Paper Monitor
12:05 UK time, Thursday, 8 November 2007
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
As noted, it's hard not to have an opinion on a national stadium. After the furore about the Olympic logo, what do the papers make of the design for London's 2012 Olympic stadium?
The Guardian's architecture critic Jonathan Glancey is underwhelmed - "small and sensible… matter-of-fact and just a little mousey".
It mightn't sound like a drubbing but in the urbane corridors of architecture practices up and down the country - where a copy of the Guardian is as much of a prerequisite as a Moleskine notebook - there's nothing quite as hurtful as faint praise.
Glancey at least desists from landing a killer blow, concluding "this will certainly be no white elephant".
Er, maybe not, according to the Daily Express, which clearly cannot claim subtlety as a strong suit. It has rendered the stadium in cartoon form to resemble a large, er, elephant, pale of hue. Now what can they be trying to say?
The Daily Mail is just plain unsure: "Gold for brilliance" is its rather unequivocal headline on the story, although its editorial asks "are we looking at another white elephant like the Dome?" Come on guys, time to find a less cliched cliche...
The Sun's awe is conveyed in it giving over a centre-page spread to the design, and the fact it compares it to Rome's Colosseum.
The Daily Mirror meanwhile drafts in arch aesthete Stephen Bayley, late of the Independent, who has always done a fine line in not-so-faint praise. So Stephen, what do you make of the £496m centrepiece of London's Olympic plans? "A lavatory bowl."
The 
