91Èȱ¬

This Mayan apocalypse thing may well be true. I've just scored 7/7 on the weekly quiz!
Ian, Redditch

I am becoming increasingly irritated by reports in which costs or savings are quoted over non-unitary periods of time. The archetype on This Side of the Pond is exemplified by the current discussion on the "fiscal cliff" wherein spending cuts or tax revenue increases are always given in squillions of dollars over ten years, for example. Now I see this trend striking closer to (ex) home: "The extra tax could amount to £20m over the next two years..." My immediate cynical guess is that two years is the estimated attention span after which Starbucks hopes we will have forgotten what the row was all about. Thank you for indulging my little rant, I'll get all three of my coats between now and Tuesday.
John Marsh, Washington DC, US

Eric, of Bristol (Thursday's letters) - ha ha! See, it is all very silly!
Catherine, Southampton

Shiz, Cheshire (Wednesday letters) - thanks for enlightening me. Your illustration of inappropriate use of LOL reminds me of the time our elderly neighbour, whose name was Joy somethingorother, came to tell us she had accidentally run over her cat. My missis, ever sympathetic, put her arm round her and said "Oh Joy!" Sometimes I still ROTFL when I remember it. There! See what I did? I used textspeak just like wot you taught me! Woo hoo! Hmm. Perhaps I'd better just get back to the skittle alley.
Paul Morris, Cheriton Fitzpaine, Devon

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

1. Prehistoric woolly rhinos were the same size as today's Javan rhino.
More details

2. The perfect number of baubles on a Christmas tree is 0.206 multiplied by the height of the tree in centimetres.

3. Gaps from chalk excavation in the 17th Century can cause massive holes today.
More details

4. Bobby Womack is terrified of cats.

5. Lobsters sometimes eat each other.

6. The average person's DNA has 400 flaws.
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7. There are more second homes in Kensington and Chelsea than the Lake District.

8. Catfish have learnt to hunt for pigeons.

9. Graphene can be made into blocks by copying the cellular structure of cork.

10. In the video for Fairytale of New York, the choir are singing the Mickey Mouse Club chant.

Seen a thing? Tell @91Èȱ¬_magazine on Twitter using the hashtag #thingIdidntknowlastweek

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Winning entries in the Caption Competition.

The competition is now closed. [PDF].

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

6. Woundedpride
British Citizenship Ceremony guidance notes: "Come in casual, comfortable clothing of the type you would normally wear".

5. CindyAccidentally
To their astonishment, the Australian DJs went completely unnoticed at the Cabinet meeting.

4. Pendragon
My name's Father Frost and I am an alcoholic.

3. AdvocateOfTheDevil
They were clearly Bolsheviks, you never see rebels without a Claus.

2. Lin Vegas
"If you have been affected by issues in this Nativity play..."

1. Reeve Burgess
What the tabloids' theatre critics actually look like.

Here Father Frost and other Russian fairytale characters take part in a training school

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

It's been a frantic week of news. Royal babies, royal hoaxers and...

... feel that icy blast. It's so reassuring. Yes, the Daily Express is back to what it does best.

"Coldest week for 20 years is on way" .

Tick off the key words - shivering, braced, -15C, windchill factor, -30C, colder than North Pole, bitter gales, roars in from Siberia.

There's something comforting being inside with a warm mug of tea reading about how crazily cold it's going to get. And it makes a change from new "revelations" about Diana, the EU or Madeleine McCann.

Across pages 10 and 11 there's more: "No let up to big freeze as 'beast from East' roars in". Has Genghis Khan been reincarnated as a remorseless twister? Is a new Gangnam-style dance craze causing the tectonic plates to shift, unleashing terrifying weather fronts?

Erm, no. Apparently next week the UK will be hit by "massive blocking high pressure" from Siberia to Scandinavia. In English this time? We might get some snow, it's going to be windy and will turn "very cold".

In the accompanying picture a woman stoically walks her dog - a husky of course - across the Hampshire tundra. "With its furry coat for protection, a dog enjoys a walk on a frosty morning at Petersfield" the caption informs us. It's not quite a polar bear but good try chaps.

Stiff upper lip everyone. The beast from the East is coming for us.

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Even if the hoaxers did commit treason, they couldn't be . Capital punishment in the UK was finally abolished for treason and piracy with violence by the Crime and Disorder Act, 1998.
David Richerby, Liverpool, UK

I'm not surprised that the Sun doesn't know that the death penalty for treason was but I am shocked and appalled that Paper Monitor doesn't know enough to laugh at their mistake. What is the Magazine coming to?
Rosie, Cambridge, UK

Er, were we all asleep in thisone?
Jez, London

"Jailing Criminals : who decides how long sentence should be?" Did anybody else think full stops?
Rob Falconer, Llandough, Wales

Catherine (Wednesday's letters) surely you mean "fixing"?
Eric, Bristol

Rolfing is a form of massage... and I should know!
Steve Rolfe, Sheffield

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

It's inquest day.

How did a couple of chancers from Australian commercial radio manage to get through to the nurse looking after the Duchess of Cambridge?

Especially by people who think Kate is the queen's granddaughter or who say things like .

For the Sun, . Note the caps for what is a capital offence. Especially if you're from "Oz".

The crime has been on the statute books since the reign of Henry IV, the paper informs readers.

An unnamed legal expert says: "It would be open to the attorney general to consider the possibility of a prosecution for treason."

The paper shows its liberal colours when it suggests the duo may escape beheading: "The penalty for high treason is DEATH - although a life sentence is more likely."

Watch out for dawn raids in Sydney by Henry IV's crack troops.

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Have you seen who Reuters got to write ? Mr Seaman.
Basil Long, Nottingham

Re: this story, maybe it's just me but I've heard the Queen speak many times, both on TV and the radio, and not once have I thought "she sounds like an Aussie".
Dec, Belfast

Clive, and Terry (Tuesday's Letters) - you don't need the "pre" in front of "order" at all. Whether you are ordering something before it is actually available or not, you are still just ordering it. It's a load of nonsense, all this prefixing!
Catherine, Southampton, UK

Paul (Tuesday's letters) ROTFL stands for 'Rolling On The Floor Laughing'. There's a whole world of abbreviations out there: IMHO (In My Honest - or some say Humble - Opinion), and my favourite LMAO (similar to ROTFL). I haven't heard of ROLF but if I had to guess I'd say it's being sick of text-speak ;)
And LOL means Laugh Out Loud (although if you speak to enough people someone will always claim to know an elderly aunt or grandmother who thought it meant Lots of Love and sent condolences to a grieving acquaintance along the lines of 'Sorry to hear your husband died LOL').
Shiz, Cheshire, UK

Snow leads to crashes and delays. No, snow leads to slippery roads - it's idiot drivers who lead to crashes and delays.
John Bratby, Southampton

Henri, (Tuesday's Letters), four tonnes of pressure in the hinge of one of those doors explains how my sister was able to neatly chop the top off my pinkie finger as she slammed it in my face. PS: Candace: lovely to see you back, it's been a while!
Joseph, London

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

It's day two of the royal baby news carnival (see Tuesday's Paper Monitor).

Anyone thinking that the papers will have run out of things to say about a tiny being that measures just 1.6cm - assuming the duchess is indeed about eight weeks pregnant - is sorely mistaken.

The Daily Mail alone devotes pages one to nine to the news.

Those that didn't speculate on possible names yesterday have done so today.
- the Times

And what she should eat to help combat morning sickness:

• ginger biscuits, says the Daily Telegraph
• sip hot water, says a Times letter writer
• mash, says , who also suffered hyperemesis gravidarum

The Telegraph also runs a . Needless to say, it mentions Smythson notebooks, "buggies that cost as much as cars", aromatherapy and Gwyneth Paltrow.

And then there are the questions of where they may live, whether Wills will be away a lot with work, and what the baby might look like:
gurgles the Telegraph. Given its oft-noted fondness for well-bred fillies that are long of leg and glossy of mane, it no doubt has every finger and toe crossed. A baby boffin from motherhood advice website Babycentre tells the paper:

"We keep a close eye on gender prediction studies and some of them would suggest the Duchess has a 55% chance of having a girl, which is statistically significant."

So, there's pretty near a 50/50 chance that it'll be a girl. Like in most pregnancies.

The Daily Express devotes two pages to . Hmm. Loving, perhaps?

Then there's a commemorative tat.

The Times goes with but which Paper Monitor finds rather terrifying (Kate is strangely glassy-eyed, William has a brow last seen on a Frankenstein mask):

The traditional Christmas nativity scene craftsmen of Naples have proved yet again that they are quick off the mark by producing a statuette of a pregnant Duchess of Cambridge less than 24 hours after the announcement of the happy news.

Many others go with the mugs being churned out by British pottery firm Emma Bridgewater, purveyors of pricey retro-chic ceramics to the chattering classes.

And finally, the Independent - using their spoof royal correspondent - addresses the burning question of .

Their man "Talbot Church" (The man the Royals trustâ„¢) also reveals a #thingIdidntknowlastweek:

The Queen dislikes the word "pregnant", finding it vulgar and excessively graphic. Visitors to the palace are encouraged to use the expression "in the family way".

Rather sad that it's a wind-up.

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I am perfectly prepared to believe that zero is even. After all, 10, 20, 30 and so on are even, aren't they? But (warning: geeks only) did you know that Univac 1100 computers needed both zero and minus zero? This is admirably explained on John Walker's Fourmilab site. I'll just put on my one's complement coat...
Peter, Hemel Hempstead, UK

Any chance of a "Royal" free version of the 91Èȱ¬ News? I don't think I'm going to be able to bear the next 6-7 months of "baby" headline coverage
Tom Hartland, Loughborough

Re: only one story in town. Thank goodness. My elderly auntie and I finally have something to talk about that is joyful.
Candace, New Jersey, US

Please could someone put me out of my misery? We don't have mobile coverage in the village at all (except occasionally at the far end of the Half Moon skittle alley) so I never get to send or receive texts. What does ROFL and/or its variant mean? Now I'm off to get a flopper.
Paul Morris, Cheriton Fitzpaine, Devon

LIDL - Lest I Die Laughing?
Mark Scales, Gloucester

Howard - LIDL, 'Like, I Didn't Laugh'? LOL
Graham, Hayle, Cornwall

Forget building towers, if you want to squash a lego brick put it in the hinge of the door in an old Victorian house and bingo! Henri, whose kids discovered this trick years ago.
Henri, Sidcup

Clive, to pre-order is to order something before it becomes available for sale. The pre- is related to the item's availability, not to the order, but is a prefix to order because it's not really possible to put it elsewhere in a statement without making it cumbersome.
Terry, Northampton, UK

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Tough to think what to write about today - chemical war apparently brewing in Syria, riots in Northern Ireland, instability in Egypt or Dec's thing for Ashley Roberts. Let's see...Oh, there's only one story in town.

As Times columnist David Aaronovitch tweets: "Baby versus possible chemical war. Tough news decisions."

The baby wins hands down. We speak, of course (Paper Monitor has involuntarily adopted the royal we), of the Duchess of Cambridge's pregnancy.

"We're expecting" shouts the Times. There's rather less decorum from the Telegraph:

"A nation's joy, a husband's nerves," trumpets the Daily Mail. "Reports pages 2-14".

The Mail is in such a hurry, it's decided to imagine the baby has already been born. For there on page three is a full page picture of Wills holding the baby. It must be a computer generation of what the baby will look like! Erm, no. On closer inspection it is a baby he held in... 2006. "Paternal instincts: William cradles baby Sina Nuru in 2006, at the reopening of the neonatal unit at St Mary's Hospital."

The Daily Express does an almost nugatory five pages in comparison. : "Royal baby: it's all down to coconuts...and plenty of Brussels sprouts!"

The news travels far and wide. announces the Oxford Mail, keen not to miss out. "Yesterday's announcement was followed by warm words from the Rt Rev John Pritchard, Bishop of Oxford, Prime Minister and Witney MP David Cameron and the Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire, Tim Stevenson." Always good to have the Oxford angle.

Zoe Williams in the Guardian offers invaluable tips for journalists. "Kate Middleton's pregnancy: ". They include "how soon Pippa Middleton will want to get pregnant", "an imaginative reconstruction of how Diana would take the news" and "any article headlined "Dilatey-Katey".

However she misses one out - baby computer generation. Too late! For yes - two slightly Martian-looking children have appeared. "The boy shares William's thin hair and ears, but also his blue eyes and Kate's darker colouring. The girl shares Kate's beauty with a heart-shaped face, striking blue eyes, and long dark hair." So that's that settled.

Oh wither Andreas Whittam Smith's Independent. A colleague with a better memory than Paper Monitor, remembers how the Indy - in those days a broadsheet - announced one of Fergie's pregnancies: in a Nib at the bottom of page two. Now that's what one calls high brow.

For a moment, it looks as if the Guardian has taken up the mantle. "VAT loophole 'costs more than Olympics'" is the splash. But eyes to the right and our Kate is smiling back.

There's no escape. Where's the FT?

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I know that some networks are slow but...it took THREE days to interview the inventor of the SMS message by text message?
Mark, Reading, UK

Why do we have to pre-order these days? Why can't we just order like we used to?
To pre-order is to not order yet as it is something to do before you order. I must have virtually everything available in the world on pre-order.
Clive DuPort, Vale, Guernsey

Actually on the subject of today's Paper Monitor and text speak, I've always thought LIDL must be text speak for something? Any answers fellow Monitorites?
Howard, London, UK

Dear Paper Monitor, please tell me your use of ROLF today was ironic? I'm sure you know it should be ROTFL... I'll get my emoticon (LOL).
Howard, London, UK

Surely Paper Monitor meant rofl. *facepalm*
Alex Lee, Birmingham, UK

Technological inaccuracies aside clearly the most glaring innaccuracy in Skyfall was when Bond was able to board a rush hour District Line train in central London and move through the carriages without getting trapped in a crush of bored commuters.
Edward Green, London, UK

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

"SAVE £5 AT LIDL"

Go on, guess - the masthead of which newspaper?

Not the Daily Express.

Nor the Sun.

Certainly not the Guardian, with its muesli-munching, Guardian-reading credentials to maintain.

Give up?

It's the Daily Telegraph.

Meanwhile, in other never-thought-one-would-see-the-day news, the Times has written an editorial in text-speak:

20 yrs ago, all this wld have been incomprehensible. Bcoz that was b4 txt mssging hd arrived. 2day, tho, thnx 2 the ubiquity of SMS, every1 knos how 2 use abbrevs, even if predictive txt smtimes leads 2 mudflaps. Whoops. Mishaps.

It also manages to get in another dig at David Cameron for not knowing that LOL means "laugh out loud".

Ha! That gets Paper Monitor every time, and your humble correspondent would ROLF all over the place if one could only work out what the R and the F stand for. *confused face*.

And finally, after a spell of plummeting temperatures, the Daily Express Weatherâ„¢ does not have a frosty scene depicted on its front page. Repeat, not.

*faints*

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