I thought I’d had the best days in the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, aka, Fleet Street, but today’s Sun has reminded me of Keith Waterhouse’s dictum that ‘when journalists stop enjoying themselves newspapers will be boring to read.’

The Sun is never boring to read and today’s paper covers a story by their defence editor Tom Newton Dunn opening fire with an automatic gun from the deck of HMS Northumberland to reduce a pirate boat to matchwood. Which of us sailors would not like the chance of doing that?

What many of The Sun’s sniffy detractors do not realise is just how much of the British social agenda is set by the ‘Currant Bun’. Arch liar and warmonger Tony Blair feted its editors, its political editor, Trevor Kavanagh is read by all other political pundits, usually in fear as he beats them to it. And many broadsheet journalists – read by those who would never dream of reading The Sun – came from that burning orb of the redtops.