Paper Monitor
11:53 UK time, Monday, 18 January 2010
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
We start with the Daily Mail. Increasingly, it is impossible to start anywhere else.
And page three makes a good first port of call. It's a cruel, cruel picture.
A large image of Prince William leaning his head forward is shown next to the headline: "William showing a lack of hairs and grace".
There follows a brief description of William's receding hair. The photo shows the hair loss to be most pronounced at the crown, but with a noticeable horseshoe effect.
Viewed from the front, particular from below, the situation doesn't look too bad. And as William is considerably north of 6ft that's how most people view him.
But this top shot is as bleak as one of those apocalyptic National Geographic images of slash-and-burn farmers in the Amazonian rainforest.
Balance is offered within one extraordinary paragraph.
"'Oh my God, he looks really bald,' said one female journalist. 'But he is still handsome as hell,' added a colleague."
Across all the papers there's a bit of a kerfuffle over the 59-year-old prospective IVF mother, but the Times offers a very thoughtful leader with minimum froth. The Mail also fails to get excited, perhaps aware that its sister paper has already been there 24 hours ago.
The was headlined: "A defiance of nature, an abuse of medical skill".
Incidentally, it wasn't until Paper Monitor watched a TV advert for the Mail on Sunday that it became obvious that its colour magazine Live is pronouced as in "live concert" or "the brown cable is the live one". For no particular reason, one had assumed it was pronounced as in "live and let live" or "don't come and live here". [Earworm alert: Don't take this as pretext to start singing Live is Life by Opus.]
Elsewhere in today's Mail there's an interesting approach to illustrating an interview with June Whitfield. The reporter in question , and that's the only image used. Talk about getting up close and personal.
And finally, again in the Mail, about an asylum seeker who has been repeatedly caught trying to get OUT of Britain. It has to be read to be believed.
Update 17:20: The shame. It wasn't live as in live concert, it was live as in live life. What one thought was live was actually live. And live live. So when it came to writing live, one wrote live instead. And live instead of live. Thank HEAVENS faithful and wise reader Richard Stevens of Leicester wasn't so confused. Apologies.
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