When Is An Endorsement Not An Endorsement ?

Via @bengoldacre on Twitter, the Greenwich & Lewisham News Shopper made a bizarre Christian anti-gay rant its "Star Letter", as you can see here. However my favourite bit is that the newspaper tweeted :

"By the way, just because the letter wins the pen, it's in no way an endorsement of from us of the author's views"

As pointed out in the linked blog,

"Except that by calling it the "Star Letter" and giving it a prize, it looks exactly like an endorsement of the author's views"

So far so LOL. But what actually made me blog about this is it reminded me of an old "Hand Of The Month" in Poker Europa (remember that ?). Enthusiastic reader Mr. R. Brindley sent in a description of some pisspoor angle shot which enabled the hero to mincash in his local £20 freezeout. A few people posted to the effect of "that's super lame" on the Poker In Europe forum, only to be silenced by Nic Szeremata's clarification that "Hand Of The Month" did not in fact constitute the best hand of the month, but just a hand that happened that month.

I often wondered what happened to Nic. Perhaps he has found a home in the Greenwich and Lewisham News Shopper.

PS This one's for you Roland :)