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Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.

1. Dogs prefer classical music to other genres.

2. Germany and the UK send fewer students to the US than do Nepal or Vietnam.

3. The British have invaded 90% of the world's countries.
More details (Daily Telegraph)

4. Abraham Lincoln is the US president who has been portrayed most on film.

5. Crocodiles' jaws are more sensitive than humans' fingertips.
More details

6. Daniel O'Donnell is the only artist to have had an album in the UK charts each year for the last 25 years consecutively.
More details

7. There is a correlation between the amount of chocolate a country consumes and the number of Nobel laureates it produces.

8. The nests of Australian superb fairy wrens are password-protected.

9. Apple holds the patent for rounded corners on electronic devices.

10. The staff carried by the next Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has a rock badger carved on it because he once burst out laughing while reading aloud in church a biblical passage about the animal.

Seen a thing? Tell @³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ_magazine on Twitter using the hashtag #thingIdidntknowlastweek

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A spot of nominative determinism for the weekend... what an apt name for a dog handler.
Fi, Gloucestershire, UK

Dickens of the Day - how I (and, no doubt, countless millions of others) enjoy this daily quote! But now I'm getting worried - what will happen when you run out of Dickens? Who will be next (not Shakespeare, please - 'twas ruined for me by the pompous and meaningless deliveries of the likes of Lawrence Olivier et al)? Perhaps we should be asked to nominate our favourites? Now I'm off to review my Biggles collection - just on the off chance.
Paul Morris, Cheriton Fitzpaine, Devon

On the subject of blending couples' names (Paper Monitor, Friday), I've often thought whether this would be possible for my girlfriend and I. However, blending Irvine and Bowyer leads to an impossible-to-pronounce Irvyer, but also the more agricultural Bowvine. This could even be classed as nominative determinism should I ever become a farmer!
Ross, Nairobi, formerly London and Norwich

In answer to fusing surnames, mine is Kersting, my fiance's is Burton. We could become Bursting (or Kertan)!
Alex Kersting, Cambridge

Re: number nine of this article - I unfriended someone on Facebook during the campaign season after she posted a plea to vote for a proposal that she feared would otherwise impact her pension plan. Pension plan! What's that?
Jill B, Detroit

Angus (Thursday's letters), you told us last time. And I recall I reminded you that New Year follows on soon after... Slainte!
Henri, Sidcup

I received my first Christmas card on 5 November from my dad. What do I win?
Gareth, Tokyo

No, I'M Basil (Thurday's letters)!
Jeff Doggett, Thurnby, Leics

I'm Basil Long, and so is my wife! I'm not, of course, but it's easier to spell - much easier to pronounce - than my real name.
Rik Alewijnse, Feering, UK

To Basil Long on Thursday and Basil Long on all other occasions - be careful. You are setting a dangerous precedent. People may start claiming to be all sorts of alter egos.
Spartacus, Wellington NZ

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Winning entries in the Caption Competition.

The competition is now closed.

This week a person in a polar bear costume passes by workers cleaning some hoardings.

Thanks to all who entered. The prize of a small amount of kudos to the following:

6. Lin Vegas:
"My sign, 'is sign, ursine."

5. MAJM:
Michael Bond's rejected first draft: "Mr and Mrs Brown first met Tottenham Court Road on a railway platform. In fact, that was how he came to have such an unusual name for a bear for Tottenham Court Road was the name of the station."

4. Bellhouse Hartwell:
Canada Water? That should be perfect for me!

3. Kudosless:
Any more rises in the tube fares, and Lars would have to seriously reconsider reducing the number of his visits to Billingsgate.

2. Wiggles:
Vengeful polar bears begin hunt for Clarkson in last place they'd expect him to be.

1. ARoseByAnyOther:
"I am just going outside and may be some time."

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

It's Friday and Paper Monitor would like to propose an end of the week parlour game. It involves randomly picking married couples - celebs, friends, colleagues and "meshing" their names. It will all become clear.

The Telegraph reports on what it describes as a for married couples to blend their surnames after they tie the knot.

The practice started in the US, but according to the paper, figures obtained from the Deed Poll Service show that 800 British couples "meshed" their names this year.

By way of explanation, Claudia Duncan of the service explains that many people find it more "romantic" than double-barrelling.

The paper's , headlined: "Spliced as wan and mife" warns of the "hidden dangers at every level, all the way from Bosh and Pecks to the Widdletons."

It also points out that the example that is always given in relation to "meshing" is of Michael Pugh and Rebecca Griffin, who changed their name to become Mr and Mrs Puffin.

So go on, get your friends to join in. Paper Monitor will start you off:

Kate Moss and Jamie Hince: Mr and Mrs Mince.

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Alastair Moffat seems to be undertaking a massive project to map all of the red hair genes in Scotland - started by the conundrum of why his children have red hair when neither he or his wife do. Is is only me that has thought "what colour hair does the postman have?"
Ted Rodgers, Cheshire

I hate Christmas (just getting in early, like the shops).
Angus Gafraidh, London

How does the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ News website choose its photographs? This hardly supports its headline "Cameron and Merkel hold 'warm and friendly' EU budget talks."
Rob Falconer, Llandough, Wales

Rob (Wednesday's letters), cash? Cheque? Give me a PROPER present. It's bad enough I have to run around before Christmas getting gifts for everyone else, but then I have to go and buy my own damn gifts after Christmas because everyone else was too lazy.
chookgate, Milton Keynes

Basil Long (Wednesday's letters): Clearly it should be "improving grammar and spelling in the state's constitution". A sensible measure, obviously, though whether they or the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ are guilty of the redundant "use" I know not.

Gillian Ball, Coventry

I wonder if I submit a letter as Basil Long, I'll finally get published?
Basil Long, Nottingham

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Many of today's newspapers have the front pages they would have had yesterday if only the timing had been right. Well, time differences.

Souvenir editions abound now a conclusive result is in for the US presidential election.

The Times wraps itself in a huge photo of a smiling Barack Obama clouded in fluttering confetti, and its double-sided cover opens out into a giant election wall chart. But it's not all ticker tape parades - "Now for the hard part" intones the front page.

"Barack Obama wins. Wall St falls. The Republicans dig in for a fight. In Syria, the killing continues."

The Independent (still no poppy) headlines its souvenir edition "The tenacity of hope" and a photo of a seemingly more relieved than jubilant First Couple.

The Guardian (still no poppy) and Daily Telegraph choose the same photo of the First Family, run large in the case of the latter and huge in the former.

(Speaking of the Telegraph, is it Paper Monitor's imagination, or is its poppy getting bigger?)

And the Sun?

"WIGGINS KNOCKED OFF HIS BIKE BY VAN - hurt after shaving off lucky sideburns"

Ditto the Daily Mirror, minus the sideburns angle:

"WIGGO IN HOSPITAL AFTER VAN HORROR"

And the Daily Star has a topless I'm a Celebrity contestant on its front page - hello, MP Nadine Dorries - with a mini Ant and a mini Dec to obscure her bazoombas and the splash headline:

"Jungle Tory Nad puts her constituents first"

Similar photos appear in the Daily Mail, headlined: "Nadine, MP for (Sun)Beds".

Imagine being a fly on the wall when the chief whip took delivery of today's papers...

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Isn't it a bit late for such a claim?
Sarah, Basel, Switzerland

Re: Basil's letter (Tuesday's letters). I'm not quite sure why the security guard should have interfered with the joy of filling them up with water and dropping them on passing pedestrians from a bridge?
Daniel, London

Basil refers to condoms and security coils. Belt and braces?
Martin, Yorkshire

Basil Long, there is such as thing as too much information...
Mark, Reading, UK

Re: today's Paper Monitor, I will be registering my personal protest at a public servant jetting off to Australia and picking up a £40,000 fee by not bothering to watch any of it. It's worked every single year so far when ITV has attempted to whip up a media frenzy over a tediously dull programme featuring desperate attention-seekers and has-beens.
I'll fetch me decorating overalls and ensure I've got plenty of fresh paint to watch over the next few weeks...
Fi, Gloucestershire, UK

Gift cards? They're not popular with me ever since I found myself lumbered with some from Thresher's. Why do people not use real money? It's not as if they don't want you to know how much the present cost, as gift cards show their value as much as cash. No, in the current financial climate, cash or cheques are King. I'll get my groat ... hopefully.
Rob Falconer, Llandough, Wales

"The state of Oregon has held perhaps the strangest vote, on the use of improved grammar and spelling in the state's constitution." Or should that be the "improved use of grammar and spelling"?
Basil Long, Nottingham

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

The collision of politics, class, reality TV and a feisty blonde are too good for hacks to ignore.

Nadine Dorries - Tory backbench thorn in the side of the "posh boys" running the government - has flown to THE JUNGLE, that amorphous place where Christopher Biggins cuddled up to a rat and Carol Thatcher was caught on camera carrying out a lavatorial procedure.

Dorries's decision to go on "Ich bin ein Star - Holt mich hier raus!" - as they call it in Germany - has not gone down well.

It was a top secret mission. She didn't tell anyone before jetting off.

On arriving in Brisbane she explained that it gave her the chance to talk to 16 million viewers about the issue of abortion.

Apparently there's a £40,000 fee too but that is surely coincidental.

Her local constituency association is not happy. Conservative Central Office has withdrawn the whip. Now the media boot is being put in.

"We'll make Mad Nad gag on gonad", . Erm, translation needed?

Her constituents plan to make her do neverending bushtucker trials involving kangaroo testicles. The Sun is very clever to know the minds of her 76,381 constituents.

In the Mail - "Bus driver's girl who can't help shooting from the lip" - Andrew Pierce gives readers . He reminds readers that Norries was the target of David Cameron's comment about the honourable lady being "extremely frustrated". It certainly didn't help relations between Dorries and No 10, he notes.

Dorries's chief defender appears to be Ann Widdecombe, star of Celebrity Fit Club and Strictly Come Dancing. But even she struggles to approve of the decision to join I'm a Celebrity.

Writing in the Express, intent on relaying a message to the British people came across. "Think of poor, silly George Galloway pretending to be a cat lapping milk from the hands of Rula Lenska."

Last word goes to Radio 4's Eddie Mair whom the Telegraph quotes thus: "What kind of serious point could she make if she's got a mouth full of kangaroo testicles?"

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I'm afraid I just HAVE to point out to HB of Birmingham (Thursday's letters) that wine comes in cases, it's beer that comes in crates! Now I'm off to refill my decanter. Cheers!
Paul Morris, Cheriton Fitzpaine, Devon

Re Halloween vs Bonfire Night. Surely the "trick or treat" activities of Halloween are illegal - it is, after all, "making demands with menaces".
Dave Walker, Chippenham, UK

Is it soon time we banned the sale of fireworks to all but licence-holding officials to use at public displays? Being able to buy fireworks over the counter seems a bit backwards, somehow.
John Bratby, Southampton

The condom situation isn't helped by some shop assistants either. My most traumatic experience came whilst buying 36 condoms because the boxes of 12 were on three-for-two. They didn't come up on the offer, leading the sale attendant to shout rather loudly at her supervisor and then proceed to wave a box of them around in the air. Eventually the price got corrected, but she clearly got distracted because as I left the shop the security alarm went off, and the security guard decided to empty my bag in the doorway, and then repeatedly walk back and forward through the door with each box to see which one hadn't had the security coil disabled. It rather put me off any sort of fun that night.
Basil Long, Nottingham

Here in Oregon I've made my single most critical ballot decision in decades (bottom paragraph). There was a bunch of other boring stuff on the ballot too.
Roarshock, Oregon USA

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Not strictly a poppy development, but Paper Monitor wouldn't want people to miss the debate about poppy wearing which is perplexing the Daily Telegraph today.

Alistair Macdonald, from Eastbourne, East Sussex reckons he has the ultimate style guru:

SIR - Ladies wishing guidance on the correct wearing of the poppy (Letters, November 3) need look no further. The Queen wears the poppy on her left side.

However Sandy Pratt, from Lingfield, Surrey, cites Debrett's:

SIR - Debrett's has issued some guidelines on poppies, one of which is that it is customary to wear a poppy on the left lapel, or on the left side of your body, so the poppy is pinned closest to your heart.

Cynthia Milligan, from Banstead, Surrey, takes a more practical stance:

SIR - Most people wear the poppies on the left because most people are right-handed. Have you tried putting one on the right?

While Caroline Capper, from Hyde Heath, Buckinghamshire, thinks another practicality should be taken into consideration:

SIR - Poppies should be worn on the opposite side to your seatbelt. Drivers on the left side; passengers on the right. Otherwise they won't last five minutes.

Brian King, from Stroud, Gloucestershire, makes a further point:

SIR - Surely, the side on which a poppy is worn depends on the fact that men and women button their coats differently. Men flap the left over the right-hand side, leaving the left clear for buttonholes. Women flap the other way, hence the opposite. With the zipped windcheaters now worn, one would need the wisdom of Jeeves to pontificate.

While Chris Petty, from Kerridge, Cheshire, is perplexed by the finer details:

SIR - How should the foliage on a poppy be sported? It points north-east on the Telegraph front page, but I have also seen it pointing straight up north, straight down south, east and west.

Who knew there was such an etiquette to poppy wearing? Paper Monitor finds it hard enough to keep one pinned in place.

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One of the answers to the 7 Days' quiz states that President Putin's new Zil limousine took six years to build. That can only mean that the workers at the factory are incredibly slow: the alternative would mean that Mr Putin ordered it during his last presidency, in the knowledge that he would be voted president again after Mr Medvedev's term in office. And since Mr Putin is such a democrat, he could not possibly have known in advance that he would be elected president for the second time - could he?
John Whapshott, Westbury, England

So it takes 6 hours to reset Big Ben's clock from BST to GMT (Friday's 10 Things....). So when they're finished is it 5 hours slow - oh, or would it be 5 hours fast? Hmmmm...
JennyT, NY Brit

Why does it take six hours to set Big Ben from BST to GMT? (10 Things, Friday) Can't they just stop it for an hour?
Simon Robinson, Birmingham, UK

Sue and John Sudworth. I've had Bell's Palsy too and was treated with steroids. I didn't have holistic therapy but I too made a full recovery.
Paul, Ipswich

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Nowadays, theatregoers are well used to being asked to turn off their mobile phones before the start of a performance. But Paper Monitor would like to suggest the introduction of a new announcement - something along the lines of: "Please do not fall asleep in case you wake up in a state of confusion and are not responsible for your actions."

This is apparently what happened to Peter Hall, according to the theatre director himself. Hall has apologised to Downtown Abbey star Laura Charmichael for disrupting her West End debut, after apparently falling asleep and waking up in a state of confusion during the first night of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya.

Hall was heard by other theatregoers the other evening exclaiming loudly at during the final speech by Carmichael, who was playing Sonya.

According to the Evening Standard, Hall was "mortified" for "unintentionally" , after being woken up by his wife.

"Being rather aged, I dropped off for a moment and on being woken by my wife I was briefly disorientated. Remarks made in the resulting confusion were not in any way related to Uncle Vanya, which I think is a very fine production with a marvellous company of actors."

So what happened - what exactly did Hall say?

Well, this, itself, is rather confusing. The Telegraph had reported that Hall had heckled, but The Guardian's Stephen Moss, who was at the same performance, .

In today's paper, he says he heard Hall saying: "It's not working, it's just not working," throughout the final speech.

Those final few minutes of the play, with Sonya intoning "Life must go on" and Hall responding "No, please stop now" (or words to that effect), were excruciatingly embarrassing, but also fantastically theatrical. It seems unlikely that this concluding soliloquy has ever been done as a two-hander.

Some members of the audience took to Twitter to report the disturbance. According to one, "Peter Hall wasn't actually heckling, he was muttering loudly about it not working."

Moss agrees:

That seems to me exactly right. He was fretting to himself about aspects of the production not working and worrying how they could be improved, but he was doing so loud enough for his voice - in a theatre hushed for Sonya's closing prayer - to carry up to the dress circle. It may have been the loudest mutter in theatrical history.

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