±«Óãtv

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

1. Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister were written not only to entertain but to promote the idea that working for a unified public interest was a myth - as argued by Margaret Thatcher's favourite theorist, James Buchanan.

2. Mobile phones in large part have little effect on medical equipment, despite bans on their use in most hospitals.

3. Comic Relief has raised £425m since it started 21 years ago up until Friday's extravaganza.

4. Parting hair on the left is said to emphasise masculine traits as it draws attention to left-brain activities; similarly, parting on the right is said to emphasise feminine traits.

5. About 200 million light bulbs - of the common or garden incandescent tungsten filament variety - are sold each year in the UK; there are plans to phase these out by 2011.

6. The brief flowering of the cherry blossom tree is taken so seriously in Japan that forecasts are used to plan festivals, and travel agents use them to plan tours.

7. The woman who invented the modern incarnation of Mother's Day was so distressed by its commercialisation that she tried to copyright the date to protect her idea. She failed.

8. Four out of every 10 children are born out of wedlock.

9. To be found attractive, women should sway their hips and men their shoulders (although researchers call this a "shoulder swagger").

10. There are 1.3 billion £20 notes in circulation.

Sources, where not linked - 1: The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom? ±«Óãtv Two, 11 March. 3: ±«Óãtv Breakfast, 15 Mar. 4 - Times, 14 Mar. 8: C4's Unmarried Parent Scandal, 16 Mar. 10: The Guardian, 13 Mar.

Seen 10 things? . Thanks this week to Lester Mak.

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• - What's this?

Before the invention of the light bulb did cartoonists draw candles over heads to signify bright ideas?
Darren, Leicester

Re: the article on - it is bad enough finding a correctly punctuated card in the shops, but for the ±«Óãtv to be so sloppy about punctuation is a huge disappointment. It is a day for mothers and thus "mothers' day". Do editors do anything at the ±«Óãtv?
Ian, Southampton, UK
Monitor note: We politely draw your attention to the on Mother’s Day.

The section has an entry from Adrian with a picture of a seal. One question - is Culling his name or his job?
Keith Shepherd, Dartford

Re - I started to scan the other R.I.Ps when I noticed something. You claim that the Cadbury Flake Girl is deceased, yet, if I am not mistaken, has she not been recently resurrected? Is there a special procedure for such an occurrence, or do we just accept it? We did mourn its passing did we not... so should we not celebrate its return?
James, Stirling, Scotland

Jacob asks for a more useful measure of clouded leopards, said to "grow as large as small panthers" (Thursday letters). A panther - according to my dictionary - is another name for a leopard. So that means that the clouded leopard is a small leopard. No help I know, but fully within the Monitor's rules of pedantry.
Andrew, Malvern, UK

Jacob, a panther can grow between one to two meters, or about 3'4" to 6'7" in length. Putting this in more manageable terms, assuming the largest clouded leopard is equivalent to the smallest panther, about one meter, that gives us the length of a clouded leopard at 1/33 Blue Whales, or 1/126,000 Hadrian’s Walls.
Matt, Liverpool

Would Jacob accept "nearly the height of a Routemaster Bus tyre"?
Dickie, New York

How about 0.0000000000001 x Wales?
Rob, Birmingham

Jayne asks for light to be shed on the headline "some sex, an asthmatic donkey and a tribunal" (Thursday letters). It’s a package deal for hen and stag parties wishing to visit Blackpool. For a few pounds more they get a commemorative Asbo to take home too.
Bryan Poor, Oxford

Paper Monitor, I am distressed that you have seen fit to give us the papers' views on television, which lots of people do not choose to have. What is The Apprentice, I seem to remember some hoo-hah about it, but have never seen it. Nor have I ever seen The Office or Little Britain or Big Brother or any of the other programmes you drone on about endlessly. Humph.
Carol, Portugal

Dear the ±«Óãtv,
It has come to my attention that there are often pictures of attractive women next to an article on the main page. This is all very well, but frequently when I have manipulated my mouse into selecting said article, expecting to see a larger picture of the woman in question, there is none to be found. This is a bounder's trick. Please remedy post-haste.
Sincerely, Brigadier-General Smith-Smythe-Smith (retd)

Simon asked if the male and female anatomy is different at the back (Thursday letters). If he doubts it he should try watching Marilyn Monroe catching the train in Some Like it Hot.
Kip, Norwich, UK

I keep getting told that I look like Bill Oddie. How about other Monitor readers? (Photo can be supplied.)
Martin, Stevenage, UK

Chocolate mini-egg, anyone? I've got a tube full of them.
Sue, Borough, London
Monitor note: Yes, please!

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It's time to reveal the winning entries in the caption comp.

This week, "Bono" - or someone who looks an awful lot like him - pushes a street cleaning machine in Dublin. But what's being said?

Here are the winners:

6. Kip
Napoleon Bonocart.

5. Stella Alvarez
Naomi Campbell found the perfect disguise.

4. Angela Barlow
"Drop the debt? Not on my patch."

3. Simon Rooke
Problems of being a millionaire, no 5 - how to carry your broom.

2. Purby
The moment when Bono realises he HAS found what he's looking for, but has spent the morning looking in the wrong place.

1. Stusus, Alex, Gordon Tonker and Daniel Newland
Where the streets have no stain.

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The Magazine index today warmly welcomes a new weekly feature: Indexed.

Created by Jessica Hagy, and , Indexed offers a neat analysis of modern life, all incorporated into that underused medium of index cards, the type of which one would have found in the pre-computer school library.

Praise for Jessica in the blogosphere has been plentiful, including who said: "In a surprisingly insightful manner, these doodles on index cards poke fun at fashion, politics, television and every other area of culture and human nature." wrote: "Jessica uses charts, graphs and Venn diagrams to clarify her thinking. Then she shares her conclusions as 3x5 cards with visitors to her blog."

The Magazine is very happy to welcome Jessica and is sure everyone will be nice to her. Comments can be left here.

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A weekly guide to the words and names in the news from Martha Figueroa-Clark of the ±«Óãtv Pronunciation Unit.

The husband of a former curator of the Hermitage Museum (pronounced HUR-mit-ij or air-mit-AAZH - the latter being closer to the way it is pronounced in Russian) in St Petersburg has been sentenced to five years in jail by a court in Russia, after being convicted of stealing exhibits. Nikolai Zavadsky (nick-uh-LY zav-AT-ski (-y as in 'cry')) and his late wife, Larissa Zavadskaya (larr-EE-suh zav-AT-skuh-yuh), had carried out the thefts over a number of years.

The Russian name for St Petersburg is Sankt Peterburg and is pronounced SANKT pee-teer-BUURK (the final 'g' in 'burg' is devoiced so that it sounds more like a 'k'). The city has previously also been called Petrograd and more recently, during Soviet times, Leningrad. Both of these names have established anglicised pronunciations: PET-ruh-grad and LEN-ing-grad respectively but the pronunciations pit-ruh-GRAT and lin-in-GRAT are closer to the Russian pronunciations. (In both cases, the final consonant in 'grad' is devoiced, so that the 'd' sounds more like a 't'). The city is often informally referred to by Russian speakers as 'Piter', pronounced PEE-teer (where the 't' is a soft consonant, similar to the sound that some English speakers make at the beginning of the word 'tulip' or 'Tuesday').

In general, it can be a challenge to recommend satisfactory pronunciations for Russian words or names in English, since there are many sounds in Russian which do not have an equivalent in the English sound system. One example of this is the palatalized (or soft) and velarized (or hard) consonants which exist in Russian (as in the 'p' and the 't' in 'Piter' above, which are both soft). Although we are constrained by the English sound system, we do our best, when forming our recommendations, to do justice to the native pronunciation.

(For a guide to our phonetic pronunciations, click here.)

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

It's not often that Paper Monitor wishes it worked in TV, but watching Comic Relief Does The Apprentice is the exception.

Which genius hit on the idea of casting both Alastair Campbell and Piers Morgan - opposite sides of the same coin? Gold dust. As for dubbing theirs the "boys' team"? Watch those alpha males squirm. And which made for the most surreal piece of TV - Rupert Everett declaring he was uncomfortable in front of the cameras (yes, the Hollywood actor Rupert Everett) or fashion maven Trinny Woodall scuffling with Piers after the "boys" kidnapped her chef?

Needless to say, every telly reviewer worth his or her salt has something to say about the programme, which naturally leads Paper Monitor to the mighty Nancy Banks-Smith in the Guardian. Never has a phrase been so finely turned...

Here she is on the kidnapping: "Trinny clawed at Alastair's back with her pen, shrieking "This is my chef!" and dragged him off to her den. Coincidentally, he was called Daniel." Nancy, we are not worthy.

The Daily Telegraph's TV man also tuned in. Tickled by Sir Alan Sugar needling Alastair over the cash-for-honours affair, he's gagging for tonight's sacking. "Worth a few quid of anyone's tax-free donation."

But the Times' reviewer feels somewhat discombobulated by the celeb version of the "black comic fantasy about business".

"Last night seemed like a sitcom Christmas special that skews the original with celebrity cameos and a foreign setting."

Ah, but normal transmission will be resumed tonight when the boss is sure to stop smiling and resume his habitual expression of a man "who's just had a brick thrown through his front window", says the Times. Paper Monitor for one cannot wait to see who will win the inevitable staring contest as Sir Alan or Alastair - neither known for their tolerance of weakness - face off over the boardroom table. Tee-hee!

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Yesterday we asked how much experts say it cost Roman Abramovich to legally end his marriage, if the divorce settlement is costing him a reported £1bn. An impressive 64% of you correctly guessed it was £4, or 200 roubles. Today's mini-question is on the now.

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Blue Peter "cursed"? The tabloids have gone to town, as you might expect. Though I was a bit shocked to hear one commentator say the programme was cursed. They cited examples - one snorting white powder; one having appeared in a blue movie; and an elephant weeing in a live TV studio. Anyway, to call three or four incidents, spread over three or four decades, "cursed" is a bit much.
Lee, Peterlee

On my way into work this morning, I read the headline "some sex, an asthmatic donkey and a tribunal" over somebody's shoulder. Can Paper Monitor - or anyone else - shed some light on this story?
Jayne, London

Like many I suspect, I owe my level of sophistication as regards colour palettes to the names of Crayola crayons. As a 27-year-old I can easily identify burnt sienna (as mentioned in Tuesday's Paper Monitor), teal and even raw umber. Crayola moves with the times however, and I now find my younger family members colouring with "Inch Worm" and "Jazzberry Jam".
K Walker, Runcorn, UK

I notice that the article on the claims that the species "can grow as large as small panthers". Since panthers are not, in my part of the world at least, common household pets, I have little idea of what constitutes a small, or even a large panther. Could someone convert this measurement into something more useful and let me know?
Jacob, London

Regarding Martin from Stevenage and companies training skilled workers (Wednesday letters). Unfortunately in the modern day, neither companies or workers have the commitment to each other that they used to. Workers move on when trained, and companies have no loyalty to staff who are just a number.
Paul Harrison, Cambridge, England

PJ asks about how to tell men and women apart, by asking "front or back" (Wednesday letters). Do the sexes have different anatomy at the back then?
Simon, Embra

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

What a day for headlines! Not only are the punners off the subs' bench but the intro-exposition-finale specialists have been called in for duty to boot.

"BLUE CHEATERS!" shrieks the Daily Mail above its story of how the flagship ±«Óãtv children's show has been forced to apologise after faking a phone-in contest winner.

And on the adjacent page is this gem: "THE £100m TYCOON, HIS LOVER AND AN E-MAIL CALLING THEM 'A MAD DWARF AND A NYMPHO'." The Times runs the very similar, but no less arresting, "MILLIONAIRE AD MAN SUES FOR LIBEL OVER 'MAD DWARF AND NYMPHO SCHIZO' BLOG".

And the Guardian invokes the spirit of Are You Being Served? with its take on temporary cells to be set up on high streets and shopping malls: "GROUND FLOOR PERFUMERY, STATIONERY... AND CELLS".

Meanwhile, the Daily Express has its eyes firmly fixed on Dave Cameron's ever-changing hairline. No, it's not receding (yet... just look at what a stint in power has done to Tony Blair's own barnet) but after months of dressing to the right - that's hair parting, we're talking folks - he's now switched to the left. And last June, it was a centre parting! What does it all mean?

"No wonder so few of us can work out what he stands for," says the paper's opinion column.

And the Independent has a picture bound to warm the cockles of every lobby journalist's heart - Alastair Campbell in the stocks. What's not to like about that image?

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Yesterday we asked you to pick out which smile was Gordon Brown's, pre-cosmetic dentistry. It was a trick question and 34% of you guessed as much, clicking on the none-of-the-above option. The smiles in the pictures belonged to Dave Cameron, Tony Blair and George Bush. Today's mini-question is on the now.

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So are hard for companies to find.
Have they never heard of training? Its what used to happen in the old days when your staff needed to learn something relevant for their job.
Martin, Stevenage, UK

RE: Naomi's letter. The article doesn't say that women are vulnerable. It says that prison doesn't work for women who are vulnerable and not a danger to society. It's a far far more complex issue than equality, as the reasons women could become vulnerable are usually different to why men could.Equality is beyond just sameness.
Kat Taylor, London

Apparently, are making an apology this afternoon, regarding a phone-in competition. Presumably they are using an old washing up bottle and some sticky-backed plastic.
Rory, Sutton Coldfield

So premium-rate channel is to be "replaced by a new service, called ITV2+1". Will that be any different to ITV3, then?
Paul Taylor, Manchester, UK

Re: , 3000 years old? Hardly a boy!
Ralph, Cumbria

Re the new note, I think Winston Churchill should have been on it or there again Nelson.However at the end of the day the thing that matters is having a few in my pocket now and again no matter who's depicted.
Tim Mcmahon, Pennar, Wales

Re: Animals/robots owning property. Wasn't Springfield Nuclear power plant owned by a canary?
Rob, Sheffield, UK

Caroline, Rochester, asks "Male or female anatomy? Above or below the waist? I think we can probably work it out from there". I think I would also want to ask " front or back".
PJ, West Yorks

With reference to Caroline Mersey - just hold on with that male stereotypical attitude! I for one know the difference between burnt sienna and brown, and have a particular like for teal (that's the bluey-green colour not disimilar to the Magazine's header), and I also know what colour palette taupe and heliotrope belong to. For the uninitiated they're 'the average colour of a French mole' and 'vivid lavendar'. Personally, I think PM is probably the results of a freakish genetic experiment.
Martin, High Wycombe, UK

I fear Caroline may be right. As a guy I assumed that Paper Monitor's use of 'burnt sienna' was a reference to Sienna Miller on a beach somewhere.
Sean, Farnborough

PM, you're just upset because we ALL noticed when you had your makeover and we ALL commented. But we're still here, aren't we? We're still together?
Diane, Sutton

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It's time for Punorama results.

As ever, we gave you a story and you sent us punning headlines.

This week, it was the tale of robbers in Birmingham who threw thousands of pounds out of their getaway car after they realised they'd set off a security device in a stolen cashbox which covered the money in pink dye.

Realising they couldn't spend the cash without being traced they threw it out of the car window while speeding along a main route into the city. The box smashed open sending £20 notes flying into the air and provoking a stampede as passers-by scrambled around for the money.

So, how did you do? If frequency is an indicator of quality, then Dye-light robbery - sent in by Rob Falconer, Niall Nugent, Stella and Gareth Jones - is the pick of the week. A slight variation - Dye speed getaway - was suggested by Tim Knott.

We also applaud these offerings: Soaring Twenties from W Mobberley, In the clink from Mark Sheppard, Cash flew problem from Julie B and Lose pounds when you dye-it from J Bright.

Nicely done as well were Catch Twenty Too from Kate Lilley, Cash n' grab from Rob and Ryan W, alsoQuid pro glow sent in by Richard.

The Comic Relief inspired Red Notes Day from Helene Parry gets a special mention, but our personal favourite this week was When the red, red robbings come bob, bob bobbing along from Pix6. Bravo.

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Now that the government has committed the nation to saving the planet, it's a red letter day for the Independent. With what does the paper adorn its now-traditional poster front page to herald the news - a glowering, pollution-filled sky, perhaps? A polar bear clinging to a blood-stained - and shrinking - ice berg? A line-up of 4x4s blocking a Chelsea street?

No. In honour of the light dawning, the front page is tricked out with a blazing sun in a clear blue sky. (The doom-laden images are confined to pages two through six. No wait, page six's line-up of cars is a full page ad.)

It may be a red-letter day for the Indie, but what about the Daily Telegraph, which since last week has been experimenting with a new wardrobe as part of its sly redesign. Today it has opted again for a lovely leafy green - apt, given that it's launching Gardenwatch, with a cut-out-and-keep chart to record the first sightings of the traditional harbingers of spring. In these days of global warming, when is the sap not rising?

Meanwhile, the Daily Express stealthily moves on the is-Kate-the-new-Di? debate by plastering Ms Middleton across its own front page. She may have taken Diana's place as the paper's cover girl du jour, but that doesn't mean the Express has forgotten its first love.

"PRINCES' TRIBUTE TO DIANA" reads the headline on page three, under a story of how Wills and Kate lost money at the races (funny, all the other papers reckon they cleaned up big). Keen to make this year - as every year - one devoted to the late princess, the paper is getting in early with its coverage of the 10th anniversary of her death.

"Princes William and Harry are expected to give emotional readings at a memorial service," it says, before later quoting a royal aide as saying: "It is too early to say who will give all the readings and the address."

Well, that clears that up then. Watch out for next week's exclusive on Elton John to reprise his Candle In The Wind tribute at the service. Maybe.

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Yesterday we asked who, other than the Queen, appeared on the £20 note prior to Elgar, who is to be replaced by politicial economist Adam Smith. It's the scientist Michael Faraday, which 43% of you got right. One-third said Dickens and the remainder said Shakespeare. Today's mini-question is on the now.

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Seriously, am I dreaming? Why are women "" any more than men are - have I time travelled back to the 1950's? Is Life on Mars a reality? (I know it's set in the 70's, but you get my drift!) Men and Women that commit crimes and are found guilty should surely be treated the same in this day and age. What happened to equality - it doesn't only apply when women do well out of it you know!
Naomi Perilli, Sussex

In your article banned at Fame Academy" it says: "All non-essential items are banned from the studio areas to protect the building." So, that's another series over then?
Ed, Clacton, UK

Great news that will now appear on the new £20 note instead of Edward Elgar. Just one small thing... who exactly is he?
Susan , Hertford

Does anyone else think that new looks suspiciously Euro-esque? I'm sure there's a conspiracy theory in there somewhere...
Neko, Luton, UK

Re: animals/robots owning property, there is a precedent - nearly. Dogs, cats and various other pets can have a savings account open in their name, albeit operated by a human trustee. Is this close enough, one wonders, to fit "I can't think off the top of my head of any animals that own property" as asked by Martin from Bristol?
Matt White, Bingley

In answer to the query about animals/robots owning property. I have conducted extensive experiments with my lurcher Barney, and find that it is much easier to remove a ball from the grasp of a robot dog. I am willing to demonstrate this in any court proceedings which may require precedent.
K Walker, Runcorn, UK

Regarding the answer to the Make Your Play question - I STILL DON'T GET IT. Now I have a worse headache than I woke up with. Why are some numbers not visible? Why only pick these and not others? Why on earth do I care?
Hazel Love, Hove, UK

Tut, tut Paper Monitor, surely you know better than to assume the Telegraph publishes all the letters it receives? Just as this lettering, questioning your intelligence, will get lost under "editorial control", all of the letters sent to Telegraph about the redesign have been negative and they are studiously ignoring them!
Ben Hill, Cardiff, Wales

I think I have solved the mystery of Paper Monitor's gender. She must be female. Only a woman would use such evocative language for the Telegraph's new colour palette. To a man, periwinkle would be merely blue and burnt sienna would just be brown.
Caroline Mersey, Belfast, UK

Being a lifelong "Suvvener", I'd like to ask David from Ayr two questions about fud. Male or female anatomy? Above or below the waist? I think we can probably work it out from there.
Caroline, Rochester, UK

Oooooh. Isn't Christian Cook brave? Or perhaps he's just gambling that the Caption Competition technical advisory board aren't the same team with access to the "delete letters unread" filter. Incidentally, am I still on that?
Ed, Clacton, UK

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Love is blind, that's the conclusion Paper Monitor has reached when it comes to the Daily Telegraph's redesign by stealth. Its devoted readership still don't seem to have noticed, if the letters to the editor are anything to go by. Business rates, botox, even Admiral Byng have prompted people to write in, but not the paper's exciting new colour palette.

Today it's sporting a glorious burnt sienna, so beautiful it brings tears to the eyes. But if love is blind, why can Paper Monitor see these changes? After all, it isn't some childish crush when it come to this webpage and that broadsheet - it's the real thing (unrequited counts, so there). Could it be that love is a many coloured thing for Paper Monitor? Who knows, but it's worrying.

Even more worrying is what this keen sense of colour is also drawing Paper Monitor's eye to - Gordon Brown as the Incredible Hulk. The Daily Mirror has superimposed the chancellor's head on the hulk's green, rippling torso.

The paper has done it to illustrate the battle between Labour and the Tories over environmental issues, but the result is disturbing enough to send most people's faces a similar shade of green. Tory leader David Cameron pictured as a leprechaun is far easier to digest.

Another riot of colour in the papers is Liz Hurley's Hindu wedding. It looks like a pink and gold explosion in a paint factory and an expensive one at that, if the estimates for Liz's pink, diamond-encrusted sari and Arun's gold, embroidered silk sherwani are correct.

But is there a sniff of scandal? All that money and still Arun didn't wear any shoes, says the eagle-eyed Daily Mail. But it helpfully informs us this is what decorum demands at a Hindu wedding, just in time to stop us throwing down the paper in disgust. There was one bargain however - the henna tattoos on Liz's hands cost just a fiver. Cheapskate!

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Monday's Daily Mini-Quiz set a question that had originally appeard on ITV's Make Your Play (with a £30,000 prize) which no one had managed to answer correctly.

"Add the pence - two pounds, 25p, £1.47, 16p, fifty pence". Just 8% of our respondents got ITV's official answer 506. But since the broadcaster had offered no explanation of how it got to the sum we asked readers to come up with suggestions.

Thanks to all those who sent in explanations, including:

Mike Rochford, Hull - "Interestingly, if you divide the prize money of £30,000 by the answer which appears to be the correct one: 438 you get 68, and if you add those two figures together it equals the answer they claim: 506."

Robert L James, who embarked on a route that required weighing the pennies (see below for a full explanation)

Dr. Mike Goldfinch, who thought "the solution is to interpret p as new pence and the word pence as old pence", and

Ian Brennan, who put it all down to a colour order of some sort.

Congratulations to James Cofone, Paul Appleby, Chris Appleyard, Dr. Tom Brownlee and Chris Blocksidge of Stuttgart - "We have these quizshows in Germany too" - who were among those thinking along the same lines as ITV - the channel did, on Monday, release an explanation.

James Cofone explains it thus:

Ok first add everything. £2 + 25p + £1.47 + 16 + 50 = 438.

Now add the other sums which are visible. 5p (from the 25p) + 47p (from £1.47) + 7p (again from £1.47) + 6p = 65p

Therefore 438 + 65 = 503.

Now add the 'p' from 25p and 16p and also the 'pence' from 50 pence giving an extra 3p.

Therefore 503 + 3 = 506p.

"But that’s ever so slightly cheeky. I think a better question is 'how do they get away with this?'," says James.

Meanwhile, here is Robert L Jame's alternative theory:

Add together the amounts of actual money:

25p + £1.47 + 16p + fifty pence = 228p

Now, suppose the 'two pounds' is two pounds weight of pennies.

New pennies weigh 3.56g when minted
(source).

Two pounds in grams is 907.18474 (source Google conversions)

907.18474/3.56 = 255 (rounded up to nearest whole coin).

228 + 255 = 483

which is close to 506 (-23).

If the count of pennies in two pounds was done empirically by weighing pennies on a scale, then the fact that many of them could have been worn, thus reducing their weight, and the scale may not have been accurately calibrated, might account for the discrepancy.

It is an approximate 10% margin of error which may, or may not, be considered reasonable.
(It's also possible that somebody couldn't count - and it wasn't in their interest to use somebody who could).

In light of the margin for error, I'd be happy to settle for 90% of the original prize money.

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I'm sure that there are slang words which are very rude in the South East but which are meaningless elsewhere. I'm willing to bet that you never use them online for fear of offending swathes of readers. Imagine my delight (and the horror of others) to see a headline - on the front page, no less - titled about new acronyms for the 21st Century. I shall not give the definition here, but in Scotland, "fud" is a very rude word indeed.
David, Ayr

Re: the very EASY . Getting the answer of 506 is simple. All you do if convert all the number to pence (eg £1.47 becomes 147p), add them all together to make 438p, and then the obvious bit, turn them into Ghana pence using the exchange rate as it was in August 1972. How did nobody spot that?
Johnny Lyttle, Leeds, UK

I was surprised that The Mystery of Edwin Drood wasn't among the . Even Charles Dickens couldn't be bothered to finish that and he wrote it.
MJ, Ingatestone

The only book I ever gave up reading was War and Peace. Happily, thanks to your recent article which pitted a , I don't need to bother.
Jacob, London

Re - can we have a little more background on this fascinating story, please? How did he get himself into such a pickle?
Ian, Marseille, France

"[S]hould robots be allowed to marry humans? Should they be allowed to own property? These questions might sound far-fetched, but debates over animal rights would have seemed equally far-fetched to many people just a few decades ago" (). I can't think off the top of my head of any animals that own property, and although there have been cases of humans marrying animals, I think even animal rights activists might have a few issues with this.
Martin, Bristol

Hang on, the Telegraph wearing blue? Who would have thought it?
Andrew Lawrence, Sheffield, UK

On , did anyone else try and match up them to characters in Lost?
Chris, London

Surely the caption for this week should have been: "±«Óãtv publishes exclusive photo of the Caption Competition technical advisory board."
Christian Cook, Epsom, UK

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It's time - finally - for the winning entries in the caption comp.

As City gents sport red noses along with their rolled-up umbrellas, Daily Telegraphs and bowler hats in aid of Comic Relief, what's being said?

1. Malcolm
Man flu strikes in the City.

2. Graz
The 2007 Renee Magritte fan club outing.

3. Lee
The Thomas Clown Affair.

4. Gordon Brown
The Bullingdon Dining Club 20 years on.

5. Dave Green
"A sneaky pint at lunchtime is all well and good, but will the boss notice?"

6. Hawko
Wall St sneezes and the City catches a cold.

Thanks to all who entered - and no thanks at all to Technical Gremlins, the parasitic creatures who ate all attempts to process these results in a more timely manner.

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On Friday we asked for every man, woman and child, how much do Britons spend a year on premium rate phone services, such as those now suspended by TV companies. It's £20 a head each year - which 32% of you correctly answered - the market is the biggest in the world. Another 47% said £10 and the rest said £1. Today's mini brain-tickler is on the now.

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Paper Monitor was uncharacteristically forced to stand for much of its journey to work today, and, to add insult to injury, the newsagent had run out of all but the Daily Star and a dog-eared copy of the Mail on Sunday.

Much as Paper Monitor loves you, it could not quite bring itself to unleash a few coppers for either offering, so instead brings you an instalment of that occasional feature, headlines-glimpsed-over-shoulders.

SO WHAT DOES THIS EX-MISS UK SEE IN £500m STELIOS? - Daily Mail (no, wait, don't tell us...)
MAGPIE MENACE: YOU MIGHT SALUTE HIM FOR LUCK - BUT THE JAUNTY MAGPIE IS A SAVAGE PREDATOR SLAUGHTERING OUR SONGBIRDS - can you guess? It's the Mail again
LADY MACCA IN A MINK: PICTURES ANTI-FUR HEATHER DIDN'T WANT WORLD TO SEE - Daily Mirror with a headline that paints a thousand words
THE GREAT UNREAD: DBC PIERRE, HARRY POTTER... OH YES, AND DAVID BLUNKETT - the Guardian on the books most often left unfinished

Ha! What tickles Paper Monitor is that it was the Guardian which serialised Blunkett's interminable diaries last year. And today's verdict of its digested read? "Not even the publisher can have got to the end of this." Money for old rope then (to get the serialisation rights).

The Mail also has a picture of David Cameron wearing ethical trainers while planting trees for a green action day. These are as box-fresh and unblemished as his "favourite" Converse trainers habitually worn on dress-down photo op days.

Speaking of new outfits, Paper Monitor notes that today the Daily Telegraph is tricked out in a most flattering periwinkle blue that brings out its eyes, and offsets its tomato red highlights very nicely. Lovely. (Still no letters to the editor on its new look though...)

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