There was always, also, an interest in guessing whether Frayn had "set" it all at either the Observer or the Guardian, which in those days were separate institutions. (Malcolm Muggeridge's journalism novel Picture Palace had been too transparent in this regard, enraging his employers, the then-Manchester Guardian management, who obtained an injunction preventing its publication.) In the introduction to the new edition, Frayn says that it was a touch of both. The paper is never given a name, but it's in any case obviously not the Observer because it comes out every day. A possible clue, for addicts and cognoscenti, is contained on the very cover of the new edition which drops an entire word out of the title of the novel, and rather metaphysically offers it as Towards the End of Morning. The Guardian is no longer so celebrated for its misprints but there will always be those of us who are nostalgic for the days when it was, and when the opera critic Phillip Hope Wallace, for example, could wake up to find that he had reviewed last night's Covent Garden performance of Doris Godunov. Quite apart from the humour, however, there's an elegiac quality to the novel. Even by 1967 there was change was As the author explains in the introduction, the novel is based on his own experiences as a journalist and he even indicates the real life man on whom John Dyson – probably the second most important character in the story – is based, given that the newspaperman had passed away at the time when this segment has been written… George God strikes again’ and John is to travel to the Middle East, on a trip organized by an agency called Magic Carpet and arrive just the day before the television program is to air live and thus he could manage both endeavors, or so he thinks, for the trip to the Orient is a marvelous disaster (for the readers, it is the occasion to laugh out loud) for the journalist that are expected to write flattering reports…

Its protagonists work to compile the miscellaneous, unimportant parts of the newspaper – the "nature notes" column, the religious "thought for the day", the crossword and so on. The paper seems sunk in a state of torpor, and the journalists' work is extremely dull. Feeling their lives and careers are stalled, they spend most of their day complaining about work and dreaming of better things. John Dyson, the lead protagonist, longs to work in television, and is at last given his chance towards the end of the book. However, fate seems determined to thwart him. A few themes seem to be emerging from the way in which our novelists have treated our journalists: copious gin (or whisky, or port, or what you will), mediocrity, cynicism, sloth, and meanness of spirit. This is to say nothing of the greatest of all les déformations professionelles: shameless and indeed boastful fabrication. And I entirely forgot to mention the fiddling of expenses. All professions are deformed by this, of course, but only journalism has made a code out of it:

Their work lives are dull and their personal lives are dull. But what lifts this novel above the average is the writing; it has an ingenious, imaginative, glimmering edge to it, often most serious even when it is being so damn funny. It has a somewhat skewed approach to approaching the world through metaphor that so many other books of this author’s generation have (I’m thinking in particular of Malcolm Bradbury’s ‘The History Man’ here) where it’s almost like certain images come to dictate the existence of the characters beyond what we would normally expect in a realistic novel. It’s not only that metaphor is defined by the subjective experiences of the characters here, but it’s as though the literary device is an experience which is waiting out there in the world for these slightly dull and perfectly ordinary men to stumble across it. In any case, the literature of old Fleet Street was to a very considerable extent written by journalists and for journalists. Most reporters I know regard Scoop as a work of pitiless realism rather than antic fantasy. The cap fitted, and they wore it, and with a lop-sided grin of pride, at that. Perhaps this assists us in answering the age-old question: why does the profession of journalism have such a low reputation? The answer: because it has such a bad press. Mr Salter saw he was not making his point clear. "Take a single example," he said. "Supposing you want to have dinner. Well, you go to a restaurant and do yourself proud, best of everything. Bill perhaps may be two pounds. Well, you put down five pounds for entertainment on your expenses. You've had a slap-up dinner, you're three pounds to the good, and everyone is satisfied."

Bob tried to remember why he hadn’t told her...But he couldn’t really remember the reason. It was already lost – part of the jetsam of discarded immemorabilia which disappeared astern all the time. From hour to hour one’s life slipped away into the haze, before one had really looked at any of it properly... Fictional account of journalists working on Fleet Street. I liked it, don't get me wrong but Frayn's updated introduction was more enjoyable than the whole book. The first couple of chapters were fine concentrating on the journalists on Fleet street & gave a pretty good rendition of how newspapers worked - not to mention the long pub lunches, but the end pretty much petered out with the domestic lives of the main characters, and recounting of John's airline screwup of his Persian Gulf trip. I guess I was hoping for more action, more journalistic action. Dialogue and characterisation were good. The end was just a bit meh. Having worked at Fairfax in the 80's this seems incredibly slow, almost Victorian & tame to me, except for the guy dying at his desk and noone noticing (which could have easily happened in the Fairfax reading room)!. In any case I really wanted to give this 4 stars - the writing was good enough, there just wasn't enough plot.It isn't really a book about fleet street. It is just based in fleet street. I guess the literary writers of fleet street brayed so much about it in the 70s that it is now pigeon holed there.