Paper Monitor
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Observations from today's paper perusal…
The Telegraph is at it again with a picture of Vladimir Putin's bare torso, and a snap of leggy schoolgirls with short skirts and plenty of make up (from the new St Trinian's movie) to accompany a piece about boarding school.
The Independent is ploughing on with its "prize of a lifetime" competition – to win a sculpture. (What's that? You can't hear those circulation figures rocketing… must be something wrong with your hearing.)
The Sun goes in for a spot of artistic interpretation itself – marking the British withdrawal from downtown Basra with its very own "tribute to war dead" – a collection of pictures of all the British soldiers who have died in Iraq.
And what's this… after yesterday's somewhat lacklustre alarmism over the, er, record number of wasps, the Mail brings us an even more menacing creature – the wasp spider. Commonly found on the south coast, this menacing little creepy crawly which (whisper it quietly folks) "are not poisonous" are spreading rapidly north. Apparently the weather is getting warmer… something to do with a little-known phenomenon called climate change.
The Times is touting an "exclusive" interview with Gerry and Kate McCann… billed as if the couple have never spoken to the press before.
There's no let up, meanwhile, for Martin Evans and Padraic Flanagan – the Daily Express' Praia da Luz reporters, who once again have been called on to turn in a front page splash, with the quotes of just one unnamed "close friend" of the McCanns.