³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

Did the headline "" trick anybody else? There was me imagining the London Assembly sadly shaking their heads at the realisation that that they couldn't get away with interring the (reformed) lovable fop.
Tim Evans, Oxford

In defence of Jacob (Thursday's letters), the hands are much more likely to be figuratively "as cold as ice" than literally at nought degrees Celsius. In this sense, it is both a metaphor and a simile...
Legs, Huntingdon

Their are nothing more sad as grammer/language pedants'. And if you feel the need to respond to my letter, you need to take a good hard look at yourself. Is it worth it? Just click the "Clear" button and spare us all.
AD, London

Re: Maz in London (Thursday's letters), "The boy is as thick as two short planks" is in fact a really interesting example of a zeugmatic simile.
Huw, Tonbridge, Kent

"" - well, no. Credit crunch appears to have been in the lexicon for a long time. The Google News archive has entries for "credit crunch" as far back as 1967.
Neil Golightly, Manchester, UK

Erm Dylan, Reading (Thursday's letters) the delightfully-titled Darlington and Stockton times is a weekly local paper covering the towns of Darlington and Stockon. Much in the same way that there are weekly local papers covering lots of different towns across the UK. You may also note that the story you refer to was actually from the daily local paper The Northern Echo.
Karl, Nottingham

Ah, . It's been a while.
Simon, Colchester, UK

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

1. In Zimbabwe, millions of dollars are called mollars.

2. .The 9/11 conspiracy theorists in the US include the LIHOPs (the government Let It Happen On Purpose) and MIHOPs (the government Made It Happen On Purpose).

3. Sir Clive Sinclair doesn't use the internet.

4. Everton, Aston Villa and Fulham are among the football clubs that were created from Sunday schools.

5. The City of Glasgow Police is the oldest force in the world, 29 years older than the Metropolitan Police formed under Sir Robert Peel.

6. Nelson Mandela was still on the US terror watch list until this week.

7. An income of £13,400 is required to enjoy a minimum standard of living in the UK.

8. Gordon Brown's favourite Beatle song is All My Loving.

9. Malaria is increasing in the UK.

10. Quarter-finalists at Wimbledon get free tea at the tournament for life.

Seen 10 things? . Thanks to Brendan Murphy of Coatbridge, Scotland, for this week's picture of 10 toes.

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Some Friday fun? So, that British transportation prophet-in-chief, Sir Clive Sinclair, thinks we'll soon be ditching our humble gravity-hobbled motors for flying cars .

It will soon be according to the sage himself.

Never mind that the Daily Telegaph upped the stakes somewhat a day later, with an (no less!), it's Sir Clive's pronouncement that the Monitor is concentrating on for the moment.

What the great man failed to acknowledge, however, is how this will impact the .

For example, out goes mirror-signal-manoeuvre, as "drivers" might be advised to try "mirror, signal, doors-to-manual".

Instead of "In an emergency. Brake immediately" more realistic advice might be "In an emergency, whatever you do... don't brake".

Send your tips for the 30,000ft-High(way) Code using the comments button below.

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Winning entries in the Caption Competition.

This week, the picture shows a fan at Wimbledon avoiding the weather.

The competition is now closed.

Thanks to all who entered. The prize of a small amount of kudos to the following:

6. SimonRooke
Fiona Shackleton prepares for court as Heather Mills appeals the divorce settlement.

5. antdav24
"I was sure I saw a TV guide in here somewhere."

4. archstinker
Bird's Eye launched their new "Boil in the Bag Roy Orbison"

3. GreatUncleBulgariaJr
The Middle England Liberation Army dispose of their latest victim, Harriet Harman. Next the big prize, Gordon Brown.

2. KarenKomment
MP returns from holiday to find second home allowance has been discontinued.

1. Rob_the_Teacher
Once the threat of rain had passed, Sir Cliff was carefully wrapped and returned to his basement under Centre Court to wait for another year.

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The Magazine is celebrating its fifth anniversary next week, and readers are invited to craft a homage... a visual paean if you please, as part of the reveries.

Quite what form it takes is up to you. There's no shortage of apposite themes - porridge, double-decker buses, getting your coat (ok, that's could to be a bit difficult in a .jpg format). But that's the nature of a challenge.

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Red tops only today, but what a cornucopia of...

In the Daily Star there's a vaguely weird undertone on pages one and three.

"Richard & Judy's little girl strips off - PICTURE EXCLUSIVE P5"

Moving to page three and the caption on the topless model says: "ONCE upon a time, Lucinda Farrell was a little girl who loved fairy stories. Now she's a grown up 19-year-old."

There's something not quite right here.

Over in the Sun, there's more on Richard & Judy's daughter Chloe posing in FHM. "She looks set to send men's pulses racing - as long as they can blank out the memory of her mum Judy Finnigan's wardrobe malfunction." Harsh.

And there is a hallelujah moment for the newspaper's subbing team as they encounter a donkey stuck down a well. They couldn't, could they? I'm afraid they could. "ASS HOLE," reads the headline.

And there's more joy for them on page 37, where they report that watermelon has Viagra-like properties. They have page three's Amii "strategically" holding two melons. The piece does mention, late on, something about "six small cups" of melon being needed.

But it's left to the denizens of truth on the Star to report that you would actually need three pints of watermelon to get an effect and that the first thing you would notice is the fruit's powerful diuretic qualities.

By comparison to its brethren, the Daily Mirror, is, as usual, rather sombre.

It is able to dedicate a full page to the spate of weird births - namely, the "pregnant man" Thomas Beatie and the 70-year-old Indian new mother.

And they find room for the melon story on the same page as well.

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See the Quote of the Day every morning on the .

"I think I will take two small bottles of Dubonnet and gin with me this morning, in case it is needed" - the Queen Mother, in a note from Royal page William Tallon's collection of memorabilia.

Starting as a junior assistant, William Tallon, known as Backstairs Billy, served the Queen Mother for five decades and built up a massive collection of royal memorabilia including this handwritten note.

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Is anybody else troubled by the tragic irony of , which informs us that the collection will be sold to raise money to create a museum to house the collection in? Isn't that a bit like selling the horse to buy it a stable?
PS, Newcastle, England

Poor Jacob (Wednesday's letters), it seems nobody's got back to him to put him straight... "The boy is a plank" is a metaphor. "The boy is as thick as two short planks" is a simile.
Maz, London

Jacob, London - you are as wrong as a Zimbabwean election result (simile). The letters' page is a stage (metaphor) and you are a player (extended metaphor) who has dropped the ball (mixed metaphor).
Mike Thomas, Wirral

Ooh dear Jacob. I'm afraid the setter was right: as cold as ice is a simile. Metaphor is (but not really), simile is like (really). Not that it says anything about how smart you are, intellectually or sartorially, just how you've been taught to analyse the language. It's not a terribly meaningful or useful distinction anyway.
Hugh, Coventry

As another Jacob from London, can I point out that I correctly guessed "simile" on the English test and do not wish to be tarred with the same brush as my namesake.
Jacob, London

What a waste of tax payers money; £3.2bn on a . Everyone knows that there is no such thing as a giant.
Colin Main, Berkhamsted, UK

Re Subbing Synchronicity (Paper Monitor), I once had what I thought was a unique and inspired idea for a headline should the esteemable Bill Nighy either regrettably pass on, or far more entertainingly find himself the vessel of all humanity's demise in some suitably apocalytpic manner, ie "The End is Nigh-y". Sadly, on searching Google-who-knows-all, I discovered several sub-editors had already had the same idea, including one from the delightfully titled Darlington and Stockton Times, which made me doubt my inspirational abilities just a little more. I, however, have little doubt that, should you print this, you will get at least one letter from someone declaring the Darlington and Stockton Times to be a thoroughly good and learned read, and that I should take my soft southern provincial preconceptions elsewhere.
Dylan, Reading, UK

?. Obviously .
Simon Robinson, Birmingham, UK

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

It is common for Paper Monitor to highlight the occasions when great minds in the world of newspaper subbing think alike.

But it is not often that the similarity is between the Guardian and the Sun.

Page 15 of the Sun has the headline: "This isn't just a slump... this is an M&S slump." It's a parody of the much-parodied semi-pornographic food adverts from the High Street giant.

And the brains over at the Guardian have followed the same path, getting it slightly wrong of course. "This isn't just a slump, it's an M&S slump."

But what's this? A quick search on the interweb reveals that the thisisnottingham news website used a similar headline yesterday.

In any case, both the Sun and the Guardian are rewarded for their irreverence with full-page M&S adverts - not displayed opposite the offending stories of course.

Elsewhere there are bad joke/bad pun awards for the Daily Mirror for "PRINCE CHARLIE" on the story that Prince William helped in a cocaine seizure. Cocaine being nicknamed Charlie, of course. Ho ho.

And from the same newspaper: "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water... CLAWS". Rhyming with Jaws etc. Ho ho.

And from the Sun, Sacha Baron-Cohen is due to play Sherlock Holmes so it's "Ali-mentary my dear Watson".

No ho.

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"Click, click, tap, tap" - Paperwork-deluged police officer sums up his job.

Paperwork relating to targets and work performance is the bane of the of modern police officer's life, according to a report by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Police. Frontline sergeants spend 45% of their time at the office keyboard or doing other admin-type tasks.

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So Teddy T feels that "persistent pigeon-feeder[s]" cause the large number of "nuisance" pigeons in London ( ). It's more accurate to say that the number of pigeons in our city were/are drawn in by the rubbish. And it's this which causes them to be disease-ridden and nicknamed "flying rats". No doubt it's more natural for them to be flying around the countryside than eating vomit, kebabs and cigarette butts. It's our mess.
Jude McArdle, London (currently NYC)

Is anyone else annoyed with the current trend for the word "Brit" instead of "British" or "Briton" ().
Kevin, Douglas, Isle of Man

Well, at least, unlike the person who set the questions, I know that the text in question one is an example of a metaphor...
Jacob, London
Monitor note: You've asked for it now, Jacob.

Re George Sampson and the Quote of the Day. Does anyone else find it a bit disappointing that Britain's most talented human being is someone who's simply embellished a ?
Robert Phillips, Cardiff, UK

More nominative determinism, of a sort. On the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 on Tuesday, they were debating whether women should be ordained as bishops. To present the case against, they had the Bishop of Beverley. I think he was onto a loser once he accepted this diocese.
Dave Moore, Par England

I think the Sun should rise to the challenge of combining Paper Monitor's two stories today, and charge someone with creating contraceptive equipment from tennis balls cut in half.
Susannah, Northampton
Monitor note: We're kinda hopin' they don't.

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A (tardy) service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

It's Andy Murray's big day at Wimbledon and the Sun has pulled out all the stops to embrace him as their own. In what is surely not the dour Scot's own words, the front page reads: "Andy: I oughta slaughter bloke from Majorca (... in the quarter)".

Don't you just love a rhyme stretched until the pips squeak?

The Daily Mirror chips in with "YOUR TIM HAS COME". Here's hoping not, eh?

And it wouldn't be a big sporting occasion without a cut-out-and-keep style wheeze from the tabs. Sure enough, Sun man Gordon Tait makes his own Murray muscles from a tennis ball cut in half and tucked inside his T-shirt sleeves - oh, and spray-painted "pasty white to match Andy's skin tone".

Harsh, but true, especially when compared and contrasted with his bronzed rival Nadal. The lad is indeed a true Scot, a nation whose complexion was once described by Billy Connolly: "Being Scottish I'm pale blue - it takes me a week to get white." That was back in the days when sunscreen with an SPF of 26 was considered extreme.

Meanwhile, the Independent gives over its front page to Cherie Blair, worried about the surge in knife crime. But after reading the Times, all Paper Monitor can think of is two dread words. Contraceptive. Equipment.

For that paper's sketch writer Ann Treneman riffs delightfully on how Mrs Blair arrived to testify before Home Affairs Committee with a thought bubble bobbing above her head, visible to everyone in the room. And what do you think it read?

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"He struck me as the type who would stand at the back of the dance hall and move his shoulders" - Britain's Got Talent winner George Sampson on David Cameron

The Conservative leader may appear young and fresh-faced but he's just not down with the kids, it seems.

George Sampson, winner of the ITV show Britain's Got Talent, met Mr Cameron at a London hospital on Tuesday. And the 15-year-old breakdancer was not impressed.

"He has got no rhythm. He looked like the kind of guy who would be an embarrassing uncle."

But given Mr Cameron's favourite artists include Radiohead, Morrissey and Blur, maybe shoulder-shrugging is nearer the mark than body-popping.

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RE Smoking's , can I suggest we call the combination of chatting and smoking "choking"?
GDW, Edinburgh, UK

Regarding Nicky's question (Monday letters) about English GCSE, er, questions. You still do discuss literate, drama, poetry, etc, but in an English *Language* GCSE (as opposed to literature, they are separate, y'know) it's hardly fair to ask kids about Shakespeare.
Arthus, London

Nicky Stu: The English paper in question was most likely English Language, Foundation Tier. The subject in question is designed to test the candidates' skill (or lack thereof) at expressing themselves in writing, not at literary analysis. The foundation tier is primarily intended for those predicted to receive a grade below C, hence the questions not being as challenging as one would hope. I do not think Act III of "The Winter's Tale" is on any current GCSE syllabus.
Rhys, Lincoln, United Kingdom

Looks like the Canadian journalist who "tried to get too close" to the succeeded in doing exactly that.
Bob Peters, Leeds, UK

"." Nuff said.
Bob, Stalybridge

Did anyone else read the headline "" and wonder if it had anything to do with Glastonbury?
Helen, Paris, France

Did anyone else think looked like the finger of god (if she were a woman) stubbing out humanity like an old cigarette?
Henri, Sidcup

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press...

...which, in a neat twist of events, devotes much acreage today to highlighting the service and other virtues of one Andrew Murray.

Daily Telegraph sports writer Jim White is one of many to note that Murray's riveting comeback on Wimbledon Centre Court was a "coming of age", but the transformation is not all one-sided.

Murray's gruffness and perceived anti-Englishness (or, , he is "obstreperously Scottish") has made it hard for Fleet Street to take him to its bosom, in the manner of that other great whites (sic) hope, Tim Henman.

But hey, this boy's clearly a winner and, the example of Zola Budd aside, who is going to look the gift horse of a potential British champion in the eye?

The only slight damper on proceedings is the lack of pun potential in the great Scotsman's name.

The Mirror is top of the pile, with "Muracle", which puts the Sun's alliterative "Murry Miracle" in the shade.

Metro goes with "Braveheart" - which feels just a little too easy, and the Guardian gives us "Murray muscles in" against a picture of the player showing off his bicep.

Elsewhere, there's an awful lot of "roars" as in "Roar talent" (Mail) and "Murray roars on" - Telegraph.

Special mention for Chris McGrath in the Independent, whose prose on Murray reminded Paper Monitor of the cod music journalist who used to talk about "sonic cathedrals" on Steve Wright's R1 breakfast show all those years ago.

These are some of McGrath's choice phrases, taken completely out of context: "The wait for a Briton who can win this tournament has become very like the wait for Godot, an attempt to give futility a purpose of its own...There is nothing counterfeit about the boy, with his laconic, sometimes peevish mien... To have these touchstones - these vestal assistants to the man in sacerdotal white, playing out a precious midsummer rite - builds faith among those inclined to superficial mistrust or censure... At first he was full of dastardly Gallic feints, flourishing his backhand like a cutlass... But then he showed his empire-building side. And as the dazed crowd wandered into the evening, you could almost hear Vladimir and Estragon among them, wondering what to do if Godot did not come today? 'We'll come back tomorrow.' 'And then the day after tomorrow.'"

Whether or not he goes on beat Nadal in the quarters, Murray's crowning achievement of these championships is to have won over the press pack.

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"It's not corked" - Prince Charles spokesman on the wine used to power his car.

The car was a 21st birthday present but the means by which it's powered has a certain 21st Century ring to it. Prince Charles' beloved Aston Martin Volante, given to him by his mum in 1969, has been converted to run on wine, which is converted into bioethanol. "I think our wine is surplus English wine," says his private secretary Sir Michael Peat.

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Predictable amusement/outrage that you get marks at GCSE just by . But where's the outrage for the fact it's now a question on a GCSE English paper to describe the room you're sitting in? What happened to discussing poetry, or literature, or drama? I'll get my coat, and exit, pursued by a bear.
Nicky Stu, Highgate, London

How many marks would the candidate in the "Quote of the Day" have got for using an interrobang?
Chris Clarke, Oxford

"." Surely, that's exactly the hoarders' point, isn't it?
Phil, Derby

Plants do not "". What actually happens is that seeds deposited on soil at altitudes where, previously, they would have been unable to thrive, are now able to do so. Seeds deposited at lower altitudes, where they would previously have been predicted to thrive, now fail to survive. Or does the musical "High Society" now have starring roles for triffids?
Nigel Macarthur, London, England

Danie and Henri (Friday letters), that's not what the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ says - click the "about ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer" link and read what you find - specifically the bit that says "You do not need a television licence to watch programmes on the current version of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ iPlayer". You need a licence if you have equipment that can decode broadcast TV signals. If you watch on a PC with a TV card, you need a licence. If you watch on a PC without (and which cannot decode said signals) you do not need a licence.
Ian, Leatherhead, UK

The concert: "Families travelled from across the UK to watch the gig, including Andrea Hawker from Sussex and Debbie McElhatton from Surrey, both of whom brought their daughters." "From across the UK"? The south east of the UK, obviously.

Manon, Seoul, South Korea

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Sentences you only ever read in British newspapers during Glastonbury:

"In the cabaret tent, a transsexual burlesque artist cut the straps of her bra with samurai swords which she then set on fire." Daily Telegraph

"For £2.50 a go, or £13 for an unlimited-use wristband, you could have an environmentally friendly number-two experience on a proper, sit-down, recycled plastic toilet seat within the environs of a garden shed cleaned and sprinkled with sawdust after every visit." Guardian

"Some cops joined in the fun by wearing sunflowers on top of their police helmets." Sun

"A man lies on the ground. Naked save for a tiny top hat tied to his testicles, he burns in the midday sun." Times

"Mudcoated fans endured sardine-like proximity for the three-day event." Daily Mail

"The Primrose Hill set belted out karaoke like chavs" Daily Mirror

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"It does show some very basic skills we are looking for" - Senior GCSE examiner on mark for candidate who wrote expletive

Peter Buckroyd, chief examiner of English for the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA), is a stickler for the rules. So when in 2006 a GCSE candidate responded to the task "describe the room you're sitting in" with a two-word expletive ending in "off", Buckroyd gave the student two marks out of a possible 27. It showed "some simple sequencing of ideas" and "some words in appropriate order". And the candidate would have got a higher mark if an exclamation mark had been used.

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