A few months ago, a good friend with a business in Ormskirk was expanding into Southport.

Looking for staff, he placed an advert in The Champion - and had six replies.

Undaunted, he posted the vacancies on social media - with 80 replies.

If you read to the end of David Simister's last motoring piece for The Champ he made the outlandish claim that, in effect, the paper would still be here in 39 years time. By then Donald Trump will be a distant memory, Brexit will be 38 years old and young children will ask: "Mummy, what's a newspaper?" And can you imagine another 39 years of Jim Sharpe's ramblings, and 39 years of the Champ 'editorial' which reached a low point the other week with over 15 press releases purporting to be news; as my dad used to say, that chap David Simister wants his bumps feeling...

So, what is the future for The Champ?

It's nothing like the feisty original and as for local news reporting; well I last saw the back of a reporter's head in a Borough Council press briefing a few months ago and am thinking of nominating a charity to donate cash money to whenever I see either a Champ or Advertiser reporter in the flesh in Ormskirk - it's just so embarrassing.

Truth be told it's traditional readership is dying off slowly but surely and today's fifty somethings will be long gone in 39 years time. Young folk and students - some with the attention span of a gnat - are more engrossed in social media than sitting down to read a paper (The Times is my favourite and can easily take up an hour a day...)

Shall we mention the ailing Advertiser too?

Oh alright - in a few weeks time all will be revealed by the ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulation) when it publishes its annual newspaper sales reports - I'm giving the Addy another five years on current form. I bumped into a former Echo reporter in Rainford last week and he's given the Echo another few years too which is par for the course for Reach PLC (nicknamed Retch PLC by Private Eye magazine) which seems to have a death wish for local newspapers. We were in Ashbourne on Friday and a lady in a local cafe bemoaned the fate of another Reach production, the Ashbourne News Telegraph which she said hardly anyone buys since its local offices were closed - it's now written in Derby.

Rant over, a final word to Mr. Simister - stick to motoring and put your crystal balls away.