Richard Desmond and Tom Bower are set to appear at London's High Court today. Desmond is suing Bower for libel over comments - according to reports it could just be one paragraph - in Bower's book about Lord and Lady Black, "Dancing on the Edge".

I wonder if the outcome of this case will also determine whether Bower's long-awaited book on Desmond himself will finally be published? I do hope this book sees the light of day at some point as I'm sure it would be a real page-turner.

The court news reminded me of a July diary note regarding one of Desmond's other interests, West Ferry Printers. As I understand it the joint venture between the Telegraph and Express Newspapers officially ceases as of this month. The resignation of all the Telegraph-related West Ferry directors at the tail end of last month would seem to bear this out.

So, what next for West Ferry? The last time I wrote about the company its accounts were woefully out-of-date. A miraculous update has occurred in the meantime such that we are now privy to its 2006 and 2007 numbers. These reveal that West Ferry's shareholders have moved to deal with the monstrous pension deficit that hung over the business, by paying in a total of £60m to the scheme. Wow. Perhaps the multi-million compensation payments from the Guardian and the FT for breaking their print contracts at the firm will have gone towards this enormous bill.

The small print in the latest accounts also gives some clues to the future under the sole ownership of the Express. The pension scheme still has a deficit, albeit a "mere" £2.8m. Express Newspapers has agreed to meet the whole of this deficit if it moves its printing away from the plant before 31 March 2010. So I would be so bold as to suggest that West Ferry - even with a much diminished workload of circa £20m turnover - will still be printing newspapers until spring next year at least.