Paper Monitor
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
"Where have all the good men gone and where are all the gods?
Where's the street-wise Hercules to fight the rising odds?
Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night I toss and I turn and I dream of what I need..."
Sometimes, when sleepless after a midnight feast of rather too strong cheese, Paper Monitor turns to the words of Bonnie Tyler's seminal 1984 hit for comfort.
And perhaps the good folk at the Sun have also been chowing down too much late-night Stinking Bishop, for they seem to feel the same way.
Today's front page features Ricky Hatton, clenched of fist and topless save for a Union flag. The paper, having signed up the boxing star to its campaign to "repair broken Britain", outlines his manifesto thus:
• Tough justice for feral thugs
• Discipline at school & home
• More cops on the street
SORT IT
The Independent, too, is tub-thumping but so far the response to its global campaign to shame China into doing more to help Darfur is rather less rousing: "THE GREAT WALL OF INDIFFERENCE" runs its own front page headline, after George Bush said he planned to attend the Beijing Olympics and major sponsors refused to raise it with the Chinese.
So are either of these issues distilled into the Sun's News In Briefs with Nikkala, 24, from Middlesex? Er, no. Nikkala is delighted that Liam Gallagher has taken Nicole Appleton down the aisle after seven years together. "He can't be a wildman forever," she opines.
Come, lets all sing together: "I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero till the end of the night..."