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.”

Calling workers a moron doesn’t sit well. I can imagine working the pre-dawn shift between 3am and 9am when the newspaper wholesaler trade is distributing to all corners of the island on a stretched distribution system, on occasion, errors are made, with the Daily Star being the most common. It’s usually a teething problem with a new home news delivery when the driver isn’t familiar with our title, and it soon gets sorted. Still, every time it happens, it makes me smile.

Next week we will be commemorating International Workers Memorial Day on April 28, attending the STUC Congress and celebrating May Day not only on May 1 but at events all over the bank holiday weekend. Send your requests for bulk orders for these events to circulation@peoples-press.com and we will do our best not to act like a moron.