Paper Monitor
11:48 UK time, Wednesday, 11 July 2012
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
The wet weather that has damped the British summer has a new pair of victims: Kylie and Jason.
Ms Minogue and Mr Donovan - soap opera actors turned popular singers of 1980s vintage, for the uninitiated - had been due to reunite at a concert in London's Hyde Park to celebrate the acts produced/manufactured (delete according to taste) by the Stock, Aitken and Waterman "Hit Factory" (quotemarks Paper Monitor's own).
For aficionados of cheesy pop music, the highlight of the event was due to be the pair performing the saccharine ballad Especially For You together for the first time in decades - but now adverse weather has led to the event's cancellation.
Newspapers make money by understanding their readers' cultural tastes as well as their favourite topics of conversation. In the UK, where both nostalgia and talking about the weather are among the most highly-favoured pastimes, the story represents something of (excuse the pun) a perfect storm.
So far, so predictable. But the story is not always presented in the manner one might expect.
The Sun's account is tinged with sorrow.
Likewise, the Daily Mirror is "Fans' dreams of a Kylie Minogue and Jason Dovovan's duet is over after Hit Factory Live was cancelled."
It is the so-called upmarket papers who resort to puns and wordplay.
is the Guardian's headline. The Independent's report "It is, as headliners Steps would undoubtedly have sung, a 'tragedy'."
It's a role reversal of sorts. Perhaps this coming-together of the different sections of the newspaper market deserves a Hyde Park concert of its own.
The 
