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Archives for May 24, 2009 - May 30, 2009

10 things we didn't know last week

17:25 UK time, Friday, 29 May 2009

10_boxes.jpgSnippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.

1. Beer mat collectors are called tegestologists.

2. A train that arrives 10 minutes late can still be officially "on time".

3. The word "Laodicean" means to be indifferent in matters of politics or religion.

4. Sounds have shapes.

5. People can overdose on chewing gum.

6. Only one in 10 people with Tourette Syndrome swears.

7. Just two people know the recipe for Irn Bru.


8. Stabbing in the buttocks has its own verb in Roman dialect.

9. Places with slow or non-existent broadband are called "notspots".

10. The world's longest recorded marriage is 86 years.

Seen 10 things? .

Thanks to Basil Long and Mark Grosvenor for sending us two things, and thanks to Anita Bekker for this week's picture of 10 postboxes near Akaroa, New Zealand.

Your Letters

16:55 UK time, Friday, 29 May 2009

I see the uneccessary inverted commas are back with 'a vengeance'.
Balding is 'positive' over cancer
'Kidnapped son' found on Facebook
Briton 'killed in balloon crash'
'Glass hold' reveals personality
Seven million 'use illegal files'
- and that's just in the top six most-read stories. I have to ask: 'Why, ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳. Why?'
'Sue', 'London', allegedly.

What the Dickens? Why is "The complete digitized works of Charles Dickens" used as an indicator of broadband speeds ? Firstly, he has been dead long enough for his writing to be out of copyright - so including them in a discussion about illegal downloading is disingenuous at best. Secondly, the text of many books can be represented in very much smaller space than one video file - this article suggests that they would take more time to download than the content of three DVDs, which I don't believe for one second.
Andrew, Cambridge, UK

Never mind getting to the Magazine Monitor's Wiki page from a random article (Susan, Thursday's letters). A better challenge would be to start with Kevin Bacon's page and see who can get the shortest link back. I've managed it in six, which just goes to show there really are only six degrees of separation between Kevin Bacon and most of the rest of the world.
Tink, Reading

Susan is of course describing a variant of Wikington Crescent, in which one has to get to the Wikipedia article for Mornington Crescent tube station from a random article in as few links as possible. Apparently one can do it from "Matterhorn" in four moves.
Eleanor, Oxford, UK

How about this? I went from 'From Nine to nine' to 'pistol' to 'Commonwealth' to 'the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳' to '³ÉÈËÂÛ̳' news online' and finally to the magazine monitor. Phew!
Oscar, London

In your article I am surprised that Kelly Clarkson didn't even make the top 10.
Ed, Clacton, UK

With the amount of time people spent sheltering from the Blitz in Tube Stations I find rather unlikely. More so because I remembered the trivia that Jerry Springer was born in a Tube station (Highgate according to Wikipedia)
JM, Southend-on-Sea

I DID IT! 7 OUT OF 7! AT LAST! Okay, the endangered bird answer was a lucky guess, but this takes nothing away from my sense of pride. I've even taken a screen-grab to commemorate this momentous occasion! Would you like to see it?
Tim, Blackheath

Monitor Note: No thanks, Tim, we believe you. Moving on, here's a small selection from the heap of letters received about the MP for Stone

In fact, now I think about it, manages to sum up the whole MP expenses scandal in one nominatively determined tour-de-force.
Dan, Cambridge

Add to the pile you'll be getting about nominative determinism today please!
Rob Moore, Worcester, UK

When flicking between the and , I discovered the hilarious/terrifying fact that there are two pictures availble for MP Bill Cash - and
Try flicking between the two!
Luke, Edinburgh

That's modern sleaze for you: not so much cash-for-questions as questions-for-Cash
Edward Green, London, UK

Caption Competition

13:51 UK time, Friday, 29 May 2009

Comments

It's the Caption Competition.

Thanks for all your entries.

This week's image shows Manchester United fans slumbering peacefully at the airport in Rome after their team was defeated by Barcelona.

airport_pacr_595.jpg

A morsel of kudos goes to the following:

6. billcam:

The Narcolepsy Society charity flashmob was, on reflection, never destined to be a hit on Youtube

5. Rockahula:

Easyjet opens its VIP Luxury Lounge

4. katebubble:

World's most boring poster claims yet more victims

3. Magnum Carter:

The team convey their performance through the medium of dance

2. Candace9839:
phenomenon spreads to Rome

1. BeckySnow:
Airport cleaners rev up their floor polishing machines for a game of human air hockey

Paper Monitor

11:56 UK time, Friday, 29 May 2009

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

The expenses crisis has reached Day 23, proclaims its architect, the Daily Telegraph, gleefully, as it churns out another eight (broadsheet) pages on the subject.

But within its , the paper makes no mention of the fact that one of the MPs currently caught up in the storm, Julie Kirkbride, was its political correspondent for four years.

Journalism, then politics. Two professions held in pretty low esteem by the public, which would suggest Mrs Kirkbride is certainly not seeking popularity in her choice of careers. Next up, estate agent?

The Sun uses the expenses saga to cheekily promote its price-war with the Star.

"THIS PAPER COSTS JUST 20P... MPs ARE ON THE TAKE... WE ARE ON THE GIVE"

(Well, at least.)

To which the Star responds: "THIS PAPER COSTS JUST 20P - TWICE AS MUCH FUN AS THE SUN"

Frugal is not a word often used to describe the weddings of professional footballers. The nuptials of David Beckham, Ashley Cole and Wayne Rooney are estimated to have cost a total of £6m.

In a break with this lavish English tradition, reported in the Daily Mirror, Liverpool's Spain striker Fernando Torres wed his childhood sweetheart in a town hall ceremony with just TWO guests.

For those unfamiliar with The Soccer, Torres is quite good.

And he .

UPDATE: Paper Monitor's eye was drawn yesterday to an advertisement of questionable taste by the Evening Standard, a local London paper, which is using an image from the G20 protests to help shift copies. It seems unnerved by the marketing tactic.

Weekly Bonus Question

11:06 UK time, Friday, 29 May 2009

Comments

Welcome to the Weekly Bonus Question.

Each week the news quiz 7 days 7 questions will offer an answer. You are invited to suggest what the question might have been.

Suggestions should be sent using the COMMENTS link below. And since nobody likes a smart alec, kudos will be deducted for predictability in your suggestions.

This week's answer is SPRING LOADED BOX TRAPS. The real question will be added here on Friday afternoon.

UPDATE 1735 BST: The correct question is... What does grey squirrel hunter Paul Parker use to catch his prey.

Friday's Quote of the Day

10:56 UK time, Friday, 29 May 2009

"My husband and I feel it's a waste of time" - Georgina Lozano, whose son Winter, nee Rafael Antonio Lozano Jr, has visited 9,100 Starbucks coffee shops around the world

He's coming to a Starbucks near you. Winter - he has no surname anymore - has landed in the UK where he plans to visit all 400 or so Starbucks in England, Scotland and Wales. He usually drinks a 4oz tester cup of regular brewed coffee. And he doesn't consider franchise shops - the sort you find attached to supermarkets and the like - worthy of a call.

Your Letters

15:49 UK time, Thursday, 28 May 2009

I disagree. looks more like to me.
Andrew, Oxford, UK

Here's a cabbaging-inspired way to waste yet more time - Click on "random article" on Wikipedia and try to get to Magazine Monitor's entry just by clicking on links within the article. I started with Zimbabwe's women's rugby team and ended up going via Steve Redgrave. Is it just me that's this bored?
Susan, UK

is so poor a face that I doubt even Streetview would it. If you squint it might be Rasputin I suppose.
Phil, Guisborough

I reckon looks more like the owner.
Stuart, Croydon

Mark, Wednesday's letters: Yes, it's all being sold at a silent auction (mimes putting coat on).
Chris Kenny, Southampton, England

Web Monitor

15:47 UK time, Thursday, 28 May 2009

A celebration of the riches of the web.

Web Monitor has clicked its way through the countless virals, games and blogs to round up the most interesting bits here. Make sure you send your favourite links by commenting on the box to the right of this or recommending it to us on where we're called "bbcwebmonitor".

Vanessa Feltz• When asked by Hannah Pool in the Guardian if she is an outsider, she could have made a show about meta-physical poetry a ratings hit if only given the chance. Unfortunately she got the Vanessa Show instead, which prompted this comment:
"I have been branded a vulgar, cheap tabloid person. And in many ways I am, and I don't think there's a great deal wrong with that. "

• Sweden's Ministry of Health and Social Affairs has made a cool game to . On the front of their magazine mock-up you can make the model's boobs bigger, eyes bluer and even change the colour of her t-shirt. This reminds Web Monitor of the extremely successful , which has over eight million hits on YouTube.

• The Architecture blog latest photos from Saddam Hussein's palaces in Iraq. Some of the 81 palaces are being used as dormitories by US soldiers. Mosse told the blog:
"Troops scurried beneath vaulted ceilings and glittering faux-crystal chandeliers. Lofty marble columns towered over rat runs between hastily constructed chipboard cubicles... Life is hard on the front line, and it seems more than a little surreal to be ticking off the days in a dictator's pleasure dome."

• advertising on the website Craigslist is a bad thing, citing the loss of the safety the site created for sex workers. They also say it's bad news for beat cops, who will find it harder to crack down on the sex trade as they can no longer find it at a click of a mouse. Meanwhile in the UK, that banning sex ads on just one local paper cost the Southern Daily Echo £200,000 in lost earnings.

hug• The the trend among high school students to hug as a greeting. Some high schools are banning hugging, citing anything from worries surrounding sexual harassment to hallway clogging and late arrivals to class. But, one high school student explains it's the new hell. Katie Dea, an eighth grader opines: "The high-five is, like, boring."

• When Egyptian hieroglyphs were deciphered in 1823, the New Scientist says they extended the span of recorded history by around 2000 years and allowed us to read the words of Ramses the Great. Now the . Researchers are working on decoding ancient writing from Easter Island to Pakistan. The key to being able to crack them is if there is a link to another language. Let's hope they've got something worth saying.

• Naomi Farmer explains in the from bloggers to get rid of words that no-one knows or uses. One such word she picks out is mallemaroking meaning "carousing of seamen in icebound ships". She argues that it is exactly these obscure words that need to stay in the dictionary as they are the ones that are going to be looked up.

Paper Monitor

11:56 UK time, Thursday, 28 May 2009

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

It's not often Paper Monitor ventures to the back pages, but the word among colleagues is that there was a football bout on last night in which a contingent popularly known as Man United, in recognition of its exclusively male cast (though, by sheer coincidence, it is also ensconced in the city of Manchester) was partaking.

Now, fans of The Soccer, it's well known, like a headline that achieves two things simultaneously - relaying a story while also conveying some of the humour characteristic of the good cheer among abettors of the game. (Links supplied only where headlines have been replicated online.)

To whit...

"We're in Rooins"
"Catalan v Matalan"
the Sun

"Thrown to the Lionels"
"The Fall of Rome"
Daily Mirror


Daily Mail

"Lionel Flair is perfect 10"
Daily Star

Daily Express

"As gladiators clash in Rome, United are put to the sword"
the Guardian


Financial Times

Er, are you sure about that lads?

Thursday's Quote of the Day

09:33 UK time, Thursday, 28 May 2009

"There's been widespread condemnation of North Yorkshire's decision to carry out an underground nuclear test" - ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio Five Live reports on North Korea's nuclear test.

There's not been too many dramatic developments in the Lancashire/Yorkshire rivalry since 1485, but this would certainly represent one. If it wasn't just a slip of the tongue.

Your Letters

16:09 UK time, Wednesday, 27 May 2009

Do you make up to see if we're awake?
Ed, Clacton, UK

Re: .
Surely the word should be spelled "titfer", as in "tit fer tat"? "Titfa" makes it look, well, Welsh to me, certainly very far removed from its Cockney origins.
Gill, Hastings

I see . What, even the invisible heavy weight he used to "carry"?
Mark, Reading, UK

When I got home yesterday evening I had received a Christmas catalogue in the post. Is this the earliest ever?
Basil Long, Nottingham

Re web monitor: Twitter they were making a TV show and that there was a different explanation for the rumours.
David Faulkner, Chelmsford, UK

Following on from Tim Barrow's letter (Tuesday letters), can we also have a moratorium on pathetically banal post-match interview questions?

After losing: "How do you feel?"
"Did you think you would win?"
"Are you disappointed?"

After winning: "How do you feel?"
"Were you expecting to win?"
"Are you happy with that?"

After a recent loss, Andy Murray recently lost his rag with a journalist who asked if he'd gone out there expecting to win. Murray confirmed he always went out expecting to win and asked the interviewer if he expected to have a job next week if he couldn't find anything better to ask.
Fi, Gloucestershire, UK

Web Monitor

15:24 UK time, Wednesday, 27 May 2009

A celebration of the riches of the web.

Web Monitor feels like its had a dinner party with Susan Boyle, Ashton Kutcher and 4,000 cats, so that must mean the internet is acting as expected. Thanks to her return to Britain's Got Talent, La Boyle is once again riding high in Hitsville. As for the other two, allow dearest WM explain.

David Cameron • The MPs' expenses saga shed light on another worrying trend - the language of lolcat encroaching non-cat related activity. Let Web Monitor explain, Lolcat, is a kind of text-speak language normally reserved for captions on the cat website (named after the first lolcat to ever be spoken). As cats continue their quest for dominance of the internet, lolcat follows. With the almost complete, the lolcats website and bankers. Lolcat has translated/interpreted David Cameron as saying:

"I IZ GONNA MAKE U ALLZ BEG FOR CHANGE"

Hazel Blears' sentiments are translated into:
"I PROMISZ NO MOAR HOUSES DIS WEEK."

• If you're reading this whilst texting, attending to your Facebook page while filling out a spreadsheet in the background, New York Magazine is coming to your defence. They're saying endless diversions can create a new form of intelligence. Apparently "Kids growing up now might have an associative genius we don't -- a sense of the way 10 projects all dovetail into something totally new."
Web Monitor wondered if the sheer length (eight pages) of the article was some kind of joke as no-one who they are praising will get through the thing. Web Monitor will now flit o nto the next link or as the writer Sam Anderson puts it:

"my monkey mind swinging busily across the lush rain forest of online distractions."

Ashton Kutcher • Twitter the TV show is being denounced by the most followed man on Twitter. Aptly, :

"Wow I hope this isn't true. I really don't like being sold out. May have to take a twitter hiatus."
" At the news that the planned show might have a celebrity stalking element he tweeted:
"It's all fun and games until somebody gets stalked."
Now , saying on their blog that they're not making a TV show, passing the buck to "some Hollywood folks."

• In the battle between McDonald's and Starbucks to caffeinate Europe, Douglas A. McIntyre in victory. He points towards McDonalds' endless marketing budget as the key to its predicted success in branching out with the McCafe.

• Biologist Dario Maestripieri says in when we're sharing the lift with others as an instinctive reaction to imagined danger and aggression in a compressed space. He points out this is still preferable to how Ugandan male chimpanzees deal with the situation (compressed space, not being in a lift) "when male chimpanzees in Uganda encounter a male from another group, they slash his throat and rip his testicles off -- just in case he survives and has any future ambitions for reproduction."

• Wired also win the prize for best headline today with, "." The photo gallery reveals it's not so much mended more "added to", the artist working on the project also travelled to Tel Aviv to "repair" damage there. Thanks to citizen_lost for recommending this. If you find an interesting link, make sure you suggest it to us on , where we hand by the name of "bbcwebmonitor', or write a comment in the box to the right of this.

Paper Monitor

10:28 UK time, Wednesday, 27 May 2009

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

There's one thing MPs have in common with journalists, and, it has to be said, estate agents - they all tend to find themselves in the relegation zone when those league tables of most trusted professions are compiled... just teetering above the division that is home to loan shark, baby seal culler and door-to-door chugger.

But following the spate of revelations about MPs' expenses, it looks like Hacks United have found a second wind in the current play-off with their Westminster adversaries.

Evidence can be found in the trend for journalists to put themselves forward as anti-sleaze alternatives to the Commons incumbents. The goal mouth was cleared several years ago by the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s own Martin Bell. Yesterday Esther Rantzen, who is a journalist with camera presence, confirmed she would stand in Luton South if the sitting MP was not given the red card at the next general election.

Today's Daily Telegraph brings us news that its own columnist, Simon Heffer, is threatening to size himself up against deputy speaker Sir Alan Haselhurst.

However, the crowd has to ask itself how much of a finger on the pulse of modern Britain does the Telegraph really have when the headline announcing Heffer's challenge reads: "."

In the public consciousness, when you marry the words Sir and Alan, it can only mean one person - and his surname is definitely not Haselhurst.

Clearly, some trouble on the subs bench there.noemi_getty_226.jpg

No such threat from the Daily Express's Julie Welch who seizes on the story of Silvio Berlusconi and 18-year-old lingerie model Noemi Letizia (pictured, right) for her Wednesday column (sorry, an internet link proved elusive).

Welch mentions how Noemi'x ex-boyfriend's pet name for her was "little anchovy" and Paper Monitor is particularly tickled by the Viz-like picture-caption combination in the middle of the column of the flesh-baring model and the line: "ANCHOVY: Noemi".

Wednesday's Quote of the Day

09:39 UK time, Wednesday, 27 May 2009

"Soccer shows men as women see them - competitive, full of greedy ego and with
that mummy-watch-me-jump need to impress"
- Nigella Lawson on the beautiful game.

Nigella Lawson likes football, although she doesn't seem entirely convinced by the people who play it. She also thinks rugby shows men as they like to see themselves - as "noble warriors, primitive god-monsters". Gosh.

Your Letters

17:57 UK time, Tuesday, 26 May 2009

Re Brighton Beach on a Bank Holiday (Paper Monitor, Tuesday), I was in Bournemouth over the weekend and I wouldn't say the beach was packed. Even the linked photo of Brighton Beach in Paper Monitor doesn't exactly show a packed Brighton Beach, it's just the camera angle that leads you to think it's packed.
J. Paul Murdock, Wall Heath UK

Re and similar stories. Would it not make sense to have a moratorium on all stories in the "sportsperson wants to win sporting contest" vein?
Tim Barrow, London, UK

Regarding - Did you mean to say that the farmers were advised to wear ear defenders in order to protect their hearing? I'm pretty sure that the ear muffs would really only do as much as keep their ears warm!
Heulwen, Ipswich, UK

While I'm sure there will be lots of letters about , I wonder if I'm the only one concerned about whether trainee bikers really need learn how to drive in a ?
Dan, Cambridge
MM: Ooh, nice HTML formatting Dan.

Lucy P, Friday's Letters, no, in fact, quite the opposite sadly. I open up the links in a cascade of browser-tabs, and then by the time I get to a specific story, the corresponding letter, and hence the humor, has sadly been lost to me.
Angharad Beurle-Williams, Per Brixton Ad Brisbane

Web Monitor

14:50 UK time, Tuesday, 26 May 2009

Comments

A celebration of the riches of the web.

So it's a post-bank holiday and as the UK, tries to get back into the work mood there's rich pickings in the world of diverting web ephemera. Remember to share your best links with us by either sending us a comment via the box to the right of this page or recommending them to us on where we're called "bbcwebmonitor".

spam_ap_126.jpg• The first thing you may have noticed when you got back to your desk - if you work in an office environment that is - is the sheer weight of spam in your inbox. These illiterately-constructed missives advertising phony pharmaceuticals and fake watches are a plague of modern life. But could they be solved by a tax on e-mails. That's the . If we all had to pay 2p, or 3c, to send an e-mail the spammers would be stopped in their tracks. The idea is from .

"An average employee might send 100 emails a day. At 2p or 3c, the tax would be £2 or $3, less than a large caramel macchiato."

meerkat_bbc_126.jpg• Meerkats? Strangely appealing creatures? They've worked wonders for profits at car insurance website Compare the Market, . Or perhaps . Either way you may be interested in . Apparently it's a Dutch word roughly equating to "sea cat", which is a little odd as there are few meerkats out on the open wave.

• We all know what computer games are like, right? Frenetic, rapid, fast-paced, supersonic, prestissimo, and, well, rather quick. But apparently there is . They review The Path, a game which its makers say needs about six hours of your time to be enjoyable. You direct a woman around a lush environment and nothing much happens. It's caused .

• It's a thorny issue de nos jours. How exactly does one describe what is going on in the
environment in terms that are going to make people actually do anything about it? It's been . The answer is that you should avoid phrases like "dangerous anthropogenic interference in climate" and a raft of other chunks of jargon that have the potential to confuse and mislead.

fry_pa_126.jpg• Last but not least, we have the latest installment in the . Apparently the mini-blogging/micro-networking/Zeitgeist-monopolising site is planning a TV show and there is much discussion about the subject on the web. The . The idea is something to do with tracking celebrities. Stephen Fry might be a good candidate. And everything will be in 140 characters of course.

Paper Monitor

12:25 UK time, Tuesday, 26 May 2009

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Let's kick off the belated start to this working week by welcoming Craig Brown, late of the Daily Telegraph, to the Daily Mail stable where he takes over from Keith Waterhouse. Unfortunately, Brown doesn't bring his charming pen and ink caricature picture byline with him - but fans of the satirist will doubtless enjoy his collection of Parliamentary clerihews. Example:

"Douglas Hogg: Says 'It's like falling off a log - You earn their vote Then they pay for your moat'"

Readers are encouraged to follow Brown online at www.dailymail.co.uk/craigbrown although at the time of Paper Monitor's publication .

Not only has the Mail substituted Brown for Waterhouse, but in a further display of its efforts to attract a more with it crowd it seems to have called on the services of a camp 80s pop star to wrestle with Kim Jong-Il's nuclear ambitions for North Korea.

Oops. That was not .

The Sun, like all good tabloids, is keen to remind us how the weather lurched from sunny to sodden over the course of the bank holiday weekend. And its coverage allows Paper Monitor to awaken one of its dormant strands from winter hibernation - Brighton Beach Mammoirs.

Yes, just to remind us that the weather was truly hot on Sunday, the paper offers up . Admittedly the mammary count is low as most of the sun worshippers are covered up. So, maybe it wasn't that hot after all.

Finally, to the Guardian, which inadvertently offers balm to the open wound of any journalist who has ever missed a big story... only to see it appear several days later in a rival publication.

However awful the lingering bitterness, news hounds can rest assured it won't be as bad as that of former New York Times editor Robert Phelps. In his newly released memoirs, the Guardian tells us, about the cover-up of a break-in and attempted bugging of the Democratic National Committee offices in Washington DC - a story pursued by the rival Washington Post which eventually took on the mantle of Watergate and led to a not insignificant scalp being claimed - that of Richard Nixon, president of the United States.

Tuesday's Quote of the Day

09:22 UK time, Tuesday, 26 May 2009

"They were dressed like nuns, carrying crosses, but wearing thongs under their skirts and showing people their bottoms and the rest" - A Cretan police official on the UK tourists arrested for exposing themselves dressed as nuns

You know summer has arrived when a British tourist is arrested for lewd behaviour on continental shores. This time, there were 17 culprits, aged between 18 and 65. They appeared in court, still dressed as nuns, but walked free because no witnesses testified against them.

Your Letters

15:40 UK time, Monday, 25 May 2009

Doesn't say much for the system when even the person responsible for it has to pay accountants to work his tax bill out.
Malcolm, Wrexham, Wales, United Kingdom

After another journalist posing as story. The question needs to be asked. Has a Middle Eastern businessman ever posed as a journalist? It seems the MIddles Eastern businessmen need to get own back. Maybe one could don less formal attire, carry a tape recorder and infiltrate Fleet Street. Would make a nice change.
David Finch, Australia

Re: David, Bagshot (headline out of the corner of my eye, I misread "boycott" as "booty". Which have been a very different kind of story indeed.
Eleanor, London

Re: 10 things picture. Come now, that's cheating (or at least judicious cropping)! The original picture in the Caption Competition had more than ten Minis in it
Paul Greggor, London

I got to number four before I realised this wasn't the caption competition.
Ben Merritt, Sheffield, England

Paper Monitor

11:31 UK time, Monday, 25 May 2009

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

What do you get if it's a bank holiday weekend and the weather is hot? Cor-what-a-scorcher bingo of course, courtesy of Paper Monitor. So get a cup of tea, sit back and see if your paper of choice has a full house.

Firstly, the picture section to check off: scantily-clad young women in bikinis, child with ice cream, crowded beach and punts on the River Cam in Cambridge. Next, the word section: soaring, sizzling, boiling, soaking up, flocking, crowded and traffic jams. Lastly, the graphics section: a big sun with the temperature stamped in the middle of it. Bingo?

After all the hottest-day-of-the-year excitement, the papers bring us back down to earth with the usual bump. Not only are there the inevitable warnings about the weather not lasting, this year we also have news that skin cancer in the UK has reached a record high. In the case of the Daily Mirror, the story runs alongside the paper's "Britain boils" story.

But as well as bikini-clad beauties two other people are ubiquitous in the papers today, both for "stunning" their respective audiences. Firstly, Susan Boyle for stunning the viewers of Britain's Got Talent again and secondly, Alan Shearer for stunning the whole of Tyneside by failing to save their beloved Newcastle United from relegation. No prizes for guessing which one's got a smile on their face.

Monday's Quote of the Day

09:51 UK time, Monday, 25 May 2009

See the Quote of the Day every morning on the .

"I like coming out and busting some moves" - Grandad Mike Maybury, 74, from Portsmouth, who goes out clubbing five nights a week.

While most OAPs are tucked up in bed, this one is dancing the night away. He's become quite a celebrity in his home town, where younger clubbers say they "admire his energy".

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