To be honest, I can’t remember too much about my early days because if I did I might say something that could incriminate me. They were happy days, though. Playing drums, midnight flits, petty scams, business advisers with unexplained fires, hand to mouth accounting and people getting a bit previous with one another. But I swear I definitely never threatened anyone too much other than as a bit of a joke, and if anyone did get hurt then it was nothing to do with me.
By the age of 18, I decided to settle down, so with a bit of cash I’d found down the back of a sofa, I bought my first magazine, Home Organist. That was a fucking disappointment, excuse my language, I don’t normally swear I can tell you, but it taught me the first lesson in business. Never trust anyone who is more dishonest than yourself. When I bought it, I was told the title was Home Onanist. They said there was loads of money to be had with photoshoots of women playing Yamahas with one hand and themselves with the other.
Around this time, I got a phone call from Bob Guccione asking me if I wanted to buy Penthouse. To be honest, I was concerned there wasn’t enough money to be made in soft porn but Bob convinced me I would do OK. Bob and I had our misunderstandings with the Mafia and one of my colleagues came back half-dead from a crazy weekend in New York, but I just wanted to concentrate on the business. To my lasting regret, I couldn’t persuade my gorgeous lady wife, Janet, to do a spread in Readers’ Wives. Even after I offered her £15 and a free ice-cream.
To be honest, I’ve always resented being referred to as a pornographer. I would far rather be remembered for making a fortune out of the Docklands development and for the deals I did with Conrad Black, Ernest Saunders, Gerald Ronson and Bob Maxwell. No one could have been more surprised than me that they all turned out to be crooks. But I’ve learned to take the rough with the smooth. Some deals you get shafted, other deals you do the shafting. That’s business and as long as you believe in the product, everything will turn out OK. Mind you, it still upsets me no one recognised Asian Babes as a giant leap forward towards a multicultural society. Maybe if more punters had bought the mag, there would be a lot fewer Muslims going off to join Isis and the Daily Express wouldn’t have needed to support Ukip at the last election. Just a thought.
The turning point in my career came with the death of Princess Diana. While the rest of the country collapsed into mawkish grief, I saw it for what it was. The world’s best publishing opportunity. Within two weeks, I had brought out three special OK! issues of Diana: Her Life in Pictures and made a fucking, excuse my language again, fortune. From then on, I was made and I used the money to buy a few more adult phonelines, a porn TV station and the Daily Express. It was what Diana would have wanted, bless her. Shame she didn’t live a bit longer, really, as she would have been perfect for Forty Plus with the right boobjob.
I have to tell you I was shocked by the state of the Express when I bought it. “I don’t want a paper that actually tries to report what’s going on in the fucking, sorry, world, you twats,” I yelled quietly, accidentally smashing my fist against the wall, and not locking another half-wit in the cupboard. Not that I ever told my staff what to put in the paper as I’ve always liked to consider myself a hands-off (apart from the odd throat) boss. It was just a coincidence that once a week we ran front page stories about how the Duke of Edinburgh killed Princess Diana and that they decided to splash with the publication of my bestselling autobiography.
My biggest challenge, though, was buying Channel 5. The question I had to ask myself was: “Could I take the TV station even further down market?” Thanks to programmes like Big Brother and the Woman with Three Vaginas, I was able to do that and cleaned up a cool half billion. Bish bosh. Somewhere over the last few years, it seems my wife Janet divorced me. I can’t think why. Still, easy come, easy go and I am now married to the lovely Joy, an airline stewardess so luscious I could have met her through my premium rate phoneline, Trolley Dollies 4 U. Life is fucking sweet.
Digested read, digested: Not OK!
