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Paper Monitor

11:13 UK time, Tuesday, 17 August 2010

A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Paper Monitor is reluctant to question the competence of the ladies and gentlemen of Her Majesty's press.

However, scanning the pages of many of the UK nationals this morning gave cause for concern.

Alongside always checking spellings of names, asking ages and what people do for a living, one of the first things aspiring reporters are taught is to check the name of a person's pet.

So, as Paper Monitor digests reports of cricketer Graeme Swann's dash to buy screwdrivers to rescue a kitten from beneath the floorboards of his home while, allegedly, over the drink-drive limit, it is horrified to realise that several venerable publications failed to name the said moggy.

Paper Monitor recognises that children in similar circumstances might need protection from publicity but surely the public has a right to know the cat's name?

Wickets, perhaps? Bails, Googly, Beamer... Tufnell?

Thank goodness for the Daily Telegraph which informs us the kitten was called Max.

And the Guardian goes one better:

Swann had named the two kittens Max and Paddy, after one of his favourite sit-coms, but when Max went missing, England cricket's own funny man soon found himself, in the words of the theme tune, on the road to nowhere.

Becalmed at having discovered the feline's name, Paper Monitor can rejoice that young Max did not go the same way as Two Tone - a 70lb carp from Mid Kent Fisheries - who has died at the age of "around 45".

Full marks to the Sun for treating the passing of Britain's biggest freshwater fish with the gravitas it deserves.

It enlisted the help of Angler's Mail carp expert Ben Weir to sum up just how much he meant to the angling community.

Two Tone was a true Godfather of the fishing world who delighted and frustrated in equal measure.

News of his demise spread like wildfire and many an angler will have shed a tear.

I doubt any other carp will hit such a weight for years. He is a tragic loss but I am sure he'll get a good send off at his lake.

His journey to the great lake in the sky will come as a relief to the spouses of fishermen across the UK.

At least four marriages are said to have broken up as a result of wives running out of patience as their other halves tried to catch Two Tone - a feat managed fewer than 50 times.

Paper Monitor is just glad all the reports carried his name.

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