Paper Monitor
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
It's a day for "National Treasures" - in the newspapers. Or NTs, as Paper Monitor will now refer to them.
Firstly, David Beckham is in Australia and the country is loving him by all accounts. He was surrounded by "screaming fans" as he visited sick children at a hospital in Melbourne, according to the Star and Daily Express. He then went to speak to 300 "awe-struck" students at a local school.
Sir Paul McCartney is being lavished with praise after opening his latest tour in London last night. The Times gives his performance five stars out of five. Naturally. Reviewer Will Hodgkinson sums it up nicely:
He can pretty much sing any song and you are overjoyed to hear it."
Then there's our Cheryl. Ms Cole is splashed across the Sun and Daily Mirror because she's put on a bit of weight and got her "boobs and bum" back. Yep, that's all folks. You don't have to do much to get in the papers when you've achieved official NT status.
But it seems the Express wants some new additions to the exclusive club. It's pushing for boyband McFly to be crowned a NT. With bassist Dougie Poynter king of the jungle in ITV's I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here and drummer Harry Judd reaching the semi-finals of Strictly Come Dancing, the paper asks how have they "soared into our affection"?
It seems to put this down to one thing - nice manners. It uses an incident from I'm A Celebrity as an example:
There was a row involving Olympic athlete Fatima Whitbread, in which an argumentative Coronation Street star said everyone should tell her to eff off. Dougie bridled at the notion of being so rude to a woman of 50
That's Paper Monitor sold. They're in. Just because we should be nice to women in their 50s of course, nothing else. No crush here. Honest. Move along now.