Paper Monitor
10:50 UK time, Tuesday, 2 December 2008
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
It's a bit of a coup, but the Times is determined not to show off too much about its interview with Victoria Beckham. She's a fashion designer now, don't you know, and is launching a range of "fifties-inspired dresses".
Fashion editor Lisa Armstrong tries to maintain an air of cynicism about Posh's latest re-invention, but anyone expecting a tough, probing interview has their expectations dashes from the off. Within minutes she is offering to postpone an interview that took her 10 months to arrange because Victoria is tired.
After that the most interesting revelations are as follows: Victoria doesn't think she is a very good singer, she can't draw so isn't the one who sketches her designs and was so nervous before her collection was launched at the Waldorf recently that she drank "loads and loads of water".
But being a fashion designer really is her true vocation dear reader because she's "always liked dresses". So that's what it takes to succeed in the industry. Well, that and the power of visualisation. Apparently she and David go to bed and visualise what they want from life - for him a goal and for her a killer outfit to wear the next day. So watch this space tomorrow as Paper Monitor is going to go to bed tonight and visualise the perfect article. Pulitzer Prize here we come.
Another day closer to communal living for the Daily Mail and the Independent. No signs of either morphing into the other just yet. News of reforms to the benefit system get their usual treatment from each camp. One talks of "benefit mothers" being "forced" to work, while the other talks of "most people on benefits" having to take steps to prepare themselves to "join the labour market". You figure out which version appears in which paper.
But thank heavens the Daily Mail is still its reliable old self. It has a story about a new manifesto drawn up by the Girl Guides. One of its 10 pledges is stopping the airbrushing of models in magazines. Cue a full-length picture of model Rachel Hunter in skimpy underwear, just to illustrate the point of course.
The 
