Paper Monitor
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
The clocks have gone back. The gloves and scarf have come out of storage. It's almost November. 'Tis the season for poppy-wearing, and your humble columnist brings news of the first appearance of remembrance flowers on the front pages:
Daily Mirror - small poppy
Daily Star - medium poppy
The Sun - medium poppy, no stalk
Daily Express - big poppy
Daily Mail - no poppy yet
Ditto the Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Independent and the Times. Although Paper Monitor should probably correct that to no poppy yet for the Telegraph, Times and Guardian. The Indie, if memory serves, is the Jon Snow of Fleet Street.
Meanwhile, the Mail gets stuck into the latest Bond film for its product placement - just days after the Guardian's reviewer noted that in Skyfall it was less ostentatious than in previous 007 outings (see Friday's Paper Monitor).
In the spy's latest outing, however, it begins long before the opening credits. The thousands packing cinemas across the country to watch Skyfall have to first sit through 30 minutes of adverts and previews, which appear to serve as little more than plugs for the film and its sponsors. Five of the adverts feature the secret agent, including ones for Heineken, Omega watches and a Bond aftershave.
Bond gazes moodily into the middle distance, hand nonchalantly in pocket - a pose in which his jacket sleeve hitches up just enough to show off his watch.
Hmmm. Wonder what brand it is?