Paper Monitor
12:22 UK time, Tuesday, 30 October 2007
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Paper Monitor can’t help liking a columnist who’s prepared to offer a bit of candour.
And the Sun’s very own Gaunty takes the biscuit, if you pardon the punette, when he writes: “I know I’ve eaten all the pies but can someone tell the Fat Police to lay off us fatties and stop making out we’re a bigger threat than the combined forces of al-Qaeda, Harold Shipman and MRSA.”
Perhaps he is worried by headlines from his own august journal along the lines of “Fat kids' folks get 'warning'” (23 Oct) and the sensitive “The elephant men” (17 Oct) on a story about the obesity epidemic.
On the latter date his colleague Jane Moore wrote “Fat seems to be the hardest word”, suggesting political correctness had stopped doctors tackling the problem head on. Gaunty might be going it alone.
Elsewhere in the papers there is similar conflict. On page 15 of the Times, “Thunderer” Mick Hume laments that “property prices are ear-bleedingly boring” in his wry appeal for people to stop obsessing over the value of their house. On page 2, “Property repossessions to rise by 50 per cent next year, say lenders”.
There is great joy at the Daily Telegraph at the gaffe made by “attractive” Sky News presenter Julie Etchingham. The “attractive” newsreader, who did not realise her microphone was switched on when she joked that “extermination” was the Tory policy on immigration, is featured prominently on the front page.
Obviously the fact that she is “attractive” had no bearing on the humungous picture.
The 
