Under the counter

Always the last to knowI've never been able to explain it myself, but often us journalists are not top of people's lists in terms of timely information dissemination. In fact, more often than not I have found companies would rather us hacks didn't get hold of their news at all; they are obviously still unaware that if we don't get our pound of flesh the legitimate way we will simply make something up. Many of my best stories have come as the result of irritation at some outfit's stonewalling tactics followed by a quick burst of irritable creativity on my part, followed at a later date by the glorious realisation that my latest fictitious work has turned out to be entirely correct. Believe me, it happens more often than you might think (in other publications, of course). For all those reasons, therefore, I was chuffed to get hold of a...