³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

My contender for Jimmy's Understatement of the Year challenge (Thursday's Letters): "Some men tell "whopping" lies about their sexual lives."
Rik Alewijnse, Feering, UK

Ah News Quiz - where are you when I need you? Thursday news: "A woman who was sacked after posing in her underwear with the Donny Dog mascot costume has been offered her job back by Doncaster Rovers. The chairman said... 'As far as I'm concerned I'm going to put this whole thing to bed and let Tracy get on'." Oo-er, missus...
Andrew, London, UK

I think Leicester City Council should get some advice from .
Mike, Newcastle upon Tyne

Has anyone else noticed all the rain. Or are we just focusing on the south of our country again. I appreciate that being in a drought is awful. But, we've got loads of water to spare up here.
Su, Newcastle & Carlisle, UK

"BMW to invest £500m in UK plants". Me thinks they should stick to making cars, which they are quite good at!
JennyT, NY Brit

Caption comp: COOOOOOOOOOL PIC! Sorry, no imagination, can't come up with any kind of funny caption.
Kay, London, UK

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A look at the stories ranking highly on various news sites.

A furore over a is proving popular with CNN's audience. Never mind the glass ceiling, the article jokes, it's the glass staircase which is hindering women now. Designers of a courthouse in Ohio, which opened this week, have been accused by a county court judge who prefers to wear dresses of not taking into account 50% of the population. It reports that security guards are warning women before they climb the stairs that people below can see up their skirts.

The Telegraph's most popular article speculates that . It adds that she would be prepared to step down from her job as job as Secretary of State in order to do so. "Once formally nominated for the post by President Obama, Mrs Clinton's appointment would require approval by the 187 member countries of the World Bank" the paper explains. But it adds that an unnamed source suggests that Mr Obama is supportive of the idea.

"In this city that barely existed two decades ago, there are 26 shopping malls, seven golf courses" starts the New York Times' most popular article. It's following the in India. But it's not all plain sailing as the article reports problems with basic public services like rubbish collection and electricity. The issue, it supposes, is that, unlike in China, growth has been in spite of the government.
Now, hailed as the pace setter, its aim for the rest of India is to avoid the lack of planning experienced in Gurgaon, says the paper.

A look at is the First Post's most popular story. It came after initial outrage about a Syrian lesbian blogger who criticised President Assad and was kidnapped by the Syrian authorities. Questions started to arise about the validity of the blog after a Croatian in London came forward to say the blogger's picture was actually of her. The First Post says that if it turns out the blog was a hoax it wouldn't be the first time such a tactic was used to drum up support against a government. It lists the "human shredder" which Saddam Hussein was accused of throwing his opponents into but turned out to be based on the testimony of one person. And then there was the pictures of an Iranian girl who was buried before being stoned to death. Only in transpired the pictures were from a Dutch film.

in a popular Daily Beast article. He says he wasted three years trying to convince big companies to take his ideas on board. Eventually he made his bagless vacuum cleaner without them. "Believing that big companies would choose good technology - progress - over short-term profit was a big mistake".

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Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.

1. The Rotary club is an enemy of Palestine, according to Hamas.
More details

2. Spiders use their webs to breathe underwater.

3. Michael Caine was nearly sacked from the film Zulu for standing like Prince Philip.
More details (The Chris Evans Breakfast Show ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio 2)

4. The Wombles have had four gold albums.
More details

5. Cow hooves are used to make the foam in fire extinguishers.
More details

6. Wearing high heels could increase the risk of arthritis.
More details

7. Chimps can outperform eight-year-olds in tasks.
More details

8. The odds of scoring two holes-in-one in the same round of golf are 67 million-to-one .
More details

9. Elephants can flirt.

10. Zebras can do showjumping.

Seen 10 things? .

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Winning entries in the Caption Competition.

The competition is now closed.

This week it was two F-16 fighters from the US Air Force Air Demonstration Squadron performing at an airshow.

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

6. PurpleGladys
The new F16 four door could prove tricky to land.

5. Eattherich
Its late spring here in the desert, and that marks the beginning of the F-16 mating season.

4. DPNixon
We're hoping to confuse the enemy, as we can't afford to shoot or bomb them anymore.

3. Rob Falconer Unfortunately, two pages of the flying manual had got stuck together.

2. Valerie Ganne
Prince William tries to teach his new wife parallel parking.

1. Raven
Maverick's OCD was getting worse.

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Many journalists' first task as a cub will have been to assemble a "cuts job", an article not requiring any fresh research, but instead drawing from the archives.

"Get me five inventors who didn't make any money from their inventions," the editor would shout. Then the cub would scuttle off and start riffling through cuttings.

But Paper Monitor has to take its hat off to the to mark the 90th birthday of Prince Philip.

It's a cuts job of epic proportions, the Sistine Chapel of ctrl+c, ctrl+v. Paper Monitor salutes Steve Myall, the man responsible.

The Independent's coverage of the royal consort's 90th birthday obviously comes from a very different angle.

They have wunderkind as part of a cutting critique of Prince Philip.

But Hari offers an unusual analysis of the instances of verbal faux pas.

"The 'gaffes' that keep being wheeled out suggest a man angry at the position he is trapped in."

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Sports writer David Zirin's column arguing is a big hitter on al-Jazeera's website. He reports that the Iranian women's football team were banned from playing their Olympic qualifier against Jordan on Sunday because they were wearing full body tracksuits and hijabs. The team was told they were violating the rule which prohibits bringing religious or political messages onto the pitch. But Zirin suggests the motive behind the move was sexism within Fifa and uses as his evidence Fifa boss Sepp Blatter's suggestion from 2004 that women should wear hotpants to attract more fans.

An explanation of what the is is the biggest hitter with Telegraph readers. The paper reports one of the inventors of the electric guitar, Les Paul, would have been 96 today. It says the design which is also playable like a guitar if you hover over the strings, is one of the most complex and interactive.

The question "" is proving popular with Guardian readers. It turns out to be a map of all the recent data on life expectancies across the UK. So take note if you live in Hartlepool, the Western Isles, Liverpool and Blackburn with Darwen as they share the lowest life expectancies with Greater Glasgow and Clyde which, the article points out, has a shorter life expectancy than Albania.

"Forget Sarah Palin" claims a popular Daily Beast article. " as the sassiest presence on the 'One Nation" bus tour." Cue videos of scowls, crossed arms and a decidedly non-press friendly attitude.

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"The torch is triangular to reflect the three times London will have had the games." And the top of the FIFA trophy is round, to reflect the chances of the World Cup ever again being held in England.
Joe, Birmingham, UK

Can technology end conflict? Ever since someone discovered that a pointed stick could be used in disagreements - technology has assisted conflicts. It's just a matter of time until somebody works out how to weaponise Google.
Andrew, Malvern, UK

Understatement of the year? "Monty Python and the Holy Grail is not rock solid history"
Jimmy, Milton Keynes

"I contacted the exam board but have had no response to the questions I asked." Perhaps the questions were impossible for the exam board to answer.
Lee, Farnham

The Wombles to play Glastonbury? Well, I suppose somebody's got to get rid of the rubbish afterwards.
Rob Falconer, Llandough, Wales

Re: Japanese emotionally-sensitive cat's ears gadgetry - "potential buyers are all ears". Fnar fnar! Oh ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳, you just made my day.
Katherine, Canberra, Australia

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

The headline writer's art is surely among the most subtle and intricate of all newspaper production skills.

It's a tricky balance. Within the space available, one must attract the reader's attention, summarise the story and make the reader want to investigate further.

Sometimes, however, a headline occurs that supersedes the latter consideration: one so effective that makes reading the actual body text entirely redundant.

One such headline appears in today's Daily Mirror. it reads (alas, the online version is more expansive).

And that's pretty much the story - a quartet of 3ft and 4ft-long amphibious reptiles have been discovered in a house in the south London suburb.

Paper Monitor salutes this economical brevity, neither newsprint nor paper being cheap.

However, not all of Fleet Street is so punctilious as the Mirror's back bench when it comes to conserving our natural resources.

In the Independent, Deborah Ross admits to an

If you ask me, of all the strains put upon a modern marriage, I wonder why no mention is ever made of what happens to a relationship when one person becomes much more ecologically worked up than the other. This is what has happened in our house, with my husband having become so worked up that, should an apple core be discarded in the wrong bin, he will fish it out and storm furiously from room to room, dangling it threateningly and demanding: "Whose is this? Whose is this?"

By contrast, Ms Ross admits that she can't get quite so agitated about the disposal of orange peel.

However, advice comes from the unlikely source of the liberal-baiter-in-chief Kelvin Mackenzie, who has chanced upon a novel method of recycling.

"I've finally found a use for the Guardian," he says. "I've been holding it over my head during showers."

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A look at the stories ranking highly on various news sites.

The Independent's most popular article asks about the .

This follows a film called the Human Centipede II that has been banned by the British Board of Film Classification. The organisation says as many as 14,000 films are deemed not suitable for a British audience per year. The board doesn't have experts on violence or pornography as people would get distracted or jaded if the films they watched weren't varied. But the turmoil comes from a surprise culprit.

"It's not the hardcore pornography and violence," said the "insider" to the Independent. "It's children's DVDs --having to watch five hours of Ivor The Engine."

In More Intelligent Life's most popular article Bill Ridgers finds new research which shows that the like a full bladder.

"A full bladder, apparently, helps us take more rational, long-term decisions. At least that was the finding of a study carried out by Mirjam Tuk, a professor at the University of Twente in the Netherlands."

This goes against research which suggests our decision-making capabilities become weaker the more we use up our reserves of self control. Ridgers says all the research on decision making seems to have one assumption - that we are not in control of making decisions, just good at coming up with reasons for our actions afterwards.

were an act of revenge according to the Telegraph's most popular article.

The paper reports passengers say that extra checks were carried out after what had been a minor spat over allegedly overzealous security.

Up to 2,000 elderly British cruise ship passengers docked at Los Angeles for a short stop-off during a five-star two-and-a-half month cruise around America. Despite having advance clearance and already stopping in the US, they went through finger-print and retina scans.

Washington Post readers prefer to catch up on the .

So far they've whittled it down to someone who "may be" between 26 and 33. That's based on the combination of athleticism and experience needed. More vague assertions that it is a man and he is most probably white are made because of the intake of the Seals. But then the speculation gets a lot more specific "He's got a lot of upper-body strength. Long arms. Thin waist. Flat tummy."

Their profile continues to be built by a navy Seals biographer: "He's bearded, rough-looking, like a street urchin". In reality though the identity of the Seal may never be known, the article says. That's because he may become a target from a counter-attack.

A popular Forbes article urges you not to banish your crazy business idea before it has even begun. It backs up the encouragement with a list of their search of "".

Among them are geese police - a business which gets rid of geese from golf courses with the help of a herd of border collies. Then there's Black Socks who ship Italian-made socks automatically a few times a year. These are making their money despite their niche ideas.

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Back in my day (okay, so I'm only 24, but still!) they knew in advance when there were mistakes in exam papers. Yes, the mistakes still made it into the final paper, but were preceded by an announcement that "Question whatever should read..." Has proof reading perhaps become the latest victim of the credit crunch? Or perhaps the exam boards are just getting lazy. Nice example to set, either way.
Liz, Poole

"Plaid warning before key meeting". Oh, alright then. Um, will pinstripes be OK?
M Ross, Lancaster, UK

Re: Why do people believe secret cabals rule the world? I am very disappointed. I joined the Freemasons six years ago and am now in one of the world's "top" lodges and I STILL have not been invited to take part in a plot to take over the world. I want my money back!
TheKingsNewClothes

Why do people believe secret cabals rule the world? Because some people are prone to over analysis?
Gillian Wilson

Phil (Tuesday's Letters), this sounds like a Dr Who episode in the making.
K Morrison, Lowestoft

To Phil, Oxford (Tuesday's Letters), I took that story seriously*. After all, bow ties are cool. (*I'm not actually frightened of cucumbers.)
Danny, Amersham

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

The first item today is just something rather nice.

How about if today's Guardian website was laid out as the paper was at its birth in 1821. Well, it'd look a little .

The paper's been celebrating its 190th anniversary with facsimile editions and humorous fripperies .

Today's paper doesn't feel very 1821.

Page three is about the author of The Gruffalo becoming children's laureate. Page five's lead is about 3D television with a separate story about cyber attacks. Page nine is about a serial graffiti offender called "Tox".

In terms of content, the Daily Telegraph is arguably the most "1821" of any of the papers.

The first three pages details a bumper raspberry harvest, a plague among swans, traditional sweet shops and a real-life Ophelia.

Fire up the DeLorean.

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A look at the stories ranking highly on various news sites.

Proving popular with Telegraph readers is news that the in Kensington Palace. Instead they are being housed in temporary rooms which the paper says include "musty rooms" which "have hurriedly had to be made fit for purpose". The article says Princess Margaret's apartment instead is being advertised to be hired out for "private meetings".

A popular CNN story reports that a . It goes on to say the homicide detective was part of the president's security team while he was at a trade fair. He had approached the toilets but been denied and later forced his way in, according to CNN. Alois Mabhunu has been sentenced by an internal police court to 10 days in prison but the appeal may be looked at the end of this week.

Economist Peter Diamond complains that . The problem, he thinks, is the job is on the board of the US federal reserve. And, he worries, that the federal reserve just don't appreciate that monetary policy - deciding the interest rate - is related to unemployment figures. After all, he argues "the Fed has to properly assess the nature of that unemployment to be able to lower it as much as possible while avoiding inflation."

He argues that "if much of the unemployment is related to the business cycle - caused by a lack of adequate demand - the Fed can act to reduce it without touching off inflation. If instead the unemployment is primarily structural - caused by mismatches between the skills that companies need and the skills that workers have - aggressive Fed action to reduce it could be misguided."

In the Guardian's most popular story Tanya Gold reports that the . She attended a SlutWalk in Newcastle at the weekend. She explains the march, organised by a 16-year-old, is following in a trend started in the US after a policeman advised students not to dress like sluts if they didn't want to get raped. Gold found accusations of this happening again when she checked Newcastle SlutWalk Facebook page after the protest:

"Vicky Vampvick Lyth has written: 'I was told... that a small group of girls on the SlutWalk were on their way to the Green Festival... a police officer then said, 'You can't go there because you're dressed like a slut.'"

has amused Christopher Hitchen in Slate's most read article.

It reminds him of his time at Oxford where a special part of the river bank was reserved for nude male bathing. He describes the scene by saying "prominent signs and barriers prevented boats and punts containing females from approaching this discreet stretch. On one fateful Sunday afternoon, however, a recent flood had washed away the signs and weakened the barriers. A group of ladies was swept past the rows of recumbent and undressed gentlemen. Shrieks of embarrassment from the boat, while on the shore - consternation."

What tickled Hitchen most was a unique reaction. "Pairs of hands darted down to cover the midsection. All but one, the hedonist and classicist Sir Maurice Bowra, whose palms went up to conceal his craggy visage. As the squeals were borne downstream, and the sheepish company surveyed itself, Bowra growled, 'I don't know about you chaps, but I'm known by my face around here.'"

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Best. Nominative. Determinism. Evah.
Graham, Frome

Dear ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳, if you want us to take the threat of these "killer vegetables" seriously, you are going to have to find a different way of illustrating your stories than a man, in a bow tie, holding up a cucumber.
Phil, Oxford

It's an enterprising and optimistic person who looks at undigested squid vomited up by sperm whales and thinks "hmmm, I bet some people would pay good money to spray that on their necks..."
Sue, UK

Thinking of sending a photo to help a rescue team find you. If you can understand the instructions to send pictures on your phone, it shouldn't be too difficult to learn how to use a map and compass. You're not always guaranteed a mobile signal in the hills and if you don't know where you are, you probably shouldn't have gone there in the first place.
Paul, Ipswich

To Ian, Bristol (Monday's Letters): I think that's what's known as a googly...
Fi, Gloucestershire, UK

At last they're using the correct measures!
Tommy Scragend, Wigan

Giraffes come in uniform length (Monday's Letters)? What do they do with the rejects ?
Paul, Ipswich

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Paper Monitor is getting all luvvie today and channelling one of the two giants of the entertainment industry and pasta sauce world, Loyd Grossman. The other being Paul Newman of course. So in a rather nasal, transatlantic twang, ask yourself: "Who would live in a house like this?"

According to the Daily Telegraph it's asbestos-ridden, with dodgy wiring. The Times calls it modest and says it has just one bathroom. In the Daily Express, Vanessa Feltz describes it as "somewhat small and pokey".

Know who it is yet? Doh, Will and Kate of course. It has been announced that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are going to use a "modest" flat as their base when in London.

As starter homes go, it's not too bad. It's near a nice park, in a good area and is secure. The local schools are excellent too. Oh, and it's in Kensington Palace. It's a detail the papers seem to skip over rather quickly, preferring to comment on how the couple are "keeping it real".

It has to be said the papers are using the couple's soon-to-be-neighbours, the Duke and Duchess of Kent, as the yardstick of what is extravagant. In comparison anyone else might seem a little unassuming and low key.

But there is someone else channelling a famous figure in today's papers. Simon Cowell is getting all Elephant Man on us in the Sun and Mirror and claiming he's "". He's not talking about his looks or high-waisted trousers, obviously. It's to do with axing Cheryl Cole as a judge on the US version of the X Factor. He defends his actions, saying:

The truth was I was protecting her. I just want people to be in the best place at the right time.

For Cheryl, probably the best place for Cowell is at the end of her knuckleduster-clad fist and the right time for that is now.

Personally, Paper Monitor finds it impossible to read his words without hearing the rasping sound of John Hurt's voice in one's head and imagining Cowell swathed in a cloak, with a hood over his head and lurking in the shadows. Remember everyone, he is a human being.

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Ah, here's a beautiful, romantic village street, in such a beautiful, romantic sounding place....oh, wait.
Suzanne, Caversfield

Wow! I didn't realise had assimilated an entire galactic quadrant.
Rik Alewijnse, Feering, UK

I read this headline as "Why ban sprouts?" and I thought "Why not?"
Ruaraidh, Wirral

Re: Why is the term 'chav' still causing rows? Ask Essex.
Ian Friend

Shiz, Cheshire (Friday's Letters) - As many Monitorites will undoubtedly point out, any item of uniform length can be used for comparative measurement (buses, football pitches,... erm, height of a giraffe?)
Nicola, Brighton, UK

Gareth (Friday's Letters), I was very upset not to be a Time Lord, but I am a Companion... if you're anything like Matt Smith can I be your Amy Pond?
The Baroness, Australia

Is there a word for typing a series of letters into a "find" box and then consistently making a typo on the last letter when you're already committed to pressing "send"? No? Ok, I'll get my coar
Ian, Bristol

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Charlie Brooker tries to get to the bottom of Spotify's woes in the Guardian's most popular article. He pins it down to Brooker highlights the online music company after he received complaints from fans for placing a playlist on Spotify. Fans seemed to be perturbed he was using the service which "promised one thing, only to do turn round and do another." He explains that "it offered free music for all (supported by ad breaks, like commercial radio), only to recently scale this back to 10 hours of free music per month."

Brooker thinks the crux of the issue is that technology has "left us hopelessly spoiled" and jokes "if the internet gave free back rubs, people would complain when it stopped because its thumbs were sore". After putting the comments on the free service Twitter he also got complaints - "this, too, is madness" he adds, as it is "like tailing someone down the street only to complain about the tune they've chosen to hum".

New York Magazine's most popular article features Timothy Brown
who .
When he got leukaemia his doctor saw if he could use a stem cell from a bone marrow donor with the genetic mutation which is resistant to HIV. Four years after taking any anti-retroviral therapy the virus still doesn't seem to be in his body. "Brown is now surely one of the most biopsied humans on Earth" the article says, and then declares "he is cured". But it does warn "a stem-cell transplant from an unrelated donor can cost $250,000 and is a reasonable risk only in the face of imminent death. What cured Timothy Brown is obviously not a cure for the rest of the world. But it is proof of concept, and it has jolted AIDS-cure research back to life."

An has caused concern in Japan according to Russia Today's most popular story. It says a "mutant" white rabbit was born in a village outside the exclusion zone around the damaged Fukushima power plant. The article continues to say "the animal is a living reminder of the danger that radiation leakages may pose". It explains that the Fukushima nuclear power plant was damaged by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami on 11 March. Authorities evacuated all residents within 20 km as the reactors went into meltdown. The exclusion zone was later extended to 30 km.

Telegraph readers prefer to catch up on . The article says that while she is delving into the past she reveals "her mother spotted a vein on her forehead when she was a toddler which she believed to be a sign of the antichrist".

The Atlantic's most popular article lists the about their country. Firstly, Americans over estimation of how many people are gay in America. It says a recent survey shows Americans estimate one in four people in the US to be gay or lesbian when the figure is nearer 3.5%. It also points out only 41% of Americans knew Joe Biden is the vice president and only one in three could point out the UK in a map.

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It's hard work in the world of newspapers. Year after year of long hours and an ever more parlous labour market.

So when newspapers get things right they like to have a little blow of their own trumpet.

The Sunday Times was at it yesterday. The paper has always had a reputation for investigative journalism, a legacy of its famous Insight team.

And the holy grail of investigative journalism is actually affecting things out there in the real world. The Sunday Times happily reports everything going on at Fifa, noting that the much-maligned world football body has already changed its voting system as a direct result of the newspaper's investigation.

But that's small beer compared with the joy over the fact that Camilla Long's profile of Hugh Hefner had resulted in Playboy's powers-that-be taking a very frosty attitude towards British journalists in general in the run-up to their UK club launch.

And in the Independent today there's a journalist who both got it right, and also extremely wrong.

The newspaper's racing tipster predicted the top three at the Derby, sensing that Pour Moi would win and the much-favoured Carlton House, belonging to the Queen, would only manage third. The odds of the 1-2-3 were 707-1.

Unfortunately the pundit, Chris McGrath, did not put any money on. Gutted.

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