Later Monitor
13:03 UK time, Thursday, 12 February 2009
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
How to interpret the portraits of Michelle Obama, which are reproduced in many of the papers?
These are shots taken by the glossy magazine - no relation - Vogue, which has photographed and interviewed every first lady bar one - Bess, wife of Harry Truman. But only two have graced its cover - Hillary Clinton and now Mrs Obama.
The woman the Times dubs the "Mom-in-Chief" is shown relaxing in the Washington DC hotel suite the family called home before their move to the big white place up the road.
For all the laidback mood of the shoot, you can be sure that absolutely nothing was left to chance, and that at least two - or possibly three or more - armies of underlings crouch out of shot, poised to adjust a lock of hair here, a tea cup there, or to sweep aside a fallen rose petal.
Yet for all this behind the scene kerfuffle, the First Lady "persuades us that her telephone conversation is real and her open laptop is no mere photographer's prop," says the Daily Telegraph.
But wait, there's an entire thesaurus of adjectives arrayed across page three: "... relaxed, stylish and business-like..." - pause for breath - "contemplative, serious, devastatingly self-possessed... " - and another - "... statuesque ease... a woman of power and influence... icon... reassuringly real... sinuous and toned... engaging sense of mischief... Who else could make tweed seem so sexy?"
Paper Monitor sure can't.
But then it's been a long time since anyone described Paper Monitor as contemplative, statuesque, toned and serious all in the space of a few paragraphs. Apart from that Valentine last February. Anonymous it was. Wonder who it was from?
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Mum, I've told you not to write to me at work!
Anyway, the Guardian adds that the buzz surrounding this 40-something black lawyer "disproves the theory in the fashion world that black women don't make for commercial covers".
Meanwhile, the Daily Mail saves its excitement for the that is to be southern England's steed to the Angel of the North.
"You might expect ROY STRONG, the scourge of so much modern art, to detest the Stallion of the South..." begins its headline on Strong's opinion piece on Mark Wallenger's white horse.
No, wait don't tell me - he loves it? Yes indeed, and he predicts it will "knock the wings off" that rusting angel.
The 
