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Blogger aims to publish book of weekly newspaper bills

A blogger is hoping to get his photographic collection of weekly newspaper bill posters published in a book.

Ewan Gaffney has been photographing what he has termed Hackney Gazette’s “black humour” bills for the past seven years.

He was inspired to publish them online under the name ‘Good News Hackney’ after moving to the area and spotting the headline ‘Nowhere left to bury dead’ outside a newsagents, only to discover it was a “really boring story”.

Since then, Good News Hackney has gained thousands of followers on social media.

Hackney bills

Ewan has now been approached by crowdfunding platform Unbound about publishing his collection in book form.

He told the Gazette: “I kept seeing funny headlines and developed an unspoken relationship with whoever was writing them [probably legendary news editor Russ Lawrence – ed]. I was living with a computer programmer and he said I should start a blog, so I did.

“The name came into my head because it was always bad news. I did it for a laugh and then one birthday my mate bought me the website address and I started taking more photos of random stuff. You know what it’s like – there’s all kinds of weird s*** in Hackney.

“It snowballed when I got Twitter and began having a go at people I thought were being w***y, and lots of people got into it. They started to submit their own pictures and I’ve got about 150 who regularly submit stuff to the blog.

“I’m imagining the book will be a tongue in cheek tour guide with a lot of w***y quotes.”

3 comments

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  • August 23, 2017 at 10:02 am
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    When it comes to bills my own personal favourites are ‘Famous King Dies’ (following the death of King George VI) and ‘Dock Dispute: Wilson Steps In’.

    Another bill that got the words: ‘Jobs Blow For Shotton Workers’ the wrong way round may – or may not be – apocryphal…

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  • August 23, 2017 at 10:48 am
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    Funny bills, intentional or otherwise are always a joy to see,and there are some classics out there ,I just don’t see the need to produce them in printed book form
    The blog should suffice

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