The Top 10: Misapplied Tabloid Titles

As everyone was talking about Quiz, the TV serial by James Graham of his stage play about the coughing major, Hugo Rifkind commented that it was “weird” that the coughing major will be forever known as the coughing major when it wasn’t actually he who coughed. Robert Hutton suggested it would make a list, and nominated the second.

1. The Coughing Major. Charles Ingram, who won the million-pound prize on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in 2001 but who was later convicted of cheating, which involved an associate in the studio audience coughing at the right answer.

2. Canoe Man. John Darwin, who faked his death in 2002 by paddling out to sea – in a kayak.

3. The Russian Linesman. Tofiq Bahramov, who awarded England’s third goal in the 1966 World Cup final. He was from Azerbaijan, USSR. Nominated by Dean Bullen.

4. The Bouncing Czech. Robert Maxwell, the Labour MP and crooked owner of the Daily Mirror was originally Slovak: he was born Jan Hoch in the easternmost part of Slovakia, now in Ukraine, then in Czechoslovakia. Thanks to Gill.

5. Lord Haw-Haw. William Joyce, hanged in 1946 for treason, was probably not the first broadcaster of Nazi propaganda to be given the nickname. It was coined by Jonah Barrington of the Daily Express, probably referring to Wolf Mittler, a German journalist who spoke upper-class English. Nominated by Paul T Horgan.

6. Piltdown Man. Skull fragments, supposedly found at Piltdown, East Sussex, of an orangutan and modern human combined and presented as the “missing link” between ape and human in 1912; exposed as a hoax in 1953. “Fake news, literally,” said Jim McDougall.

7. The Tart of Gib. Carmen Proetta, a translator in Gibraltar, who had given uncomfortable evidence about the SAS killing of IRA members. She was awarded a reported £300,000 in libel damages from The Sun and other newspapers that had sought to discredit her by alleging she was a former prostitute. Thanks to James Hanning.

8. The Broadsheet Press. Ingenious nomination from Robert Hutton. Well, it is a misapplied title because they are now mostly tabloid size. (Incidentally, tabloid, from tablet, was a late 19th century proprietary name for a pill, which came to mean “concentrated, easily assimilable”.) Dean Bullen also nominated Fleet Street.

9. Florida Phil. Former security guard Phil Wells was jailed for stealing £1m from Heathrow airport, after four years on the run. Police believed he was in Florida, when he was really hiding in Essex. Wonderful story from the 1990s recalled by Patrick Hennessy.

10. Gorbals Mick. The former speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, was from Anderston, Glasgow, “which looks up at the Gorbals like it’s Belgravia”, said David Boothroyd.

Honourable mentions for Kevin O’Sullivan and Darren Sugg, who nominated Spanish flu, and for James of Nazareth, who suggested Michael Foot’s “donkey jacket”, which was actually a short overcoat.

Next week: Songs with speeches in them, such as “Everglow” by Coldplay, which features a speech by Muhammad Ali.

Coming soon: Things politicians say when they want to sound as if they’re doing something, such as calling for a constitutional convention (yes I’m afraid Keir Starmer did).

Your suggestions please, and ideas for future Top 10s, to me on Twitter, or by email to top10@independent.co.uk