³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

In today's Ig Nobel honours ponytail physics there is a remarkably brief note that the Chemistry Price has gone to Johan Pettersson for: "solving the puzzle of why, in certain houses in the town of Anderslov, Sweden, people's hair turned green". Green hair! How is this not the lead story? I quickly had to look up the answer via Google (other search engines are available). Incidentally I guess correctly; copper pipes.
Howard Gees, Nottingham

Re. Paper Monitor's account of the woman claiming to be Jack SparrowIf only she'd managed to wait until Sept 19th, she might have had some credibility.
AH-HARRRRRRRR ME HEARTIES!
Fi, Gloucestershire, UK

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

1. The average Mexican eats 430 eggs each year, the highest per capita amount of any nation.

2. Environment Secretary Owen Paterson has had two pet badgers.

3. East London schoolgirls in the 1940s did the Mobot and Usain Bolt's lightning bolt poses.
More details (Mirror)

4. The oldest dental filling has been found in a Stone Age tooth.

5. There are more references to the "right to vote" than "the right to keep or bear arms" in the US Constitution.

6. Decorative webs help spiders attract their food.
More details

7. Michael Jackson recorded an anti-abortion song.

8. Ed Sheeran is the most pirated artist in the UK.

9. Cod get more fertile as they get older.

10. China's fertility would have declined at a similar rate without the one-child policy and would continue to decline even if the policy was discarded.
More details

Seen a thing? Tell using the hashtag #thingIdidntknowlastweek

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Winning entries in the Caption Competition.

The competition is now closed.

This week, it's the Annual Harrogate Autumn Flower Show.

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

6. BaldoBingham:
We're gonna need a bigger gravy boat.

5. ash:
Marrow me?

4. beachcred:
Five-a-day is a tough call for citizens of Harrogate.

3. JimmyG:
"Gulliver! It's for you!"

2. CindyAccidentally:
Veggie might.

1. Lelystad:
Oh. My. Gourd.

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Today's Paper Monitor is all about celebrating quotes - the things that people say, the icing on the story cake, the gem a journalist instantly knows is gold dust.

So, a woman shouts out "I'm Jack Sparrow" - but this woman is slightly worse for wear and about to do something completely unadvisable. In a boat. Here's The Sun's headline: ". It does what it says on the tin.

Alison Watson, who had been on a Lambrini binge, was heard shouting "I'm Jack Sparrow" and "I'm a pirate" as she made her escape on a double-decker ferry, according to the newspaper. She reportedly claimed she "would have ended up in St Tropez" if she hadn't been caught. And here are just four words that conjure up the image of what happened next on that fateful day in Dartmouth Devon. According to one witness, the ferry began hitting other vessels "like a pinball machine".

Over to the Daily Mail, and it's the story about at a swimming pond in Hampstead Heath, London.

Here's a swimmer who, from his quotes, appears to have got off lightly:

"I've had a couple of nips on my toes in the past few months, usually when I stop for a rest and tread water. But some people have been nipped in altogether more sensitive places, which doesn't bear thinking about."

Indeed, it doesn't. And here's something else that doesn't bear thinking about - people swim there naked. A spokesman for the City of London Corporation advises swimmers to "wear clothes". Sound advice.

By the way, in The Daily Telegraph suggests that the solution to the menace might not lie "in armour-plated swimming costumes but in our stomachs":

"Crayfish may be the natural, free, nutritious successor to the oyster. We must eat them -before they eat us."

Paper Monitor will now leave you with this quote from original It Girl Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, who with the Daily Mail with a cracker (first rule of feature writing, get the best quotes up top).

Speaking about her west London roof terrace, she says:

"I've got two guitars and a whole recording studio up here. In the evening people come round and sit about making music. Then I do a headstand and, as soon as you've gone, bounce off the walls and have a good laugh."

Don't try this in the office.

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John Marsh (Tuesday's letters), the unnamed gap remains unnamed because no-one ever admits to being in it.
Jimmy, Milton Keynes

Kate (Wednesday's letters) Wolf-Peter Funk is a great name, but I raise you the historian Turtle Bunbury which I think takes the prize.
Jo Penn, Lichfield

One of my daughter's friends at school had the surname of "Pigg". Her first name was the place where her parents honeymooned, the Isle of Iona. So the girl carried the handle of Iona Pigg.
Tim McMahon, Martos/Spain

If you consider this story to be about HTC's full commitment to a risky business gamble, then there's some great nominative whatsamafizzle (and a challenger to Wolf-Peter Funk as best name ever) partway down.
Ian, Bristol

³ÉÈËÂÛ̳, why do you keep using the term "male nurse"? A nurse is a nurse, and when his name is Barry, it's pretty clear what sex he is.
Rob, Birmingham, UK

Jo K, London (Wednesday's letters), I suspect it shocked father kitty even more!
Jo L, London

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

"FUNNIEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR"

So shouts the front page of the Daily Express.

With a billing like that, how can it fail to be anything other than laugh-out-loud hilarious. What is it people say nowadays - LOLH, is it?

The photo in question is of a , each at individual patio tables next to their van. With proper cutlery, plates and chequered tablecloths. And a cheeky glass of vino. And orange hazard cones.

A charmingly incongruous photo to be sure. But your humble columnist did not LOLH.

This may be down to the late-running of one's morning coffee, but Paper Monitor suspects it is because any joke prefaced with "THE FUNNIEST ______ OF THE YEAR" arrives with heavy baggage attached. This is a shame, because the accompanying article on page three is a delight.

Headlined "It's coq au van for gourmet gang", it explains how the "labourers who lunch" have a cooking rota, a playlist so they can listen to jazz or classical music while dining, and their signature dishes.

• "I usually like to cook fresh fish," says Bob, 58.
• "Mine is chorizo pesto pasta with rocket salad and parmesan shavings," says Matt, 49.

And there is even a homily for those whose lunch break tends to be a deskwich:

"I've been working for BT for 20 years and we've always taken turns to cook. We don't get paid for our lunch break so we might as well enjoy ourselves and take time over it," says Matt.

The trio may like the Magazine's recent feature on making lunch breaks compulsory.

Right. Who here in Magazine Towers can cook - and who packed the wine glasses in the move to New Broadcasting House?

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I don't care if it's nominative determinism or not, but Wolf-Peter Funk has to be one of the best names ever.
Kate, York

A matchmaking website run by... Mr Date.
Basil Long, Nottingham

I bet I'm not the only one who wanted to see some actual seizing footage, or at least a blurry photo, not just a picture of some rather passive snails and a blue biro.
Vicky S, East London Reclaims Westfield!

Apparently, witnesses to this event were unable to comment accurately on what they'd seen. "It all just happened so slowly," said one.
Sue, London

This is one shocked mother kitty.
Jo K, London

Quote of the day: Foreplay is basically hanging your clothes up properly - I wonder how many male readers were nodding sagely before they realised Downton Abbey star Allen Leech was referring to a much earlier period in British history
Rob Falconer, Llandough, Wales

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Paper Monitor likes it when multiple news outlets basically all decide at once to run variations on the same feature.

And so it is today, in the wake of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ newsreader Fiona Bruce's admission that she dyes her hair because she believes television cannot tolerate grey follicles on older women.

The Daily Telegraph contrasts a montage of ladies in the public eye who are "sticking to colour" - Anne Robinson, Esther Rantzen, Joanna Lumley - with a selection of what the paper terms "silver foxes" - Kate Adie, Dame Judi Dench, Anna Ford.

Below, writer Linda Kelsey and then, after six months, reverted to the bottle. "What I learnt was that as a fake brunette I feel, if not exactly younger, certainly more youthful," she says.

The Daily Express takes a similar tack - although it's keen to invite male readers to the party.

"What's wrong with going grey?" above cheerful-looking photos of Ford, Julie Walters, George Clooney and Tom Jones.

By contrast, the Daily Mail's angle is

The main body of the text is an article by former Countryfile presenter Miriam O'Reilly, who successfully sued the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ for age discrimination, about television's hostility to visible signs of ageing among women.

But the focus of the piece is a series of photos in which popular female presenters such as Nigella Lawson, Carol Vorderman, Sarah Beeney and, of course, Bruce herself are photoshopped to give them silver manes.

Some might say that was an example of having one's cake and eating it. However, Paper Monitor values the experience the Mail has gained during its long history of publishing articles about female body image.

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On average, then, "youth" ends at around 40 and "middle age" starts at around 54. That seems to leave a large unnamed gap. "Post youth" perhaps?
John Marsh, Washington DC, USA

Re Michelle (Monday letters): Proud - mine were bought last month and wrapped last week. Admittedly, I have no tree under which to store them.

RG, Watford, Herts

Michelle - ashamed.
Ed, Wakefield

Michelle, the shops are stocked full of "festive" merchandise in the UK a friend tells me. They bought some mince pies in a well-known supermarket and on looking at the expiry date it read "Best before December 12th 2012".
Tim McMahon, Martos/Spain

With regard to this story, which is linked as "Illegal rat meat 'sold to public'" I wasn't aware that it was possible to purchase legal rat meat. If not the public who is the illegal rat meat normally sold to?
Robert, Glos, UK

Prowling ninjas in a cinema? I think I'd prefer someone answering their phone to the sight of Lycra-clad warriors distracting me from the film.
Rob Falconer, Llandough, Wales

A five-year ban on entering toilets and changing rooms for women? I always thought we as men had a lifetime ban on entering those places, not just for five years.
Johan van Slooten, Urk, The Netherlands

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Paper Monitor realises that we are all expected to work later and later in life than previous generations. Perhaps that's why this morning's papers seem preoccupied with those who have broken records in their twilight years.

The Times carries the story of 81-year-old Joyce Pugh, who has been named the after 41 years in the job.

Mrs Pugh is apparently paid the princely sum of £3.60 a week to deliver 20 copies of the Shropshire Star in her village, although it would appear she is not motivated by remuneration. "It's good exercise," she says.

A somewhat less wholesome story is in the Guardian, which sends feminist Julie Bindel to meet- a pair of 70-year-old identical twins.

Louise and Martine Fokkens have 100 years of professional experience between them. Theirs is a depressing tale - the pair, from a middle-class background, were drawn into the sex industry because of Louise's abusive husband. Neither have been left with much money.

However, it's notable that they talk about their line of work as though there were a golden age of prostitution. "There are few Dutch women and no sense of community these days," says Louise. "There is no point working just for tax."

Another sad, though not tragic, story, concerns Tarbu who, at 55, died the world's oldest parrot.

According to Oliver Pritchett of the Daily Telegraph, his owner Nina Morgan "put his longevity down to a digestive biscuit for breakfast and a regular supply of Kit Kats".

Mr Pritchett continues:

The charming thing about Tarbu is that his last word to Mrs Morgan, on the night before his death, was "Cheerio." That is such a nice old-fashioned word and so suitable to his age. It suggests some debonair chap climbing into his sports car and driving away. It's the sort of slightly out-dated vocabulary you would expect of a parrot.

Paper Monitor silently raises a custard cream by way of tribute.

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Richard III no doubt wanted to end the conflict over the right to rule England. His nephews were possibly illegitimate in two ways - because of Edward IV's extant betrothal to someone else when he married Elizabeth Woodville, and rumours about Edward's own parentage. Richard saw himself as the only remaining undoubted son of Richard, Duke of York, and could have decided to eliminate the princes in a horribly misguided attempt to end competing claims and further bloodshed. Richard III was supported by many of his brother's adherents up to the point where the princes disappeared, after which the support rapidly began to dwindle. He wasn't as evil as the Tudor myth claims, or as wonderful as the Richard III Society might like to believe; somewhere in between?
C A Buckley, Dudley

I remember being ridiculed by the police for taking a book into Derby's Baseball Ground! If you were a football fan, you obviously didn't have a brain, and that was the way you were treated. I'm not trying to pretend trouble never happened, but the mind-set of the police helped to make the problem worse some times, never more so than at Hillsborough in 1989. It has always been my favourite away ground, but I do remember being there when Coventry played Sheffield Wednesday in the 1987 quarter final, when you did regard the crowd congestion as part of the experience (if not necessarily the "fun"). Personally, I've always found Liverpool fans to be the best to be around at grounds, so it's always seemed tragically ironic that they have been at the centre of the two worst football related incidents. It is, at least, something that there is now recognition that their football fans were innocent of their own deaths.
Neil, Coventry

What always appalled me was how little the police, the FA and football clubs actually spoke to each other about a common and long-term solution. I know it's not on the same scale, but I help run a festival here in Hastings and we couldn't possibly manage without significant and constant discussions & meeting with the council, police, fire brigade, ambulance service, licensing authority, ect ect ... communication is essential.
Fee Lock, Hastings, East Sussex

Talking of Christmas coming early - in a fit of previously unknown efficiency, I actually bought all my Christmas presents last Wednesday lunchtime. Even wrapping paper and cards. I'm not sure whether to be proud or ashamed.
Michelle, London

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Paper Monitor is delivering this column with a spring in its vocal step - lifting its voice to new youthful heights.

Paper Monitor is not of a mind to try plastic surgery. Instead, Paper Monitor is striving naturally to achieve something that many keen to turn back the clock are happy to fork out up to £6000 to achieve - a voice lift.

This is the report in the Daily Mail that says are becoming more popular with business people who think their authority is eroded as their voice ages. The newspaper explains.

Our vocal cords need to be pliable to vibrate thousands of times a minute, producing the puffs of air that help us form sounds. But, like other parts of the body, they age, becoming thinner, and so do not close properly, which affects the voice.

Now, Paper Monitor doesn't recall Marlon Brando's Don Vito Corleone having difficulty commanding respect with his husky voice.

The Mail's adjacent story is enough to make the voices of many parents rise to a shrill note of horror. While businessmen want to make themselves appear younger, the youngsters want to appear more grown up - according to model Liz Hurley, that is.

Next to a picture of a child modelling Hurley's "Mini Cha Cha Bikini" the headline screeches: "Should you really dress little girls in leopard-skin bikinis, Liz?"

Hurley is accused of .

A £47 lilac 'Collette Bikini' for the 8-13 age range, the top of which is held together at the front by a gold ring, is described as being "great for girls who want to look grown up".

But it's the name of the mini outfit that Paper Monitor is intrigued by - isn't a Cha Cha a dance of Cuban origin?

How on earth can one perform complicated, energetic dance moves in an itsy bitsy bikini?

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