Paper Monitor
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
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Urgh. Last night was Christmas party night for the inhabitants of Monitor Towers, and Paper Monitor was persuaded to stay for "just one more" by Punorama and Caption Comp. With no work to get up for of a morning, staying out past bedtime to drink gin and dubonnet (twist of orange peel) and dance on tables is of no concern to those two layabouts.
So Paper Monitor is feeling a little fragile this morning. But, sat on a stalled public transport vehicle after a gang of reprobates carried out a campaign of synchronised alarm pulling, it was just possible to raise a smile while reading Ann Treneman's sketch in the Times. Can there be a better way of describing someone speaking meaningless drivel? (Not Ann obviously - the woman is a goddess - but the subject of her piece about the hunt for a British motto.)
"'The Government had never proposed a British motto!' announced Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. So far, so British. But then Lord Hunt’s mouth kept moving and this is what he said: 'We are focusing on developing a question on whether a statement of British values would be useful.'"
Masterful. And that goes for you too, Lord Hunt.
And turning to look over a fellow commuter's shoulder at Metro - as one does when stalled on the way to work - congratulations to the headline writer who came up with these gems:
• "Fancy 6 Grammys, Amy? That's music awards, not Charlie" - do you see what they did there?
• "Electrickery" - on a story about huge light sculptures created by an amateur boffin using 500,000 volts of electricity (don't, obviously, try this at home).
It's a very very vague memory, not helped obviously by the self-induced haziness. But didn't the word "electrickery" feature in a long long forgotten TV show about a weird bloke with long hair who was a kind of Middle Ages wizard or something who found himself in the modern day? Think he shared the name of a wrestler. Long blond hair. Used to talk about "electrickery" because he couldn't understand what it was. Oh oh oh and also talked about the Telling Bone instead of telephone. Is Paper Monitor alone here?
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Hold on, something is starting to fall into place. Paper Monitor took its leave of Punorama and Caption Comp late last night when they started stealing traffic cones... and this morning the Tube was delayed by alarm-pulling degenerates. If anyone sees those two rascals, tell them that they have been very, very naughty indeed.