Paper Monitor
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
What's your contender for most gripping newspaper URL? Whatever suggestions are in the offing, this would take some beating...
"Vicar-Dibley-broken-marriage-gossip-gay-affair-bull-breeder-stetson.html"
This particular string of words pops up in the Times, although it is not a Times URL. Can you guess which paper it comes from? All will be revealed...
The Times features supplement contains a colour piece by a journalist once asked to edit his village newsletter. And how is this news, you may ask? Because he found himself .
Because his local vicar moved in with a female friend after separating from her husband. And then become upset when rumours suggested they might be more than just friends. So she preached a sermon against gossiping. Unfortunately, this turned out to be the nuclear option - her story made the Daily Mail, and others, earlier this summer. (Kudos to those who correctly guessed the Mail as author of .)
And his scoop? "[H]ere, in my hands, was Reverend Morton's response to the furore." She described her friend as a "Good Samaritan" and herself - well, her past, which included a child out of wedlock - as "a modern-day Mary Magdalene".
Elsewhere, the Times takes the Ashes win as an opportunity to wheel out the old chestnut about successful sportspeople becoming hot commercial properties for the second time in a week.
Last week it was , now it's .
Paper Monitor is reminded of a piece it read in Observer Sport Monthly in which Team GB's medallists reflected on the . Except for Chris Hoy and Rebecca Adlington.