Paper Monitor
14:43 UK time, Wednesday, 28 July 2010
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Among the journalism elder statesmen Paper Monitor has come across in its time was one who, on hearing an idea that might be better suited to the pages of Tatler or Horse and Hound than a local newspaper, would remark: "They talk of little else on the streets of Splott."
Those already familiar with the socio-economic geography of inner-city Cardiff will recognise this for what it was - a facetious comment.
The pithy putdown came back to Paper Monitor today on seeing the cover story of the Guardian's G2 pull-out section:
Did it?
Apparently so, that is if you are in the habit of hanging out with Karl Lagerfeld and friends in the environs of St Tropez (the fashion designer staged a tournament there earlier this year, attended by the likes of Vanessa Paradis).
But it's not just over there, it's over here, in such "un-Provencal locales as Cleaver Square in Kennington, Brockwell Lido in Herne Hill and Larkhall Park in Lambeth".
Both un-Provencal and unquestionably un-provincial.
It's crucial to note at this juncture that "boules" covers a multitude of options, and when we Brits use the "B" word we tend to be referring to what our cousins across La Manche call petanque.
But even equipped with this fact, Paper Monitor struggles to decode this sentence:
"[France's] biggest boules manufacturer, Obut, has just launched a new line in tattooed steel for style conscious teenage petanquistes".
To the untrained ear it almost sounds like a load of old petanques.
The 
