[real red]

Well I've had some stick on here for my stance on DIC not being the perfect buyers some of their most love-struck fans think they are, and for my stance on Hicks getting blamed for a lot more than actually is down to him, but this is stupid for him.

I think it plays into his hands to blame him for promising something that Gillett had actually promised, or blaming him for something that neither of them said but Gillett was closest to saying. He must feel encouraged when he hears angry complaints about something not down to him. Like DIC must feel happy when they're getting credit for future plans they've never actually said they'd be doing anyway.

But this says a lot about Hicks. There are plenty of innocent explanations for this.

First of all it's not Murdoch, it's not Murdoch's daughter, it's Murdoch's son-in-law. He might not have dealt with Freud, he might have dealt with someone three rungs lower down.

It's right that the boycott ends officially at the Sun, and if it didn't we should be boycotting everything with Murdoch's stamp on it. Freud are further from Murdoch than Sky, NOTW, The Times and the rest.

But has he got no sense? (Rhetorical question). That's what does me. I know I didn't spot any link when I saw the article originally, but that's because I've no interest in smarmy London media agencies. But he should have. Five minutes for one of his office clerks to check Wikipedia would have done it. Five minutes.

It's still not worth condemning him over, unless we find out he's been eating out with Murdoch as part of a plan to unilaterally end the boycott, but he really needs to try and put his brain into gear before giving his enemies even more bows for their arrows.