Leggoland - ODIOUS CREEPS AWAY

[ian1964 10,626]

THOSE of you who are regulars here will not have been in the least surprised to learn that the Times of London is parting company with Odious Creep.

 

And with the best part of a month to spare. My forecast, made here around the last Festive period, was that Creep would be away before the end of 2011

 

And so it has come to pass.

 

Odious Creep's away. Or, you like, Odious Creeps away.

 

He has fallen a long way since his heady days of the spring of 2006 when his campaign in the Herald and suspected collusion with UEFA, led to Rangers facing sanctions.

 

The aftermath of that was a dramatic dip in the Heraldâ??s circulation figures and a new editor, Charlie McGhee taking a hard line with Creepâ??s slack professional habits which saw McGhee order that Creep desist from his sloth of supposedly working from home and report to the Herald office for duty on a daily basis, just like all his hard working colleagues.

 

It wasnâ??t too long after that and an alleged confrontation with McGhee over a diary piece which the editor was reported to have pulled from the paper, that Creepâ??s short reign at the Herald came to an end, with not a penny piece of compensation

 

This coincided with the Times of London re-launching its Scottish edition, with veteran Magnus Linklater as editor. Somebody â?? no names no pack drill â?? put a word in with his pal Linklater and Creep got the job.

 

Now, According to Creep, he has accepted a fairly generous redundancy package.

 

I can tell you what it is!

 

A month for every year he has worked there, as is standard practice within Rupert Murdochâ??s empire. Creep joined the Times of London as the district sports reporter for the Scottish edition in the spring of 2007, which means he has under five monthâ??s money to collect.

 

Now, depending on if you believe what he tells you, and when he makes the claim, he either earns well below the £100,000 a year he claimed to one colleague, only to lower that figure when I made it public here, or whatever the £56,000 a year salary he originally signed on for when he joined the paper, has incrementally risen to..

 

Letâ??s meet him somewhere in the middle and put the salary he has been stealing at £70,000 a year, giving him a pay off of around £30,000, which he will trouser tax free.

 

At the time he claimed he chose to leave the Herald, five years ago, he was pulling down £85,000 a year. It always seemed strange to most in the old inky business that anyone should chose to take such a massive wage cut, at the same time as going from one paper ,with a circulation of around 60,000, to join a Times of London Scottish edition with a circulation which was then half of that.

 

The effect his presence has had on the Times of London is for him to leave it with a circulation just north of 17,000.

 

Almost a year ago I made the point that the News International operation would be trimming costs during 2011 and its Times of London Scottish edition was an obvious target

 

One point I made was that editor Linklater was ageing and his power to protect Creep diminishing. In the interim we have witnessed Creep again manning the anti Rangers barricades during the clubâ??s dispute with UEFA over the shadowy involvement of the FARE organisationâ??s spying trip to Holland with Rangers.

 

This blog highlighted the close relationship Creep has with FARE, through the Celtic supporting wife of its head honcho, BBC Radio Five Liveâ??s Aasmah Mir. This is something which may have caused concern to his London paymasters.

 

I have also been able to frequently draw the attention of his London bosses to his cavalier attitude to work, highlighting his failure to attend two Walter Smith European press conferences and his lack of appearance at Hampden when Alex Salmond held court.

 

More recently there was the a busy Monday which saw him do nothing for Rupert Murdoch, but appear on BBC Scotlandâ??s Reporting Scotland, before heading to Clydebank for a two-hour gig on Radio Clyde.

 

All of which may just have done the sort of damage he once confided to a colleague on a European trip he feared I could inflict. It was not long after this â?? was the timing significant? - that he made a series of allegations about me which resulted in me resorting to the services of mâ??learned friends.

 

Not long after that, Odious Creep made a remark to the Heraldâ??s Hugh McDonald about my sexuality which provoked guffaws of incredulity from the magnificent Shug. The occasion was a match and the venue was the Hamilton Accies Press box.

 

For all of that, it would have been stretching a point for this blog to have been headed, Spike Milligan-styleâ?¦

 

ODIOUS CREEPâ?¦.MY PART IN HIS DOWNFALL.

 

Wouldnâ??t it?

 

http://leggoland2.blogspot.com/

[26th of foot 6,001]

Oh, the weather outside is frightful ...........................

 

Ach, this news is going to keep me all warm and fuzzy for a long time.

[Guest Dutchy]

How can he get £30,000 tax free? Surely there's a story there? lol