Paper Monitor
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
What a time it's been for Diana conspiracy theorists. Believers in the "establishment plot" line so robustly advocated by Mohammed Al Fayed (and the Daily Express) must have fallen upon the latest plot twist with a resounding "a-HA!"
Can you guess how the Express plays it?
"DIANA: NEW SENSATION. Fury as another inquest coroner quits: Is it just an Establishment fix?" - front page splash
"I see secret hand of the Establishment" - page five
The latter headline is, unsurprisingly, drawn from Mr Al Fayed's response to Baroness Butler-Sloss' decision to step down. And the paper's own verdict on whether this is all part of the suspected plot? Its leader makes no reference to any dark forces that might be at work, but concludes that the resulting delay is "a farce".
Meanwhile, the Daily Mail continues its giveaway of films Paper Monitor has never seen, let alone heard of. Today it's Detective. You know, "Arthur Hailey's Detective" - that's how the Mail sells it. With Hollywood's Tom Berenger. And Annabeth Gish. No?
Paper Monitor is amused to note that among the films in the Mail's "exciting Action Thrillers collection" is A Line in the Sand, starring TV's Ross "hard man" Kemp. Nah, not seen that either...
And in one for Private Eye's Neophiliacs section, the paper's columnist Allison Pearson decrees that "girls are the new boys".
"The quest for a baby girl is one of the secret struggles of our age," Ms Pearson says, perhaps forgetting that each bundle of joy has an almost 50% chance of being a girl anyway. She opines that the former singer formerly known as Posh Spice must be eyeing her goddaughter Bluebell Halliwell jealously now everyone who is anyone is trying for a girl.
She even shoehorns in a reference to Girl Power. Henry VIII must be spinning in his grave (and Anne Boleyn et al doing high fives).