The rare copies had a mistake in the story at the bottom of page 12, about trees. The word ‘government’ was wrongly printed with a capital ‘G’. The defective copies, dubbed the ‘Grauniad Grey’, were initially changing hands for £500, but now, seventeen years later, copies in mint condition are worth a great deal more.

The previous record for a defective newspaper was set in 2007 when an issue of the Financial Times containing ‘stranglewank’ misspelt as two separate words, fetched £200,000.
Fredd

In an unprecedented announcement, Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell released a statement saying:
‘The paper hardly ever has a misprint anymore. Not that it ever had that many anyway. And even if it did, referring to it by calling it The Grauniad stopped being funny round about 1972.’ Planned legislation suggests that there could be a £2000 fine for any man or women using this term (although government research suggests that no woman has ever said it).

John McBride, 58, of Stoke-on-Trent commented: ‘It’s a disgrace. I’ve been calling it The Grauniad for thirty years. My newsagent expects it. Admittedly he doesn’t laugh anymore but then I always put that down to his being from Bangladesh.’ Future bans being proposed following this ruling include anyone saying ‘Scuse I’ instead of ‘excuse me’, or any use, in any context, of the phrase ‘Easy tiger.’

A leader for The Guardian commented: ‘Everyone here agrees that it was high time this joke was laid to rset.’

david baddiel