大象传媒

Help! I don't know what to do: or .
Gordon Tonker, Belper, Derbyshire

Thank goodness Blair has finally decided to step down. This should hopefully reduce the use of the not-very-hilarious moniker Bliar. It does not lead to any coffee-out-of-nose moments - unlike this Budget '97 result in a search for Gordon Brown's nickname. Which left me with an interesting mental image. Don't have nightmares...
Fiona, Glasgow

How come Hamish, who was barred for using the wrong form (Thursday letters) gets included in the winning captions? Not fair! Grump.
Carol, Portugal
Monitor note: We reserve the right to change our minds if sufficiently amused.

Okay, Stig is one of you lot isn't he?
Sue, London

With Paris Hilton due to be jailed, perhaps it is time for a new reality version of Prisoner: Cell Block H?
Candace, New Jersey, US

Tom (Thursday letters), I wouldn't worry too much about the absence of country folk in the tick story - in fact it's quite flattering. It means the Beeb knows that locals aren't at risk as we're not normally dumb enough to wear shorts in fields full of long grass - tourists are known to do that.
Phil, Angus, Scotland

No J Paul Murdock, I don't remember the old European Parliament translator's joke, "Very cold sailors" (Thursday letters). Give us a clue. What language was it in?
Jackie, Cambridge

How long did the cameraman have to wait for the in this photo?
Basil Long, Newark Notts

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

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

1. The British eat a third of the world鈥檚 cod.

2. Squirrels can peel bananas.

3. Pre-schoolers will watch a favourite DVD or video for an average of 17 times before getting bored.

4. Astronauts wear adult nappies on spacewalks and during launch. But Nasa likes to call them "Maximum Absorbency Garments".

5. Seventy-thousand teenagers failed to turn up to take a GCSE exam last year.

6. Tony Blair smoked his last cigarette 15 minutes before he got married.

7. Widening the M1 will cost more than the annual economies of a third of the world鈥檚 nations.

8. Fewer than 3% of rewards offered for information about crimes are paid out each year in the UK.

9. Four ingredients have been added to bread by law since WW2 鈥� niacin, thiamine, iron and calcium.

10. UK鈥檚 oldest working household appliance is a 50-year-old Prestcold Fridge in Norfolk.

Sources: 1, 5, 7, 9 - Observer, 2, 10 - Daily Mail, 7 May; 3 - Guardian, 11 May; 8 - Times, 11 May;

Seen 10 things? . Thanks to Nigel Brachi for this week's picture of 10 birds.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

It's time for the caption comp.

Oh, you funny people. Here are the winners to this week's picture of catering staff watching from the balcony of the local Conservative club as fashion mavens Trinny and Susannah lead hundreds of women in throwing their old bras in the air in Rothwell, Northamptonshire.

6. "It used to be the Jordanian embassy"
Valerie Falconer

5. "No Darren, I don't think I'd ever grow into it"
Simon Rooke

4. "I could have sworn the job description said we'd be working in a top brasserie"
Hamish

3. "Reminds me of my nan's washing line"
Hazel Love

2. "It's just in case Michael Jackson should decide to stay here with his son"
Rob Falconer

1. Student of the "one-handed unclip manoeuvre" in awe of the winning entry
Stig

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

There鈥檚 only one story in town today 鈥� a man whose hair has not fared well over the past decade is leaving office before the damage becomes too much.

Everyone splashes on it, except for the Express group newspapers.

The Daily Express carries it on the front page while trying to appear not to, shoehorning a couple of lines of Tony Blair鈥檚 departure into its splash about interest rates rising.

But that鈥檚 as nothing compared with the Daily Star. Lead story: Kylie denies romance. Main picture: 鈥淏 Bro Aisleyne鈥� makes feeble attempt to cover breasts with hand while wearing excessive quantity of costume jewellery. Second picture: Win this vintage VW camper van.

Surely the Star doesn鈥檛 want its readers to be totally oblivious to Tony鈥檚 departure. But what鈥檚 this? They have found space inside. On page eight. And it鈥檚 the angle the other papers have embarrassingly missed.

鈥�66-1 BLAIR TO BE X-FACTOR JUDGE鈥�

It鈥檚 punditmania in all the papers, as editors flog their columnists into saying something that hasn鈥檛 already been said a thousand times before.

One intones: 鈥淭he country has benefited tremendously from his leadership, courage and drive.鈥�

Peter Mandelson? Polly Toynbee? Melanie Phillips? No, its Sun page 3 girl Danni, 19, from Coventry.

But for those readers who are prepared to hunt through all the Blair-blah, there are gems to be found.

A number of the papers, including the Daily Mail, highlight the plight of 20-year-old Paula Ceely who watched in horror as a train destroyed her Renault Clio. The culprit: a cunning satnav device that led her onto a level crossing.

Unfortunately the killjoys at the Daily Telegraph spoil the story by revealing the crossing did have a rather large sign. Paper Monitor finds its sympathy drifting towards the train driver.

As for headline of the day, the Express nails it. Easily.

鈥淵ou pay for Britain鈥檚 most violent thug to have designer specs.鈥�

Blair鈥檚 Britain, eh?

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

At 54, Tony Blair will be the joint youngest ex-prime minister for a century. Yesterday we asked who left office at the same age? It's Sir John Major, which 35% of you got right. Another 29% said Anthony Eden and 36% said David Lloyd George. The average age on leaving No 10 is 65, since 1900. Today's mini-question is on the now.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

Re Paper Monitor's discovery of a Times' TV listing from 1980 of a show featuring a character called Tony Blair. On closer examination, the parallels with our soon-to-be ex-leader appear even spookier. The 1980 listing says that "Meanwhile Monica is finding out some strange things about Burton". Who should introduce Mr Blair at his resignation speech today? His long-standing constituency agent John Burton.
Bradely Evenday, London

Should we be worried that the picture shown of Tony Blair as a looks amazingly like
Cat, London

Reading the report that scientist are developing robots which can find their way through unfamiliar territory through guesswork, I imagine these must be the male version. The future female version will be programmed to stop and ask someone the way.
Rory, Sutton Coldfield

As a translator, I wouldn't trust Babel Fish, Kip (Wednesday letters). Frauen regier'n die Welt actually means "Women rule the world". Remember the old European Parliament translator's joke, "Very cold sailors".
J Paul Murdock, West Midlands, UK

What's this red-eyed zombie picture that Chandra mentions (Wednesday letters)? All I could see was Nick Robinson. Oh...
Clothilde Simon, Leeds

Nothing in Paper Monitor on the Grauniad's ? "...an opportunity for more serendipitous browsing in the vertical stack of picture-led links, which showcases a miscellany of our favourite things on the site. The Guardian design philosophy values function first and aesthetics second..." and so on.
HB, London

Re: . The article says that "travellers and holidaymakers visiting rural areas are at risk from tick bites". What about people living in rural areas? I take it we're safe?
Tom, Oswestry

I suspect that most of the entries in this week's caption competition will be in the "too rude to publish" category.
John, Belgium

'"I could have sworn that the job description said we'd be working 'at a top brasserie'."
Hamish, Cambridge
MM note: Nicely done, sir. But it came via the letters form. Consider yourself barred.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Top marks to the Times for its beautifully-produced souvenir edition to mark the resignation of Tony Blair, even if it does carry the rather sober subtitle: The Blair Years in the Times 鈥� the Rise and Fall of New Labour.

With apologies to Woody Allen, wouldn't a more apt slogan not be: Everything You Think You Ought to Know About Tony Blair But Won't Have Time to Read.

There are 24 pages! Admittedly most of it is a cuttings job, sorry a "selection of the best" articles to have been written about Blair, so faithful Times readers might comfort themselves in thinking they've devoured most of this once already.

But does anybody actually have the time to digest this stuff? Perhaps it's just something to file away with the vague notion of passing it on to a grandchild in the years to come.

Such souvenir editions tend say more about expectation than reality 鈥� and no, that wasn't Paper Monitor squeezing in a barbed comment on Blair's legacy.

As a politically-aware, fairly centrist sort, the average Times reader might have voted New Labour once or twice, and will recall the huge weight of expectation that accompanied Blair's election in 1997.

The subtext goes something like this: Blair meant something. Now he's going, things won't be the same. That's quite significant. And your paper has done something out of the ordinary to recognise that. It doesn't matter if you just flick through it and don't actually read it. Look, there's a picture of Liam Gallagher on the front cover of Vanity Fair with Patsy Kensit. There's a picture of Jill Dando, PY Gerbeau, the Twin Towers ablaze鈥� it's been a notable 10 years. Hmmm, now let's move on to the sports pages.

Small and utterly frivolous point of note: In its intro, the Times' special says "the first mention of Tony Blair in the Times was May 24, 1982". Not so - here's one from 31 May, 1980; a Sunday evening television listing for the 大象传媒 One show Buccaneer. "The Thin End. Tony Blair is in jail after the discovery of arms aboard his aircraft."

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

Yesterday it was reported that Tony Blair wants to set up a foundation to foster interfaith understanding, so we asked a bit of a curly one - who, out of Joseph (and his dreamcoat), Noah (and his ark) and Jesus, are recognised in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. It's all three, which 40% of you correctly answered. Jews believe Jesus existed, Muslims that he was a prophet, and Christians that he was the Son of God. Another 11% went for "none of the above". Today's mini-question is on the now.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

Babel Fish tells me that Germany's Eurovison entry roughly translates as "Mrs rules the World." Have these boys been talking to Sir Patrick Moore (Punorama)?
Kip, Norwich, UK

I voted for Starbucks in the mini-quiz, but not because I hate them, but because I thought others might. I mean, who could hate their cinnamon frascato? Oh boy.
Nicola Turton, Old Basing, England

Why the fuss over Spiderman 3? Your story about its being double that of Hot Fuzz seems a tad unfair, since the latter is not a family-friendly blockbuster. Surely the telling statistic is that it took less than Casino Royale and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, and nowhere near the record set by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire? Maybe people pay attention to bad reviews after all.
RP, Cambridge

In case any of you were as appalled as me at this but didn't have the nerve to look at the offending document yourselves, I thought I'd let you know that after a search on the ipetitions site I found 32 petitions: three for release, one about someone called Josh Hilton and the rest in favour of locking her up for a very long time. My faith in the internet as a tool for judging public opinion is somewhat restored after the shock of the original 大象传媒 story.
Jon, Gloucester

Do you have some kind of office sweepstake on how often you can get that red-eyed zombie picture on the front page of the UK's most established, and respected, online news website? In which case - cool!
Chandra, London

Didn't the Queen look really splendid in the US? I especially liked the . Well done Ma'am.
Trina, UK

I'm confused. Is Urbino supposed to be rustic-sounding or Italian-sounding (Paper Monitor)? If Italian-sounding, it would do because, unless I've lost the plot, it's a place in Italy. If rustic-sounding, it doesn't because it sounds like the word "urban" which, unless I've lost the plot again, is the opposite to "rustic". Help!
J Paul Murdock, West Midlands, UK

Can someone let the people in the picture in know that I think their shadow puppetry is rubbish.
Hamish, Cambridge

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

It's time for the winning entries in Punorama.

As ever, we gave you a story and you sent us punning headlines. This week it was astronomer Sir Patrick Moore who said British TV standards were deteriorating because the 大象传媒 is "run by women".

Soap operas, cooking shows, quizzes and kitchen-sink plays would not have been on in the golden days, said Mr Moore, who called for separate channels to cater for the needs of the different sexes. "I used to watch Doctor Who and Star Trek, but they went PC - making women commanders, that kind of thing. I stopped watching."

There were, perhaps all too predictably, many, many entries featuring Uranus. Great minds? It was in the case of Val茅rie Falconer, Rory and Simon Rooke, who sent in, respectively, Old Moore's All-Man-Act, Old Moore's Gal Ban Tack and Old Moore's Armagnac.

Simon was on fine form this week, also contributing Moore's crowed and Stars 'n their sighs. We also liked Nick and Kip's You Cannot be Sirius , Kip - again - with No comet! and The Moore the mardier (Gareth Jones, Isle of Anglesey).

Also firing on all cylinders was Tim Knott with Tele-mope and Super-nova-chauvinistic-TV-is-atrocious (special dispensation given to this "supercalla..." pun seeing as how it's, well, not laboured). Then there was Knight derider by Kate Lilley, which could just as easily been Night derider too.

Working the same humour vein was Male show-vinist (Mark Snegg) and Moorsogynist (Steve O and OG Nash). Then there was There's no business like chauvinist business by Gareth Jones and Moore Pat-ronising by Richard Peers.

And it's not a pun, but we also liked Craig Wall's Men are from mars, women are responsible for the shameful dumbing down of British TV. Boom boom!

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Tuesday was a hugely significant day in Northern Ireland, with the ex-IRA commander Martin McGuinness sharing power (and jokes) with his former arch enemy, Ian Paisley.

But how important was it in the minds of the national newspaper editors?

A check on what pages the story appears is a blunt instrument but suggests the Daily Express thought its readers could do without such cheer. It gave more prominence to Labour MP Peter Kilfoyle criticising his hospital food.

And interestingly the Sun dedicated a greater fraction of its news pages to the story than the Daily Telegraph.

1-3, 27: Independent (no surprise there's a poster front page for "THE MIRACLE OF BELFAST")
1, 2, 4, 30: Guardian
1, 8-9: Sun
1, 12, 21: Telegraph
10, 20-21: Mirror
12-13, 14: Mail
16, 30-31: Times
17: Express

The bonhomie between Blair, Paisley and McGuinness caught even the most seasoned observers by surprise.

David McKittrick, the Independent's Ireland correspondent, wryly observed: "As they all smiled, it occurred to me that the troubles were ending not with a bang, but with a cuppa."

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

Yesterday we asked what's Britain's fifth most hated brand, coming after Pot Noodle, McDonald's, AOL and Sunny D. It's Novon, a Sainsbury's washing powder, which just 7% of you opted for, and another 25% picked BA. If the DMQ can be taken as a survey in its own right, your "most hated" by a long stretch is Starbucks. Today's mini-question is on the now.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

Not to condone on TV's decline, but surely if anyone can confirm that men are from Mars and women are from Venus it's him?
John R, London

Re Patrick Moore's comments, I think I鈥檓 right, but isn鈥檛 The Sky at Night produced by a woman, Jane Fletcher? I'm not sure whether I should agree with Sir Patrick or not now.
Stig, London, UK

So Patrick Moore says women make TV rubbish? Unfortunately Patrick, we all remember Gamesmaster.
Kev Guthrie, Sheffield

Please tell me someone else sniggered a little at "" You'd think curators would have higher things on their minds.
Kate, London

Reading the story of I was tickled that he has since changed his name to Mr Goodlove - mere coincidence, or nominative determinism taken to the extreme?
Sian, Reading

The story on the , says that it's weapon systems are so accurate they can "pinpoint targets as far away as North Africa". Obviously the navy uses a rather different definition of "pinpoint" than the rest of us.
Rick, UK

Re Paper Monitor's hopes of an expenses-paid trip to the rustic Italian-sounding Urbino - so that would be a beano in Urbino.
Reg Hiro, Leamington Spa

When I voted in today's Daily Mini-Quiz on what is Britain's fifth "most hated" brand, around two-thirds of people had voted for Starbucks ahead of Novon and BA. Doesn't that make it a more hated brand than the other two, according to your readers, or am I just confused?
Rory, Sutton Coldfield UK

Considering the problems that people with second homes are causing areas such as Wales and Cornwall is the most responsible of articles to publish? If so, can you also publish articles on avoiding jail time and staying on benefits for as long as possible?
James Hayward, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Just when Paper Monitor felt it was something of a lone voice in the championing of daily printed media, it discovers a like-minded cohort - the rather more grandiosely titled .

As acronyms go, WAN doesn't exactly inspire confidence (the Penguin English Dictionary defines the word as "suggestive of poor health; pallid; lacking vitality") but what it lacks in awareness of the complexities of the English language it sure makes up for with deep pockets.

WAN appears to have lavished several tens of thousands of pounds on taking out full-page adverts in Tuesday's press - the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph among them - promoting, well, er, the press.

"You're one of 1.4 billion people in the world reading a newspaper today. More than ever before, the well-informed are deciding it's silly not to."

Paper Monitor couldn't agree more, but wonders who is behind this elaborate act of self-justification.

Just when it was minded to pin the whole thing on some sort of socialist job-creation exercise, it spied this almost hidden text running down the side of the ad: "This advertisement was conceived and produced for the World Association of Newspapers by The Dukes of Urbino.Com."

Is this what Bo Duke has spent his

It all sounds a tad Bilderburg-ish to be honest, but given said Dukes' obvious largesse, Paper Monitor would be happy to know more. Perhaps it might involve an expenses-paid trip to the rustic Italian-sounding Urbino.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

Monday's Daily Mini Quiz asked which of the following films 鈥� Pretty Woman, It's a Wonderful Life, and the Matrix 鈥� were in women's top 10 but not the men's. Forty-seven per cent thought it was Pretty Woman, while 30% were correct in guessing it was all three. Would

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

A bumper Bank Holiday crop of letters.

Today's Metro informs us that it would take four million peas to fill a carriage on the London Eye. Aside from my disappointment that they missed such an obvious pun by not using the correct terminology of "pod", I am incredibly confused by all these new standards of measurement. How on earth am I meant to find out how many peas will fit in a phone box or cover a football pitch?
Tanya, Staines, UK

You might be interested to read this morning's Metro, in which our attention is drawn to the fact that "it would take four million peas to fill a carriage [sic] on the London Eye". Another useful addition to MM's conversion tables. The London Eye itself gives us some . My favourite: "twice the speed of a tortoise sprinting". That's cleared that up.
Lucy Jones, Manchester

To Lee, in Manchester (Letters, 3 May) - Buy it a pony, that usually works.
Keith, Loughborough

Re: Christian Cook's letter about wheelie bins to the moon and back, I think they are trying to say that if we got everyone in the UK's rubbish in wheelie bins it would stretch to the moon and back, and I think you'll be surprised if we work it out a little. If we take the surface to surface distance between the Moon and the Earth as about 376,295km, our wheelie bins would have to stretch twice that, so 752,590km. Average wheelie bin height is 1.07meters, or 0.00107km, so we would need 752590/0.00107 wheelie bins to cover the distance, which works out as 703,355,140 (and a little) wheelie bins. Divide this by the population of the UK (60,609,155) and it works out at roughly 12 wheelie bins each. Spreading half a tonne between 12 wheelie bins works out as each one holding about 42kg. In my opinion that would be fair (although I'm sure someone can tell us the average density of household rubbish and use the volume of the wheelie bin - 240litres - and further refine this). So I think in this instance the Labour party are right.
James, Stirling

Re The and the , is this early arrival of the silly season another sign of global warming?
Ray Lashley, Bristol, UK

Re: What's with this new-fangled comparison of pennies into St Paul's Cathedrals or credit cards to Ben Nevises? If you want people to get their heads around the vastness of a trillion, the 大象传媒 of all places should stick to the tried and tested units of conversion: Routemaster buses and/or Olympic swimming pools.
Natalie, Preston, UK

If one teaspoonful is 5ml, then teaspoons is quite easy: it becomes 5,000 million litres, or a volume of 5 million cubic meters of water, which is around four thousand olympic-sized swimming pools. Given the amount being spent on each Olympic pool in Stratford, however, it may be surmised that it might have been better to clear off this entire national debt.
Jel, Swansea

Finally a funny picture for the caption competition! A picture that wasn't part or a promo campaign for something or other. Just a picture of two people doing something serious, that can have a funny caption applied to it. Isn't that the point? For the last month or more it's been a series of people posing in funny costumes or some such.
When it's a picture of the Queen staggering with a lifeguard nearby, THAT lends itself to a funny caption. Please NO MORE of the cute PR posed shots for the caption competition.
Dave McQueen, Edmonton, Canada, ex pat from London

Did you know that more than four million Tunnock's caramel wafer biscuits are made and sold each week? Who eats them all?
Emma, Hull, UK

Det Chief Supt Chris McDonald, in , is "head of Operation Blunt, the knife cream taskforce at the Metropolitan Police". Is producing knife cream a similar process to that of turning swords into ploughshares?
Rick P, Oxford, UK

Re: , could I point out that the use of the phrase "up to", so beloved of advertisers, clearly allows for the possibility that there is no water at all on Mars?
Angus Gafraidh, London UK

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Let's hear it for those unsung heroes of the newsroom, the sub-editors.

These sharpest of news hacks have the thankless and unbylined task of knocking into shape the dodgy copy of a rookie reporter or, worst, an egotistical columnist. Not to mention the layout and headlines.

And all done with a job title which unfairly defines them in terms of inferiority to their boss.

The very best of the industry - by reputation usually at the Sun or formerly at the Sun - is on show this Bank Holiday Monday.

The challenge for the three papers most interested in Cherie Blair was how to treat a picture story of the (other) PM's wife dancing with Anton du Beke at a charity event.

And the results...

Daily Mail - "THE CHERIE SHUFFLE" (verdict: weak)
Daily Mirror - "BLAIR WALTZ PROJECT" (verdict: not bad)
The Sun - "LAST DANCE" (verdict: multi-layered, bingo!)

But the Sun's stablemates at the Times haven't had a great day.

First there's the unfortunate choice of language in greeting the Sarkozy victory with "THERE'LL BE A NEW, HANDS-ON STYLE OF PRESIDENCY... AND A FAIR BIT OF PAIN"

Excusez-moi? Does Sarko have a policy on bread?

That's easily forgiven but later, a great World War II escape story is described in the strapline as "cheating death". Ouch.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?

Ini Friday's Daily Mini-Quiz, we asked which profession was most likely to work nine 'til five. The answer, according to research by First Direct, is secretaries, which was your bottom answer (17%). Far more of you (32%) mistakenly thought it was civil servants. Try and do better with today's DMQ, which is on the .

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• - What's this?