Paper Monitor
09:28 UK time, Wednesday, 21 November 2007
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
La la la. LA LA LA. Paper Monitor can't hear you. LA LA LA FINGERS IN EARS. CAN'T HEAR YOU.
IT'S NOT SOME ANNOYING NEWSROOM BANTER THAT PAPER MONITOR IS TRYING TO BLOCK OUT BY SHOUTING AND THINKING IN CAPITALS.
No, it's much much worse that than. It's a story which was reported in today's Times which was SO horrible and dreadful and horrifying that any number of tactics are needed not to think about it.
It was dreadful. It's OK talking about how bad it was so long as one doesn't actually talk about what the story was about. But it was so bad that on reading it this morning, Paper Monitor's hand spontaneously rose to Paper Monitor's mouth in pantomime-style horror, quite alarming one's fellow commuters.
So let's think about other things. Let's think about anything, to be honest. Let's fall back on a few staples. Like Ann Treneman, the super sketch writer whose column was just six pages away from the page that will not be mentioned. She rather amusingly points out that Alistair Darling always speaks quietly and in fact delivered the details of the government's ID fraud alert "with Poirot levels of detail".
Other things to distract. (Keep that volume up, brain! Don't let the dreadful dreadful details slip back in to the consciousness). Oh look, Russell Brand would like to kiss Morrissey. President Bush has been pictured with a turkey, an annual ritual which usually culminates in him featuring in our little-missed Caption Competition (can its return be far away?) This is good. It's almost working. Starbucks says it is planning an extra 100 branches in the UK, and that though it has a 10% market share in the US, it has just a 1% share worldwide. Oh look, a private equity firm wants to buy Northern Rock and pay off our £24bn loan over three years (actually this is getting a bit desperate).
There's nothing for it. One can run but not hide. You've got to be told the details. Avert your eyes if you are sensitive, while Paper Monitor hands over to a colleague who is of more robust material.
Colleague writes: "Honestly. What a fuss. It's just a sad story about a man who was staging a compensation swindle, trying to make out that his girlfriend suffered a broken leg when a wall fell down. Her leg was actually broken when the man, in the Times's words, "placed a brick under her leg and jumped on it with both feet. The scam was uncovered when police raided his house on an unconnected matter and found the completed paperwork with [a] phone containing a video of the stunt. Clearly heard on the soundtrack was a loud 'crack' as the bone broke." There, that wasn't so bad was it?
The 
