³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

Re 10 things - "2: MPs cannot resign. To step down, Tony Blair had to accept the post of steward and bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds."
Does that have any responsibilities and duties attached to it? Because it would be good to keep an eye on that to ensure he is doing all he should be to fulfil the role. Obviously I am just thinking of the Chiltern Hundreds.
Christian Cook

I would LOVE to know why the cat in the photo was .
Aine, London

I think it is absolutely appalling that you are encouraging people to take this weekend. Would you make a similar plea for photos of people walking in front of a bus, throwing themselves off of a cliff or doing other activities that endanger their health?
Rob H, London

Does anyone else feel that the Magazine might be slightly too upset about the smoking ban? We've had a parade of writers lamenting it, and now we are invited to send in pictures of our "last hurrah" this weekend. Well, in honour of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s much-heralded policy of telling two sides to every story, I fully expect that on Monday we will be invited to send in photos of people getting to visit a pub and not come out stinking of other people's foul smelling and dangerous cigarette smoke?
Nicky Stu, Highgate, London

Can we please have an RIP entry for ? I'm really quite distressed at all of them shutting down, they are places of great joy.
Sarah, Edinburgh

Paper Monitor, "gravid" = "pregnant". Not so tricky, but also no so appealing.
Rebecca H, Sunny Hastings, UK

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Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.

1. The prime ministerial Jaguar is called Pegasus.

2. MPs cannot resign. To step down, Tony Blair had to accept the post of steward and bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds.

3. Gordon Brown is the first post-war university-educated prime minister not to have gone to Oxford.

4. There is no kneeling or kissing of hands when the Queen offers the position of prime minister.

5. A flotilla of rubber ducks that spilt into the sea from a container ship in 1992 may soon be sighted in British waters. They may continue circling the world for 100 years.

6. Peanuts can be made into diamonds.

7. Sporrans used to be made out of otter fur.

8. Beetles commit rape.

9. Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut is believed to have worn men's clothes and a false beard.

10. Domestic cats can trace their descent to the Middle East.

2 - Daily Telegraph (29 June); 3 - Times (27 June); 4 - ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ TV (27 June); 5 - Times (28 June); 8 - Times (25 June)

Seen 10 things? . Thanks to Paul Taylor for this week's picture of a 10-themed "Gordon Brownie".

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It's time for the winning entries in the caption competition.

This week, it's Nell McAndrew and Rupert Bear launching the Woodland Trust's drive to secure the future of ancient trees.

6. Gareth Jones, Isle of Anglesey
"I really don't think this is how you do the 'Oaky-cokey', Nell."

5. Stig
Meanwhile, in the garden at No 10, potential junior ministers in a "Government of all the talent", eagerly await news of their jobs...

4. James Carter
Nell was starting to get suspicious. This was the 10th time that Rupert had got his kite stuck in the tree, and he always insisted on standing underneath her to keep the tree steady...

3. Christian Cook
"After three, heave..."

2. Tim
The marriage would never work - there were tree of us in it.

1. Kieran Boyle
Prince Charles was still very troubled by one particular recurring dream.

Thanks to all who entered.

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

It's back. The yellow "pray for her" ribbon on the masthead of the Daily Mirror (paper's own emphasis).

The same eye-catching colour is repeated just below on a banner reading: "IT WAS THE SPICE REUNION. SUDDENLY, TWO MYSTERIOUS GLOBES APPEARED..." What could it possibly be? Anyone who caught sight of the Spice Girls photo call and press conference could hardly be in doubt.

In the words of the Times' inimitable Caitlin Moran, "Victoria Beckham's extreme tan and notable breasts make her torso resemble a chihuahua gravid with twins."

A chihuahua gravid? Unfamiliar with accessory dog breeds, Paper Monitor takes the unusual step of using its imagination to puzzle out the similarities... being a type of chihuahua, it must be fond of luxury handbags, be small and yappy, pampered in extremis and groomed to within an inch of its life. That's about nailed it, even without a search on Google Images that throws up a photo of Paris Hilton.

Meanwhile, having exhausted the mine of biog details on Gordon Brown yesterday, today the papers turn to his cabinet. Best headline effort? "THE ONLY LABOUR MP WITH A BUTLER." The Independent's effort has it all in one fun-sized packet. Concise. Confounds expectations. Covers all you need to know without having to read the accompanying profile. Job done.

But the picture of the day has to the one in the Daily Telegraph which illustrates the piece about Lady Chatterley's Lover and how archives show that its obscenity trial shook the government's faith in juries (all perfect Telegraph territory).

Three men sit in a row on a Tube carriage. The one in the middle reads the novel while the commuters of either side sneak peeks at the naughty bits. Paper Monitor cannot help but wonder... archive pic or posed by Telegraph staff on their way into work yesterday? The novel-reader wears a bowler hat - either/or. His fellow commuter wears old-style heavy-rimmed Two Ronnies-style specs - ditto. Ah! The clue that nails it - the dirty book is partially obscured with a copy of the Times. In broadsheet format.

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Thursday's Daily Mini-Quiz asked how many days after newly-split couple Chantelle and Preston met did they get married. Most of you - 34% - guessed it to be 111 days. The correct answer was 222 days. Today's DMQ is on the .

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Posties looked neater in their what may seem old fashioned , as did bus drivers, clippies, tube staff, parking wardens, park keepers - the list goes on. Seems nowadays anyone can put on a high-visability vest and that counts as a uniform. Uniforms command respect from the public and pride from the wearer, and there's not much of that around nowadays.
Jamie, London

Not that I'd encourage binge drinking or owt, but would anyone else care to play The Gordon Brown's Drinking Game (TM). The rules are simple, every time our new PM mentions Britain you knock back a shot. Critics may claim this is him trying too hard, but I (for one) am too pissed to care for now.
Bottoms up!
Duncan Hoffmann, Sheffield, UK

"What has caused June's devastating ?" asks the Q+A. Well, call it a hunch, but I'm guessing 'lots of rain'.
Mike Harper, Devon, UK

Anyone else depressed that the top five most popular stories includes " announcement imminent". Are there really only four more stories that are more interesting than "ex pop stars to say something soon"?
Vicky Stiles, Prague, CR

Dear L, I've just had my wisdom teeth pulled out. Can you get your stepmother to send me £40 pliz?
Samantha David, France

Regarding "" - so the Queen managed to accept the resignation of one prime minister, appoint a new one AND send a message to the flood victims all in the space of just over an hour? An impressively busy afternoon for someone in her 80s... good on you, Ma'am!
Rob, Cambridge

Maybe Merriam Webster (quoted in the Wikipedia entry for "myriad") might help Ms. Hill relax... MW says it's "a mistaken belief that the word was originally and is still properly only an adjective" and ends by saying that there's no reason to avoid using it as such. And in case Meriam Webster doesn't cut it in Hove, I'll just pop home and see what the OED has to say on the subject...
Nigel Brachi, Edmonton, Alberta

Were any other fans of lock devices disappointed to find that "Recognition for collections" referred to fisheries, lighthouses and trains?
Norbert, Scotland

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Historic events call for momentous front pages, and this is a time to cast aside petty gripes about being unable to turn the pages on a crowded train. As the sole surviving mainstream national broadsheet, the Daily Telegraph stands out from the pack. Maybe it's the fact that mention of any other stories has been banished to the inside pages, or that the proportions of the doorway to No 10 Downing Street mirror those of the broadsheet format, but the Telegraph's front page, which features a picture of Gordon and Sarah Brown at the footstep of their new home, exudes a stately, "paper of record" aura.

Traditionally, of course, this has been Times territory. Somehow the tabloid Thunderer just doesn't match up. Or is that just because news of the new PM sits under the strapline: "Henman – the enigma"?

A "special edition" of the Independent veers off at a characteristically idiosyncratic angle, with 10 pieces of advice for the new prime minister from some distinctly familiar Indy faces… Bono, Shami Chakraberti, Antony Gormley.

The Mirror does its best to honour both occasions – the departure of Blair, the arrival of Brown, with a wraparound front. And all of a sudden there's no room for its yellow "Remember Madeleine" ribbon. Paper Monitor will be keeping a keen eye to see if it reappears in tomorrow's edition.

But enough of this sycophancy. The Mail wins the award for the most cutting, indeed ambiguous, front: "Bye Tony. Missing you already…" runs the headline – exactly whose sentiments?

Paper Monitor feels overwhelmed by the sheer weight of Brown biog material that silts up the inside pages of all the papers. Amid all this info-facto political punditarial opinion dumping, it was struggling to form a robust, rounded and defendable opinion on the new PM. Until, that is, it stumbled across the thoughts of a remarkably brazen Keely, 20, from Bromley, in the Sun.

"Keeley is pleased that the new prime minister Gordon Brown is committed to green issues. She said: 'There are few things more important than protecting our environment.'"

So that settles it.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger gave Tony Blair a guitar as a leaving present - a popular choice for the now ex-PM, who's been given one by seemingly every visitor bar... Sir Paul McCartney, which 47% of you correctly answered. Another 23% said Bryan Adams and 30% said Bono, both of whom have presented Mr Blair with guitars. Today's mini-question is on the now.

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In the article on the discovery of the mummy of Egyptian queen Hatshepsut, we discover that "Egyptologists say they have identified the 3,000-year-old mummy of Hatshepsut, Egypt's most famous " and that she "was more powerful than either of her more famous female successors, Nefertiti and Cleopatra". Is it just me, or...
Nancy K, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

How can claim to have made the "find of the century" when we are only seven years into it? Unless they PLAN to make no more significant discoveries for the next 93 or so years. BUSTED!
Colin Main, Berkhamsted, UK

I read about the Tooth Fairy giving away £20m every year and I just had to write in and tell you that my 10-year-old brother gets £10 per tooth he loses. Is the world (or maybe just my step-mother) going mad?
L, London

Tony Blair's departure date was only announced in May. And yet somehow it coincides with the arrival of a nasty new PM in Doctor Who. Spooky coincidence? Or is Dr Who writer Russell T Davies very well-connected?
Alex D, Southampton, UK

Blimey, I must in a minority of one among Monitor readers, as I have never knowingly bought, consumed or even seen milk in a plastic pouch before now.
Michael Hall, Croydon, UK

Dear Carol Langham... re "comprises of" do you also wince at "myriad of". Gets me EVERY time.
Jane Hill, Hove, UK

Re: today's on Tony Blair - "who hasn't given him one while in office?" Oo-er missus.
TeeGee, Belfast

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It's Wednesday, so it's time for punorama results again folks

We gave you a story and asked you to come up with your best headline pun.

This week it was the tale that the tooth fairy is sticking £20m-worth of coins under the pillow of Britain's children.

She's been so generous tooth-fairy inflation has leapt by 500% in 25 years. That's more than three times the increase in the overall cost of living.

Today's going rate for a lost tooth is an average £1.05 compared to 17 pence in 1982.

So? Good effort, you were inspired.

Incisor dealing was popular and sent in by Andrew Mason and Rob Falconer. Craig Wall and Jake Perks took a slightly different appraoch with Incisor trading.

Loot Canal Surgery was the effort sent in by Nigel Macarthur and Steve. Gnawer Batty, the offering from Bryn Roberts, made us giggle.

Honourable mentions go to Stuart for Show me the gummy, Oral high glean from Simon Rooke, Dental fleece from Meagan Crump and Elf, wealth and happiness from Don Logan.

But this week's favourites were Who want to be a molarionaire? from Mark Esdale,
Bread up to the back teeth from Stella and Money's tooth right for pension from Lee Pike. Bravo.

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Newspaper people like awards ceremonies, with their flowing free drink and food. So it's no surprise that a fair few of them are sponsored by papers - the Guardian's student journalism awards and the Mirror's Pride of Britain awards among them.

But the Express has wandered off the beaten track with its British Housebuilder awards. A-listers did not abound at this ceremony that dominates page 27 of the paper.

Paper Monitor has to note that this housebuilding lark seems to be a male-dominated thing. The main photo shows 16 suited men along with Vanessa Feltz.

Over in the Sun, there is some enthusiasm for the ongoing cash-for-honours investigation, with the joyous news that a blonde 25-year-old adult film star has been caught up in the inquiry. Get your politics in your super-soaraway Sun.

And there's more on page six with a little bit of the good cop, bad cop routine. All-seeing Westminster journalism Yoda Trevor Kavanagh says Blair has failed. But the leader column at the left-hand side of the page says history will judge him kindly.

In the Times the miscellany-master Ben Schott does a turn on prime ministers. Here you can find out that the most popular star signs for prime ministers are Aries and Libra (each 11.5% - of everybody since Robert Walpole).

Brown is a Pisces, and the horoscopes today offer hidden messages for him.

In the Mail, there is a veiled comment on his unopposed election - "when people think they have an easy answer, they immediately stop looking for anything else".

In the Mirror, there is the encouraging "you make mistakes like anyone but you have less need to apologise". In the Express there is the promising "you might be told something that makes you feel incredible".

Only the Sun's Mystic Meg baffles by asserting: "A healing moon makes this a key day to talk to a relative who feels misunderstood."

Who could it be?

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In Tuesday's Daily Mini-Quiz, we asked which is the second largest foreign-born group in the UK after India-born people. It was so close, but 35.55% of you got it right, saying it was Republic of Ireland, 35.47% said it was Pakistan and 28.98% said Poland. Today's DMQ is on the .

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With regards to This is not a new idea; growing up in Aberdeenshire in the 1980s our milk was delivered in one pint plastic bags, the idea being that if they froze in the poor weather before you took them indoors they wouldn't burst.
Jen Mayne, York, UK

Re the "innovative alternative to packaging milk" using plastic bags, I remember a trial of this when I was growing up in the 70s (in Essex). Milk was delivered in plastic pouches with a re-usable jug that you could put the pouch in and pour from. I seem to recall that the trouble was that the plastic pouches didn't sit neatly in the fridge, so the project was doomed. Keith, Surrey

Regarding selling milk in plastic pouches, South Africa has been selling milk this way since 1993. I just thought they were cheap not ecologically minded.
T Berry, SLC, UT, USA

In the early 1980s I lived for a while on Guernsey where milk was sold in pouches. Every home had a plastic jug made especially to contain them. You would place the pouch in the jug and snip off the corner to pour. Easy!
MartinC, London UK

Re , am I the only person to wince when I see "comprises of" (Whitland-based Calon Wen comprises of 20 organic family farms across Wales producing milk and butter). "Whitland-based Calon Wen comprises 20 organic family farms..." or even "Whitland-based Calon Wen is comprised of 20 organic family farms..." - but, please, never "comprises of". I need to go and lie down.
Carol Langham, Milton Keynes, England

On the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ News frontpage currently:- "Have your say - Is the weather causing chaos?" and "Watch - Floods chaos" That's that answered then.
James Gascoyne-Cecil, Stowmarket

I read with dismay the headline to a supposed medical breakthrough. The fact that is hardly going to help the healing process.
Nich Hill, Gosport UK

Disappointed to see major sites reporting Danah Boyd's essay on the as new information from a study and thus leaving it open to Liz from Poole's mockery. It was a thoughtful essay from an excellent researcher who wrote quite clearly at the top of the page that it was a preliminary, qualitative work.
Lucky, UK

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Paper Monitor suspects tomorrow's Independent may be a little lacklustre.

That's because editor-in-chief Simon Kelner was skiving this morning, living it up on the panel of Five's live debate show, The Wright Stuff. Being a serious sort of chap, he does not feel motivated to make a major contribution on the burning issue of the day, "Overlapping Lovers".

One wonders whether auxiliary editor Bono is filling in while the boss man is away.

Talking of bosses, in the Daily Mirror, there is a beautiful pastiche of Reader's Digest, masquerading as a pull-out on new prime minister Gordon Brown. On the front cover, shot from below, Brown looks misty-eyed into the distance, perhaps at a herd of approaching growth targets or a gaggle of off-balance sheet debts.

Brown gets no such generous treatment in the Sun. Already there are strident demands for his first decision in office to be establishing a referendum on the EU. Among the most strenuous calls are from Page 3's Becky and Mel.

Mel says: "This is going to have a huge influence in how our country is run. It's only right Gordon Brown gives us a referendum."

Brown's new deputy, Harriet Harman, suffers a stinging attack in the Daily Mail from Quentin Letts. He reaches a high point when he suggests "her hairdo alone looked as though it had cost a hundred quid at least".

Paper Monitor is sceptical of Letts' ability to make that assessment.

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In Monday's Daily Mini-Quiz, we asked who won the second round of voting in Labour's deputy leadership contest. Nearly half (43%) of you were wrong in thinking it was Harriet Harman, the eventual winner. But 30% of you were right in identifying Alan Johnson. The first round was won by Jon Cruddas. Today's DMQ is on the .

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Re . Is it any suprise that Facebook is more popular amoung those attending college, when its whole premise was for college students to communicate between each other, first Harvard but then any others too. Talk about a pointless study with meaningless findings!
Liz, Poole

Is anyone else saddened by the article about ? It suggests that the milk can be "transferred into reusable jugs". Imagine if, one day, the milk was put straight into the reusable jugs, and the jugs were distributed via a zero-emissions vehicle right to your front door? Wishful thinking I guess.
Dave, Bath, UK

In the article about : "The machine detected it, then matched the cheque against a Pin number." No, no, no! PIN stands for Personal Identification Number so you don't need to add the word number again. At least the article didn't talk about ATM machines.
Fiona Craig, London, England

Did anybody notice in the , Hayley, Marie-Claire and Elspeth - all 17 - were happily clutching pints of Brothers Cider? Busted!
Jason, Manchester

Re Quote for the day: "The quantity of wild horses has not yet been invented to drag us back to play in public again" - Mark Ellen, bassist in Tony Blair's old band Ugly Rumours. Shakespeare was here first, "The quantity of mareses is not strained"
Jel, Swansea

In today's Quote of the Day, I would venture that Mark Ellen is wrong. Any quantity (or number) will run to infinity...and even if that is not enough horses, infinity + one (or any number for that matter, even infinity) is infinity. Thus it would take an infinite number of wild horses. Thankfully for us.
Nick Jones, Dorking

In today's Mini-Quiz, which asks "Who won the most votes in the second round of Labour's deputy leadership contest?", where is the option for: Benn? Blears? Cruddas? Hain? Harman? Johnson? Face? Bovvered? Am I?
John Whapshott, Westbury, Wiltshire, England

Re . I am reminded of a story from an equally muddy year (1997, I think) when the Dance Tent was flooded. Someone hit upon the idea that one of these lorries could be used to suck all of the rainwater up. However, what they hadn't bargained on was that the lorry had been set to blow! I believe Fatboy Slim performing that evening was heard to comment: "Is it me, or does it smell in here?"
Mark Faulkner, London

Given the merger between an , will the merged company be known as "Aye? Aye?".
Lee Pike, Cardiff, UK

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In Friday's Daily Mini-Quiz more than half of you correctly identified that it would take 40 weeks of full houses for the Lords of the Rings musical to break even. Today's DMQ is beset by technical problems so we apologise for the problems you may be having getting the results.

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

The heavy rain has prompted a serious case of Daily Express Weather© (expl: climatic conditions so extreme they break some sort of standing record or other). "TODAY IS WETTEST DAY FOR 50 YEARS" runs the front page headline. The story makes unsettling reading with "experts" predicting that conditions will be, among other things, "exceptional" and "horrendous".

Blimey, with that sort of threat in the offing presumably all the papers must be leading on this story. The Daily Mirror, nope. Times, nope. Sun, nope.

What better way of Gordon Brown showing that he's going back to Labour's roots than granting an exclusive interview with that old stalwart of the Labour movement, the Daily Mirror?

In tabloid terms, Tony Blair tended to be a Sun man. Brown's choice of the Mirror drips with political calculation… and that's before turning to pages eight and nine – where Gordon is pictured with the Mirror interviewer in a greasy spoon with strategically placed bacon sarnies, bottle of brown sauce and mugs of milky tea.

But hold on… look a little closer. While milky tea emanates a certain Clause Four-ness, Gordon actually appears to be nursing a milky coffee… aka a latte. And that blackboard menu that's also in shot. No sign of a full English breakfast there – rather "salt beef with gherkin in ciabatta" and "chilli con carne with rice and salad".

Political significance aside, Paper Monitor's tummy is rumbling.

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