Paper Monitor
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Oh no, here we go again. Snow, snow and more snow. Less of the brrrr, more of the grrrr.
What, in its scarcity, once prompted gasps of surprise and delight, in its ubiquity elicits more uncharitable responses, such as "Blast, does that mean the trains will be out of action/schools will be shut etc?"
Snowverload, anyone?
But the return of the white stuff could be a shot in the arm for Paper Monitor's strand of tales to warm the heart of frozen Britain.
The slow melt is starting to gnaw away at all that fabled Blitz/Dunkirk/Henman Hill spirit, with stories of potholes appearing as the snow melts and rubbish going uncollected.
There's only one writer in today's paper holding the plucky Brit banner aloft - Max Hastings.
Writing in the Daily Mail, , ordinary folk have shown their mettle.
"Grumpiness is banished" opines Hastings, who clearly doesn't share Paper Monitor's commute into the office.
Over at the Independent, there's a story about a "crusading editor". But let it be known - the subject of this headline is a campaigning Chinese journalist, not one Rod Liddle.
The latter, a Sunday Times columnist and former 91Èȱ¬ Radio 4 Today editor, is apparently being lined up to take the big chair at the Indy if, as seems ever more likely, Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev snaps up the paper.
Efforts to see off the appointment of Liddle have given rise to a campaign on Facebook entitled .
It seems the Indy faithful are not enamoured of Liddle's, er, provocative views on women, immigration and the Middle East and various other matters.
Paper Monitor assumes that veteran media commentator Roy Greenslade is not a member, but full marks to him for digging up by Liddle from last year of a book about Russian oligarchs.
"It is a magnificently emetic account of the lifestyles of the Russki oligarchs who, since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, have made their homes in London to take advantage of our generous tax laws, imperviousness to extradition proceedings and profusion of sushi restaurants."