Paper Monitor
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Stop the presses - George Michael in cannabis shock! He lights up, he inhales - who鈥檇 have known, eh?
The Daily Mirror plasters pictures of the singer openly smoking a joint all over its front page, topped with an EXCLUSIVE banner.
But before you go thinking that the Mirror has only gone and bagged itself another scoop in the vein of the Kate-Moss-cocaine-snaps Mark II, look more closely 鈥 the pictures are TV stills from an interview with Melvin Bragg for ITV's South Bank Show. So not that exclusive after all. Unless it鈥檚 the tabloid lexicon you鈥檙e referring to, which defines exclusive as 鈥渘ot in the Sun鈥.
The Sun, meanwhile, has an exclusive of its own 鈥 what it says is the world鈥檚 first review of Casino Royale. Yes, Rebekah Wade has played M and dispatched the paper鈥檚 own secret agent 鈥 dubbed The Sneak 鈥 to infiltrate a preview screening of the film.
Given that the Sun has previously devoted much newsprint to deriding new Bond Daniel Craig, so what鈥檚 the verdict on his 007?
鈥淭HE BEST BOND SINCE CONNERY鈥 shrieks the headline. 鈥淸Craig] plays the gritty, tougher than nails secret agent novelist Ian Fleming meant the world to see.鈥
And for anyone who took the time to read the full transcript of the leaked dossier on Heather Mills鈥 divorce petition (so that will be everyone then), and who wondered what happened to the five missing pages, the papers attempt to shed light on the issue: 鈥淚 think you will find that there was something in the pages that was derogatory about Heather,鈥 a source close to the case tells the Times.
Again, who鈥檇 have thought?