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Archives for July 18, 2010 - July 24, 2010

10 things we didn't know last week

16:15 UK time, Friday, 23 July 2010

10tools_304.jpgSnippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.

1. Twenty babies born in the UK since World War II have been named Adolf.


2. Thursday is the grumpiest day, according to research in the US.
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3. In Brazil, a social networking site called Orkut has more members than Facebook and Twitter combined.
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4. Beer can have an alcohol content of 55%.
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5. Jokes can be protected by copyright, in theory.
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6. Blood can be mixed with pulp to make a page in a book.
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7. A sum of £650m can buy you about 7% of the world's cocoa.
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8. Before 2008, prisoners were allowed to have fancy dress parties and comedy nights.
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9. Black parents can have white, blond-haired children.
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10. Tour de France etiquette dictates that cyclists should not overtake the leader if he suffers mechanical problems.

Seen 10 things? . Thanks to Vic Barton-Walderstadt for this week's picture of 10 tools at Tower Bridge.

Your Letters

15:42 UK time, Friday, 23 July 2010

So the government has plans to publish the death rates of individual surgeons and that 60% above the average is unacceptable (Can chance make you a killer?). Are they going to be surprised when surgeons refuse to operate on high risk patients? Or that safe procedures are preferred over "effective" ones. Will a death due to not operating be the same as a death in an operation? I suspect that the days of experienced surgeons doing cutting edge (sorry) operations on chronically ill patients will be over.
Andrew, Malvern, UK

The Go Figure Chance Calculator? "Go figure", Magazine Monitor? Oh dear. I suppose soon you'll be describing everything as "awesome" and having a crush on Zac Efron...
Susie, Twickenham
Monitor note: I, like, confirm nothing and deny nothing.

In The man behind the diaries, I liked: "But soon afterwards, Pepys got the sort of surprise that often lurks in new homes: "Going down into my cellar I put my foot into a great heap of turds [from his neighbour's toilet]... which doth trouble me."
Elizabeth Thoburn Fitch

I don't know about them finding the "God Particle", but in your video report, Professor John Butterworth looks like he has God's alarm clock on his desk.
Christian Cook, Epsom, UK

I'm not sure which is worse, cheating the benefits system or wearing incorrect clothing for golf. Surely he should know that if you are wearing shorts (tailored only, please) then you should wear knee length socks. Outrageous behaviour.
Judy, Leeds

Had to read this headline a few times to figure out what was going on:
Coronation Street cat's ashes smash auction target.
Sarah, Nantwich

What's happened to Weekly Bonus Question? Tedious Friday afternoon tasks are just not bearable without it. Was it something we said? Did we embarrass it with our responses? Has it had to make way for other questions in the light of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ cut-backs?
I think we should be told.
Fi, Gloucestershire, UK
Monitor note: WBQ was last seen packing its bags for a sunshine mini-break.

Re Comic Sans = Lemonade Stand. On the other hand, I'd have hoped a Fortune 500 company would know which words to capitalise.
georgie_guy

Adam (Thursday letters), get your ...
Fee Lock, Hastings, East Sussex

A Helvetica and a Verdana walk into a bar. The barman says "Oi! Get out! We don't want your type in here!"
Keith Chegwin, London

Caption Competition

13:00 UK time, Friday, 23 July 2010

Comments

Winning entries in the caption competition.

The competition is now closed.

hunting_getty_595.jpg

This week, it was a man holding a cane with a handle in the shape of a foxhound during the Peterborough Festival of Hunting at the East of England Show Ground

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

6. MightyGiddyUpGal
Walkies, indeed

5. SkarloeyLine
"And it's carved from the finest bark."

4. hackedoff
The Crufts committee had to agree that inbreeding of pedigree dogs had finally gone too far

3. HaveGavel
The latest in GM technology: a stick that fetches itself.

2. Tremorman
He was a police dog, special branch

1. Mrstretton
World's first Pez dispenser turns up on Antiques Roadshow

Paper Monitor

09:35 UK time, Friday, 23 July 2010

A service highlighting the riches the daily press.

The UK's tabloid press has a proud tradition of rescuing distressed livestock, preferably after the creature has endured some bizarre form of cruelty overseas, thus simultaneously tapping into two key components of the British psyche: sentimentality about animals, and distrust of foreigners.

Trebles are still raised in El Vino's to one of Fleet Street's all-time greatest scoops - the pilfering of Blackie the Donkey in 1987. This hapless equidae had been singled out to be the centrepiece of a quaint Iberian pancake day festival tradition - that is, to be dragged through a Spanish village, suffer beatings from the locals before getting crushed to death under the weight of the town's fattest man.

The Sunday Express had warned its readership of Blackie's fate under the headline POOR EL CONDENADO (The condemned one) WAITS FOR HIS FAT KILLER.

To the newsdesks of the Sun and the Star, the magnitude of this story was something akin to Watergate combined with the birth of Christ, and each paper despatched a team of reporters to bring Blackie to British shores and safety by any means necessary.

The Sun was first on the scene, and its intrepid correspondent purchased the beast for the sum of £250. Back in London, editor Kelvin MacKenzie toasted victory.

But, like Icarus, the paper was to be undone by hubris. Confident of success, its reporter checked into a hotel and paid a farmer to let Blackie rest in a field.

This was to prove a catastrophic error. The Star's Don Mackay was close behind - and as soon as his rival was out of sight, Mackay bribed the farmer, took possession of Blackie and broke for the border.

(Blackie, for his part, lived out the rest of his days in a donkey sanctuary near Sidmouth).

This episode set the tone for future special forces-style animal rescue missions, such as when the Daily Mail paid £2,000 for the Lion of Kabul - also known as Marjan, who had been blinded and crippled by a member of the Taliban.

The cases of the Tamworth Two and are clearly imprinted with the folk memory of Blackie, although the fact that no foreigners were involved must surely have been a source of regret to the reporters covering each story.

But Paper Monitor notes with pleasure that, for the Sun, the humiliation of the Blackie episode has finally been avenged.

³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ News website readers will be familiar with the Russian donkey who was forced to parasail over the Sea of Azov as part of an advertising stunt, to its apparent distress.

Now, the Sun claims to have procured the animal, named Anapka, had her checked over by a vet and given "her first square meal in days".

Its front-page splash? "WE'VE SAVED HER ASS".

Paper Monitor's attention is only distracted from this donkey story by none other than Baron Hattersley of Sparkbrook in the Daily Mail, as he cheers the demise of 24-hour alcohol licensing.

"I am ashamed of seeing pictures of teenage girls lying in heaps on pavements outside wine-bars", the former Labour deputy leader splutters.

Who could he be talking about? Why, Drunk Girl, of course - for it is her image which, inevitably, hovers alongside Hattersley's thunderings.

Why have no crack teams of tabloid investigators yet hunted down Drunk Girl and spirited her to sanctuary? Perhaps she should have had the foresight to surrender her dignity in Torremolinos.

Friday's Quote of the Day

09:22 UK time, Friday, 23 July 2010

"People often compare metal detecting to trainspotting or say it's a geeky - well, it just goes to show" - Metal detector Dave Crisp, who stands to make a fortune from the haul of over 52,000 Roman coins he discovered in a field.

A coroner has ruled that the NHS chef's discovery was treasure trove, meaning he can be rewarded for it. It has been suggested that the coins could be worth up to £1m.

Your Letters

15:26 UK time, Thursday, 22 July 2010

Regarding the Facebook link on the 7 Days Quiz which offered me the chance to share my score. I only got two out of seven - why would I want to share that?
Ian, Bristol

First of all, sorry for straying from Auntie Beeb, but I happened upon a of drunk girl on the other news site. I wonder if the proposed hike in the price of late-night bar licences will mean we will see less of her in future?
Kevin, Aberdeen

Dorian and Luisa, hear, hear! If I remember correctly, Verdana was specifically designed as a font for screens, which is why it is easier on the eye than Arial (more rounded), especially if you run up and down the text sizes.
Paul Greggor, London

A Helvetica and a Verdana walk into a bar. The barman says "Oi! Get out! We don't want your type in here!"
Adam, London, Uk

Paper Monitor

13:27 UK time, Thursday, 22 July 2010

A service highlighting the riches the daily press.

Paper Monitor feels sorry for Nick Clegg. Paper Monitor has bad days at the office, too - admittedly, more often involving lateness and jammed paper feeds rather than .

But then Paper Monitor's every minor blunder is not subject to the scrutiny of Fleet Street's waspish parliamentary sketchwriters (although Simon Hoggart is more than welcome to visit Magazine HQ and file a dispatch).

Mr Clegg's description of the Iraq war as "illegal" while standing in for David Cameron at prime minister's questions was, says Andrew Gimson in the Daily Telegraph, a "serious unforced error".

The deputy prime minister then went on to proclaim the closure of the Yarl's Wood detention centre, an announcement later clarified by the Home Office to the effect that it was not actually closing.

"Perhaps," wonders Mr Gimson, "Mr Clegg was just being loyal to the Coalition, and to Mr Cameron, by giving nobody the chance to say that the Prime Minister was outshone by his deputy."

Ann Treneman of the Times, likewise, relaxes, kicks off her heels and savours the moment.

I felt sorry for the Chilcott inquiry, labouring away across the road, calling witnesses, sifting through reams of evidence, asking spies what they think.

And that's just among papers broadly sympathetic to the coalition.

"It was like Shakin' Stevens being asked to fill in for Elvis," tuts Jason Beattie of the Daily Mirror, not a newspaper normally given to comparing the prime minister to the world's most iconic rock star. Unless Mr Beattie was talking about the Vegas years.

There was a cross-party note to the chaos - Jack Straw, deputising for Labour's acting leader Harriet Harman at the dispatch box, did not cover himself in glory with a verbose line of questioning that, in Mr Gimson's reckoning, characterised the shadow justice secretary as a "windbag".

Still, at least Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail is chuffed:

PMQs with Cleggy was, delightfully, a stop-start shambles. It renewed one's faith in the duffness of the British Establishment.

All this recent stuff with the Coalition had given rise to a vague impression of competence. How good to have one's trust in partisan cack-handedness restored.


Thursday's Quote of the Day

09:59 UK time, Thursday, 22 July 2010

"Please don't use Comic Sans - we are a Fortune 500 company, not a lemonade stand" - note pinned to door of...a

As Tuesday's Magazine article, and readers' responses, documented - typefaces can elicit some pretty stiff opinions. Comic Sans and Papyrus seem to prompt the most ire.

Your Letters

16:05 UK time, Wednesday, 21 July 2010

Had to read the story about police seizing posters of a penis with a yellow bow on it which had been put up all over a Sussex town: this quote from a police spokesman has to be the best of the year so far! "However, from what we've seen, if this is a self-portrait, the artist won't be in a hurry to be identified." I'm still giggling.
Hemlok, Lincoln, UK

OK, I know there's a joke in Vibration packs aim to replace batteries for gadgets somewhere, but if I found it I doubt it'd be something you could publish...
Sue, London

Who actually has the time to help build the Big Society? Perhaps the MP's who lost their seats at the last election? Obviously they will now be unemployed (and unemployable). Oh, sorry forgot, they are now 'consultants' to numerous enterprises or alternatively in the House of Lords.
Steve Wheat

"RMC 136a (more often nicknamed R136)": R136? Those wild and crazy astronomers...
S, London

I thought that the SEO-optimisation push would be the death of the all-noun headline with all these newfangled of's and in's cluttering up the place. But today marks a triumphant return to form with "Cameroon farmers doubt elephant chilli ball idea". Seven nouns in a row! (Yes I realise "doubt" is being used as a verb; don't spoil my fun.)
Paul Taylor, Manchester, UK

Well, that's comforting. I thought that my difficulty in reading certain things was more a question of failing eyesight due to age. I now stand corrected: it's the font!
Dorian Williams, Salerno(ish), Italy

Re typefaces. I'm glad the Magazine page hasn't changed. It's a little bit of Verdana familiarity in a strange new Arial world.
Luisa, Frome

Paper Monitor

11:58 UK time, Wednesday, 21 July 2010

A service highlighting the riches the daily press.

Paper Monitor approves of Wellington boots.

Strong, solid, dependable and impervious to the rain, they seem to encompass all that is good about the British character.

So it was with delight that Paper Monitor spotted images in most of today's papers of the boots given by the prime minister on behalf of the country to US President Barack Obama's children.

The colours - bright pink and purple - may be a little lurid for Paper Monitor, who prefers pea green with off-yellow soles, but it certainly seems a suitably British gift.

However, it was Mr Cameron's present to the president which captured the imagination of most writers, coming as it did in the form of a painting by a graffiti artist. "What do you give a US president?" asks the Times, before answering: "Try Brighton's answer to Banksy."

They are referring to Ben Flynn, apparently Samantha Cameron's favourite artist, whose painting depicts the letters of the phrase "twenty first century city" in bright colours against a background.

Their seven rows spells out... well, nothing comprehensible, as the artist readily admits to the paper.

I wouldn't say there's anything I'm trying to convey. For me it's just a powerful phrase.

In these straitened times, Paper Monitor applauds No 10's decision to ask Flynn - known in the art world as Eine - to donate the work, which he gladly did on account of Mr Obama seeming "a pretty cool dude".

However, Macer Hall in the Daily Express finds cause for concern:

David Cameron yesterday risked controversy by presenting President Obama with a picture by a former hoodie lawbreaker turned "street artist".

Flynn, it transpires, has been arrested "up to 20 times" for criminal damage.

For the Guardian's Patrick Wintour, it sums up the "tonal shift" in Britain. Gone, he says, is "earnest Gordon Brown", who presented a "politically-correct ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slavery ship HMS Gannet". In his place is "breezy David Cameron".

Breezy the new prime minister may be, but back home Paper Monitor has an eye on an altogether more ill-wind.

"Hosepipe ban and flood warnings for the SAME region as with extra capital letters for effect.

Now, where did Paper Monitor leave those Wellingtons...

Wednesday's Quote of the Day

09:22 UK time, Wednesday, 21 July 2010

"Nervously" - How a man who tried to smuggle 18 monkeys in his clothes through customs was said to be acting by police.

Roberto Sol Cabrera was caught as he tried to smuggle the animals through Mexico City's international airport, after arriving from Peru. In a statement police said Mr Cabrera was stopped because he had been behaving "nervously". Once he was searched it was discovered that he had hidden 18 titi monkeys in a girdle around his waist.

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Your Letters

16:45 UK time, Tuesday, 20 July 2010

"Parasailing donkey stunt sparks probe". Must be the best headline of today. I had to read it! Needed to see whether it was the probe or the electricity that did the worst damage. Ouch!
Fran, Brill, UK

Re: Do typefaces really matter? Yes, they matter a lot. But as with all things, there are people who take it to the extreme.
Darren Rye

No amount of Comic Sans will make the world a happy place.
Ewan Mitchell

I like Comic Sans Bold in red for my Yahoo instant messages! does that put me beyond the typographers' pale?
Francis Stoner

"Mexican smuggled 18 monkeys in his clothes." Are you pleased to see me, or is that just a monkey in your pocket?
JennyT, NY Brit

Could Colchester not have found someone else? I'll happily sit in a boat in some choppy waters for a chance of some first rate oysters. I'll admit I'm not a Councillor in Colchester, but I think I'd do well against Ms Lewis if it came to an election.
Bas, London

Re: Will chocolate prices rocket at Christmas? I'm going to have to stock up!! That'll be hard, because when I've got some in the house, I just want to eat it!
Judi Regan

Re Tag/Tig (Monday's letters): When I was at school in a leafy NW London suburb, we called it 'Had'. Most of the people I was at university with (mainly midlanders) call it 'It', but the kids in my Scout group in Nottingham call it 'Dobby'. Take your pick!
Mike, Nottingham

Phil, Guisborough (Monday's letters):: I grew up in Grimsby and we had several variations but it was always TIGGY. In tiggy off ground you had to be off the ground to be safe from being tigged. There was also tiggy-bob-down whose rules escape me but was similar. No matter which variant you always said "you're it" but that was not the name of the game.
Greg, Dallas TX

Phil, (Monday's letters): when I was growing up it was called "chasies" although there was a saying that went "Oh go play tig with the buses" which you said to someone who was getting on your nerves.
Lauren, Taunton

Phil from Guisborough (Monday's letters), it was always called "tick" when I was growing up.
Paddy, Liverpool

Paper Monitor

13:15 UK time, Tuesday, 20 July 2010

A service highlighting the riches the daily press.

On a day when the Magazine is looking at the subtle inferences ascribed to typefaces, what are we to read into the Guardian's typographical treatment of David Cameron's Big Society?

That's right Big Society with a capital B and a capital S - although as Paper Monitor writes this it concedes that other inferences could be made from picking out those two letters for particular attention.

Anyway, back to the matter in hand. The Daily Telegraph has Cameron's defining idea as the "Big Society", as does the Times. Even the more left-leaning of the papers - the Independent and Daily Mirror - render the term in "initial caps".

But the Guardian cannot conceal its scepticism. And how does it choose to convey this sentiment? In part at least through the rather subtle tactic of lowercasing and, if inverted commafication (.

Thus, the Guardian talks of - to be clear, that's Paper Monitor's inverted commas around the Guardian's inverted commas.

As the Magazine notes, while the mere flick of a letter can change perceptions of trust and recognition, there's no better typographical tactic for implying suspicion than lower-casing a phrase and sticking it between quotation marks.

Tuesday's Quote of the Day

10:26 UK time, Tuesday, 20 July 2010

"I have never been able to go to the opening of the fisheries because of my inability to tolerate tidal waters - and other councillors have been in the same boat" - Cllr Sonia Lewis who will be opening Colchester's oyster season on dry land for the first time in 470 years.

Not only is Cllr Lewis a landlubber, she delivered a further blow to the Essex town's long tradition of an oyster season by declaring she is not a fan of shellfsh - proclaiming herself a "fish and chips girl".

Your Letters

17:56 UK time, Monday, 19 July 2010

SL (Friday letters), you should in fact congratulate Pink on her knowledge of the German spelling of Nuremburg. The only laziness on her part was to miss the umlaut on the u, but that can be excused, considering her injuries.
James O, Oxford

SL, Pink's spelling was perfectly fine. Admittedly, she left out the umlaut, but since she was addressing a German audience, I'm inclined to consider it a nice piece of localisation rather than lazy English.
MB, Oxford

SL from London, Nuremberg is one of several German cities which has an Anglicised name. In German it is Nurnberg, so it wasn't really laziness. Although of course if an umlaut is omitted it has to be replaced by an "e". I'll get my coat.
Edmund, Durham, England

Re. "adolescence... topshop" PM is definitively outed as a girl. (Though this does not of course preclude the possibly of subsequent gender reassignment.)
Kev, Shepton Mallet

Surely it's a serious understatement to say that Mr Ward could "make a mint"? If they're the size of, say, an After Eight, then I expect he could make several million of them.
Adam, London, UK

Beth in Friday's letters, not according to
Mark, Bridge

I always thought that tag was the US word for tig. Or is it just where I live that it's called that? Please crowdsource me an answer.
Phil, Guisborough

This story about vuvuzelas being banned at a music festival and the quote that "the potential of Westlife being drowned out was an absolute nightmare"". Too many jokes...
Tom, Croydon

"The alert was sparked after the bull was spotted looking through the window of the renal dialysis unit at about 1530 BST on Friday." That just has to be the best sentence to appear on this site so far this year.
Rob, London, UK

For all those upset about the new look and who have trouble finding Magazine, why not do as I have, and add it to favourites? So much easier (loving the makeover, btw.)
Robyn, Cheshire

Paper Monitor

11:03 UK time, Monday, 19 July 2010

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

The sound of stiletto heels being sharpened could be heard on Sunday night, as female newspaper columnists readied themselves for attack.

The news last week that ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio 5live was to devote 60 minutes to what it called Men's Hour was greeted with derision by Fleet Street.

The Daily Mail's Jan Moir was not alone in asking:

So Sunday's debut show, which you can still catch on iPlayer, provided rich pickings for these hungry attack dogs.

Among the guests were choreographer Louis Spence and former SAS soldier Andy McNab, making it the first party to feature these two men on the same guest list. And the topics included infidelity, Robert Mugabe's moisturiser and homophobia in football.

The papers had to first think whether this was a topic suitable for female or male review.

The Independent gave it to both. Jane Thynne wrote: "Do men really talk like this when left alone? Men's Hour felt needy, unsexy and really likely to have low self-esteem. Think of Top Gear, then imagine the exact opposite."

And her colleague Tim Walker was equally disappointed: "Men's Hour seems petrified of feminist reprisals, and thus intent on emasculating its guests with such topics as a nasal spray that cures polygamy."

Andrew Billen in the Times thought it showed promise - "more bearable than Top Gear" - but his colleague Sarah Vine called for it to be scrapped.

There were grander ambitions at play, according to Zoe Williams in the Guardian, who can sense a "new experiment in radio, forcing people to talk about things that perhaps they talk about all the time, but you don't often get to eavesdrop".

Gender-orientated broadcasting is a minefield, it seems.

Which makes being non-gender-specific a blessing, muses Paper Monitor.

Monday's Quote of the Day

09:19 UK time, Monday, 19 July 2010

"If at any stage it looks like they're becoming total jerks and saying 'hello mummy' in posh voices, instead of running in and just being their awful selves, then you have to knock it on the head" - Designer Stella McCartney on why she struggles with her decision to educate her children privately.

Ms McCartney, famously, herself went to a comprehensive, despite her father Paul being one of the world's most famous rock starts. She insists her parents' decision was "one of the best things that could have happened to me", but says the failings of London's school led her to choose independent establishments for her own offspring.

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