Leveson: the secret story

A little behind the times with this post, the media has now moved on from the Leveson enquiry and is consumed with mocking Nick Clegg, weeping about Jeremy Hunt and, if you're the Daily Mail, exposing the dangers of fake tan.

I've been meaning to write a blog about this for a while. I will leave my actual opinions and comment for badly articulated ranting sessions in the pub though and take this opportunity to expose a little known fact about the news of the world which, shockingly has been utterly and ruthlessly ignored by the press. Not just by the press in fact, but also by the internet at large. The internet, of which 99% is dedicated to fucking CATS, because evidently there really is nothing better to talk about.

So brace yourselves, this is big.

My dad was hacked by the News of the World.

I know. It's huge.

Actually, it's not, as I'm not even entirely sure they actually fully hacked in, but there was a definite attempt. Also it makes a more interesting story.

Just to give you some background info on my Dad in case anyone starts presuming he's some secret agent or  a cousin of the queen who no one talks about. He's really not. He's an accountant, who lives in South Northamptonshire who likes reading. I'm obviously incredibly biased towards him given I'm his daughter and all, but he really is brill. However, regardless of how wonderful I think he is and and all, I really can't imagine why he would ever EVER be hacked into. So this got me thinking about the possible range of voicemails which they might have had the pleasure and thrill of listening to, and the related headlining stories that would also be broken.

Just to give you a bit of background, my Dad is the type of phone user who only turns it on when he needs to make a call, so voicemails rarely get listened to or noticed. The News of the World probably trawled through a fair few before realising there was literally nothing interesting to glean. Although the reality is, there are probably only two types of voicemail which my dear Dad is ever actually left.

The first: instructions from the mothership. The mothership is a commander, a leader, and having been married for 25+ years, she is aware of just how useless my Dad is at shopping. I have lost count of the number of times he has been dispatched to the supermarket with a shopping list of eggs, milk, coriander, fabric softener and orange juice, only to turn up with eggs, the wrong type of milk, chives, bleach and tropical juice (logic: there was no orange juice but at least this has orange in it).

It is very necessary therefore to leave strict instructions re: what to do in case the strictly listed items aren't there. In a voicemail. Which, chances are, won't get heard. ONE MUST TRY THOUGH.

Imagine:

BREAKING NEWS: Man buys SKIMMED MILK from Waitrose.

I'd buy that.

The other which I suspect they may have had to sit through can be traced back to my brother and I. This headline though would probably have struck a cord with a huge amount of the population. I'm not going to give this any background or explanation, in fact, they probably would have struggled to get a story out of it because really, what else is there to say apart from:

OFFSPRING RINGS PARENT, ASKS FOR MONEY.

Bloody typical.