³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

The most popular headline is Pickles sent public pension plan. I agree that is enough reason to give any dog a comfortable retirement, but I have a nasty feeling this might be happening a little too late for him.
Ian, Bristol

Far from "moving forward", might I suggest that when faced with an expanding 700ft hole, Ms Dowton moves backwards, at speed?
Sue, London

Speed-of-light experiments give baffling result at Cern. It's not the speed the Neutrinos travelled at that the physicists need to worry about; it's the route they took after they warped time-space. I'll get my lab coat.
Kevin, Leeds

Tom Webb (Thursday's letters): No, but this and this did.
Aqua Suliser, Bath

If this turns out to be true can I propose we call the effect antiNR, as the equal and oppose phenomenon to Network Rail?
Robin, Herts UK

Re: Is it too early to be Christmas shopping? "A full 151 days before 25 December, when most Britons were in sunglasses and shorts". Not in the UK, but at least when they went on holiday to the Algarve.
Carol Williamson, Portugal

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

It was the two chicken fried steaks smothered in gravy with sliced onions, a triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, a cheese omelette with other ingredients, large bowl of fried okra with ketchup, three fajitas, pint of ice cream, with a half-loaf of white bread, slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts, a pizza and three root beers that did it. That was what Lawrence Russell Brewer ordered for his last meal - but didn't eat - before being executed. As a popular CNN article reports, this was too much for a Texas . It's some boast to claim you are the . But that is exactly what Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly claims in the most read Daily Beast article. He justifies his claim by saying he can get things changed quickly. "I don't have to go through the legislative process; I don't have to do any of that. I can just bring it to the people, and say, look, this has gotta be dealt with," he says. A popular Telegraph article shows what appears to be three years after he had said she was killed. The paper says Gaddafi had claimed said she had been killed in an American bombing raid in 1986. "For years Col Gaddafi used the killing of Hana as a tool to breed anti-western sentiment among the Libyan people" it says. The Telegraph adds that regime officials said that the family had adopted a second girl also named Hana. But the Telegraph says their video of a camping holiday around three years later shows Hana alive and well. Wired's audience a clicking on the story of the . The characters in programmes like The Big Bang Theory are funny because of their obsession with the finer details of particle physics and suchlike. But this means they have to have specialists on the team, to make sure they don't get the facts wrong. That's where TV fact checker David Saltzberg comes in. The only thing he doesn't do is jokes. Well, not anymore at least. "I quickly understood that I was just not qualified and they were very patient with me, and very kind," he says. "But I eventually realised I was that guy at a cocktail party who was trying to tell me his new theory of gravity."

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Winning entries in the Caption Competition.
The competition is now closed.

This week it's a group of Iranian Turkmen wearing their traditional dress.
Thanks to all who entered. The prize of a small amount of kudos to the following:

6. Northernchap:
Dulux's follow-on commercials lacked the creativity of the original.

5. Throbgusset:
Freshers Week at the Barabra Windsor Acting Academy.

4. Trishinstock:
I preferred the old ewe.

3. BeckySnow:
The mood outside L'Oreal head office was getting ugly.

2. Eattherich:
I'm Boris Johnson! No, I'm Boris Johnson.

1. Vicky S:
John Frieda woke up with a start. Thank heavens, it had all been a bad dream.

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

There have been many acts with a dubious ethical underpinning in the history of medical research.

It is often said that Louis Pasteur would never have got away with some of his work if he was around today.

But today's papers report . It arises from a smudgy brown picture that has been produced using an MRI scanner.

The Daily Telegraph reports: "The picture is a still from a moving image that was created by monitoring the brain activity of volunteers as they watched a film trailer featuring the Hollywood actor Steve Martin."

The film in question is Pink Panther 2. A film of which the LA Times said: "There's a sort of desperation at work here." And of which USA Today said: "Remember when Martin was funny?" And those were some of the kinder remarks.

The brown smudge is said to resemble Steve Martin, but Paper Monitor sees more of Edvard Munch's Scream in it, which somehow seems strangely appropriate.

Friday is a big day for reviews of the week's new cultural offerings.

Paper Monitor can't help but notice that there is an extraordinary consensus over the brilliance of Nicholas Winding Refn's Drive, a new film starring Ryan Gosling.

Everyone from Sun to the Times to the Daily Mail are mad about this film. The Daily Star gives it 10/10. The Daily Mirror gives it five out of five.

Only Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian and Sukhdev Sandhu in the Telegraph beg to differ, having the temerity to challenge the wave of praise. They still both give it three out of five stars.

Paper Monitor would of course be happy with a three-star review.

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

1. MI5 used to have special kettles kept solely for steaming open envelopes.
More details (³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio 4)

2. Only one in every 250 million births is a case of conjoined twins.
More details

3. Bill Clinton was invited to appear on Dancing with the Stars, the US version of Strictly Come Dancing.

4. Penguins find their family members by sniffing them out.

5. The world's smallest aquarium contains just two teaspoons of water.

6. Elephants can paint.
More details

7. Red-haired donors are being turned away by the world's largest sperm bank because there is a lack of demand for their "product".
More details

8. Facebook hosts 4% of all photos ever taken.

9. Yawning cools down the brain.

10. Crows can find food with the aid of mirrors.
More details

Seen 10 things? .

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Google can "deny cooking search results" all it likes, but I just put "cooking" into Google and got 546,000,000 of them.
Edward Green, London, UK

I assume this made the news purely for irony purposes?
Tom Webb, Surbiton, UK

As comical as these signs are, the carnival association would have had to sign off proof copies before the signs were even made so they can hardly finger point at the signmaker!
Sharon, Nailsea, UK

Why do REM need to announce that they are splitting up? If they just stopped recording songs it would have the same effect.
MCK, Stevenage

They seem to have a word for everything these days - "Finland, Norway and Sweden (Fennoscandia)".
Susan, Newcastle

Re: Kay from London (Wednesday's Letters)has obviously never watched Road Wars.
Sarah L, IOW

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Hugh Hefner's mansion is not in sight in the Salon article . It's not just the mansion which is lacking, but any sense of glamour. The lasting memory seems to be the tightness of the corsets. Rhonda Talbot's mother concurs with her memories of witnessing the injuries from the uniform: "I broke four toes, probably had a hernia, possibly broke a rib, and never met an available man". She sums it up with "We were just glorified waitresses in straitjackets."

As the execution Troy Davis dominates many news sites' most read lists, a few out-of date pleas to prevent it linger. While a New York Times editorial over all, a popular Guardian piece set out - written hours before he died. Among them were unreliable witnesses, no gun and no DNA evidence.

Accusations that stage psychic Sally Morgan may have been fed information from the back of a Dublin show has led former psychic in the Daily Mail. But it doesn't take psychic powers to work out what he spills out - that psychics can make a lot of money. "People tend to forget that psychic shows are very big business. In some theatres you can get audiences of 2,000 or more which, at £20 to £50 a ticket, generates a huge amount of cash to be shared."

And readers are getting fortunes told, in more ways than one, over at Slate. Amid US debate about a new tax bracket for millionaires and billionaires, it asks . If someone just matches Bill Gates' worth, considering inflation, the magazine says it will take 98 years. But if the richest person outpaces inflation by 3%, it would only take 50 years.

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Someone once told Paper Monitor, when it was still at journalism school, that the first rule of newspaper humour is... it's not actually funny.

But if there was a second rule it would be that all subs fundamentally think alike.

Take the this picture of a praying mantis with a couple of its legs in the air. Under the headline "Praying Alive" it says:

"With its arms in the air, legs bent and what looks like a huge grin on its face this dancing bug really is praying alive. Strutting its stuff on a branch in Cyprus the Iris Oratoria Mantis appears to perfectly mimic John Travolta's 'Stayin' Alive' dance from the 1977 hit film Saturday Night Fever."

The same picture is in the Guardian where it's caption reads... "praying alive". And in the Metro it's, er, "praying alive".

But is it fair to say "perfectly mimic". It's not wearing a white suit or anything. It's just that it happens to have its arms/legs in the air.

Anyway, on to the Sun where the . Intrepid Sun man Nick Francis has infiltrated the activists' camp at the Dale Farm traveller site.

How was he able to pull off this man-of-a-thousand-faces feat. Er, by putting on combat trousers and a checked shirt. Paper Monitor would hazard a guess that some may not have been fooled by this audacious bluff. Francis is clean shaven and, indeed, cleaner cut than the average policeman.

Only one paragraph really draws the eye.

"One baby-faced youngster in a black cap told me he is studying philosophy at Bristol University, a top-level establishment known to scoop up rejects from Oxford and Cambridge."

Somewhere today there was a university press officer coughing up his cornflakes.

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Re 10 tomatoes (William Canard, Monday letters, and Andrew Rodgers, Tuesday letters). If you copy and paste (computer paste, not tomato paste) the image to Microsoft Word or similar, then expand the image hugely, you can see the tenth tomato behind the second one from the left, on the top row. At this magnification, and if you tilt your head slightly to the right, you can also see a reflection of the moustachioed gentleman (or lady) who took the photo, on the right hand side of the middle fruit of the row above the bottom one. He is wearing white gloves, a black Venetian mask and is standing in front of a large carriage clock, or a small child. Either that, or there is an intruder creeping up behind me as I'm typing this le
Richard Martin, Doncaster, UK

Never mind "le binge drinking", for how long has Michael Fish been the deputy mayor of Lyon? Or is he now known as Michel Poisson?
Michael Hall, Croydon, UK

The scientists in this story explain, "an external source of electricity was required in order to power the process". They also tell us how they overcame the problem - "All we need to do is add some fresh water and some salt water and some membranes, and the electrical potential that is there can provide that power." Kudos to the reporter for not dumbing it down, but I wonder if the scientists would seem as clever if they'd just said, "we put a battery in it".
Ray Lashley, Colchester, UK

Never mind the Mirror readers, I didn't know what "twoc" stood for til I read Tuesday's letters and Paper Monitor. Never heard of it.
Kay, London, UK

Twoc has a very different meaning in the nursing and medical communities, that of Trial Without Catheter. Who knew John Travolta kept his in a Mercedes.
Neil, Brighton

By the look of the cover, I think many people buying the 2012 "Nuns Having Fun" calendar are going to be a tad disappointed
Rob Falconer, Llandough, Wales

Legal action? Would it not be cheaper to just change the locks while he's out at work?
Sue, London

Is the Magazine running low on stock photos? Can we Monitorites help? I ask as the picture used to illustrate your piece on Switching Inertia - which relates to utilities - looks more like an A-level student fed up with revising.
Howard, London, UK

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"Brits have been whining about 'Americanisms' at least since 1781", starts a widely emailed Slate article. Indeed, it points out that American words taken on by British people were listed by the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ this summer. But Ben Yagoda bites back, arguing "it may shock you to learn that as much as the other way around". He's been listing this invasion of "Britishisms" in US news :

"Advert (instead of advertisement or ad), bespoke, bits (instead of parts), brilliant, called (instead of named), chat show, chat up, cheers, a coffee, cookery, DIY, early days, fishmonger, full stop (instead of period, as in the punctuation mark), ginger (a red-haired person), gobsmacked, had got (instead of gotten), Hoover (as a verb), in future, keen on, kerfuffle, mobile (as in mobile phone), on holiday, one-off, posh, presenter (a television host), queue, sell-by date."

It only takes for ever more, is the theory of a popular Independent piece. And in case these photos aren't haunting enough, the Independent have thoughtfully compiled a photo album to remind us of the photos it says politicians and musicians should be cringing at. Most recently, it says the street cred of former Blur bassist Alex James is seriously damaged by his photo with David Cameron and Jeremy Clarkson. But another picked out is Barack Obama giving a thumbs-up in a picture with Silvio Berlusconi back in 2009.

At a time when Germany has been working closely with Greece to avoid it defaulting on its debt, a popular Time article asks . The loan stretches back to the World War II. Time says 476 million reichsmarks were lent against Greece's will to Germany by the Greek National Bank during the war. Time's calculations say in today's money it would amount to $14bn (£8.9bn). But with 3% interest per year, that would come to at least $95bn (£60.6bn). The article suggests the precedent giving the money back would set is bound to mean it would never happen.

Alexis Madrigal reminisces about in a well hit Atlantis article. But a look back at the social network he used to spend hours on in the early 90s unearths something surprising: despite being on the internet, there's almost no archive to be found. It all gets him wondering whether more is to be lost:

"Looking at the desolation that is Friendster or MySpace, I wonder how it's possible that digital objects can end up looking like ruins. But they do. Perhaps more interesting questions than 'Will Facebook fade out like MySpace?' are 'What would the ruins of Facebook look like? What would we put on its tombstone?'"

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A service highlighting the daily press.

Newspapers know that strikes make good copy. Conflict, chaos, inconvenienced consumers - rarely has any public figure given so much joy to so many sub-editors as rail union leader Bob Crow.

The same rules apply, it would appear, even when the aggrieved workers are top-level tennis professionals and their self-appointed shop steward is Andy Murray.

The British number one has said players are upset at overcrowding in the schedule and will meet next month to plot their next move.

The notion of the likes of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal manning a picket line, RMT-style, is too good for Fleet Street's columnists to resist.

Jim White of the Daily Telegraph "The prospect is too delicious of centre court's Arthur Scargill taking up position outside the All England Club, firing aces at any scab who attempts to gain entry, while shovelling £50 notes on to the brazier to keep warm," he says.

But White doubts such tactics will be effective, predicting that public sympathy will not be high "for a bunch of workers whose idea of oppression is being paid several million pounds to engage with a game the rest of us have to pay to play".

However, as Leo Benidictus of the Guardian notes, the notion is not entirely fanciful, given a

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is support for the baseline militants within that favoured organ of the labour movement, the Columnist Oliver Holt says the current system forces these "unbelievable athletes" to play too often. "They need a little time to rest," he adds.

But support for Murray comes from the unlikely quarter of the Daily Mail, - more specifically, from its football-loving columnist "I would say he is right and there probably is too much tennis; certainly on my radio."

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I would suggest that even if the twins had exactly the same skin colour, their parents still wouldn't have any problem telling them apart, seeing as one baby is a boy and the other is a girl.
Alison, London, UK

Perhaps a little of this followed by this could actually help this and quite possibly this.
Bryan Poor, Oxford

In your article Is Hydrogen the Future of Motoring?, your reports states, "The electricity is used to power electric motors, which turn the car's wheels." I suspect that at 45 I am 41 years older than your demographic. Am I right?
John Thompson, Kirkby Lonsdale

To William Canard (Monday's letters). I can see ten tomatoes in the picture so I'm afraid it's not me, it's you.
Andrew Rodgers, Sheffield, UK

Paper Monitor today suggests that not all Mirror readers will know what "twoc" stands for. I beg to differ.
Ross, London

"Binge drinking, a social scourge more commonly associated with Britain, has hit France." So, are photographs of Drunk Girl now to be retitled "Fille ivre"?
Rob Falconer

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Ìý

A cautionary tale about anonymity on the web tops the New York Times most read list. But this one has a twist - everyone on an online forum full of abuse most likely know each other. That's because the forum on the Topix website is for a small rural town called Mountain Grove. New York Times describes typical forum entries as descriptions of neighbours as drug dealers, "homewreckers with herpes", and "preggo by her mommy's man". Topix used to delete negative comments but found that gossip gets more people visiting the site.

Ìý

Pensions aren't a big pull for readers normally. But mentioning an has unsurprisingly caught the attention of Guardian readers. The paper says Ilona Staller, better known as Cicciolina, has found herself at the centre of a row about Italy's former politicians' pensions. Cicciolina used to be an MP for Italy's Radical party between 1987 and 1992. Although she only served one term as an MP she gets a €39,000-a-year (£34,000) pension. Now, the paper says, there is criticism against politicians receiving such a large amount.

Ìý

Telegraph readers are also being lured to a story with the promise of porn. But, rather poetically, the story itself is actually about luring people onto sites which they think are porn sites. That's because the animal rights group - that's the new domain name for porn sites. But instead of showing explicit sexual scenes, they plan to campaign to porn seekers by showing scenes of animal cruelty.

Ìý

The world of has long been a subject for fiction. But a popular Washington Post article says automatic drones, which can work together without any human guidance at all, are already technologically possible. In case you can't picture them, the article tries to help: "imagine aerial 'Terminators,' minus beefcake and time travel". There are some stickling points though - fears of mistakes and creating a clinical approach to war. But the article even finds researcher, Ronald Arkin, who believes software can be created that would lead machines to return fire with proportionality and even recognise surrender.

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Many cub journalists start their career writing "nibs".

These news-in-briefs fill the spaces between the bigger articles, the "leads" and "anchors" and whatnot. Some even call them "grouting", referring to the stuff that goes in between tiles.

But there is a hidden world if you can be bothered reading them.

Take this one from the Sun. A golfer celebrates a win in a charity tournament by going on stage in a miniskirt and exposing himself in front of the mayor. Man later resigns from club. Man suspected to have been drinking.

Or indeed the revelation that a 64-year-old from London will visit all 92 football league grounds in alphabetical order in 29 days, mostly by train. Headline: "He choos he scores".

Some newspapers don't really have nibs. The Daily Mail is one that eschews them.

But in an organ as serious as the Times they provide a little bit of lightness. One of them tells us about 600 pigs released into the New Forest to eat spare acorns.

There's more of the same in the Daily Mirror where a nib headlined "Gone potty" reveals that a museum dedicated to instant noodles has opened in Yokohama.

The flair is often in the headline, although the effort on top of a story about John Travolta having his vintage Mercedes stolen is a little esoteric. "Twoc 'n' roll" anyone?

You have to know that Twoc is short for the offence of taking-without-consent. One might argue that not all Mirror readers do.

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We don't need Popular Elsewhere to tell us the way we walk could be as identifiable as our fingerprints - it was on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s own Spooks last night!
Basil Long, Nottingham

Monitor: And indeed in .

Is it me or are there only nine tomatoes in the "ten things" picture here?
William Canard, London, UK

It's National Talk Like a Pirate Day! So Why are pirates called pirates? They just ARRRR!
Candace, New Jersey, US

I know Man United have had a few injury niggles down the years, but giving in years smacks of desperation! Is it to remind Wayne Rooney that footballer balding issues used to be so much worse?
Edward Green, London, UK

Oh the irony in this - it is impossible to know for sure without using scientific techniques!
Colin Main, Berkhamsted, UK

Nicolas (Friday letters) - Thank you so much. I never re-take a 7days quiz (that would be cheating). However, I did this time just to find out what the missing words round said. I scored full marks for the first time ever! Do I deserve a Steel Medal for this achievement? (10 things, number five)
Susan, Newcastle

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Charlie Brooker's weekly rants about modern life rarely fail to make it onto the Guardian's most read list. And this week he is enraged by the notion of . The idea was brought to Brooker's attention by a ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ article. It is that advertisers, such as Weetabix, pay children to wear branded clothes or add online recommendations for the product. He says the idea is "so nakedly evil" that he's surprised it even exists.

A popular article from Abu Dhabi's the National finds the people who . The newspaper's Jeffrey Todd went down to a plate auction to witness Dh 30m (£5.2m) being spent on 81 car licence plates. These were the latest batch of car number plates released for auction by the governmentÌýin Abu Dhabi. As Todd puts it,ÌýoneÌýbidderÌýhe spoke to wasn't paying for gold or rare art but "a thin piece of aluminium bearing the number nine".ÌýHe says more than anywhere else in the world, "the number on the back of your car matters, indicating hierarchy, status and wealth". The fewer digits on a licence plate, the more valuable the plate. This, he says, portrays an elite status among Emiratis. But, Todd reports, people also buy plates as investments in "one of the more unusual commodity markets in the world".

Salon's readers are soaking up the cynicism in their article about the . It highlights a survey on the price of an age gap in dating from a website which allows men and women buy and sell first dates. It says a six month study of successfully brokered first dates shows a man 10 years older than a woman has to pay "13% more than the average to close every year of age gap."

Slate readers are catching up on a whodunit: . The article says ticket sales for 3D films are down, with three quarters of last year's 3D releases in the US losing money. Among the suspects are greedy cinemas for hiking up the prices of 3D films. But a finger is also pointed at "fake 3D". This is where, after filming, a layer is added to a normal film to make it appear 3D. The quality isn't as good, and the magazine suggests the word may have got around.

But 3D could take over from 2D in a different arena: airport security. That's because, as a popular New Scientist article reports, the . This has led to commercial sensors which record how each foot applies pressure to the ground, and how that pressure distribution changed as the person walked.

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Don't panic.

Reading the newspapers can sometimes feel like overdosing on panic and unease.

A daily diet of crime, spiralling prices and dangerous social decay can leave even those with the steadiest of nerves desperate for reassurance.

Reassurance that can be found in the self-same papers, if you're prepared to look.

The Daily Express has a full page .

"It belongs to the quiet tapestry of the British Sabbath like a lie-in and a roast dinner and while it may be no more engaging for some than the Sunday bus service, it is, like The Sky At Night and The Archers, part of the nation's broadcasting DNA."

If these cosy comparisons aren't enough to pacify you alone, the pictures of Thora Hird and Cliff Richard surely hit the mark.

And the Daily Telegraph offers the newspaper equivalent of valerian tea - a . Looking extraordinary well for 66, she is pictured taking part in a charity race just a month after announcing that she had won a battle against cancer.

In the unlikely event that your level of stress cannot be treated by these magical mollifiers, then a real panacea awaits.

Yes, it's wall-to-wall Downton Abbey coverage.

The Daily Mail has a massive blurb on the front alerting readers to on page three:

"We adore your funny ways, your asparagus forks, your white tie suppers and your amusing but conniving servants."

The Telegraph also gives series two of the ITV costume drama a spot near the masthead. Inside they have a piece trumpeting British televisual exports.

Ahhhhh, time to relax.

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