PrintWeek's review of the major stories of the past decade gave me pause for fresh thought about some of the amazing happenings in our sector.

No surprise that the Tenon report was deemed the biggest story - rarely has something touched a nerve so deeply with the industry at large. And the fact that it was such a recent pronouncement meant it was fresh in everyone's thoughts.

A story that didn't figure in the overall top five, but which is right up there in my own personal list, is the gravure superplants saga. Perhaps it didn't rate so highly because it was a saga made up of chapters from many different sources.

James Elliot's gravure plant dreams were never convincing, and our picture of the horse grazing on the proposed site of the plant became a defining image of the hubris and hot air that surrounded the Equator project.

But the two plants that were ultimately built have certainly had a massive knock-on impact at the top end of the market, in particular long-run web offset. Not all of the carnage in the web offset sector can be blamed on the rise of gravure, of course, but it's certainly had an impact. And I am still scratching my head about various aspects of it all.

To summarise: Polestar built its huge new Sheffield gravure facility on the back of two major contract wins, where the majority of the work had previously been printed web offset, elsewhere in the UK. It receives a grant of circa £3m, and it is stated that the plant will eventually employ 1,000 staff. At the time of writing it employs less than half that number, and meanwhile the closure of its Purnell and Greaves plants has resulted in the loss of something like 900 jobs. Quebecor World laid off 380 upon the loss of the Associated work that went to Sheffield. Net jobs lost: in the region of 850.

Meanwhile, Prinovis receives a £7m grant to build a new factory in Speke that is made possible by it winning the News International supplements contract from, err, Polestar. So a huge chunk of work moves from Varnicoat to Liverpool, resulting in something like 149 jobs going at Pershore - surprisingly few, considering. The Liverpool plant employs around 430.

Subsequently there has been some significant repatriation of other gravure work from the continent, especially catalogues, which has to be good news. And we now have not one, but two world-class gravure facilities here on the small island. But it's all come at quite a cost.