Paper Monitor
11:00 UK time, Tuesday, 31 July 2007
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Paper Monitor extends its gratitude to the handful of readers who took time out to draw up a Silly Season formula. (See them here) Perhaps the most convincing of the bunch was from Alexander, and that has nothing whatsoever, no siree, to do with the fact that he prefaces his entry with "As a scientist…"
Meanwhile, the story which kicked it all off – the alleged Great White Shark off the coast of Cornwall – graces the Sun front page for a third day running. Today's take – said shark has got a boyfriend.
Crikey. TWO potentially deadly Great Whites off the coast of one of Britain's top coastal resorts. How long before deflated lilos and human limbs are washed up on the sand? Did the Amity Constitution-Journal really make light of matters when a man eating shark was seen stalking its coastline?
Perhaps the Sun's unwritten Page Three Rule (as observed in the past by Paper Monitor) can help us judge how worried we ought to be. The rule states that the more solemn a news day it is, the more likely the Page Three beauty gets quietly dropped.
So what are we to make of the fact that today's Page Three features not one, not two, but five topless women? Paper Monitor would say the Sun is crying wolf, but a wolf being a fluffy animal, its analogous status as a fearsome event seems somewhat diminished.
Even the Sun's Wapping stable mate, the Times, says as much, subjecting yesterday's video evidence to a Silly Season scrutineer (in this case the Boys' Own book of shark fin profiles). The evidence, such as it is, seems to point to a "harmless" basking shark. Although quite what you'd make of this description were you an unsuspecting plankton merrily minding your own business somewhere off the coast of St Ives…
Boffins (as S Murray points out) are integral to a Silly Season story and the Guardian has called one in to sift the evidence on the Great White sighting. His conclusion: "Just because Parliament has gone into recess does not make this a great white shark". Or as the Sun might say - nuf-fin to worry about.
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