Yesterday, the Telegraph’s “Communities Editor” Shane Richmond poked an hornets nest with a stick when he stooped to mock veteran satirical/news magazine Private Eye. The celebrated organ, according to Richmond

increasingly resembles an embarrassing dad at a disco, moaning that he can’t hear the words and the music is just a noise before launching into a lecture on how they had proper pop stars in his day.

As a decade-long subscriber to the rag, with piles and piles of the magazines still knocking around my house and the Eye’s way of looking at the world firmly lodged in my subconscious, Richmond couldn’t be more wrong.

And the day he chose to commit his drivel to electrons was perhaps a bad day to choose as at least two Eye stories hit greater attention.

Firstly, the CDC funding scandal which the Eye has been tracking for some considerable time now came before the Public Accounts Committee. Committee chairman Edward Leigh noted that the CDC has proven very effective at making money – rather less effective at fulfilling its ostensible purpose of alleviating poverty overseas.

Secondly, yesterday’s piano story that was been high in most of the Beeb’s radio broadcasts: Kemble, who have been making the instrument for two years short of a century and are Britain’s last remaining onshore piano creators, are to close their doors. A story broken by the Eye in their edition published over a fortnight ago.

Sometimes it seems that listening to the real news is like listening to an echo of the Eye.