THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

In 2000, Diary recalled Vanessa Feltz’s less than illustrious start in media as a Campaign reporter. Bernard Barnett, her then editor, said she was crap: “She claims that I fired her. That may be right.” One of the most famous spats reported by Diary followed a 2001 Private View by BMP DDB’S creative chief Larry Barker, who likened a BT Internet ad by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO to “You’ve Been Framed without the laughs”. Peter Souter, his AMV counterpart, retorted that Barker “wouldn’t know a good ad if it bit him on his ample arse”. Three years later, Diary awarded its medal for courage under fire to an unnamed agency that reportedly sang part of its pitch to lovable pensioners’ friend Philip Green.