Paper Monitor
09:46 UK time, Thursday, 23 February 2012
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Paper Monitor's eye couldn't help but be drawn to one story in particular this morning.
A town's clash over roundabout decor would normally be the domain of local papers, but with such brilliant quotes, we can understand why the Daily Telegraph thought it was worthy of its page three.
So the subject of the war of words? .
According to the paper, the 3ft-high statues - modelled after Grumpy and Dopey from Disney cartoon Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - were donated by a local firm in response to an appeal by the town's Britain in Bloom group, in a bid to add a splash of colour to the community.
But clearly not all the locals are fans of the town's latest residents. Retired couple Chris and John Keleher say:
The offending gnomes may be appropriate in Las Vegas or in Disneyland but to claim that they enhance the image of Totnes in any way is to insult the values of what Totnes is supposed to stand for.
Hazel Fuller, of Dartington, adds:
Please assure me I haven't been imbibing an illegal hallucinogenic substance and that the shiny blue monstrosities on the roundabout in Totnes are not a figment of my fevered mind... While community volunteer gardeners are doing their best to green the town, what do we get on the roundabout?Grinning, shiny blue objects with hideous faces that destroy the effect of any planting behind them. Please let them be banished to their rightful home, underground, forthwith.
A local ecologist has even called on Totnes town mayor to step down over the matter, saying she is responsible for a "breach of public trust and humiliation".
However the brightly-coloured gnomes' supporters have been equally vocal. A Totnes in Bloom spokeswoman says:
Real Totnesians have fallen about with laughter at the blue gnomes. They are great fun. It is only uptight, humourless incomers who object. Do we constantly have to go round in hair shirts eating organically grown food?
A local botanist, Joy Hanson, adds:
The council had received many complaints about the untidiness of the roundabout over many months and no other businesses would support tidying it up and its long term maintenance.
Who'd have thought five little blue gnomes could have created such a storm? Paper Monitor is wondering whether to bring some to the office to see what happens.
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