Paper Monitor
12:28 UK time, Wednesday, 7 May 2008
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Yesterday there was a mixed response to the question journalists have been asking themselves: do we now have to treat Boris seriously or can we still get away with treating him like a clown? Today, even the Daily Mirror has dropped its gadzooks-style speech bubbles.
Today's action, Boris-wise, is in the Daily Telegraph. "Has the time now come when it's cool to be posh?" it asks. "Despite the best efforts of his rivals to lampoon him as an Old Etonian buffoon, Boris Johnson's election to Mayor of London marks a cultural shift," it answers.
There's more than a whiff of wishful thinking about the exercise, it seems to Paper Monitor, but the article does include the gems that David Cameron's wife, though posh, "has a dolphin tattoo and grew up near Scunthorpe - although in a bit of 'near Scunthorpe' that has been in the family since 1590".
Journalist Toby Young tells the paper that he doesn't, despite Boris's election, think we will see the return of the young fogey. "Imagine everyone trying to ape Boris. How post-modern: people pretending to be a man who is pretending to be posh."
Ahh, there's the rub. The paper confesses that Boris isn't actually posh at all. "His dad was an MEP, after all."
The horror!
IN OTHER NEWS: Gwyneth Paltrow wore another pair of high heels, the Telegraph also tells us, leading to sales of such shoes soaring. Selfridges in Oxford Street has seen a 35% rise in the past two weeks. Yes, it might seem not a very big sample for a national newspaper to be basing a story on, but it has sold 200 pairs. Obviously there are massive implications for the world of fashion and manufacturing, indeed the entire economy. One can only hope that our colleague Robert Peston has been alerted.
IN MORE OTHER NEWS: Posh Spice went to a "superheroes" party where lots of ladies wore dresses. But she ended up looking like the Ice Queen (Mirror), Cruella de Vil (Metro), Audrey Roberts (Daily Star) or Scary Spice (Sun). Or, ploughing its own furrow, "classy... A-list" (Daily Express).
The 
