91Èȱ¬

Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.

1. Romance films do better than any other genre at the Academy Awards.

2. The extreme fear of childbirth is called tokophobia.

3. Dead pigs are good for more than bacon - they can help with underwater research.

4. Rats can detect tuberculosis in the saliva of sick patients.

5. The answer to "agtaq gufnx mbvrp eselx vurnm xsmqc aqzxa gakro altam yrvtn tpqzy vgnbx nofqw gonov?" is Station X.

6. The average railway carriage is home to up to 1,000 cockroaches, 200 bed bugs and 200 fleas.

7. A 16th Century portrait of Queen Elizabeth I once contained a snake.

8. She's not just a gold medallist - Amy Williams still holds her school's 200m record.

9. Deep sea fish eat green plants.

10. City-dwelling single men aged 25 to 35 are the country's biggest food-wasters.

Seen 10 things? Send us a picture to use next week. Thanks to Alex Legrand from Windsor, Berkshire for this picture of 10 icicles on a garden tap.

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

Think I have just fallen a little in love with Howard from Nottingham (Thursday's letters). His todo/redo/undo idea is just the sort of genius we need in the world.
JJ, Kingston, UK

Howard, I always think of them as to-do lists. Todo looks like the name of a sushi bar.
Lewis Graham, Hitchin

To Howard Gees, Thursday's Letters: No.
Dan, Croydon

I've decided the best Mr Gees can hope for in his quest to get "Todo" into the English language is to embrace the hyphenated version. That would make it a To-do list - a list of commotions and fusses. That's one I'd like to see in the exhibition!
Graham, Purmerend

Re , I would imagine they just say "I have more than one wife"
Seb, London, England.

I disagree that the . More frigid, really.
Adam, London, UK

Tommy Scragend from Thursday's letters commended Mike Randall from Wednesday letters for surreptitiously slipping a scary photo into a web link. Tommy might be interested to know that there's a humorous website devoted to that exact phenomenon . Arachnophobes be warned.
Ben Merritt, Sheffield, England

Is "Scragend" the gentleman's genuine name? If so unknowingly he graced our dinner table as if we were not having mince and dumplings as a child it was often "scragend"... it's a small world indeed!
Tim Mcmahon, Pennar/Wales

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

The Journey.

Sounds like an album title, and if Paper Monitor was ever in a band it could be its first album. But it could be too late. The name has been nabbed by the other PM, (well former anyway), Tony Blair for the title of his memoirs, which will be published later this year.

"Some people will see the The Journey as a brilliant title while others will think it's just a clever PR job playing to the X Factor generation," writes psychologist in the Daily Mirror.

Ah yes. The X Factor generation. "It's been an emotional journey," coo all the contestants as they're voted off the show. Is it the right title for Tony Blair's book though?

"It's an interesting title," continues Ms McMahon. "We often use the word journey to describe our lives, especially as we get older and look back on how we've moved from one place to another."

Sticking closely to the dictionary definition of a journey, Ms McMahon offers some spiritual insight too, "some might say even after we die we're still on a journey". Philosophical perhaps. Or maybe a little too morbid.

Over at The Guardian we discover use of the title is far from original. It has already been chosen by Donna Summer to describe her collection of disco classics and was the name of a 1959 film starring Deborah Kerr and Yul Bryner.

But before the disco music is turned up at Monitor Towers, perhaps more thought should be put into the content of the book.

All Mr Blair will give away is that he has "tried to write a book which describes the human as much as the political dimensions of life as a prime minister". The Guardian's John Crace has written his of what might feature in the book.

The Independent asks whether Mr Blair will hold back? Will he reveal the truth over his often turbulent relationship with Gordon Brown, .

Over at The Sun, there are other serious questions which demand answers. Like, has the picture on the cover been airbrushed? "The front cover of the book shows a remarkably wrinkle-free Mr Blair," writes Kevin Schofield.

Westminster seems to have developed an obsession with airbrushing. Paper Monitor remembers the comments made about those David Cameron posters earlier in the year. Somewhat ironic then that politicians are calling for logos to be added to airbrushed pictures.

At least then we'd know.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

Welcome to the Weekly Bonus Question.

Each week the news quiz 7 days 7 questions will offer an answer. You are invited to suggest what the question might have been.

Suggestions should be sent using the COMMENTS BOX IN THIS ENTRY. Any answers submitted using the "Send us a letter" form on the right will be summarily ignored.

And since nobody likes a smart alec, kudos will be deducted for predictability in your suggestions.

This week's answer is THROW A KAYAK OUT OF A PLANE.

UPDATE 1635 GMT: The correct answer is how to skyack?

Of your woefully wrong suggestions, we liked:

• TheCoachman's How does the second verse of Agadoo begin?
• adam's How do you land on the Hudson River?
• Candace9839's What Finnish euphemism sort of loses something in translation?
• BeckySnow's When you're done with throwing toys out of your pram...
• SkarloeyLine's How will Blue Peter's Helen Skelton get there quicker next time?
• ARoseByAnyOther's Herve Villachaize's recurring nightmare?
• And MightyGiddyUpGal's Best stag party ever?

Thanks to all who entered.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

"When my daughter was 20, she told someone at a job interview she was from Essex and she could almost see him turn his nose up" - Charity worker Daphne Field on the perils of being from Essex.

Did you hear the one about the Essex girl? Yes, yes, it's one of the biggest regional cliches going - that somehow if you're from there, you're somehow a little stupid. To fight off such silly prejudices a new charity, the Essex Women's Advisory Group, has been set up to empower girls who live in the area.

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

How strange that computers should find it . I wonder if they've really tried the tricky stuff? You know, the sort of conversation that goes: Him: "What's wrong?" Her: "Nothing".
Adam, London, UK

So is ungoogleable? Presumably now that article's been posted, it isn't any more...
Ian Oliver, Kirkby-in-Ashfield, UK

Re , could you please refer to them as Todo lists instead of To Do lists? For years I have single handedly tried to get this new word into the English language to take its place next to redo and undo.
Howard Gees, Nottingham

Although I appreciate Sir Bob Geldof has a lot of valid things to say, I can't help but playing "guess-the-swear-word" every time I read a .
Rachel, Minnetonka

Re unfortunate names, until a few years ago when my namesake sadly died I still had to say "no not THE Alan Ball" on the phone a lot. I once met a fellow called Johnny Giles. Also I worked at the British High Commission here when England were bidding for the world cup. We were due a visit by the real Bobby Charlton - they wanted to introduce me (it didn't happen though).
Alan Ball, Wellington, NZ

Paper Monitor asked for scenarios onto which a newspaper could shoehorn the headline "Man Dog Bites". If you will allow the minor addition of a hyphen, a story concerning a recent spate of werewolf attacks could certainly be headlined "Man-Dog Bites". That's about as close as I can get. (For more, see Wednesday letters.)
Daniel Marr

... or reporting a hippie's reaction, having been bitten repeatedly, exclaiming to his doctor.
Anne R, Fareham, UK

Mike Randall (Wednesday letters) wins the prize for most scary photo slipped surreptitiously into a web link.
Tommy Scragend, Wigan

Paper Monitor I think the Independant means that there is no other pull-out section called life, so it is indeed unrivalled.
Barry Smithers, London, UK

Paper Monitor may be interested to glance at the G2 feature on a . In the text, she admits to reading any old pap. But the accompanying photo is not of the "detective stories, romances, horror, sci fi" she picks up from Oxfam, but weighty, worthy tomes by Amis, Rushdie, Burgess...
Emily Milton, Blackburn

Dear Monitor,
Is Web Monitor feeling OK? I'm beginning to worry about his/her long absence. I do hope all is well, and that Web Monitor will be back with us soon.
Lots of love,
Alexandra, Cambridge, UK
Monitor note: Web Monitor is on hols, taking a sunshine break. Young 'uns today, they never write...

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

Winning entries in the Caption Competition.

The competition is now closed.

This week it is one of the wave enthusiasts taking advantage of the tidal phenomenon on the River Severn.

Thanks to all who entered. The prize of a small amount of kudos to the following:

6. Rob Falconer
James regretted booking with cut-price EasyCruise

5. MightyGiddyUpGal
Lifeguards at Eton

4. Smoo25
Cuts in the MI6 Research Department meant that Bond's latest vehicle wasn't quite up to the job.

3. BaldoBingham
I see Gwyneth's won another Oscar.

2. Cheesy
As the years passed by, David Walliams' cross channel swims became increasingly relaxed affairs.

1. QuarterMoon
William asked for proof that I was not domiciled here. How much more offshore does he want me to go?

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Today we take a look at the way newspapers trumpet their content.

Paper Monitor has previously drawn attention to the legend "THE WORLD'S GREATEST NEWSPAPER" which appears on the masthead of the Daily Express.

It has never been possible to establish precisely which body accorded this title, or whether it was simply a de facto recognition of the Express's towering status worldwide.

But Paper Monitor's eye is caught by a slightly more modest title on another newspaper's front page today.

In the blurb (the coloured promotional strip beneath the masthead) on the Independent, there is a reference to "THE UNRIVALLED Life PULL-OUT SECTION".

One has to confess that one is not sure whether the word "unrivalled" means without any rivals, or the winner of a struggle between rivals. But Paper Monitor can't help but feel that the Guardian's G2 is a rival.

Indeed, only yesterday G2 was trumpeting its "unrivalled" status. As Harry Hill says: "Fight!"

Anyway, the Indy's Life is marking an anniversary that you are not going to find in your redtops - 40 years since the publication of The Female Eunuch.

The blurb features a picture of the 28-year-old Alice Jones, who will be reading the 40-year-old feminist classic for the first time.

Elsewhere there is fodder for Indyites with a paean to the River Café's Rose Gray, and a review of range cookers that features one with a price tag of £8,840.

Lordy.

And the Indy carries an intriguing claim - that Michael Foot effectively coined the slogan "Dig for Victory".

Paper Monitor can't immediately substantiate this, but can any of our readers? Crowd-source away.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

"It feels like I am in my own episode of Law and Order" - Flatmate of an ex-MI6 agent accused of attempting to sell important security documents for £2m.

Kimberly Preston, 27, was left stunned when counter-terrorism officers raided the flat she shared with Daniel Houghton, 25. He was arrested at a London hotel on Monday after an undercover operation involving Scotland Yard and security service agents. Miss Peterson, an American student, said she believed he was a graduate trainee with Lloyds TSB.

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

I've often wondered what those little domes were for...
Gordon Stewardson

Tony (Tuesday letters), the reason for this ludicrously tortuous language is that legally only a doctor can certify death. Other healthcare workers can only pronounce life extinct, not death. I know it's ridiculous but that's how it is.
Polly Saxon, Cornwall

In a previous life as a press officer for an ambulance service, the technical term is "to pronounce recognition of life extinct", but it's not a phrase that I ever would have used when giving details to the media.
JJ, Kingston, UK

Coming in a bit late to the discussion (also Tuesday letters), my parents swear they were once well acquainted with an army gentleman called Major Richard Head.
Jane, Manchester, UK

After reading about the man fined for walking his dog while driving his car, I need to know the make of car. Please let it be a Rover...
David Infense, Adelaide, Australia

I can't be alone in hoping that survives .
Fee Lock, Hastings

asks for scenarios onto which a newspaper could shoehorn the headline "Man Dog Bites". I would submit that , were he to bite someone, could feature in such a headline.
Mike Randall

Well, it goes like this: The Isle of Man is, in fact, the Isle of Dogs. Vicious dogs. Raving, uncontrollable dogs. So the folks there are quite used to the weekly round-up headline...
Clem Work

Or a vicious pro wrestler goes after his opponent's ear in unorthodox fashion.
Candace Sleeman

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

As Paper Monitor has noted in the past, Dog Bites Man is not news, but Man Bites Dog is. And while a tale of a chap being chronically irritated by the effect of mosquitoes might allow one to use the headline Bites Dog Man, it's no more than diverting.

One is not sure how Man Dog Bites could be shoe-horned into making sense, but anyone who follows the Magazine on Facebook is invited to make sensible suggestions.

Chickens kill fox is a banker, though, and several newspapers, including the Daily Mail, make the most of it. Four birds, named Dude, Izzy, Pongo and Pecky pecked the unfortunate fox - who is not named - to a feathery death, though it's not clear if it wasn't perhaps a table which dealt the fatal blow.

The Mail speculates:

"The little table in the corner of the coop, which the chicken perch on, had been kicked over and was lying next to the fox's head. It appeared to have fallen on him and knocked him out, leaving him an easy target for the beaks of the chickens... The table falling down could have been part of an elaborate plot hatched by the brood - but was more likely the lucky result of frantic squawking, flapping and running about."

You don't say.

The Daily Telegraph shows a heart-rending picture of a mother and baby polar bear clutching a lump of ice 12 miles from shore. It's the sort of thing one might have expected the Independent to have lavished some attention on, but strangely not.

Elsewhere the Telegraph has a story about the dedication of one of its readers, the sort of thing papers love, though it's fair to say enthusiasm for this particular fellow might be somewhat muted at Telegraph Towers. The hoarder has kept every copy of the paper for the past 34 years, having started collected them because he didn't want to lose important articles.

"[He] can hardly move about his home because of the towers of newspapers stacked against every door and window. From the road, his two neighbouring properties in the village of Wescott, near Dorking, Surrey are barely visible behind overgrown and rotting vegetation, piles of wooden pallets, six rusting cars and hundreds of bags of empty cans and bottles."

Not quite the poster boy the Telegraph might wish for, then. And especially because of the line tucked away at the end of the report: "In addition to the Telegraph, [he] has every issue of the Daily Mail and the two papers' sister Sunday titles."

While we're on inter-paper rivalry, interesting to see the Guardian revel in the demise of the Times2 pullout, by giving special promotional love to G2 as "the unrivalled pullout section". Not completely true, of course. They might be pretending not to have noticed, of course, but the Independent still publishes its pullout, Life.

And finally, the Times with readers' reviews of the paper. Today's, by a contract manager from Purley, is unimpressed by the lack of "meatier opinion pieces" on election funding re the Ashcroft non-dom tax saga. Nor does he like the juxtaposition of a versus exercises to get .

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

"He 'broke' the vacuum cleaner the first time he was asked to use it - a well-worn male tactic" - Alastair Campbell's partner on his aversion of housework

New Labour to the core he may be, but new man he ain't. Tony Blair's former communications chief left most of the hosuehold chores to his partner, Fiona Millar, as their children were growing up. His actions "had fatally undermined my attempts to stay on the conventional career ladder".

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

Re unfortunate names (Monday letters), my parents take great delight in telling me that I was very nearly named Theresa. Think about it.
Katherine Green, Canberra, Australia

Whilst shocked at I was even more perturbed by this statement: "Ambulance services attended and life was pronounced extinct." Is this not the worse sentence ever constructed?
Tony Doyle, Holmes Chapel, UK

Re Missing Letters, 1 March, 2010
Insofar as I had chided you there for not including readers' letters, I now find that they are under the heading of "Paper Monitor."
I really wonder who is in charge of posting the proper subject headings?
I trust I will not have to draw attention to this abject lack of propriety condition in any future writing(s).
Most respectfully,
Dickie, New York, USA
Monitor note: Order is restored forthwith.

I bet I wasn't the only one who wished Liam Perrons (Monday letters hailed from Worcestershire...
Ben Merritt, Sheffield, England

Re - three million women, 50 toilets? If they all take as long as my wife, I calculate a waiting time of, ooh, about six months.
Michael, Twickenham

Re the quote in : "It is like a concrete mixer running down a blackboard." When would that ever happen?
Mary, Derby

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Loyal readers of Paper Monitor, please be assured, the Monitor is a purveyor of the highest standards, and always tells the truth.

The only reason it is necessary to mention this disclaimer is because The Independent reports that a Polish journalist .

A household name in Poland, Kapuscinski, who died in 2007, knew Che Guevara (apparently) and narrowly escaped death by an African firing squad (apparently). What is apparent is that there is some debate over how much he embellished these reports. According to new biography on his life, Kapuscinski "extended the boundaries of reportage far into the realm of literature". His wife is trying to get the book banned.

Meanwhile Paper Monitor continues its quest for truth. Over at The Guardian there's a strange case of the looky-likey. Tory Councillor Lyndon Stowe bears an to BNP leader Nick Griffin. This proved problematic when Mr Stowe was stopped by security staff during a trip to hear David Cameron speak in Manchester. Stowe tells the newspaper that he's been mistaken for the BNP leader before.

There's some good news for him in the Guardian as the sub who has headlined the story has mysteriously promoted him to MP.

Yes We Can. No he can't. In The Times we discover that the worlds most powerful man does have his weaknesses. A routine medical report for President Obama reveals that despite promising Mrs O he'd kick the habit, Barack Obama has been ordered to "continue smoking cessation efforts".

Over in tabloid land there are other questions which need answering. Why did Carol Vorderman wear a high-necked shirt on 91Èȱ¬ Breakfast at 9.10am yesterday, before changing into a "plunging low cut number" for her Loose Women appearance on ITV at 1pm? (note to ed - why do the exact times matter?).

Both The Mirror and the Daily Mail feature the before and after shots. Funnily enough the cleavage revealing picture is enlarged on both cases, while the schoolmistress-esque shot is smaller.

Not wanting to be trumped the Daily Express has a full length, leggy shot of Ms Vorderman on page three.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

For those led here from Tuesday's Daily Mini-Quiz, here's Emma Thompson with her false tooth, and with her real smile restored.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

"He accepts it was a silly thing to do, borne out with an element of laziness" - Solicitor Paul Donoghue on his client who lost his driving licence for walking his dog out of the window

Paul Railton, 23, of Annfield Plain, admitted breaching two counts of the Road Traffic Act, after police caught him driving his car with the dog lead attached through the window.

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

Re , mentioned in Friday's letters, my name is Liam Perrons which is similar to Lea & Perrins. Most people think I'm joking when I say it, or make up some joke like "I had you on my cheese and toast today."
Others sometimes just ask "Where have I heard your name before?"
Liam Perrons, Retford, England

The 91Èȱ¬ should apologize to the Canadian ladies hockey team for including them in . They were of legal drinking age in the provinces where they lived and trained. They did not go back on the ice until almost two hours after the game. The building was empty of spectators, but not all media. Why can't a lady enjoy a good cigar? And most obvious, there was no intention to become intoxicated, because they were drinking weak American Coors beer.
John Hurst, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

Re 10 things we didn't know... Did you really not know that a beryl is a precious stone? If you had known your Sherlock Holmes you would have read The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet.

Clothilde Simon, Harrogate

Re , Firstly, I could have told you (even without my medical degree) that the chair is almost certainly not the culprit, much more likely to be due to sex. Secondly, if there's even the slightest element of doubt, don't throw the chair away, burn the thing, for the sake of humanity.
Will Chellam, Bradford

If anyone is in any doubt as to whether , you should be aware that it's not only found in fish, but is also one of the main ingredients in .
Adam, London, UK

Dear Magazine Monitor, in the interests of accuracy please retitle 10 things as "9 things we didn't know last week". I think you'll find that we knew well before last week that there was a dentist in San Franciso called Les Plack. If you rummage through your archives to the Letters page on Wednesday 25 February 2009, I think you'll find that you've known it for quite a while too.
Sarah B, March, UK

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Never, in the field of human punnery, has a picture promised so much and delivered so little. Ok, maybe that's a tad overstating it. But here we have a shot of David Cameron jogging in the rain as he warms up for his speech at the Tories' spring conference.

"I'm fit to run Britain" - the Daily Telegraph

"Cameron struggles to make the running" - the Independent

"Running scared" - Daily Mirror

Come on folks - you can do better. Allow Paper Monitor to suggest "One pronation Conservative".

While there's plenty of chin stroking on the inside pages about what the latest narrowing of the polls means for Team Cameron, Fleet Street's sharpest minds miss the most concerning angle - jogger's nipple.

If David Cameron really has been running in the rain wearing nothing more than a cotton T-shirt - as seems to be the case from the pictures - rather than a wicking top, what state the potential future leaders chest?

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

"I was perfectly capable of setting up and running a home when I was 14, and if, say, it had been ordered differently, I might have thought 'now is the time to have a couple of children'..." - Booker prize winning novelist Hilary Mantel on why she believes women are ready to become mothers at a young age.

When teenage pregnancy is discussed in the news it's usually in the context of how to reduce the numbers of young mums. But, author Hilary Mantel has provoked some debate after she suggested in an interview that giving birth at a younger age might not be such a bad thing.
(More details - )

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Reddit
• - What's this?