"The mostest, the bestest, the latest."

There are days when as editor you feel proud as punch. Sky high, in fact. When, you might ask?

Well, when that evening's newspaper has delivered content that is "the mostest, the bestest, the latest" (to quote the late Tony Dumphy, a class act of a chief sub on my previous paper in Middlesbrough).

If the Birmingham Mail can offer MORE detail than anyone else, in a BETTER way and the very LATEST news of the moment, then you instinctively know that night's readers will feel their 40p has been more than well spent.

And today I felt instinctively good about the content of the Birmingham Mail.

We had the mostest: (for example, five different angles and opinions on Martin Taylor's crippling tackle on Arsenal's Eduardo, gathered in exact detail by our man at St Andrews, Colin Tattum).

We had the bestest: (including not only the full list of winners from the Oscars on p3, but the best p1 picture [Marion Cotillard] and, to top it, our Monday fashion spread on pages 42 and 43 devoted to the winners and losers on Hollywood's red carpet... this thanks to the Press Association, but also with expert input from our own film buff Graham Young and women's editor Diane Parkes).

We had the latest: (too many examples, but start with the above Oscars, only available to the British press by 5am... fast work on four complex pages by our subs and picture desk here.

Move on to the emerging details from a weekend Washwood Heath shooting, with the first detailed quotes from witnesses and police in the morning, with stand-in crime reporter Jane Tyler compiling the jigsaw.

And, in a near perfect example of why all Metropolitan cities should retain live evening newspapers, read all about the breaking news at 1pm today that "Tomorrow's strike is off", the detail that tens of thousands of teachers, binmen and council workers needed to know, along with hundreds of thousands of parents and householders... all our readers. This one was down to our man on top of local government, Neil Elkes, and the quick-witted balls of the backbench in changing up the splash.

I'm not proud of everything in the Birmingham Mail every day. On many days I kick myself, if not staff bloopers. But today, of all days a Monday (too often a slow start to the week), I felt chuffed to be editor.

As I read it en route to London for an evening meeting, I felt that for Midlanders it was a better, more useful read that any other paper on sale today.