Paper Monitor
12:09 UK time, Thursday, 7 May 2009
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Another day, another play/film/musical/novel heralded as utterly prescient and entirely in keeping with the troubled times in which we live.
has had the treatment. So, too, , , and .
Now it's the turn of Waiting for Godot, as it has pitched up on West End starring Professor Xavier/Captain Picard and Magneto/Gandalf as those doing the waiting.
The Times pens a recasting Beckett's play in a contemporary setting. So far, so very luvvy.
But their take is that it is like Labour's leadership tussle. (It could be *any* party's leadership tussle. An interminable wait, much commented upon. Yet not much happens and [spoiler alert] someone who will make all the difference never shows.)
The Times titles its rival version Waiting for Gordot, "in which the tramps are played by a pair of (yet to be firmly cast) Labour MPs speculating on whether Gordon Brown will step aside as party leader, whether it's worth waiting, and whether there is anything they can do to precipitate an end to the endless uncertainty."
The script need hardly change at all:
Estragon - I can't go on like this.
Vladimir - That's what you think.
Estragon - Well, shall we go?
Vladimir - Yes, let's go (they do not move).
And so on.
Meanwhile, it's R.I.P. to the South Bank Show, scuttled by ITV after some 35 years. Can you guess which paper stops all the clocks? It's the Daily Star!
Nah, just jerking your chain. It's the Daily Telegraph breaking out the black border on its front page. (The Star actually has Posh in her smalls and a very cross Didier Drogba on its cover.)
But what's this? It looks like theIndependent, its masthead says "The Independent", and it costs one whole pound, which is how much the Independent costs. But there is a footballer on the cover. A footballer! A sad-eyed footballer, but a footballer none the less.
Things really have changed since the dolphin poster fronts got kicked into touch (see past Paper Monitors).
And the Daily Mail tempts female readers - and those whose moobs need a little extra support - with a £2 off coupon for M&S bras, whatever their size. Scissors at the ready, Paper Monitor turns to page 46 as instructed... only the entire mid-section of the paper is missing. Who's half-inched it? Punorama is banned from the building after that incident with the wallcharts and the fold-up bike. Web Monitor looks a bit cheeky, and so does WBQ...
The 
