Paper Monitor
13:10 UK time, Thursday, 29 January 2009
A (belated, again) service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Blogs. Curious beasts, aren't they? Funny the things you can find out about people.
And now John Prescott's time is no longer taken up with croquet at his grace-and-favour home deputy prime ministering, he's discovered social networking in all its myriad forms.
The People column in the Times caries this dispatch from Prezza's blog (!), Go Fourth. In it, he casts light on why he compared a life in politics to a coconut on a shy. "I'd been set a challenge by one of my Facebook friends, 16-year-old Reece - to mention a coconut on that show without it being noticed, but with it being heard. More challenges soon."
Paper Monitor does not quite know where to start with that revelation. Facebook? Teenage friends? And, most mystifying of all, who still so misunderestimates the power of Prescott's verbal dexterity as to be surprised at anything he might say?
Moving on. The papers do so enjoy a seemingly straight caption to a potentially embarassing photo of a public figure.
Such as the Daily Mail's fondness for laughing into its hat while penning captions such as "The Duchess of Cornwall meets a competitor as she tours the stables backstage at the Olympia Horse Show yesterday" (Paper Monitor, 18 December).
Today People tries it with a snap much like the one reproduced above right. "No doubt straining to catch David Beckham's AC Milan performance on a screen monitor, Fabio Capello, the England manager, finds that his view is unfortunately blocked during a guest appearance on an Italian TV spectacular."
Quite.
The 
