Paper Monitor
10:49 UK time, Friday, 29 June 2007
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
It's back. The yellow "pray for her" ribbon on the masthead of the Daily Mirror (paper's own emphasis).
The same eye-catching colour is repeated just below on a banner reading: "IT WAS THE SPICE REUNION. SUDDENLY, TWO MYSTERIOUS GLOBES APPEARED..." What could it possibly be? Anyone who caught sight of the Spice Girls photo call and press conference could hardly be in doubt.
In the words of the Times' inimitable Caitlin Moran, "Victoria Beckham's extreme tan and notable breasts make her torso resemble a chihuahua gravid with twins."
A chihuahua gravid? Unfamiliar with accessory dog breeds, Paper Monitor takes the unusual step of using its imagination to puzzle out the similarities... being a type of chihuahua, it must be fond of luxury handbags, be small and yappy, pampered in extremis and groomed to within an inch of its life. That's about nailed it, even without a search on Google Images that throws up a photo of Paris Hilton.
Meanwhile, having exhausted the mine of biog details on Gordon Brown yesterday, today the papers turn to his cabinet. Best headline effort? "THE ONLY LABOUR MP WITH A BUTLER." The Independent's effort has it all in one fun-sized packet. Concise. Confounds expectations. Covers all you need to know without having to read the accompanying profile. Job done.
But the picture of the day has to the one in the Daily Telegraph which illustrates the piece about Lady Chatterley's Lover and how archives show that its obscenity trial shook the government's faith in juries (all perfect Telegraph territory).
Three men sit in a row on a Tube carriage. The one in the middle reads the novel while the commuters of either side sneak peeks at the naughty bits. Paper Monitor cannot help but wonder... archive pic or posed by Telegraph staff on their way into work yesterday? The novel-reader wears a bowler hat - either/or. His fellow commuter wears old-style heavy-rimmed Two Ronnies-style specs - ditto. Ah! The clue that nails it - the dirty book is partially obscured with a copy of the Times. In broadsheet format.
The 
