Friday's monitor
- Posted on Friday at 15:42 UK time
Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.
1.
It's 1999 in
Ethiopia.
More details
2.
The Spanish national
anthem has no words.
More details
3.
There are 1,200
exhumations every year in the UK, but not all of those are part of criminal cases.
More details
4.
There are 14
different spellings of Mohammed in the top 3,000 baby boy names in the UK, propelling it to number two just behind Jack.
More details
5.
Nearly seven out
of 10 (69%) of adults are still in touch with at least one childhood friend.
More details
6.
Seb Coe is
partially colour-blind.
7.
Twenty-three billion jars
and bottles have been recycled in the UK since the first bottle bank opened in 1977.
More details
8.
Unemployment is back
up to 1979 levels.
More details
9.
Footage can be
checked to see if it is harmful to people with epilepsy by a gadget called the Harding Flash and Pattern Analyser.
More details
10.
Tre Azam, fired
this week from The Apprentice, had a near-fatal car crash 10 years ago. He still has steel plates in his back and pins in both legs.
More details
(Sources, where items not linked: 6. Times, 6 June.)
Seen 10 things?
Send us a picture to use next week
. Thanks to Peter Harrison, Hove, for this week's picture of 10 deckchairs).
- Posted on Friday at 15:12 UK time
"Measurements showed that the setup could transfer energy with 40% efficiency across the gap" (
Wireless energy promise powers up
). Right, so to save two metres of cable you would have to be prepared to see a device effectively use 150% extra electricity? The phrase "carbon footprint" really is just a collection of letters to some people, isn't it.
Alex Swanson, Milton Keynes, UK
We shouldn't be too quick to criticise the 22% of adults who don't know that
bacon and sausages originate from farms
. I know exactly where the ingredients in the sausages I eat come from, but then I buy expensive ones from a high-class butcher. Can we be sure that the cheaper sausages available in supermarkets aren't concocted in some laboratory somewhere out of bits of things that have never been near a farm?
Adam, London, UK
Re
Your history of modern Britain
. According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 50s, 60s, 70s and early 80s probably shouldn't have survived, because...
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors and cabinets.
When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip flops.
We would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle - tasted the same.
We ate dripping sandwiches, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.
We walked to friend's homes.
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate live stuff, and although we were told it would happen, we did not have very many eyes out, nor did the live stuff stay alive inside us forever.
Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem-solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. And you're one of them. Congratulations!
Liz, Perth, Scotland
The final question in 7 days 7 questions was a toughie. Only managed to get it right after long and close study of the accompanying photos. I recognised that Richard Branson's hairstyle dated from the middle of 2004. I pity anyone who was not able to pick up on that clue.
Ralph, Cumbria
If you think the Telegraph's letters are formulaic (
Thursday's Paper Monitor
), have a look in the London Lite. The idea there seems to be 1) identify celeb-based news story from day before, 2) wrangle this into a comment about how the country has gone up the spout. It's enough to make you want to throw yourself under the Jubilee line at Bond Street.
Ben, London
What on earth have you done to the
cap comp photo
to make them all look so flat?
Sarah, Edinburgh
Re Paris Hilton's release on
unspecified medical grounds
. I'm no doctor, but I assume someone has been given a cash injection?
Robin, Edinburgh
- Posted on Friday at 14:31 UK time
No, it's not the next line up for Pop Stars: the Rivals. This week's caption comp stars five of the six Labour MPs vying to succeed John Prescott as Labour's deputy leader.
But what's being said? Here are the winning entries...
6.
Catherine O
When Hazel sent for peroxide and a handbag, Harriet knew the race was already won.
5.
Dave Workman
Labour deputy leader contenders look on shocked as Alan Johnson falls down a flight of stairs.
4.
MJF
"Yo, my name is Hazel, you can call me Blears
I stopped growing at about 12 years
We are the wannabe deputies to Brown
Listen to my rap and I'll break it down
This is Hilary, he's no Blair Babe
He's running on the back of his famous name
This is my honey, she aint top notch
Mickey Mouse wears a Harriet Harman watch
Poor Jon Cruddas, it's plain to see
He'll soon go back to obscurity
His chances were always quite remote
I doubt he'll get a single vote
Peter Hain is a dear old thing
But look at the Liberals now they've got Ming
Now Johnson's a threat and he talks real tough
But don't be deceived 'cause it's all bluff
Who would you pick out of this little mob?
Does it really matter? It's a pointless job."
3.
Stig
Alan Johnson: "One for the album, losers?"
2.
Steve, Cambridge
Ms Blears was feeling rather cocky about the all-important limbo stage of the deputy leader contest.
1.
Peter Stagg
After a long and gruelling three day meeting, it was finally agreed that scissors ranked higher than paper...
Thanks to all who entered.
- Posted on Friday at 10:57 UK time
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
If there was an annual prize for the most desperate, tortured pun in a headline, the
Sun
would have won it today, allowing other subs to relax for the rest of the year.
“Longhaul-denballs” is the gem on a piece about David Beckham’s prospective flights from LA to join up with England.
Now Paper Monitor knows that wife Victoria’s nickname for David is Goldenballs. But that means this pun only really works if you pronounce “longhaul” as Inspector Clouseau or the policeman out of ‘Allo ‘Allo! might. Strange.
The staff of
Metro
are also in punning form.
There's an extraordinary story of a man in a wheelchair who ended up being carried for nearly four miles at 50 mph after becoming stuck in the grille of a lorry.
“Chair-ton Senna”. Given that the poor man was terrified, it's hard to raise a chuckle.
On Monday Paper Monitor
started a carnival of eating, based on a wilful misreading of a Times diet
which promised a loss of 5lb by the end of the week (that's tomorrow). No trouble has been spared in eating far more than Paper Monitor normally would, in sheer stubborn defiance of the idiotic promise of losing so much weight in such a short time.
And so we're pleased to announce that a quick hop on the hi-tech electronic scales in Paper Monitor's bathroom this morning showed a loss of 2lb since Monday morning, in spite of quite shameful gluttony. Now then, just time for double porridge. (It's made from
oats, which grow in Britain, you know
.)
- Posted on Friday at 09:49 UK time
Greece has topped a survey of healthy holiday destinations. So yesterday we asked in which of the following countries does a typical meal have the highest calorie count. It's Italy, with 1,430 calories, which 44% of you correctly answered. Another 37% said France and the rest opted for Spain. Today's mini-question is on the
Magazine homepage
now.
Thursday's monitor
- Posted on Thursday at 16:11 UK time
Regarding
Paris Hilton's
rather short jail visit, I didn't realise that being a celebrity was now classed as a 'medical problem'. If only we could find a cure...
Ian, Kent
I believe the London 2012 Olympics group have manged to come up with the
logo
that is totally & correctly symbolic of their entire activities...though NOT of the Olympic Games. Grossly overpriced, it entirely demonstrates their ability to spend other people's money on dysfunctional rubbish while justifying it with eloquent claptrap.
Phil Stainer, Great Wratting, Suffolk
As regards the
olympic logo
- Michael Wolff 'blamed Olympic organisers for not publicising it (logo) properly'.
Is the Olympics being held to publicise the logo or the other way round? Please advise.
Andrew, Malvern, UK
What do the
Swedes
do on their national day? Judging by the queues in my local garden centre and DIY centre yesterday, exactly the same things as the Brits.
Ed, Gothenburg, Sweden
In the future
homes
will be ten times average salaries. I`m not surprised if each home has pillars of oversized pound coins outside.
Stoo, Lancashire, UK
Another good example of someone with an appropriate last name: Mr
Nappi
who is on the committee for clearing up the smelly waste in Naples.
Robin, Edinburgh
So the
bear robot
has a teddy bear shaped head to help reassure wounded soldiers. Doesn't look like any teddy bear I've ever seen or indeed owned.
Claire, London, UK
- Posted on Thursday at 10:57 UK time
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Now here's a thing about the G8 summit in Germany that hasn't been widely realised. Eight ? that is the word, eight ? sounds remarkably similar to the word hate. With that info nugget in mind, Paper Monitor turns to the
Sun
for a digest of the current state of geo-global political dynamics (ok, we don't know quite what that means).
"G Hate: Who 8s Who" runs the headline. Underneath, there's an illustration of animosities at the summit with the world's eight most powerful leaders inexplicably depicted as Lego figures around a "row table" and listing who hates who.
A taster… "Britain: hated by France and Germany and Italy…"
"Italy: Romano Prodi hated by Blair… also hated by all because he's a great pointless windbag, very pompous and with a big mouth."
"Russia: hated by all."
Talking of Lego, and introducing the new theme of world records you surely didn't know existed, the
Guardian
's got a picture of the "world's tallest Lego pirate ship mast".
Finally, over to the
Telegraph
, where Paper Monitor has long silently observed a formula to many of the missives that appear on its letters page. It goes something like this:
• identify an event in the news to comment on
• contort it into a pithy, stinging barb against either Tony Blair or modern life (or, best of all, both at once).
Example from today's letters page:
"SIR - The most common cause of drunkenness is unhappiness. Even the briefest glance at Blairite Britain is enough to make a life-long tee-totaller reach for the Nebuchadnezzar."
"SIR - You report that millions are not aware of how much they drink. What nonsense! We just prefer not to admit it in public because we are heartily fed up with people trying to tell us how to live our lies."
Quite.
- Posted on Thursday at 10:18 UK time
Wednesday's DMQ asked what the lunar cycle is linked with which requires extra police to be deployed on the streets come the full moon this summer. The results were as follows: hot weather (44%), Friday nights (15%); and the correct answer, pay days (41%)... according to analysts at Sussex police.
Wednesday's monitor
- Posted on Wednesday at 16:00 UK time
When looking deeper into this Olympic logo business, I found out that the Games have trademarked the words "two thousand and twelve", "twenty twelve" and "2012". How is this possible? In five years time will I have to write the date as 6 June 2012 (TM)?
Beccy, Nottingham
As Monitorites love to debate pedantry, I thought I'd point out some lovely opportunities arising from the
Webby awards
- the recipients are limited to five words for their speech. Question is, what is a word - 99, we're - one word or two? Have a look at the
speeches
and amuse yourselves (some are even worth a look without a pedant's hat on).
Jon, Bristol
Congratulations must go to the person who illustrated the story about the
EU ban on traditional (mercury) barometers
with a picture of a man tapping an aneroid (non-mercury) barometer - although it probably does have a mercury thermometer above the dial.
Ed, London
Re
Fidgeters 'likely to be thinner'
- since I'm not thin, am I a fridgeter?
Diane, Sutton
I wonder how much money in grants a team of experts got to work out the fact that people who move more don't put on as much weight?
Dan Abrey, Oxford, UK
I so agree with the Daily Mail that Ruth Kelly's "incentivise voluntarism" is "ghastly drivel" (
Paper Monitor
). Does she think that by using these awful words that her message will sound better? No, Ms Kelly, it just makes you sound like the pointy-haired boss from the Dilbert cartoons.
Alan Addison, Glasgow, UK
To sunburnt Heather and sceptical Stephen: you are both right, partly (
Tuesday letters
). Glass blocks UBV rays, the part that causes surface skin sunburns. So no, you can't get sunburnt in a car with the windows rolled up, and Heather, your sunburn is probably just overheated skin (a common problem in fair skinned people). Ordinary glass, however, does NOT block UVA radiation - the type that causes deep tissue damage and skin aging. There is, of course, a very simple solution involving far less safety risk, time and money than tinting your windows: wear sunscreen.
Alison Smith, London, UK
Further to Gareth Jones and the Monitor's fixation with the Teletubbies, we now have Po in the debate over a
British day
.
lostintranslation, Turin, Italy
Probably far too rude to be published, but is anyone else tickled by the use of the phrase "net penetration" in
this story
?
Joe, Gloucester
- Posted on Wednesday at 13:36 UK time
It's that time of the week - Punorama results. This week it was the story of the
Spanish national anthem
in its crosshairs.
The poor Spanish: they may have one of the oldest national anthems, but for all these years they've been reduced to humming along at international football matches and Olympic medal ceremonies while rival fans can belt out a chorus of patriotic sentiments.
Anyway, temper your pity - the Spanish are on the hunt for a verse or two, and, besides, when it comes to sports like tennis, presumably the thrill of seeing your man
progress almost effortlessly
towards a Grand Slam final rather assuages any embarrassment from being left silent.
So? Inspirational. The Spanish might be lost for words, but you weren't.
Kicking off is Gareth with the simple, but oh so good,
Add verse situation
. Hotly followed by the Mike Harper offering,
A Spaniard in the Works
. We were also tickled by
The Silence of the Juans
sent in by Simon Rooke and Keith Edkins.
But it's the puns inspired by the My Fair Lady song The rain in Spain that deserve the gold star this week. Bryn Roberts starts things off with the glorious
The refrain in Spain feels mostly a little plain
, while Michael Daw came up with
The refrain in Spain is thought far too plain
. Rebecca Plumb sent in
The refrain of Spain fails plainly to entertain
, while Simon Rooke suggested
The mundane refrain, it fails to entertain
and Matt went for
The Refrain in Spain Falls Muted on the Game
.
But our favourite is Nigel Macarthur's offering,
The Strain to Refrain Falls Mainly On Spain
. Bravo.
- Posted on Wednesday at 11:36 UK time
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Logo fever (
yesterday's Paper Monitor
) continues in the papers with continued coverage of the London 2012 games brand. Today, a link with epilepsy is the main line.
Headlinewise, following the Magazine’s own "
Oh-no logo
" the
Sun
offers the “Logo to go-go” and the
Mirror
treads similar ground with the “No-go logo”.
To produce better versions of the offending logo, the Sun recruits a 12-year-old boy, a blind woman and a macaque monkey called Katie. There’s also an effort from a “Sun artist”, although Paper Monitor strongly favours the monkey.
There is no such fun in the
Independent
which, in tone, is rather like a GCSE Politics lesson today. Bono, a longtime friend of the Indie, is playing at being guest editor again, only this time it’s an Africa issue for Vanity Fair. Paper Monitor thinks it may have identified a new genre in the coverage of his efforts ? Bono-hagiography, or Bonography perhaps. More anon.
In the
Daily Mail
there is righteous indignation over the Labour government’s enthusiasm for a
British day
. A comment piece is headlined “THIS SICK JOKE”. Minister Ruth Kelly’s call to “incentivise voluntarism” is dismissed as “utter, ghastly drivel”. And a leader worries any day will turn out as the national “Minorities Day”. Ouch.
Elsewhere, the papers are full of love for the pregnant former Cheeky Vimto-quaffer Charlotte Church. In the Mail, she’s “looking swell” and over in the Sun, the caption reads Charlotte Cathedral. Charming.
- Posted on Wednesday at 09:42 UK time
Yesterday we asked what will Paris Hilton not be able to use during her 23-day jail term. It's hair extensions, which 28% of you correctly answered. But a massive 52% said shavers, and 20% said eyebrow pencils. Today's mini-question, on what fuels drunken unruliness as much as a full moon, is on the
Magazine homepage
now.
Tuesday's monitor
- Posted on Tuesday at 16:05 UK time
To Stephen Turner (
Friday's letters
) and all those other who are convinced that you can burn through car windows - OH YES YOU CAN! My arms and neck will attest to the fact that fair skinned people can burn very easily through glass. I just wish I could afford those tinted windows now...
Heather, Wolverhampton
What's with
Punorama
& Teletubbies? Last week it was Tinky-Winky in Poland and this week it's La-La in Spain.
Gareth Jones, Isle of Anglesey
Ralph in Cumbria (
Monday letters
): Glad you're coming to the Time Travellers' Convention. I'll have was going to seen you there.
Alex, Prague, Czech Republic
Ralph in Cumbria - re the time travellers' convention, shouldn't that be "I'll make sure I attended"?
Dan, Bristol
Congratulations to the website on finding the only
telephone box
in London completely devoid of graffiti and postcards advertising "personal services" AND which looks to be in perfect working order! For those of us without mobiles, can you tell us its location, please?
alisonwonderland, London, UK
Your
story
says "the average European accesses the net 16.5 days in a month, and spends 24 hours viewing 2,662 web pages". I make that a page every 30 and a few seconds. Does this include the time necessary to close pop-ups, Internet polls and offers of Viagra, or do the users just read exceptionally fast?
John Murphy, Lauris, France
- Posted on Tuesday at 11:31 UK time
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
What unites the following papers, beyond their "vituperative Niagara" (ⓒ Imogen Stubbs) against the new Olympic logo, noted, for your convenience, in brackets below?
The
Daily Mail
("Is this the work of a painting chimp, Turner Prize artist, children's jigsaw maker, graffiti tagger… or trendy ￡400,000-a-go design agency?")
The
Times
("An excuse for a logo?"; "Five good things about the 2012 Olympics logo… 5. If you yearned to live in a society where people have cause to use the phrase 'What were they thinking?', your boat may have come in.")
The
Daily Express
("A mess, a scribble… yes it's our ￡400,000 new Olympic logo")
The
Daily Mirror
("Olympic low-go!... and it cost ￡400,000")
The
Sun
("Olympic spillage. ￡400,000 London logo looks like graffiti splat")
The answer: they're all happy to run a full-page Lloyds TSB advert (right) which uses said logo as its centrepiece… an acquiescence which presumably comes with a thumping cheque from Lloyds TSB.
There are two paradoxical conclusions that could be drawn from this uncomfortable juxtaposition. Being a champion of the press, Paper Monitor chooses not to see this as an example of Fleet Street hypocrisy, rather a brave statement that these papers can't be bought.
- Posted on Tuesday at 10:58 UK time
In Monday's Daily Mini-Quiz we asked which country had the lowest carbon emissions per capita - US, Czech Republic, UK, Luxembourg or China? Nearly 50% wrongly opted for Luxembourg when it's China. Just 25% of you were right. Today's DMQ is on the
Magazine index
.
Monday's monitor
- Posted on Monday at 16:01 UK time
RE:
The champagne overdraft
. If excitement and importance is measured by how often people waste money on overpriced drinks, and women who's shallow infatuation is available to the highest bidder, then I'll gladly take the nothingness of enjoying a cheap night out with my mates and girlfriend who actually care about me.
Michael Sansbury, Newcastle Under Lyme
Regarding:
London unveils logo of 2012 Games
. "The new design, which cost ￡400,000, has received a mixed response, but Lord Coe was adamant it put across the image and message that he wanted the London Games to deliver to the world." states the article about the new Olympic logo. What message is that? That Britain likes wasting ￡400,000 on rubbishy logos that a 10 year old with a ruler could have knocked up in 5 minutes?
Mike Harper, Devon, UK
Rice crispies may be ideal for making a
Skoda-cake
but they're not the cereal of choice for easter egg nests due to looking nothing like sticks!
Michael, Washington DC USA
Why, oh why, whenever someone doesn't speak English, does the person reading the translation out have to have a foreign accent which is almost as impenetrable? Do TV companies use a foreign national who happens to speak the source language, an official translator or an actor? Sometimes, especially with the original person still audible underneath, you just turn off because you can't hear what either are are saying. And here's me thinking language was about communicating.
J Paul Murdock, West Midlands, UK
Regarding your story on George W Bush having a
jigsaw
commissioned, could you reveal whether this is a four piece jigsaw or if he has graduated to nine pieces.
Ian, Winchester
Today is a day which helps to restore some
faith
in humanity.
Paul, Oxford, England
Re
Paper Monitor's
verdict on the Independent on Sunday's new "hyperlinks". Does this mean the paper gets a 404 for effort?
Jarvis, Salford
The size of the
sunday papers
increase the amount of recycling I do and therefore is good for the planet, that's right isn't it
Dave , Warrington, UK
Alex, Thanks for letting us all know when the
time travellers' convention
was. I'll make sure I attend.
Ralph, Cumbria
- Posted on Monday at 10:22 UK time
A service highlighting the riches of the daily (and, occasionally, Sunday) press.
Are Sunday newspapers too big? It's a question tackled by yesterday's
Independent on Sunday
which had yet another relaunch, this time as a single newspaper section and a single magazine section.
Paper Monitor can quite see the attraction in a slimmed-down paper. It's not that one doesn't like bulky multi-section Sunday newspapers, it's just that there is *never anything worth reading in any part of any of them*. Speaking as a true lover of newspapers, each week Paper Monitor rather hopes one's neighbours are clocking just how many newspapers are in the recycling box, like a student hoping that their empty lager cans will be seen as proof of real hard partying.
But Sunday newspapers are a miserable experience. So good luck to anyone trying to reinvent matters.
The editor's blurb at the front - a genre always prone to hyperbole - doesn't disappoint: "[W]e have devised a very different reading experience from the traditional Sunday paper and, we hope, a more enjoyable one... The IoS has the news values of a traditional Sunday paper but the production values of a weekly magazine. This allows us to present the news in a far more dynamic way than a traditional Sunday paper." Get the message? It's *not* a traditional Sunday paper.
Except that it mostly is. One effort they have made is to introduce "
hyperlinks
" into their stories. Well, they *look* like hyperlinks (see picture), *read* like hyperlinks... and yet, despite repeated efforts at prodding the words with one's
fat fingers
, there seemed to be one crucial piece of hyperlink-like behaviour missing. Can you guess what it is, dear reader?
The inability,
as yet
, of paper to offer the kind of linking one has come to expect online is a bit of a challenge for newspapers. The
IoS
's efforts aren't bad, though it would have been good to realise for an interview with
Simon Pegg
that
Shaun of the Dead
was actually on
telly
last night.
We'll see how long this latest incarnation of the Independent lasts. Being a faithful Indy reader must feel like living in a state where there is permanent cultural revolution.
In today's paper, the Times offers a pre-wedding diet which promises any bride-to-be that they can lose 5lbs by THIS SATURDAY. That surely can't be healthy.
Well Paper Monitor has been feeling a bit bloated recently (a bit like a traditional Sunday paper), and though it is not getting married this weekend, it will try out this diet on your behalf and report back during the week.
It doesn't look too bad. No porridge, admittedly, but for lunch you can have an open crab sandwich, a turkey and avocado wrap, sweet potato and ricotta cheese, tuna and anchovy salad and crudites with humous. Bring it on. (If you try to give warnings that this list actually comprises lunches for a whole week and not just Monday, unfortunately you won't be heard above the sound of crab being cracked open.)
- Posted on Monday at 09:53 UK time
In Friday's Daily Mini-Quiz, we asked what Bill Gates said to Apple boss Steve Jobs about the inept PC character in Apple's ads. The top (42%), and correct, answer was he grimaced and said: "His mother loves him." Today's DMQ is on the
Magazine index
.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites