A WISE sister advised me recently that I shouldn’t apologise for my shortcomings but start my emails with “thank you for your patience in waiting for my response” and the same could be said for this column. During the week, ideas float into my head and by Friday morning, they have been battered away with immediate tasks, and so the column doesn’t get written.

On Tuesday, though, a bulk delivery to a union office went spectacularly wrong, with the Daily Star being delivered instead of us. It reminded me of the “only a moron in a hurry” story which is well worth telling.

In 1978, the People’s Press Printing Society, the co-operative that owns the Morning Star, sought an injunction against the Daily Express to stop them from using the title “Daily Star.” The judge, Mr Justice Foster, wasn’t sympathetic and stated: “If one puts the two papers side by side I for myself would find that the two papers are so different in every way that only a moron in a hurry would be misled.”