(1) In hindsight it seemed inevitable that Wheen would gravitate to the Eye.
(2) But even Wheen didn't believe his long-cherished 70s project would ever capture the zeitgeist.
(3) Wheen says he immediately realised not all publications were like the late 70s Statesman.
(4) The Eye, as it likes to be known, still holds its legendary lunches at Soho's Coach and Horses pub, where fish pie or fish and chips is eaten, wine drunk and gossip shared with editor Ian Hislop , his deputy Francis Wheen, Hislop's predecessor Richard Ingrams and other Eye hacks.
(5) On another occasion the late Robert Maxwell went on a television chat show to announce that, "My lawyers have told me that I would win £1m in damages from Mr Wheen for what he has said about me - but I don't need £1m."
(6) Although Hislop was a keen student performer, and took a revue show to Edinburgh with Imogen Stubbs , he is not, says Wheen, "a great one for showbusiness".
(7) At the Statesman, Wheen didn't just proof the crossword.
(8) After prep school, Wheen was sent to Harrow which was "academically terrible.
(9) Sometime in the early 1980s, Francis Wheen first heard about a peculiar dinner that had taken place at the Rio Tinto-Zinc company flat in May 1975.
(10) " Wheen does not record any speeches by Hislop's enemies, though there are enough of them to fill several coaches.
(11) "He [Hislop] kept a story out of Private Eye recently," Wheen adds, "because he thought the person it was about was a bit mentally fragile, and he didn't want to be responsible for him doing any harm to himself.
(12) Although it is a grim time for print media, Private Eye has actually increased its circulation, and Wheen says that is partly due to what it does and how it is run.
(13) He is good friends with John Sessions and Harry Enfield from their time working together on Spitting Image but, Wheen says, "he does like to keep parts of his life separate from others.
(14) Wheen's partner since the mid 90s, and the mother of his two teenage sons, is the writer Julia Jones.
(15) Almost since arriving in Fleet Street Wheen had contributed to Private Eye, and when he took a break from full-time journalism in the mid 80s to write his book about Tom Driberg, the newly appointed editor, Ian Hislop, "conned him into coming in a few days a week.
(16) · This is an extract from the introduction to Francis Wheen's book, Hoo-Hahs and Passing Frenzies: Collected Journalism 1991 -2001
(17) "Every 10 years he gets a bit drunk in the evening and wakes up with his contact lenses in," says Francis Wheen , one of the first people Hislop signed up when he became editor and now his de facto deputy.
(18) Allied to Wheen's belief that "amnesia is the handmaiden of hypocrisy" and you have what has been described as "a one-man Reuters".
(19) Christopher Hitchens was there, and Wheen shared an office with Duncan Campbell, who at the time was on trial at the Old Bailey under the Official Secrets Act.
(20) "He's always been terrifically nice to me," Wheen agrees.
When
Definition:
(adv.) At what time; -- used interrogatively.
(adv.) At what time; at, during, or after the time that; at or just after, the moment that; -- used relatively.
(adv.) While; whereas; although; -- used in the manner of a conjunction to introduce a dependent adverbial sentence or clause, having a causal, conditional, or adversative relation to the principal proposition; as, he chose to turn highwayman when he might have continued an honest man; he removed the tree when it was the best in the grounds.
(adv.) Which time; then; -- used elliptically as a noun.