http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/ The Magazine's recommended daily allowance of news, culture and your letters. en Copyright 2009 Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:56:15 +0000 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=4.1 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss A service highlighting the riches of the daily press. It is, perhaps, a question as old as time, dating back to, oh, at least the pre-social networking era. Who, if you could invite just about anyone, would be your ideal dinner party guests? For Gordon Brown, who as Prime Minister has, at the very least, the opportunity to turn that fantasy into reality, the answer is revealed in today's Guardian: Motty Brucie Jimmy (Carr) Fred the Shred Ed (Miliband) Paper Monitor does not know the seating plan. The paper is also to be congratulated on its colour co-ordination today, tricking out both its front page and G2 cover in an eye-catching combo of tomato red, basil green and white. But there the similarities end. "FREE Italian phrasebook" is on the front, "AMIS ON IRAN" on G2. Meanwhile, the tabloids report on the unedifying tale of Ingrid Tarrant's parking ticket. When caught parking in a bus stop, she "roared away in her silver Saab", says the Daily Express, only to end up "wrestling on the ground" with a police officer. She says she was "petrified". He says she was "abrupt and rude". Either way, there is not much dignity left intact. And finally, Metro persists in its efforts to label the Blue Mountains as the Outback. Which indicates that its subs don't hang on Paper Monitor's every post. Today's headline is "Backpacker's Outback ordeal 'was not a hoax'". That's not the Outback. This is the Outback. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_733.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_733.shtml Paper Monitor Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:56:15 +0000 A service highlighting the riches of the daily press. It's an easy mistake to make for those who have never been to the Great Southern Land. "Rescued after 12 days lost in the Outback" - Metro Only it's not the Outback. Londoner Jamie Neale, 19, survived for almost a fortnight after setting out for an ill-fated day trek in the Blue Mountains (pictured top right). This is a national park west of Sydney. Australians call this "the bush". Which is different, very different, from the Outback (pictured lower right). Here's how to tell the difference. Anything called "the bush" has lots of bushes, and trees as well. Whereas the Outback has just the one bush in all its thousands of miles of parched red sand. Or thereabouts. Nor is Metro the only paper to make this mistake. "'My boy's been found!' Hugs and a kick up the backside for son feared dead in Outback" - Guardian "Lost Brit safe after 12 days in Oz outback" - Daily Star "Who says that pommies can't survive in the outback?" - The Scotsman "Dad bushwhacks backpack son who survived 12 days lost in unforgiving Outback" - Irish Independent And on Tuesday the London Evening Standard reported on how two British families had also become lost in the Outback, complete with a photo of the actual Outback. Only they, too, had been in the Blue Mountains. Walking alone like a primitive man (see their hungry eyes, it's a hungry home...) http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_732.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_732.shtml Paper Monitor Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:32:59 +0000 A service highlighting the riches of the daily press. Another day, another notable work experience in the papers. On Tuesday it was the turn of 15-year-old Matthew Robson, who in a two-week placement at Morgan Stanley wrote an unscientific report on how teenagers consume the media (read his note in full in the Guardian). While he didn't actually use the word "lame" to describe Twitter - or whatever the yoof jargon of the day is - that's the between-the-lines subtext of his assessment that the micro-blogging site is "aimed at adults". Despite being the author of assorted tweets on behalf of the Magazine collective, Paper Monitor couldn't help but titter. Today it is Daniela Oliveros-Elvidge, on work experience at Downing St after buttonholing Gordon Brown at a Prince's Trust event. The Times offers the new girl some tips, such as never calling Lord Mandelson by his first name. "He has very many other possible titles to choose from and all of them are grander than Peter." Well, it is the season for it. Paper Monitor is currently lording it over a cluster of mini-Magazinites (is that the correct term? - ed), demanding dry triple-shot lattes and dispensing lemon cake to those who deliver clean copy. And the Daily Mail reports on the rise of Twinterns - work experience students put in charge of a company's official Twitter feed. Which can go rather wrong, as Habitat found out to its cost when its twittering intern got a little too enthusiastic about driving traffic to his tweets. And finally, not only is it work experience season (TEA! STAT! Yes, you. What do you mean, where's the tea bar?) it is Proms season. The Daily Telegraph picks up on the open letter from Time Out's classical music editor addressed to Loud Clapping Man Who Sits Behind Me At Concerts. For Proms audiences are nothing if not enthusiastic. While Proms director Roger Wright tells the Telegraph that he understands this man's pain, he points out that "Mozart rather enjoyed audiences clapping and Brahms was rather disappointed when they didn't clap between movements." Paper Monitor concurs, and hopes its readers will mark the conclusion of this blog post with a round of applause. Thank you. Thank you. You're too, too kind. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_731.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_731.shtml Paper Monitor Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:16:02 +0000 A service highlighting the riches of the daily press. Oh, to suffer a slow death at the hands of a parliamentary sketch writer. With pens sharpened and poised, they fire their acidic quips at the sitting duck (and perhaps island-owning) MPs as they rise to their feet to speak from the green benches of the Commons. Today it's Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth in the firing line, as he defends military spending, although it's hard to think of him as a real person when he's described as "that big bag of sawdust" in the Independent, and "stodgy as porridge, inspiring as a cabbage" in the Times. Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail says "he has a strangulated voice which sounds like an under-oiled Land Rover gearbox. Then there is the comedy moustache." The Daily Telegraph notes that Mr Ainsworth drops his Hs, so speaks about "'elicopters". Does this mean his name is really Hainsworth? At least there is some unity in the pillorying of the minister, which is more than can be said about the state of the housing market. It's buoyant if you read the Telegraph or the Daily Mirror. But it's in the doldrums if you read the Guardian or the Daily Mail. So which is it? Perhaps Roy Hattersley's dog Buster will turn his paws to a column unpicking numbers in the news next... http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_730.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_730.shtml Paper Monitor Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:21:04 +0000 A service highlighting the riches of the daily press. It's not a good time to be a journalist. Battered and bruised by last week's allegations of phone tapping, the Journogate row rumbles on (still largely in the Guardian, as the papers who stand accused, and their sister publications, try and ignore the whole thing). This comes on top of cost cutting and job losses due to the recession. But just when hacks thought things couldn't get any worse, they are having to compete for column inches with dogs. Yes, dogs. Paper Monitor first commented on this a few years ago when David Blunkett's guide dog Sadie started writing an occasional column in the Sun. And again when a Jack Russell called Hercules started penning pieces for the Thunderer column in the Times earlier this year. Now Roy Hattersley's dog Buster is getting in on the act. Writing for the same column, he chews over the subject of dog muzzles and whether he and his friends should be forced to wear them in public (he suggests not). He even goes on to complain that last week was a bad week for dogs - try being a journalist you little mutt. Oh yes, you are. One dog writing for a newspaper can be brushed aside as a gimmick, two a funny coincidence, but three indicates a trend. Some might say the press can be as vicious as a pack of hounds and are getting their just desserts. But aside from that, where will this end? Is there a four-legged fur ball eyeing up PM's seat as this is being typed? Man's (in the all-encompassing meaning of the word man) best friend? I should coco. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_729.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_729.shtml Paper Monitor Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:47:08 +0000 A service highlighting the riches of the daily press. You could have written the answer on a postcard, sent it to yourself a week ago and still have been absolutely right. Yes, the papers' coverage of Journogate - as Paper Monitor has decided to call it for reasons of brevity - is that predictable. Exposed in the Guardian yesterday, certain sections of HM Press stand accused of hacking into the phones of celebrities and other people in the public eye. Having broken the story the paper devotes seven pages to it today, illustrating it with photos of big players in the world of football who are said to be victims. The only other paper to carry the story on its front page is the Daily Telegraph. There must have been lots of air punching and whooping in its newsroom. Not only is it one of the few papers left unblemished by the row, the tale also allows it to get photos of three - YES THREE - of its favourite beauties onto the front page. Gwyneth Paltrow, Nigella Lawson and Elle Macpherson all allegedly had their phones hacked into. That's what the Telegraph would call a result. In the Murdoch-owned Sun, just eight paragraphs are squeezed onto page two. And those are just to say the Met Police will not be investigating the claims, forgetting to mention the three other inquiries announced yesterday. The Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail both have the story buried on page 10 and funnily enough both are accused of the questionable practices. In the Times, which isn't implicated in the row but is owned by Murdoch, you can find the story is tucked away on page six. On one final note, Paper Monitor is interested to see how long the Guardian will be able to keep the story running. Will it get anywhere near the Telegraph and the MPs' expenses row? Just watch it try. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_727.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_727.shtml Paper Monitor Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:21:37 +0000 A service highlighting the riches of the daily press. Not so long ago, HM Press was very exercised about how practices well-known among a small group of people were, with the searching light of scrutiny, suddenly seen to be unacceptable in the public eye. Back then - last month, actually - it was MPs' expenses. Today it's a bit more uneasy: the subject at the forefront of the nation's mind is (apart from the Ashes) reporters hacking celebrities' phones, and specifically claims that it was more widespread than has been acknowledged. Uncomfortable territory for journalists to acknowledge some of the tricksy tactics of the business. Thankfully for personal comfort, Paper Monitor can now declare having had no personal experience of these (though that might be one one reason why one spends one's time reading newspapers rather than writing them). The Guardian makes the running here, with an in depth report (and only a very small mention deep within its coverage that it's not only Murdoch papers which stand accused of questionable practices - they include the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror and, shock, the Observer). So how do the others do? No mention in the Mirror, the Sun, or the Daily Telegraph. The Mail has a single column on that all-important page 21. The Daily Express gives it page eight, as does the Times which focuses on the pressure on David Cameron and his spin-doctor rather than the questions about what actually happened. Well the next few days will be interesting to see what kind of scrutiny HMP will give itself. The eye was naturally drawn to a Quentin Letts special in the Mail which tries to pit two residents of this parish against each other - Nick Robinson v Robert Peston. You can read it for yourself - Paper Monitor thought it slightly less than convincing to be honest - but was intrigued by the highlighting of their relative weaknesses: for Robinson it's his eyesight, for Peston it's that he "doesn't like alcohol much". Gentlemen, with vices like that, a weary nation will salute you. PS. Paper Monitor's enjoyment of reading the Daily Telegraph has been quite spoiled since articles in Private Eye and Press Gazette alleged the paper was making up names of its writers. One Press Gazette correspondent alleges that in times gone by the name Dan Harbles was used to cover cycling, since it was an anagram of handlebars. Now Paper Monitor can't read the paper without trying to look for imagined anagrams of its key writers. Thus, anagrams of Boris Johnson, Simon Heffer, Benedict Brogan, Bryony Gordon or other Telegraph familiars welcome via the Comments field. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_728.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_728.shtml Paper Monitor Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:56:40 +0000 A service highlighting the riches of the daily press. After Michael Jackson's memorial service on Tuesday, you could have bet your house on what picture would be gracing the front of the tabloids today. They've been waiting long enough for it - 12 years in fact. After a series of scarves, blankets, you name it, being draped over their heads in public, Jackson's children have stepped squinting into the spotlight. (Stepped, or perhaps been pushed?) "King of Pops" is the headline in the Daily Mirror, alongside the picture of Prince Michael, 12, Paris 11, and seven-year-old Prince Michael II - also known as Blanket - on stage at the service. Both the Mirror and the Sun make up for the previous lack of photos by stuffing their respective papers full of them. A taste of things to come for the Jackson kids? Unfortunately, yes. Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph leaves little to the imagination with the photo chosen to illustrate a feature on raunchy reads for grown-up women. Wonder what search terms the picture editor used? A young lady whose dress is in a state of some disarray reclines on the floor, surrounded by abandoned (in every sense) novels. Pages flutter. Spines are cracked. And hardback piles on top of hardback. Gosh. Is it just Paper Monitor, or did someone turn the air conditioning off? http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_726.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_726.shtml Paper Monitor Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:35:55 +0000 A service highlighting the riches of the daily press. Google. Grrr! Or should that be Grrr-eat! It's hard to tell which camp the Daily Mail falls into. On page 14 Stephen Glover holds forth on how he'd rather give his medical records to Bin Laden - or even the Government - than to Google, after the Conservatives floated the idea of outsourcing a central medical database to Google or Microsoft. Quite some argument to sustain, you might think. How does he do? He raises his own bar from the start, setting out what a useful service Google provides. If I want to know the telephone number of a shop or restaurant, I can Google it at no charge, instead of wasting money telephoning one of the various successors to Directory Inquiries. Google can direct me instantly to any one of hundreds of useful databases when I am writing an article... As a search engine it has been a revolutionary, and apparently almost entirely beneficent, force... So is he being over suspicious? He doesn't think so, and proceeds to set out a reasonable argument about how effective Google and Microsoft are as operators, and his concerns about concentrating too much personal information in private hands - whoever's hands these might be. So how does he turn the argument round to Bin Laden? How is the murderer of thousands and an avowed enemy of the West become a preferred supplier of IT services? Here's how he makes the case: I would far rather stick [my personal details] in an envelope and send them to Osama Bin Laden or Vladimir Putin. Right... OK. Your choice. Paper Monitor will probably stick with Google or Microsoft if it's all the same to you. And despite this position, the Mail too obviously finds it a bit too hard to keep the hard line it has established on page 14. Because on page 28, Google only goes and provides the source material for a key Mail feature. The paper is inordinately fond of quirky double-page picture spreads, and today's is on the entire alphabet spelled out in hedgerows, cul de sacs, ring roads and industrial parks. All found using Google Earth. And finally, should Paper Monitor buy a hat? The Guardian's Media Monkey points out that the editor of Times has used his paper to announce his own engagement. And his fiancée is one Kate Weinberg, who may or may not be the Kate Weinberg who writes for the Daily Telegraph on a regular basis. If it is she, it's like Fleet St's own Romeo and Juliet. but with a happy ending. Sweet. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_725.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_725.shtml Paper Monitor Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:41:56 +0000 A service highlighting the riches of the daily press. To all the Paper Monitor faithful, this could be the moment your loyalty pays off - in kudos form. Paper Monitor is surely not betraying any confidences in revealing that it is on first-name terms with another well-known Magazine strand, 7 days, 7 questions - the weekly news quiz. Well, Paper Monitor has tipped off its quizzical chum about a headline from today's Independent that must surely now be in the running for the missing word question in this coming Friday's quiz. "Sarah Brown's lasagne offensive" tells a story of how the prime minister is trying to win over potentially rebellious Cabinet colleagues by inviting them to sample Mrs B's home cooking. Actually, mention of lasagne is pretty arbitrary here given the quote from Gordon Brown's spokesman - "[W]e are not going to be running a commentary on the menu - whether it is lasagne, pasta or takeaway pizzas." Sorry to be a pedant, but doesn't the word "takeaway" here rather undermine the point about troublesome MPs being mollified by home cooking? Now here's a question for anyone with a long memory - does the name Andy Murray ring any bells? Scottish... dour... tennis... 73 years of hurt... The man who only three days ago was the great British tennis hope seems to have been all but expunged from Fleet Street's collective memory. With Friday's four-set defeat at the hands of Andy Roddick, acres of prospective newsprint about Murray were instantly consigned to the spike. The Times attempts a spot of CPR on Murray's memory, with a piece on page 13 about how, despite his defeat in the men's singles semi-finals on Friday, Murray has been catapulted into a marketing super league. But after yesterday's gripping match between Roddick and Roget Federer, it all feels a little behind the pace. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_724.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_724.shtml Paper Monitor Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:58:45 +0000 A service highlighting the riches of the daily press. Now that the news has sunk in and the public have had time to come to terms with the death of a pop icon, the papers have found their voice, and there's no shortage of follow-up material in the press... about the late Mollie Sugden. The Sun gives a run down of Sugden's "favourite... pussy innuendos" alongside a story which notes that after Sugden's and Wendy Richard's deaths this year, there are just three surviving members of the Are You Being Served sitcom. Can you guess them? Over at the Daily Mail, Jan Moir (she of the Wimbledon-hating fraternity) refuses to stoop so low as simply just listing all those pussy gags. Instead she frames it with recollections of watching the show and poignant thoughts on why it wouldn't make the cut in today's TV climate. And at the Daily Telegraph, Melissa Kite, who Paper Monitor once had a humbling encounter with while out reporting the story of the fox hunting ban ... uses Sugden's death to reflect on the British love of the double entendre. Were you to use such a phrase in front of a Frenchman, Kite reveals, he would have little understanding of what you were on about. A double entendre in French is actually called a sous-entendu (or "under-meaning"). Er, 10 things, are you listening? Comedians today are too anatomical and lack the sort of richly layered subtlety that, er, defined Mrs Slocombe's pussy references, believes Kite. A point that is perhaps proved by Andrew Collins's payoff in his Guardian tribute to Mrs Slocombe. Sugden's death even makes the obituary pages of the New York Times, in a land where Are You Being Served proved to be a big hit. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_723.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_723.shtml Paper Monitor Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:50:26 +0000 A service highlighting the riches of the daily press. To herald an article as "richly comic" is surely the kiss of death for any writer. But the Daily Mail's subs know what they are doing. So when told to expect "a volley of excoriating (and richly comic) abuse" from star writer Jan Moir on why she hates Wimbledon - very counter-intuitive for the Mail - Paper Monitor decides to give her article the benefit of the doubt. What will her laughter hit rate be? Will the speed of her service match that of SW19's biggest hitters? Hold your sides in expectation of splitting, ladies and gentlemen. "Last Wednesday... Maria Sharapova laid an ostrich egg on Centre Court while simultaneously treating the crowd to her impersonation of a constipated donkey." Oh ho. Ho. Oh. And Roger Federer (a tennis god, and very nice man to boot) in his courtside three-piece suit "looks like the senior purser on HMS Fruity". Uh. The strawberries "glow with a ruby self-importance quite unfitting their modest, poly-tunnel background". Andy Murray's mum "practises her gurning exercises". And as for when that ball girl stepped in for a few sets last week, "Oh I say! It makes headline news." Yes, the front page in your very own paper. Comedy gold? Perhaps you beg to differ? But she does score a palpable hit when detailing the players' entourages. "That's their mum, spooky girlfriend, yoga guy, fitness coach, toe masseuse, muscle man, hit the ball harder trainer and vegan nutritionist." But enough. Paper Monitor is off to gorge strawberries and shout at the telly. Come on Tim! http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_722.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_722.shtml Paper Monitor Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:19:39 +0000 A service highlighting the riches of the daily press. In journalism school, baby reporters learn shorthand. Paper Monitor's tutor was the well-upholstered Mary, fond of reprimanding her charges for balancing notebooks on knees and for insufficient practice. And baby reporters are very fond of complaining about these classes, with the exception of a few swots who sit right at the front and have little competitions with themselves in the speed tests. Once baby reporters stretch their wings and fly the coup, they realise Mary and the swots were right all along. Shorthand is useful, even in the age of mini digital recorder thingees. Batteries run down, you know. But while you might scribble down every word uttered at, for instance, the press day for Jeff Koons' first UK exhibition, it can be a struggle to decipher the squiggles once back at your desk. Which is what one imagines might have happened when the Daily Telegraph's arts hack typed up this story, quoting Koons as saying: "In our own life we're inflatable. We exhale and it's a simple death." (Paper Monitor's emphasis.) But the Independent's article quotes him thus: "We take a breath in, which is a symbol of optimism, and take a breath out, which is a symbol of death." (Paper Monitor's emphasis.) Which is correct? Koons is an artist, so he said "symbol". For definite. While the official shorthand outlines for "symbol" and "simple" are different (see illustration on right), perhaps you can see how a reporter in a hurry might miswrite, or misread, one for the other. Of course, it's possible that shorthand didn't come into it, and perhaps low batteries on a digital recorder thingee is to blame. Meanwhile, page 11 of the Daily Mail carries news that one of the dateless 20p coins has sold on a popular online auction site for £7,100 (that's 35,500 times its face value). It rather undermines the London Mint advert a few pages later, offering £50 for the new style coins missing the date stamp. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_721.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/07/paper_monitor_721.shtml Paper Monitor Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:45:15 +0000 A service highlighting the riches of the daily press. Picture this. You are a columnist on a national newspaper. Your stock in trade is not outrage-on-cue, nor is it carefully nuanced analyses of the geopolitical and historocultural ramifications of, er, the news. No, you are paid to mine everyday occurrences, and from this mine extract observational nuggets, and buff these nuggets to a high shine, all the better to coax a wry smile - and perhaps a muffled "huh!" of recognition - from that commuter in seat 3B who has reached page 20 and is in need of some light relief. Not that there's anything wrong with that. And how much would you expect to be paid to produce a weekly column containing perhaps one or two such kernels of conversational goodness? If you are Michael Gove of the Times - sample nugget: "[the waitress] explained that we couldn't have rare burgers for 'health and safety' reasons" - you earn £5,000 a month. Five G a month! For what the man himself reveals takes "'an hour or so' a week". One imagines the newsroom worker bees at the Times are collectively spluttering into their lattes as they digest this particular nugget in today's papers. Paper Monitor (in an overly warm train carriage at the time) certainly let out a wry cough. How did this break with the British convention of salary non-disclosure come about? It's because David Cameron has ordered his Shadow Cabinet to first disclose, and soon give up, their second (and third and fourth and fifth) jobs and Gove is a member of said Cabinet. That's about £1,250 a column. More than a grand to write 870 words about what one had for supper the other night. More than £1.40 a word. Adding up to about £60,000 a year, notes the Daily Telegraph. Add to that another four journalism jobs and his non-MP earnings run to about £76,000 a year, says the Daily Mail. This particular column, or blog post, if you will, runs to about 337 words. Add in a few more pars about what one had for tea (350) while watching Andy Murray repeatedly muck up his first serve (360), and Paper Monitor would be in line (367) for a windfall of £535.45 at that sort of rate (377). Ding and dong (380). http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/06/paper_monitor_720.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/06/paper_monitor_720.shtml Paper Monitor Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:43:38 +0000 A service highlighting the riches of the daily press. Phew! Hot enough for you? Ice creams all round at lunch today... The nation is in the grip of a week-long heat wave and do you know why? Weather forecasters, stop your explaining. It is because Wimbledon's Centre Court now has its gazillion pound sliding roof, thus guaranteeing the sunniest late June on record. It's the same meteorological forces at work, but on a much larger scale, as when one goes out, having left the washing on the line. Or forgotten that just-in-case umbrella. Especially if one is heading for a special occasion picnic. What happens next? It rains. And if one judiciously brings in the laundry and packs a brolly, before heading out to the wet weather alternative to that picnic? Glorious sunshine. But with glorious sunshine comes the threat of sudden thunderstorms and flash floods. So what to wear? Glastonbury-goers are well practised at preparing for any eventuality weather-wise, so Paper Monitor again seeks out advice from festival fashion coverage. Suggestions include: Jo Whiley's £250 Jimmy Choo mock-croc wellies (don't forget the mud-splatters), says the Daily Mail. And a Keep Calm and Carry On T-shirt, as worn by Katie Price going down the shops. A fireworks-enabled bra, a la Lady Gaga, says the Guardian, presumably handy in the event of a storm-induced power cut. Wigs. "The new hotpants," says the Guardian. Quite a mental picture. And for blokes, topless with a kilt (worn traditional style, if you get my drift) in place of tennis whites, as modelled by Andy Murray in the Sun. Meanwhile, the Daily Star lays claim to the "world exclusive last pic" of Michael Jackson. Anyone troubled by press intrusion and/or medical procedures may wish to look away now. Oh, and/or shameless plugs. For the paper's front page "world exclusive last pic" is a reproduction of the cover of OK! magazine - brought to you by one Richard Desmond, proprietor of the Star and Express. "The official tribute issue. In loving memory. With all our love and prayers." So read the coverlines over a photo of a dying man in an oxygen mask strapped to a hospital stretcher. And the OK! cover in its entirety is reproduced on page three of the Star, and also the Express. Almost the size of a full-page advert. Which is what it is. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/06/paper_monitor_719.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/magazinemonitor/2009/06/paper_monitor_719.shtml Paper Monitor Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:24:26 +0000