Hot Metal

Feb 16, 1986

Entrepreneur Twiggy Rathbone buys a failing Fleet Street newspaper, The Daily Crucible, and the first coup of the new managing editor Russell Spam is an exclusive smear of Prince Andrew's latest girlfriend and the discovery of Nikita Khrushchev, alive and well in Switzerland.

Feb 23, 1986

The Crucible launches an all-out campaign supporting a return to capital punishment by interviewing murder victims through a seance and interviewing the brother of a state executioner who hanged himself. Spam discovers the man identified as Khrushchev is a fake, and the fellow dies during a live televsion interview.

Mar 2, 1986

Spam launches an anti-Red campaign against Father Teasdale, and introduces ""Wobblevision"" to the page three beauties as a circulation ploy. Bill Tytla receives a mysterious tip that a nurse knows something sinister about the death of Donald Kubelsky, the Khrushchev impersonator.

Mar 9, 1986

Kettle and Spam continue their persecution of Father Teasdale by adding charges of lycanthropy, Rathbone rails against Spitting Image, and Tytla looks into charges (from an anonymous source calling himself ""Sore Throat"") that the police are involved in covering up the Kubelsky murder.

Mar 16, 1986

Rathbone negotiates a compromise to keep Father Teasdale's church open, Kettle stumbles on a multiple birth, and Tytla is caught while searching for Sore Throat's papers.

Mar 23, 1986

Stringer springs back into action as he gets to the bottom of the Khrushchev impersonator's death and uncovers a political sex scandal.

Mar 6, 1988

Twiggy finds a replacement for the missing Harold Stringer, Greg Kettle acquires a government list of all known AIDS carriers and Spam signs up God as an advice columnist through Sergeant-Major Ken Lutterworth.

Mar 13, 1988

Spam sets up Lipton for a serious assault when he imprisons an overweight woman and wires her jaw shut while he and Kettle pursue a sex scandal at an innocent pre-school. Maggie Troon follows up a lead about a mass murder involving the family of a High Court judge.

Mar 20, 1988

Lipton tries to vet every story as Spam begins publishing 24 hours a day, Kettle competes with the Daily Star to save a Nicarauguan horse from the glue factory, and Maggie Troon discovers another murder as she continues to investigate the judge and his family.

Mar 27, 1988

Bright young hope Maggie Troon may yet achieve some real investigative journalism for the Daily Crucible, increasing Richard Lipton's hopes of cleaning up the paper.

Apr 10, 1988

Lipton begins to lose his grip on reality as the buxom beauties of page three go on strike, Twiggy opens ""Rat World"", Kettle infiltrates EastEnders, and Maggie Troon discovers odd evidence of an alien presence at the mass murder site.

Apr 17, 1988

Maggie continues to dig into the Hitchcock murders amid rumors of UFOs while Spam and Lipton try different ways of spiking a critical government report on newspaper standards and practices.

Mar 10, 1989

Twiggy threatens to demolish an 11th century church and replace it with the new tower block. Harry defends a Crucible story about cat food.