Paper Monitor
12:15 UK time, Monday, 31 August 2009
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
This one goes out to the ones working on the Bank Holiday Monday.
Perhaps your workplace is a-buzz, but the top floor of Monitor Towers is all but silent, bar the sound of two fingers typing on the Entertainment desk, and a distance cough from the techie in a far corner. Oh, and the hum of the air conditioning. Always forget how loud it actually is. Still, don't have to make much conversation...
So what's in the papers that takes one's fancy?
It's certainly a day to catch up on reading, with several papers running novel extracts or short stories by their favourite authors - in the Times (girlfriends past, check; musical pilgrimages, check), and in the Independent (not too futuristic future gender politics).
And the Daily Mail pens a novella of its own with the headline:
"The groovy rise and dreadful fall of the real Austin Powers. He was TV's first king of chat, whose wild ego, drug abuse and womanising scandalised the Sixties. So how did Simon Dee, who died yesterday, end up as a lonely, embittered recluse?"
Perhaps the answer is right there?
Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph reports that as publicans ditch the empty orchestra boxes in favour of more profitable - "and less intrusive" - forms of entertainment. Dang. Paper Monitor likes nothing more than warbling along to "Lets get physical, physical... I wanna get physical" while channelling one's inner Newton John. As the neighbours well know.
Strangely, though, that tune doesn't make the paper's top 10 most sung. Top slot goes to... can you guess? Angels, by Mr Robbie Williams. Oh! Sweet Caroline is at four, and Delilah at number seven. Paper Monitor has two new party pieces. Neighbours, get those earplugs ready...
The 
