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Revamped Rockall Times wows readers

Dear Readers,

There was no issue of The Rockall Times last week, an event which provoked a flurry of anxious emails from readers eager to know what was afoot on the world's remotest islet.

The truth can now be told: the hard-working staff of this venerable institution have spent the past fortnight completely overhauling The Rockall Times to meet the demands of the 21st-century reader. In short, we've upgraded the whole publication. It's not been easy changing years of tradition and ingrained working practices, but that's what's we've done — and with only a small number of non-voluntary redundancies, horizontal re-allocations of labour and external reassignments.

You'll probably realise that this week's edition of The Rockall Times is the very first to appear in our new "easier-to-handle" size and "more-pleasant-to-read" format. Instead of having to carry around a full-size computer screen when commuting you'll now be able to catch up with the most accurate satire from around the world in the new, reader-friendly format.

After years of producing editions of our paper in the old way, in what was increasingly seen by our dynamic readers as an old-style layout, the top management of the paper has made the courageous decision to completely revamp and refresh the product. These changes were in no way a reaction to other changes elsewhere but instead should be seen as The Rockall Times' independent decision on an organic' form of growth to bring you a better reading experience as the guardian of your interests in the acceptance that times have changed.

The process has taken some time; there were many brainstorming sessions at chic resorts around the world — a costly but very necessary expense — at which new ideas were pushed around between the paper's top executives as well as outside consultants hired for their expertise and ability to ingest new thinking in today's cut-and-thrust media world. If some of these changes take time a little to bed in then of course we'll immediately junk them.

The result of all our efforts is in front of you today.

Some background is order:

Although the print run of The Rockall Times has remained steady over the past few years at one, the paper has always been committed to continuous improvement a process that the Japanese call "sushi". Each week for the past year we carried out surveys to see how much people were laughing and why. Research indicated that a growing number of today's generation find it hard to laugh if the page size was too big, the font was too old-fashioned, or the colours were too dull.

We are looking to attract a different group of readers: the young, the female, and the stupid who don't get the more difficult and challenging material. With more use of colour, more pictures, and shorter sentences this marketing task will be easier to appeal to this vitally important shallow demographic. This radical new approach should not be seen as any form of "dumbing down" — but rather a necessary reaction to the changing market.

Reaction amongst members of the public to our "dummy" editions was largely positive with comments such as, "remarkable", "extraordinary", and "quite unlike anything I've ever seen before". The final consensus that "dummy" was the right word for the job.

Speaking to production staff in the final meeting before the pixels rolled, The Rockall Times editor-in-chief Lester Haines — the man who has done so much to bring the publication into the 23rd century and who may be inclined to take well-deserved retirement and make way for a better-looking man — issued a clarion call to all the hard-working reporters and support staff that we believe bears wider repetition: "Where there is hope let us bring faith and where there is faith let us bring charity," he intoned.

Important clarification

Contrary to the popular belief that any newspaper smaller than a tall ship's mainsail is called a "tabloid", our new size is officially referred to as "Berliner" and has a long and illustrious tradition in the newspaper world. Indeed, William Caxton's first smallsheet for the thinking middle classes initially appeared in 1561 but was quickly dropped because, at that time, production limitations meant the format simply could not contain the required volume of sanctimonious, self-satisfied proseletyzing the readers demanded.

However, advances in typesetting and computerised printing techniques mean that the modern publication can accomodate up to 50 per cent more smugness per column inch than previously thought possible. Enjoy.

In next week's bite-sized Rockall Times:

• Travel: Louis Theroux sniggers at some fat, stupid Americans
• Middle England special: How the chattering classes got a taste for pashmina
• Win a luxury Cotswold weekend for you and 11, well-informed and witty friends

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