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

1. Eddie Irvine is Britain's wealthiest sports star – beating the Beckhams into second place by £30m.

2. Sleeping on the job is tolerated in Japanese work culture, as long as you remain upright and obey certain other rules. It's called inemuri.

3. Voltaire did not say "I disapprove of your views, but would fight to the death for your right to express them". It's a paraphrasing from a 1906 biography.
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4. William Blake was not a fan of his poem in the preface to Milton, which became the words to the hymn Jerusalem. He removed it from later editions of the work.

5. The number of weather-related disasters has quadrupled over the past 20 years, the aid agency Oxfam says.

6. The first telephone directory, dating from 1880 and reissued this week online, had 248 names and no numbers. Callers were expected to call the operator and say the name of the person they wanted to talk to.

7. MI6 calls its spies "operational officers".

8. The Romans had roadmaps.

9. Pigeon racing is not regarded as a sport while baton twirling is, for taxation purposes, by HM Revenue and Customs, on the advice of the UK's Sports Councils and UK Sport.

10. By the time they are four, children from poor families are likely to have heard 13 million words. For children from better off families, a figure of 45 million is typical.

Seen 10 things? . Thanks to Bryce Cooke for this week's picture of 10 "Santa Stop Here" signs.

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Re "", "Thai commentators said pink first became an important colour for him earlier this year, when royal astrologers determined it was a good colour for his health." and immediately previously "King Bhumibol spent three weeks in hospital last month having treatment for heart problems and other ailments." obviously not that good for his health!
Basil Long, Newark Notts

±õ²õ²Ô’t ? Just because he doesn’t know of any ‘lexicon gap’ doesn’t mean there isn’t one, so this would be a known unknown. There could be unknown gaps that nobody has even thought of, which would be unknown unknowns.
Paul, Milton Keynes

Re Himmelfarbs (Your letters, 29 November)- maybe; himmel (heaven or sky) farbs (corruption from "farben" colour) - mangled German. So translation could be "mute inglorious heaven colours" More picturesque than Gertrude Himmelfarbs methinks but no less opaque.
David, New Forest

Alexander Lewis Jones (Your letters, 29 November), I assume that's not your real name, then?
Adam, London, UK

I thought Ant & Dec looked terrible in their picture on Nick Robinson's Newslog yesterday.
R J Tysoe, London, UK

Sara, Camden, (Your letters, 29 November) actually, of all the letters on the Monitor today, only 1 mentions getting their coats, plus one about getting a bus. Call me a pedant, but 2 out of 34 hardly counts as everyone, rather only 5.9%. Or should I get my coat (and raise the percentage)?
Keith, Dartford

Sara, people who write a letter and then 'get their coat', do it because the content of their letter makes them seem geeky. I however, would resort to no such measures. I'll get my hoody.
Louise, Surrey

Ben Jones (Your letters, 23 November): The number of stars in the solar system is exactly 1, as there is only one solar system; our own, so named after the star itself, Sol. Other stars and their planets are rightly called planetary systems.
Owen Bell, Edinburgh

Am I the only one who is surprised to see than any other UK sports person?
Michael, Sunderland
The Monitor: No.

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

No clinching argument was forthcoming from Monitor readers yesterday in the revived debate about whether to include Metro. Comments are again welcome on this matter.

For what it's worth, Paper Monitor often thinks of Metro as being hard to love but even harder to hate. What exactly would there be to get your teeth into, whether fan or foe?

Nevertheless, these observations must be made about today's edition:
* Andy Kershaw weirdly described as a "former 1FM DJ", like anybody other than DJs really ever called Radio One "1FM".
* Cute animal picture of the day; a bulldog with a diamond necklace
* Sub-prime puns, the kind of which were last spotted in the 1970s; "'Elf and safety [© Daily Mail] grounds Santa" and "Donald trumped over golf course".
* Unaccountably highbrow stories: "How to X-ray a planet" and a travel article about Umm Qais, a town "110km north of the Jordanian capital, Amman".

On a completely different subject, has anyone else ever tried to search for a story on the Daily Express website? It helpfully suggests the kinds of subjects you might want to search for. Any guesses what the suggestions are?

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Only 3% of Britons have the basic resources to cope in a disaster, says the British Red Cross, which lists five necessities as first aid training, owning a first aid kit, a torch, a working smoke
alarm and a hard copy of emergency contacts.

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I love the statue of Jesus playing football in the . I don't think he'd be too good at heading, though, in that crown of thorns. And everybody knows Jesus normally plays in goalkeeper; the posters saying "Jesus Saves" are testament to this.
Steve Wehrle, Southampton

I wonder if John Marsh (Wednesday letters) was inspired to his misunderstanding by the sign on the George Washington Parkway leaving Washington DC, which marks the . I chuckle every time I see it.
Michael, Rockville, MD, US

Morrissey: Can anyone see why a non-English person would feel aggrieved by the above quote?
Simon, Edinburgh

Of course the middle-classes get better health care (Wednesday letters). That's why they're "well-healed".
Hamish McGlobbie, Leeds

Re Wednesday's Quote of the Day, in this more circumspect, identity-theft and spam aware times, I only ever answer the phone "Hello", expecting the caller to identify him or herself first.
Alexander Lewis Jones, Nottingham

Paper Monitor, I think a Himmelfarb should be someone who engages in blue-skies thinking (from the German, Himmel = heaven, Farbe = colour). So a mute inglorious specimen would be someone who engages in disgraceful blue-skies thinking but keeps quiet about it. Which no doubt describes many political advisors.
Andrew Jones, London

Only the Daily Star and Financial Times were delivered to Monitor Towers? Jordan and Peter Andre must have got yours instead.
Stoo, Lancashire

First we had the "little missed Caption Competition" and now the "little-lamented Punorama" - is Paper Monitor trying to tell us something? The return of the LBQ perhaps?
Simon Rooke, Nottingham
The Monitor: Perhaps only in your fevered dreams.

Why is everyone who writes a letter then getting their coat?
Sara, Camden, London

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Vince Cable, the stand-in Lib Dem leader who suddenly wins nothing but plaudits when his younger-looking predecessor earned nothing but ageist parody, is almost the hero of Fleet Street today for saying that Gordon Brown had gone from "Stalin to Mr Bean". One paper even calls him "Killer Cable".

It was the starting gun for a round of name calling for the prime minister.

The Indy's Simon Carr says he is like "John Prescott with a degree in history".

Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail says he is "hewn from congealed porridge" (a line which caught Paper Monitor's eye).

The Guardian's Simon Hoggart says it reminded him of a bullfight: "[T]he great beast, tormented by picadors, charging around the ring, lowering his head and bellowing with futile rage and pain".

It certainly does feel a bit like spectator sport, mute inglorious Himmelfarbs notwithstanding. (Still no idea what it means, but it sounds so brainy).

Away from Westminster, Metro expands today's menagerie with an effort of which the little-lamented Punorama would be proud.

"Not tonight, deer - it seems stags can sometimes turn less horny than you might expect, when it comes to affairs of the hart. If you thought the male of any species will have sex with anything, then the male antelope at least bucks the trend."

Four puns in a 44-word stretch. Good work.

Incidentally it's more than 18 months since our "Metropoll" - an unofficial straw poll of Monitor readers about whether to include free newspaper Metro in this little daily celebration.

Happily Paper Monitor had the foresight at that stage to , a right it invoked. Heaven knows what Blue Peter-style hoo-ha might have been unleashed without that wise disclaimer.

An executive decision was taken not to include the free paper (though it has on occasion slipped in on merit). But times change - and now there are reports that Metro might overtake the circulation of the Mirror in the next 18 months. So perhaps it's time to reconsider.

Instead of another poll, you are invited to submit comments using the form below as to whether Metro should now be promoted. The most compelling argument might or might not persuade an official change.

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Asked if a holiday was important bonding time for their family, 99% agreed in a survey for First Choice (a holiday company, obviously).

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I was one of the people holding up the - there was a rather awkward moment when the piece of paper bearing the word "disapprove" began to droop, leaving, albeit briefly, "I approve of your views..."
Dan, Oxford, UK

I have two nominations for "10 things we already knew this time last week".
1. The middle classes get , and, even more astonishingly,
2.
Adam, London, UK

Am I the only one who assumed Quote Of The Day was a quote from today, not 127 years ago?
Mark Williams, Oxford

Good Grief! Never mind the scary world of only having the Financial Times and the Daily Star (Paper Monitor), I have just read that K-Fed (Kevin Federline aka the ex Mr Britney Spears for those not into entertainment tittle-tattle) has been named Dad of the Year over the pond. Have I stepped into the Twilight Zone?
Sam, Waddesdon, near Aylesbury, UK

It's not clear what kind of intelligence today's random stat is referring to - is it OK for the prime minister to be dim, or is it saying we can disband the MI6?
John Marsh, Fairfax, Virginia, US

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Could it be possible? Could every daily paper have shut down overnight, except for the Daily Star and the Financial Times? It's the first question that ran through Paper Monitor's head when these were the only two papers delivered to Monitor Towers this morning.

It turns out there has just been a mix-up at the newsagents, but it got Paper Monitor thinking. What would the world be like if these were the only two papers that existed? It would be something like this...

You'd easily think that the world is made up solely of white, middle-aged men in glasses who wear sharp suits, and young, blonde women with pneumatic breasts who don't wear much other than bikinis - and often only the bottoms - and Amy Winehouse.

You'd probably decide the only countries in existence are the United States, the UK and China; the only jobs are company director, government minister and glamour model; the only television programme I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! broadcast on a 24-hour loop.

You'd easily believe the world's entire population passes the time attending high-powered conferences, snorting cocaine and doing sexercise - chest press being position of the day (this from the Star, obviously, rather than the FT which is somewhat more circumspect about such matters). When it comes to work, half of us would be on strike and the other half would be under some sort of "spotlight" or "microscope".

Scared? Paper Monitor is.

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Just 4% of 300 political scientists polled in a survey by the Political Studies Association think that intelligence "matters in practice" if a prime minister is to be successful.

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A Doctor Who double whammy today. Not only is returning, but apparently has never been so popular...
Edward Green, London, UK

Re the . "One group supporting the event held a banner aloft bearing Voltaire's famous dictum: 'I disapprove of your views, but would fight to the death for your right to express them'." Voltaire didn't say that. It was Evelyn Beatrice Hall, who used it as a summation of Voltaire's views in 'The Friends of Voltaire'. What he actually said was 'I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write'. So there.
Sophie, Belfast, Ireland

Are there really 15 people out there who cannot manage to avoid falling into what I would consider to be a which is the only such artwork in a space the size of a football pitch?
Ben Robson, St Ives, Cambridgeshire

So, William Blake is branded a nutter because he claimed to have seen an angel in a tree in Peckham Rye? In the days before sat nav, might he not have mistakenly been in Islington instead?
Rob Falconer, Llandough, Wales

Mandeep Sanghera when he says "Any opposition whose country is known as a principality should be viewed as a gimme and Andorra are no different." But it won't make him popular in Wales.
Ian

If it's wrong to make an image etc of Muhammad (including naming a teddy Muhammad), why are so many people called Muhammad? My head hurts trying to work this one out. Can anyone assist in making me more culturally aware?
John Smith, London

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

As the alleged inspiration for the bumbling, rather hapless star of Evelyn Waugh's Scoop, the late Bill Deedes is a shoo-in for the title of Paper Monitor's Most Heroic Figure in Journalism of All Time.

So the late Lord Deedes' death in August was a solemn moment for this column.

But yesterday was a chance to celebrate the life of the former Daily Telegraph editor at a memorial service in his honour and the paper gives over plenty of column inches in its coverage today.

A few observations, if you will permit, Lord Copper...

- Is that Boris Johnson arriving for the event (with bicycle) in what might loosely be called a Michael Foot-style donkey jacket?
- "…lashings of Champagne"?? Ginger beer perhaps, but the Blyton-esque term seems ill-suited to this particular amber nectar.
- How exactly can the word "no" be elongated to three-syllables, as former Telegraph editor Charles Moore noted was Deedes' way. Paper Monitor has been quietly mouthing it, but can only manage two syllables at best. Clearly there's more to "Mayfair cockney" - Moore's analysis of Deedes' accent - than one might suppose.
- Judging by the fact that half the Telegraph staff were in attendance yesterday (Court circular, p26) how did they manage to get the paper out as per normal?

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Forty per cent of adults would rather "tell" a joke via text message, e-mail or on a social network site rather than face to face, according to a survey by Pork Farms.

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I'm a bit concerned by the story about work to "upgrade" the network which "will make looking up net phone numbers like finding a website". Doesn't sound like progress to me. Does that mean that in the future when I phone someone I'll get a recorded message saying "404, phone not found"?
Adam, London, UK

And this is a because?
Angus Gafraidh, London UK

"Fire at plant".
I'd have thought it more newsworthy if there wasn't a fire at an incineration plant...
Jonathan, Bury St Edmunds

In that picture about on the main page, doesn't he look like Data from Star Trek??
Beverly, MI, US

Re: Basil Long discussing Professor Borriello's comments that condoms should be "clunk clip every trip". I believe the correct phrase - as described by DJ Tim Westwood - is "wrap it up before you slap it up".
Joe A, Bath

Re "Lifespan link to drug". Isn't it interesting to find that tiny worms get treated for depression? No? OK I'll get the next bus. br />Alan, Ramsey, Isle of Man

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

All credit to the Daily Mail for standing up what Paper Monitor rather suspected was a scare story from two weeks ago – the £100 turkey.

When bird flu was traced to a turkey farm in Suffolk earlier this month it didn't take long for the papers to put a Christmas twist on events. "Bird flu could lead to £100 Christmas turkeys as culls take place on four farms" was the alarming headline on the front of the Evening Standard, a local London paper.

Paper Monitor was sceptical, but the Mail serves up the goods today with the "first" £100 family-sized turkey – courtesy of farmer Tom Copas.

Yet all of a sudden bird flu is off the agenda. There's no mention of it whatsoever in the story, just rising grain prices and the extravagant steps that the farmer involved goes to to justify the price tag: said birds live in cherry orchards, are hand-plucked, fed on organic additive-free cereals etc.

So it would be fair to surmise that bird flu or no bird flu, the £100 turkey was going to happen.

It's not the price of turkeys that's bothering the Guardian – but the new-found taste for carp as a Christmas treat. Apparently, it's the traditional fare for Polish Christmas meals and the rise in Polish immigrants has pushed up sales at Waitrose (although the upmarket store is hardly likely to be the first port of call for all those low-paid Polish labourers we keep hearing about).

And look, there's a subtle plug for Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall resident gourmet of the Guardian's Weekend magazine. According to today's news story, Mr F-S is "encouraging people to eat more of the fish" which is not surprising since he's just released a cookbook called... Fish.

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One in five students at New York University would give up their vote at the next US presidential election for a digital music player of some renown*. Two-thirds would do so for the price of a year's college tuition and half would renounce their vote permanently for $1m, according to the Washington Square News.

* Four letters, starting with "i".

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