Paper Monitor
11:21 UK time, Wednesday, 28 May 2008
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Paper Monitor has been caught napping and is, this morning, kicking itself. How could one have been so lax, so inattentive to detail, so easily distracted by the latest gewgaw*?
How could Paper Monitor have missed the re-adoption by the Daily Telegraph of a slogan which attempts to encapsulate the ethos of the paper. And yet, there it is, in a revived logo (a "device" in Telegraph terms) above the leader column.
The slogan sounds part-biblical, which is nice, but somehow has an overtone of the 1930s, which isn't. It goes like this:
"WAS • IS • & • WILL • BE"
Upon further research, it turns out that the paper's Christopher Howse (© Flexicon) two weeks ago.
He saith: "The device disappeared from the page some time between 1968 and 1978, the sort of period one might expect, when nice old things were being dumped. Perhaps some readers remember the day the device disappeared. Well, from tomorrow morning the Daily Telegraph device will reappear above the leading articles. In the age of the internet we do not fear old things. We bring the past with us as we move into the future: WAS, IS & WILL BE."
Ahh yes, the internet. Now that's a device.
A commenter to Howse's blog adds, deliciously: "You Telegraph guys just keep doing don't you? It's like the paper is run by a bunch of steam-punks. Keep it up. There must be loads of other old things you can dust off."
The paper does today have the privilege of having a column by the man of the moment, Sebastian Faulks, who has written the new Bond novel. After a few observations about how remarkable Ian Fleming's family are, he tells an awfully amusing tale about how he was watching his barrister brother appearing in court last week but then realised that he didn't know if his phone was switched off and because it was a new phone (a device, you might say), he didn't know how to check if it was on or not without making it beep or buzz. Anywaaaaayyyyy, as it turns out, the phone didn't actually go off, but boy was that a close thing. That's some anecdote.
*The latest gewgaws which distract Paper Monitor should not be taken to include , which is in truth a thing of beauty and a wonderful addition to the gaeity of the nation.
The 
