Paper Monitor
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Another day, another in the Daily Mail.
Now, this may be a rather broad-brush, sweepingly unscientific assumption, but surely the Venn diagram of Mail readers and Peep Show watchers has a vanishingly small intersection. (If you fall into that category, please let the Monitor know using the "Send us a letter" form on this page.)
OK, so it's not actually Big Suze, who is fictional, but the actress who plays her, Sophie Winkleman. She's making repeated appearances in the Mail, and sometimes the Daily Express, as she's about to marry Lord Freddie Windsor. And that makes her royal by marriage. Which is apt, as Peep Show fans will concur.
For the uninitiated, Big Suze is beautiful and posh, so marrying royalty fits right into her character arc. "[She] will be styled The Lady Frederick Windsor after she says 'I do'," points out the Mail.
Even better, from a news point of view, is that her future mother-in-law is Princess Michael of Kent. Or, to give her her tabloid name, Princess Pushy.
Anyway, today's coverage revolves around the happy couples' gift list, reprinted in all its £22,682.34 worth of glory. Given that she's 29, and he's 30, and neither lives with their parents, can it be true that they don't already have their own toaster... or perhaps two? And who, in this day and age, doesn't have a set of six silver-plated place card holders in the shape of tiny frogs? (Well, Paper Monitor, for one, having misplaced a froggy while moving house. And who has dinner parties for five?)
"The Mail understands that Prince Charles, the Duchess of Cornwall, Prince William and Prince Harry - who have all turned down invitations to the wedding citing previous engagements - have clubbed together to buy the couple a gift, although it is not clear whether it is from the official list. Other guests appear to be a little slower off the mark, however, and towels, cutlery and bed linen were still available for purchase yesterday."
One had hoped the Guardian's horseman-of-the-apocalypse-spotting celebrity column might cast a gimlet eye over Big Suze's upcoming nuptials. Only it doesn't, despite Jez, Mark and even Big Suze herself seeming more Guardian than Mail types.
How about the Times' Lost in Showbiz/Celebdaq hybrid, ? Nope, it neither.