±«Óãtv

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

1. Holding your hands up on a rollercoaster stretches the torso, enhancing the physical sensations.

2. We got Vikings wrong - new research at Cambridge University concludes they were more traders than raiders, who worked hard to settle into new societies as good immigrants.

3. Monkeys floss.

4. And ducks can be gay.

5. 'YR' was an abbreviation for "your" in the 17th and 18th Century too.

6. On 11 September 2001, WTC workers took an average of five to eight minutes to leave their desks - finishing e-mails, filing papers, and some went to the toilet.

7. And in 1985's Manchester Airport crash, some passengers stopped to take luggage out of the overhead bins as the plane burned on the runway.

8. A "sonic brand trigger" is ad-land's term for aural branding - such as BA's opera music or Intel's short string of beeps - used instead of jingles.

9. Electronic cigarettes exist. .

10. Biggest first date faux pas? Clicking your fingers at the waiter.

Seen 10 things? . Thanks to Cate Mackenzie for this week's picture of 10 pedalos on Lake Lugano, Switzerland.

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OMG. Just got out of the swimming pool and caught a glimpse of myself (re Paper Monitor). I am expecting twins, it seems. Erm.... but I am male.
The Therapist, Portsmouth, UK

In regards to Zoe Williams' rather unconventional pregnancy test (Paper Monitor), would anyone else be hysterical if they discovered they were pregnant at the gym? And why would you look in the mirror anyway? Everyone knows that they are designed to make you look heavier than you really are... ah, that's why I quit the evil place.
Robyn, Cheshire

I see . He once sang about a message in a bottle, and I can't help being reminded of the Monty Python sketch: "This is a bottle with a message in it, and the message is 'Beware! This is not a wine for drinking; this is a wine for laying down and avoiding.'"
Tom Meiklejohn, Bradford, UK

There's another Aine (Wednesday letters)! We're a rare breed in this country *waves*.
Aine, London

Years of reading the Monitor now allows me to recycle all that useless knowledge in best green traditions. Andrew Stacey (Thursday letters), it's l'esprit d'escalier - stairway wit (). Thank you Magazine Monitor.
Joel Horne, Tokyo, Japan

I GOT 7 OUT OF 7 ON THE !!!!!!! And on the first attempt as well.
Basil Long, Nottingham

Deep joy! My first perfect score in the 7 days quiz. Now where do I go to get my rosette for Best in Show? Woof!
Muppet, Mannheim, Germany

Re Thursday's letters: "Monitor Note: You and many others, mate". The use of the word "mate" finally ends the debate. The Monitor is male - and not only that, he's a "bloke".
Tom Webb, Epsom, UK
Monitor note: That would be telling, petal.

Mike from Newcastle wants a loan for a P reg Astra (Thursday's letters). I'll chip in on condition that I get a huge bonus for "managing risk successfully", equivalent to 7,000 times what I lend to Mike. Seems fair enough. Bankers do it...
Mark, Reading, UK

Like what is in this magazine of yours?
Kim, New York City

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Winning entries in the caption competition.

The competition is now closed.

This week, a schoolgirl mucks out the giraffe house as London Zoo offers local pupils a chance to be a keeper for a day. But what's being said?

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

6. Woundedpride
"Could you keep the noise down, young lady? The string quartet can't hear themselves practice in here."

5. haveronjones
Girl: "Is this the way to the Scottish Ladies Curling trials?"

4. SeanieSmith
"Errr... I don't like to complain, but about this tiger flap in the door..."

3. Bazzoh
Gertrude's attempt to scare the new young zoo keeper by reenacting the famous scene from The Shining didn't work so well.

2. Stellsie
Although a little early, the giant advent calendar trial run was going well.

1. SimonRooke
"I used to be at Longleat, but you eat just one windscreen wiper blade and it's six months solitary."

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

The cheaper the pricetag, the bigger the lettering. This marketing adage holds true for the papers and then some.

The Daily Star bedecks its masthead with a vast, yellow 20p the likes of which has not been seen since one's local Woolworths gasped its last. It's even bigger than the font size used for the name of the paper.

And, since the last time one noticed - admittedly, a while ago - its added the cheeky tagline "This paper costs just 20p - 10p cheaper than the Sun... why pay more for less?"

Turning to the Sun, it is indeed 30p. Still visible, thanks to spot-colour of blue numerals on a yellow background, but definitely more discreet than the Star's effort.

The Daily Mirror is sober in comparison, with a simple, black 45p nestled beneath its masthead.

And so it goes, the font size gradually getting smaller and thinner the more each paper costs. So much so the Independent's £1 pricetag is so subtle as to almost disappear.

Meanwhile, the Guardian - £0.90, in white on blue - reprints the photo of the Palin family lined up on stage at the Republican convention last year (detail reprinted right) with the following headline: "Remember this heartwarming scene in Minnesota? Guess what happened next..."

Gosh, what? The whole story is told in the subheads.

"Palin daughter breaks up with her child's father. Teenager 'doesn't want baby around white trash'."

Sniff, young love turned sour. So was it Bristol Palin or her estwhile fiance Levi Johnston who made this jab at the other, for "teenager" applies to both.

Reading on, it appears to be Bristol who regards the Johnston family as white trash, according to Levi's sister. In retaliation, the young mum issues a statement accusing the father of her child of trying to "cash in on the Palin name". Perhaps forgetting that she was already five months pregnant when the Palin name suddenly burst on to the global scene.

Continuing the theme, the Guardian - never one to hide its writers under a bushel - loudly proclaims on its front page that one of its columnists is expecting her second child. "Oops, I did it again! The day Zoe Williams discovered that she was 20 weeks pregnant."

That's about as pregnant as Bristol was during the Republican convention (see photo above). Inside, Williams - congratuations, by the way - reveals that she only twigged when she saw herself sideways in the mirror at the gym.

You can never be too careful, Paper Monitor finds. Seeing oneself during a workout is never a good idea.

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The cultish American cop show The Wire is finally coming to terrestrial TV.

It's one of a long line of TV shows that have made the journey from relative obscurity to mainstream recognition. One of the key "vectors", as a medical type might say, is the word-of-mouth spread that is possible in larger workplaces.

Here we have the Office Evangelist, the figure in the office, factory, shop, building site, or other workplace, whose job it is to persuade their workmates to watch a new show and so lift it from obscurity. They may have chanced upon the first episode or bought a boxed set on a whim.

Their espousal of the new show spreads through their friendship, commendatory conversations happen by the watercooler, and DVDs are circulated.

The Wire started out on Fx, a channel unavailable except to those with satellite and cable. But in other cases programmes have started out on unvaunted late-night slots on mainstream channels, like Peep Show, before eventually leaping into the national televisual consciousness.

Either way it's time for the Office Evangelist to have their say.

Send us examples of the ways you persuaded your workmates to watch and what once obscure goggle-box classics you led them to.

Perhaps you could tell us about how annoyed you get by people going on about programmes you can't actually watch, or how it feels to be unable to talk about a show because no-one you know has actually watched it yet.

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See the Quote of the Day every morning on the .

"Drinking tea and coffee is very ritualistic. Your daily brew tastes better from your favourite mug" - Psychologist Dr Tom Stafford tackles a serious subject.

Science is a funny old business these days. Sometimes it's a question of spending billions smashing subatomic particles into each other to find out what happened at the beginning of the universe. Sometimes it's a question of favourite mugs.

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At the risk of opening the whole debate again, does the fact the mean also that the traditional "beep beep beep" is going to be replaced with "de dit, de dit, diddly dit (bong)"?
Kat Murphy, Coventry

Don't you just hate it when you think of the best witty retort days after? (There's a name for this, isn't there?) Of course, the correct reply to Joanna's comment about maths online is: Writing mathematics on the internet is as easy as pi.
Andrew Stacey, Trondheim, Norway

Re Paper Monitor: Alexander McQueen's latest offering brings to mind a certain Ben Stiller film, and the evil designer's grand finale collection "Derilicte". It goes without saying that McQueen fully understands the irony of holding his show in a scrap yard and is fully embracing the humour of the fashion world.
Alexandra, Reading

According to Forbes, the world's fifth richest man is Ingvar Kamprad, of Ikea. His fortune is described as self-made. Well, it would be, wouldn't it?
George, London, UK

Aine (Wednesday letters), it is not that God will never speak to those who leave him a message, just that any reply is likely to be posthumous. Essentially, those with a pressing concern should perhaps look down alternate avenues. Particularly if said concern is health-based. There is scant consolation in being informed, "Yes, you were seriously ill", when your location already serves to make that rather apparent.
T Hayden, Hertford

Addendum to the comment by David Freeman, in Wednesday's letters, and Claire in Tuesday's: There are upsides and downsides to each theatre as well.
Dickie, NY, US

Yep I was silly and put the caption in here.... woops.
Andrew, Preston
Monitor note: You and many others, mate.

In the spirit of encouraging lending, there's a P reg Astra I've got my eye on. Does anyone want to chip in?
Mike, Newcastle upon Tyne

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A survey highlighting the riches of the daily press.

High fashion. Worraloadarubbish, eh? Quite literally, when wild-child-on-brink-of-40 Alexander McQueen kicks over the traces and dresses models in hubcap hats and wimples seemingly fashioned from carrier bags. The Daily Telegraph calls it a "kitchen sink" collection, as in everything but.

Well, nobody's spending any money at the moment, so why not? As if to ram the point home, McQueen - a British designer always keen to do things differently - stages his show in a Parisian scrap yard.

Even Liz Jones - the Daily Mail's fashion/lifestyle/ex-husband correspondent - makes the eminently sensible observation that "wear his trademark 'bum cleavage' low-rise trousers to the office and you will probably be sacked".

Time for a spot of gonzo journalism to test this theory? Chances are there is a news editor out there thinking this very thought, and Paper Monitor hopes it is not the news editor sitting two seats away in Monitor Towers.

It's March, for goodness sake!

By the by, isn't "wimple" a pleasing word. There's something about the way it sounds. Puts one in mind of a soothing drink laced with honey. Or perhaps that's just because one is nursing a nascent cold.

There is also something rather pleasing about the tale of the Mayflower, a stub-legged Shetland pony, recounted in the Daily Express. And the Mail, Telegraph and Metro.

Her little legs are so short, passersby mistakenly think she is mired in the mud and dial 999 to call out fire-fighters to rescue her.

"Get Shorty" is the Telegraph's headline, while Metro opts for "My stumpy pony".

And it's getting expensive, at £250 a pop, says the Express, quoting the Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service.
Or £1,970 for each call-out, according to "government estimates" in the Mail.
Or nearly £8,000 in total, says the Telegraph.
Metro offers no price tag which, in light of these disparities, is perhaps sensible.

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"Well, my father calls him Ahmadinejad" - Boy on Iranian children's TV, asked the name of his toy monkey.

There must be numerous toys named after public figures. But when the namesake is Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it is a joke perhaps best kept private. It was for one family, until the host of state television's Amoo Pourang (Uncle Pourang) asked the name of a toy monkey a boy had been given for being good. The show is to air its last episode next week.

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After reading Katharine Whitehorn's , I thought of all the times in my local supermarket around 6pm I have seen women in dark suits, stockings (this is Queensland) and high heels pushing a trolley and trailing a couple of weary children collected from childcare. I have yet to see a man doing this (OK, minus the high heels). Women may be wearing the suits and doing the work, but they still have to do all the other stuff too.
Susan Thomas, Brisbane, Australia

Very helpful article by Michael Blastland on the . But I think it would be useful to say "don't think about the figures, think about how you'd feel if the doctor breaks the bad news to you".
Diane, Sutton

A magic grammar corrector! On the News front page "The internet and I" links to Stephen Fry's article. But when you click through, it's corrected to .
Tim, London

Tom (Monday letters), I am so confident of my own genius I can allow myself some time off each day from my high and mighty musings in order to listen to my iPod. I do so especially when I'm on any form of public transport, lest I get dragged into conversation with someone for whom the internal voices aren't stimulating enough. Also, what's wrong with "soundtracked"? As they say, you can verb every noun.
Jack, Manchester

T Hayden (Tuesday letters), if God cannot speak to you at the moment, there is the expectation that he can speak to you at some other time. It must be disappointing to find he'll never speak because his voice is not for human hearing. Anyway, he can speak to humans when he wishes: see Samuel.
Aine, Croydon

Claire (Tuesday letters), the Globe Theatre clearly has two sides: an inside and an outside.
David Freeman, Epsom Downs, England

A round theatre is polygonal, having an infinite number of sides each of infinitely small size. This is all purely theoretical of course as no actual structure could ever be perfectly round. I'll get my double-torus shaped outergarment.
James Rigby, Wickford, Essex

Within half an hour of reading that , I was unable to access my account. When did the ±«Óãtv start reporting news events of the future?
Chris Clarke, Grenoble, France

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

As predicted in Tuesday's Paper Monitor, the Jake Myerson drugs saga rumbles on today.

The Times interviews Ma and Pa Myerson at "the breakfast bar of their airy kitchen in their Gothic former rectory". But regular readers of Myerson's confessional brand of writing will be brought up short by the address - Walworth Rd, the same "skanky" street once home to Jade Goody. Spiritually, at least, it's a world away from the leafy streets which were the backdrop to Julie Myerson's first non-fiction book ±«Óãtv: The Story of Everyone Who Ever Lived in our House. (See from the Magazine's archive.)

The T2 cover story - and page five news story revealing Myerson to be the anonymous author of the Weekend Guardian's Living with Teenagers column - are not only illustrated with photos of Julie and husband Jonathan in their lovely home, but their errant son, who, worryingly, is dressed as Pete Doherty would if he forgot to put on his skinny jeans, saggy T-shirt and narrow scarf of a morning. And his pants.

It's March, young man!

But whereas Doherty habitual accessorises with a drooping fag, Myerson Junior opts, touchingly, for a copy of the Guardian and two cartons of juice. Life on the streets, eh?

Meanwhile, it's time for another instalment of Paper Monitor's occasional "strange names in the news" strand, with, in this case, a nod to a Your Letters favourite, nominative determinism. The Times dispatches its best man to carry out an in-depth investigation into whether medium-size eggs are indeed yummier than large. His name? Steve Bird. (In a blind taste test, he finds they are indeed "more eggy".)

Speaking of yolks - boom boom! the old ones are always the good ones - Daily Express columnist Ann Widdecombe reveals - apropos of Peter Mandelson being custarded - that someone once threw an egg at her in a church.

God moves in mysterious ways? That's for you to decide, based on your own belief system and political leaning. Paper Monitor, needless to say, has no view either way.

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"I'm not scared of them and they're not scared of me but the womenfolk don't like them at all" - 84-year-old farmer Richard Greenwood on the rat invasion facing Flamborough in Yorkshire.

Residents report seeing a brown carpet of the rodents on the roads in the village, and some are said to be said to be too frightened to leave their houses because of the plague. One theory for the cause of the problem is that an attempt by a local farmer to encourage the growth of wildlife on his land might have been rather too successful.

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Re John Thompson (Monday letters) on God's answerphone. God "cannot speak to you at the moment" because his voice is not for human ears. This certainly doesn't mean that he isn't listening. Signal permitting, of course.
T Hayden, Hertford

Hopefully - but it *is* a crisis situation after all...
Kirsty Nicol, East Lothian, Scotland

Since chimpanzees evidently "plan for future needs", could we employ some as bankers possibly?
Mark, Reading, UK

Pat from Pickering (Monday letters): theatres needn't necessarily be polygonal. A theatre in the round could be, well, round. They would be polyhedral, though, having a floor, a roof, and at least one wall. Unless, of course, you're counting open air theatres.
David, Oxford

To Pat in Pickering. The Globe theatre was not polygonal, it was circular so only had one side.
Claire, Dorset

Why was "My initial thought when I was half awake was, 'it's a lunatic ninja coming through the window'" from never quote of the day?
Matt, Croydon

I arrived at Tuesday's daily mini-quiz reveal before the mini-quiz was even up, thus ruining my one bit of Tuesday quiz fun. Thanks a lot monitor.
Kirsten, Wandsworth, London
Monitor note: We didn't even know that was possible, but don't despair - there's always our

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

For more than a week now, Paper Monitor has sat and watched passively the flaunting of a certain batch of dirty laundry - believing that each airing must surely be the last, only to be proved wrong on each occasion.

So, while today's Guardian G2 lead feature may look like the last word in the Jake Myerson drugs saga - surely no self-respecting, media-savvy family would wish to publicly tear itself apart any more - Paper Monitor is closing the book on this one while it's still solvent.

For the uninitiated, Julie Myerson and husband Jonathan have occupied a high-up rung on the London media luvvie ladder for some years now. She, a broadsheet columnist-turned-book writer; he, a playwright.

La Myerson used to fill column inches with warm tales of family life (although Paper Monitor does recall a preponderance for the author to stress about gloomy weather) and readers could only presume life was ticking along pretty comfortably - give or take an overcast sky - for all concerned.

But then, the oldest of the children took a teenage wrong turn, got heavily into drugs and things began to go downhill. The world would have remained largely oblivious to this had Julie M not decided to write about her family travails in a new book, and break news of that in last week's Observer.

Since then, browsers of liberal "broadloids" have been witnesses to a sequence of "he said, she said" claims and counter-claims, with Myerson Jr taking umbrage at his outing, and, predictably, a host of commentators from other reaches of the press wading in to have their say.

The whole episode has morphed from a debate about the rights and wrongs of locking your son out of the family home into the ethics of writing about family traumas in the press...

Which is where Jonathan Myerson comes in, with his G2 piece today, and this alarming, albeit self-justifying headline: "There is a glass-fronted box in the corner of every writer's room, protecting the lives of their children: Smash Only In Case Of Emergency. This is an emergency".

And one that could go one for some time yet.

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For those who landed here from Tuesday's , here's the unedited picture - a family snapshot from 1987 taken at a castle wall, allegedly featuring a headless ghost on the right.

Organisers of the Edinburgh Science Festival are inviting members of the public to send spooky snapshots of alleged ghosts.

(For those who didn't arrive here from the Daily Mini-Quiz - next time, play by the rules.)

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"It would have been nice to get a last clutch of eggs from Cherry but Ben and Jerry do make a lovely couple" - Wetland's centre warden on the lonely fate of Britain's last female Blue Duck

It looks as though the Blue Duck's days in Britain could be numbered after plans to get the last remaining female, Cherry, to mate with one of her male counterparts went awry. According to Paul Stevens of the Arundel Wetland Centre, West Sussex, the two males are rather more fond of each other.

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? I had to check it wasn't 1 April.
Paul Greggor, London

"He said evidence had shown rousing teenagers from their beds early resulted in abrupt mood swings, increased irritability, depression, weight gain and reduced immunity to disease" - so basically any of the symptoms of adolescence then.
Basil Long, Nottingham

Re Quote of the Day: Artist Johan van der Dong says wants to show that God is available anywhere and any time. So why would God leave an answering machine message that says "I'm not able to speak to you at the moment"?
John Thompson, Durham, UK

The intrigued me - I just sit there thinking and have often wondered what terror must lie in the heads of those who prefer to plug themselves permanently into their iPods than to engage their brains for 20 minutes together. But I'm afraid I didn't get beyond the word "soundtracked" in the first sentence, it just made my heart sink.
Tom, London

In , you state it is believed to be polygonal. Aren't all theatres polygonal in that they have three or more sides?
Pat, Pickering

Alexandra, am I to understand that you spent 18 months doing up a manse for a minister that now wants to live somewhere else (Friday letters)? Hardly the gratitude one would expect from the religious sector. However if your friend Mark now has time on his hands, I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who need some help with a concrete shed and would be extremely grateful to find someone with experience.
Claire, Nottingham

Mathematicians spend a lot of time playing with LaTex (Friday letters)? It's always the quiet ones you need to watch.
Bryan, Reading

There's something very disturbing, but also rather wonderful, about the phrase "".
The Bob, Glasgow

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

What a difference switching from one paper to another can make.

Reports of the Northern Ireland shootings in the Guardian and Times put very different glosses on the reaction of Sinn Fein, and anyone reading both accounts could be forgiven for wondering if the same events were being reported on.

"No Grief, no anger - Sinn Fein has its say" runs the promo on the front page of the Times, and on page four, the newspaper deconstructs the statement issued by Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams.

"The lack of a sense of grief or anger is striking - chilling perhaps," it opines, underlining what it sees as the calculated tip-toeing of a statement which took 14 hours to emerge.

The Guardian's emphasis, though, is much more on the political unity it says the events have provoked, and here Sinn Fein's response is cast in a very different light.

Martin McGuinness is described as emotional, opting for quotes such as: "I will stand for all democrats against their attempts to plunge us back into conflict."

And it sees Adams' statement as not chilling, but "unprecedented" and "historic".

And now for something completely different. The Independent is the only (former) broadsheet not to feature the Real IRA killings on its front page, going instead with a picture of a loveable mutt from Crufts.

Perhaps a lighter editorial approach is being adopted to tie in with the actual weight of the paper. Paper Monitor hasn't got its scales to hand for a proper run of its sub-brand Paperweight , but today's news, views and features are less than half the size of the Sport pull-out.

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"This is the voice of God, I am not able to speak to you at the moment, but please leave a message" - voicemail message on God's Hotline, a Dutch art installation

Thousands of people have left messages for God in the town of Groningen. Artist Johan van der Dong says he wanted to show that God is available anywhere and anytime. But there remains an unanswered question - is there is a ringback facility?

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