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Web Monitor

17:15 UK time, Thursday, 17 September 2009

A celebration of the riches of the web.

Today, Web Monitor asks:
1. What to eat if you want to be posh
2. How Kanye West made undermining winners cool, and
3. When can drunkenness be blamed in nationality?

Share your favourite bits of the web by sending your links via the letter box.

Kanye West and Taylor Swift• Rapper Kanye West has already been called a Jackass by President Obama, as . But now his interruption of country music singer Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the , has sparked an internet viral.

The and have brought together some Photoshopped historic situations in which West has been retrospectively placed, to utter by now immortal words: "I'm really happy for you, I'm gonna let you finish but..."

Neil Armstrong landing on the Moon, Usain Bolt winning the Beijing 100m, the Hindenberg exploding - all these historic events are re-imagined with West butting in.

Cup cakes• Web Monitor has documented already 's attempt to make the humble Jammy Dodger more street. Now Edible Geography is asking what do cakes mean for the street? Not the 50 Cent and Eminem street, but the kind of street town planners talk about.

According to , the type of snacks sold in a location can be a bellwether of that area's fortunes.

She cites Dr Kathe Newman's theory that cupcake shops can provide a more accurate and timely guide to the frontiers of urban gentrification than traditional demographic and real estate data sets.

Newman is working on a pinpointing the rise of cupcake shops across New York. it was partly a way to get her students interested:

"I want my students to go to cities and learn about urban change. I thought if there were cupcakes involved they would most certainly go."

Nicola from Edible Geography concludes that maybe local authorities should be putting their regeneration funds into posh shops:

"Who is to say that cupcake gentrification might not function as cause, as well as effect? Could urban planners 'seed' depressed areas with gourmet delis and boutique coffeeshops?"

She goes so far as to say her theory is supported by ex-basketball start Magic Johnson, who pledged to put up 50% of the funding needed to place Starbucks coffee shops in underserved areas.

• Finally, while Scotland is trying to improve its image in the US after the furore over the release of the Lockerbie bomber, it won't be thanking Scottish-American TV host Craig Ferguson for his

"USA TODAY: After you dropped out of school at 16, you were a drummer in a punk rock band. What was that like?
FERGUSON: It was a wild time. It involved a lot of drinking and fighting, but I'm not sure if I was being a punk rocker or just Scottish."

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