Paper Monitor
11:41 UK time, Tuesday, 7 October 2008
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Forget the banking crisis, the issue affecting newspapers at the moment is the superlatives crisis.
How do you describe a catastrophic situation this week, when it could easily be eclipsed next week?
The Daily Telegraph calls yesterday "Market mayhem", while the Times go with "World takes fright". The Independent, on the other hand, goes all B-movie with its "The day that fear hit the markets". The word fear is picked out in red just in case you don't geddit.
It's thesaurus time as subs look for alternatives to "crash", "freefall", "plunge", "nosedive" and "plummet". Shares have had an encounter with a "cliff" or "precipice". For the more exotic, the current crisis is not a "crisis", it's an "imbroglio" or a "cataclysm". The sub-prime roots of the crisis have yet to be described as "Byzantine" but it's only a matter of time.
Just look at how credit crunch has come to dominate our every living, breathing moment. It's almost a year since Paper Monitor first breezily quipped that the then novel sounding credit crunch summoned thoughts of a breakfast cereal. So ubiquitous is the phrase today there's an almost unbroken tummy rumble at its constant mention. But here's a thought - if the credit crunch were a breakfast cereal, what would it look and taste like? (Answers on the back of a comments form, below, please, or illustrations - should you be feeling ambitious, to yourpics@bbc.co.uk, subject title "CEREAL CRUNCH".)
Back to the papers, and for the second day, Paper Monitor must make reference to the Daily Mail's Quentin Letts' list of 50 people who have ruined Britain. Today is numbers 21 to 35 and it looks almost as if Letts is running out of villains.
Let's face it, number 28, Helen Willetts (above), the BBC weather forecaster, makes an unlikely enemy of the people. Letts rails thus: "The queen bee of the lot is a geeky-smiled creature called Helen Willetts, who parades her Chester accent with care and frowns at the tragedy of it all if she has to suggest rain is on the horizon."
Having also doled out wailing and gnashing of the teeth on such Mailite icons as Princess Diana and Margaret Thatcher, one can only wonder at who will get the next dose.
The 
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~18~RS~)
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What would 'Credit Crunch' cereal taste like? Probably not as bitter and the hype suggests. Maybe not too dissimilar to Humble Pie?
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I don't know what the cereal would taste like, but the milk, surely, would be sour...
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Credit Crunch cereal would be one of those sickly sweet cereals which taste nice initially, but then make you feel ill after two bites. It would make the milk overly sweet too, and you would end up throwing away almost a whole bowl of unfinished cereal and the rest of the box, which would make you feel guilty for wasting food. And obviously the individual cereal bits would have to be mini pound, dollar and euro signs.
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Personally, I like the fancy version, with sultanas and raisins (but not a lot of currantsy), and sprinkled with strapped-for-cashew nuts.
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I'm not sure what it would taste like, but I expect it would make a that noise we have heard so much of from the financial world recently.... snap, crackle and pop.
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It would have flakes, a few clusters and marshmallow Dollar, Yen, Euro and Pound signs
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...Oh, and taste of broken dreams
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It'd probably say 750 grams on the box, but it'd turn out to have about 500 grams inside, and the price would go up on a daily basis
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there would be a guide on the side the see if your credit crunch is real or not.
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It'd give you your RDA of HBOS, TSB and RBS
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As Weebl points out here, Credit Crunch is made from the tears of sacked invstment bankers.
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Like desgusted I'm not sure either what it would taste like but the box would feature adverts for banks that are casinos in disguise
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Ah, Monitor, I was 2 weeks ahead of you - the financial downturn must have made me psychic!
http://beatsdesign.co.uk/blog/?86
Still, you did come up with the idea 11 months before me :)
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Here's that link - seems they don't auto-hyperlink them!
http://beatsdesign.co.uk/blog/?86
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I don't know what the cereal would consist of, but you could use the salty tears of bankers instead of increasingly expensive dairy alternatives.
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You'll never know how it tastes,as,like your investments, its the only cereal that's all gone before you've had chance to open it.
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We have a breakfast cereal called Captain Crunch that would do nicely. Cheerios and banana still starts my day, but purchased in bulk to save money.
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Several variations of "Cap'n Crunch" available but Oops! All Berries may be the most timely
Cap'n Crunch wiki entry
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I'm thinking Cheerios and Lucky Charms would be wholly inappropriate at this point.
You'd be forever moving the box round the cupboards trying to find the safest place to put it.
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