Paper Monitor
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
The Daily Mail is very pleased with itself today.
The London Press Club awards were last night and the august journal has picked up the gong for Daily Newspaper of the Year.
It's worth a story on page two and an addition to the masthead. But come on Mailites, the ante has been upped. You are in direct competition with the Daily Express, which carries in its banner the legend "THE WORLD'S GREATEST NEWSPAPER". The provenance of the awarding body is not immediately obvious from a quick scan through the paper, but it must be some respectable organisation.
You can almost hear the call of: "My name is Desmond, proprietor of proprietors, look on my titles, ye mighty, and despair."
You must do better Mailites.
And so to the Weak-Headline-of-the-Day Award.
A strong contender is on page three of the Daily Mirror. Little Britain USA is filming and the headline is "Little America".
Over in the Daily Star there is an extraordinary yarn about Bruce Willis playing Formula One commentator Murray Walker in a movie. The headline: "DRIVE HARD". Do you get it? Do you?
On the front of the Sun there's a picture of Gwyneth Paltrow, wife of Chris Martin, in a relatively short skirt showing bare legs. You will have seen it, as the photo makes every font page bar the Independent's. The Sun's pithy piece of headline mastery? "Feeling Coldplay, Gwyneth?"
It's almost like the elite subs of Fleet Street were absent last night, perhaps at some sort of boozy awards ceremony?