Paper Monitor
11:13 UK time, Friday, 11 January 2008
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
The sad death of New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary stirs up a sense of longing in Paper Monitor for those days of yore when great achievements by Britain's colonial subjects were unquestioningly claimed as "our own".
Courtesy of a rag-out from 2 June 1953, the Times zips us back to just such an era. "Everest conquered. Hillary and Tensing reach the summit."
"A message was received by the Times last night from the British Mount Everest Expedition, 1953, that E.P. Hillary and the Sherpa Tensing Bhutia reached the summit of the mountain, 29,002ft. high on May 29. The message added: 'All is well.'"
The sheer chutzpah. All of which leads Paper Monitor to wonder how today's news would be told if the same rules applied.
Take that cricketing rift between India and Australia that's been rumbling on in recent days. Under the 1953 rules it would likely be portrayed as a falling out between two bickering siblings, while the aloof mother country maintains a dignified distance.
Sure the Test series has been imperilled, but it's not been abandoned and let's face it, who cares who wins, either way it'll be a "British victory".
But from the days when we "never had it so good" much has changed, and if you need reminding just have a read of Jon Gaunt's column in the Sun.
Until now, Paper Monitor had always thought that when it comes to post-modern interpretations of the newspaper column the Indy had got things sewn up with Tracey Emin's Friday pitch "My Life in a Column"
But today Gaunty, to call him by his nom de plume, is clearly facing down Britain's leading art terrorist on her own pitch with an article about the difficulties of raising a family on limited income. How? Instead of writing his column, Gaunty has simply republished an e-mail he was sent by a reader.
That's so like, from the left-field.
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