Paper Monitor
11:59 UK time, Thursday, 29 September 2011
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Summer's last gasp is like a sunny Bank Holiday and A-level results day rolled into one for the newspapers.
- Leaping blondes? Check.
- Vest tops? Check - and a smattering of bikinis too.
- Beach scenes? Check.
- Use of the words "barbecue" and "BBQ"? Check and check.
- Hotter than [insert name of holiday destination here] headline? Check again.
Guess which papers illustrate the heatwave with large photos of the same shorts-clad lovely sunning herself amid the moored punts in Cambridge? Why yes, the Daily Telegraph and the Times (bikinis = a little too non-U).
Metro adds a disgruntled toddler with a melting 99 to the mix, and compares the forecast highs of 28C not only Caribbean hotspot Nassau - 27C - but Alice Springs - 25C. (The fact that it is late winter/early spring in Australia seems to have slipped Metro's mind.)
The Sun has a photo of a brunette in her smalls, perched on a narrow, sunlit ledge five storeys up.
The Daily Mail has photos of the same sunseeker, but is more interested in .
"It is supposed to be autumn but it feels like summer - after a summer that felt more like winter. And if that's confusing you, you're not alone.
Plants have become so perplexed by the unseasonably warm weather that they are convinced it's spring - and are blooming for a second time."
Repeat bloomers include rhododendron and ornamental quince, primulas and auriculas. Is this common? No, gardening guru expert Bob Flowerdew, of the 91Èȱ¬'s Gardener's Question Time, tells the paper:
"'With some of the more hardy primula you can get a nice flush in the autumn but it is unusual. It has been a cool, wet summer and the flowers probably think they're in a second spring,' [he said]."
But, says the Guardian, the non-starter of a summer - and the current mini-heatwave - is and the upcoming World Championships.
"The Campaign for Real Conkers said August's wet weather had swelled the fruit on horse chestnuts and the mini-heatwave was finishing the job."
Which will also make this the first autumn in - oooo, YEARS! - that the papers have not been filled with dire warnings from said campaigners about the state of the nation's conker stocks.
So taken with it, in fact, that one has been lobbying Caption Completion to use it this week. Will Cap Comp turn out to be as much of a softie as your humble correspondent?
UPDATE 1300 BST: That'll be a yes, then.
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