Mixing fact and fantasy

AudlemOnline attracted 2,113 readers yesterday, easily a record for a weekend and our second highest ever, beaten only by 1st April this year when 2,150 readers clicked on.

A common feature of yesterday and April Fool's Day was that not all the stories were entirely true, although unlike at the start of the month, yesterday it was only Avril Fouliére's contribution that strayed from the unvarnished truth, as astute and fully-awake readers may have gathered.

It so happens that this weekend would have been the 100th birthday of the past master of mixing fact and fantasy in one widely read column. Peter Simple, written by the satirist Michael Wharton, was hugely popular daily fare in the Daily Telegraph for almost fifty years.

His column featured the likes of Alderman Foodbotham, the 25-stone perpetual chairman of the Bradford City Tramways and Fine Arts Committee and Mrs Dutt-Parker, the left-wing Hampstead hostess with four houses named after her Communist heroes.

With the arrival of Gladman Developments on the local scene – and that story alone has probably boosted AudlemOnline's readership by more than any one single event in our almost nine-year history – Avril Fouliére and a number of other special correspondents have been set loose on this company that is now rampaging across rural England.

We have been receiving information from many sources in many counties about Gladman, some obtained by Freedom of Information requests. We have also been warned that the company is very litigious, as those who exploit legal loopholes as their business model so often are.

Despite that, expect more revelations and fascinating insights into this mysterious world over the coming weeks. And we will leave you, our readers, to sort the fact from the fantasy. We hope, at the very least, you will be amused.

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