Banged Out by Julia Jones
No caption needed? Photo: Edd Westmacott / Alamy Stock October 31st is an unmissable festivity in the web of worldwide Wheens. If you are lucky enough to know a representative of this rare breed, you approach with cat-like tread. 'Hallo, Wheen,' you say, with just the smidgen of extra emphasis necessary to make it clear that you know, that they know, that we all know that it's Halloween. 'Hallow-Wheen,' geddit? You share a tired chortle. And that's it. Till next year. This year, with poignant unintended irony, Francis retired. His colleagues at Private Eye took their one last chance to utter this hallowed greeting -- and then they banged him out. Wikipedia will explain this former Fleet Street ceremony -- either for a youngster completing their apprenticeship, when they might be ' placed in a truck and showered in printers' ink, glue and paper' or, more sedately when ' retiring employees would be walked through the print room by their colle...