind conditions.

In the case of the newspaper, of course, I'm speaking figuratively. Having said that, when there's an election to cover, or an FAI press conference, conditions can get windy in a very real sense. But as a general analogy, news fills the pages of a newspaper in the way that air currents fill the sails of a ship. And ships and newspapers alike are sometimes carried by the wind to exotic places which contain hidden treasure, the Cayman Islands being an obvious example (this was in the great age of sailing, of course; also the great age of journalism, before they cracked down on expenses).

Why, the very word "news" is formed by the cardinal points of the compass: north, east, west and south. According to Brewer's Dictionary, the letters used to be arranged, compass-like, on newspaper mastheads, inspiring the "ingenious conceit" that this is where the word derived. In fact, it comes from the French nouvelles (confusingly, nouvelle, the singular version, means "short novel," a fact which will only encourage those who think journalists make the news up). ).

For much of the year, news-generating events are as dependable as the trade winds. When the Dáil and the courts and tribunals are sitting, a newspaper bounds along at a rate of knots. The letters page billows and the ship's timbers creak (a bit like this metaphor - Ed) and, for news people, all's well with the world. Indeed, sometimes you can get too much of a good thing. On an already busy day, for example, the FAI could suddenly precipitate another national crisis and, suddenly, the ship is in the grip of El Niño.

But this is not what the news person fears. What the news person fears is that, every year, the vessel must pass from the northern hemisphere of spring into the South Seas of autumn. This involves a perilous journey across the equatorial line of July and August, and the dreaded doldrums, where the winds slacken to nothing, the sails go flat, and even the letters page can find itself becalmed (although this never happens in practice).

News is not as seasonal as it used to be, admittedly. And yet, on certain days of summer, an editor or even a mere columnist can take on the haunted look of the ancient mariner after he shot the albatross. "Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink," he cries, scanning wire services full of small earthquakes in Chile, and routine press releases, none of them from the FAI.

It's A popular wisdom in civilian life that "no news is good news". But extensive market research suggests that the exact opposite of this is true. "Country on holidays: nothing bad happening" is not the sort of headline that sells papers, whatever some letter writers think. We're not proud of it, but it's a harsh fact that journalism needs crises, especially in July and August. And that's why many of us were hoping the Spanish-Moroccan stand-off in the Straits of Gibraltar would last at least until September.

Unfortunately, as you'll have read, Spain "liberated" the tiny island of Perejil (meaning "parsley") on Wednesday in a dawn raid by elite troops. The liberation might have happened even earlier, except that, since the outcrop is uninhabited, even by parsley, the initial invasion went unnoticed until a coastal patrol spotted a tent on the outcrop, which is of no strategic value but is "popular with scuba divers". There were no injuries and Spain returned the invading force to Morocco, like a mildly annoyed neighbour handing back a child's ball that has come over the hedge and landed in the greenhouse.

I note from the reports that Perejil is "about the size of a football pitch". But unless the FAI can somehow be persuaded to get involved in its administration, the crisis would seem to be over.

Still, a Guardian writer got a whole column out of the incident on Wednesday, which was a fine example of striking while the iron was almost hot. You find your subject-matter where you can at this time of year.

Incidentally, the Straits of Gibraltar are of course guarded by the "Columns (or Pillars) of Hercules". And while looking this up in Brewer's, I noticed that other famous columns include one at the site of the Bastille in Paris, which commemorates the July revolution of 1830 and is thus known as the "Column of July".

Speaking of which, that's another of them done, thank God.