Web Monitor
15:35 UK time, Thursday, 21 May 2009
A celebration of the riches of the web.
Yes folks, it's Thursday afternoon, a bank holiday weekend beckons and what's more the weather forecasters say things are looking good. So think of Web Monitor as a cherry on the cake. Once again old WM has been hoovering the web for the most thrilling bits. But hey, this needn't be a lonesome existence - 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".
• Now, where to start? How about Michelle Obama's reputation as a one-woman recession-buster? ' penchant for preppy cardigans has been given as the reason for the shop which sells them, J Crew, bucking the retail downturn. But now that maybe what the first lady wears doesn't matter so much after all. Big Money reports that J Crew's success may have more to do with its internet selling strategy, laying off staff and avoiding discounting its stock.
• is like the polite version of that old website (nee RateMyFace and AmIHotOrNot). On Hot or Not you vote on how good looking someone is on a scale of one to 10 and then you find out their average score. Scenic or not isn't so different although collagen pouts are replaced by rivers and willow trees. This is a mini site of mysociety.org - a website dedicated to increasing democracy, so Web Monitor got suspicious that it couldn't just be a game. This suspicion was confirmed by Tom Steinberg in the :
"This is another crowd-sourcing experiment to solve a specific problem - we need a scenicness map of the UK for a major upcoming mySociety project, and there ain't one to be had any other way, for love or money."
• The Huffington Post, or HuffPo to those in the know, seems to be the place to be if you're a celebrity with a cause. But actor with his tail between his legs to apologise for a joke he made about getting a Filipina mail-order bride which kicked up a storm in the Philippines:
"The comments of some Philippine government official come as no surprise to me, either. Even the one by a former action film star-turned-Senator who beckoned me to come to the Philippines so he could "beat" me over my comment."
(Web Monitor notes the banner ad on the page: "Find Your Filipina Beauty Today!" Think we're joking? Have a look at the bottom of this entry.)
• Jeremy Kyle, the presenter of what the Sun calls the Broken Britain show, has written an autobiography with the obligatory sob stories and vices revelations (his being a gambling addiction). But the most unique route to becoming an addict to the turf:
"My dad was accountant and personal secretary to the Queen Mother for many years. We were often welcomed into the Members' Stand at some of the country's most prestigious race meetings... I kept going back and doing it again and again. It wasn't long before I got caught up in something that I thought was only providing positives in my life.""
• and resident investor in Dragon's Den Theo Paphitis what he would do as prime minister. Paphitis explains what he would do in a hung parliament:
"I would say 'everybody stand up and everyone who doesn't want to govern sit down' and the ones who remain standing we choose from, irrespective of party.""
He's slightly more realistic on what he would want to be remembered for as PM:
""He came and didn't screw us and then he buggered off.""
• The with the efforts of the Daily Mail to make Gordon Brown look old and dishevelled - putting extra grey in his hair in yesterday's edition. The blog suggests "when you want to make a point with image manipulation, it's probably a good idea to keep it subtle." Web Monitor would never stoop to such artificial techniques.
See... what did Web Monitor tell you?
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