All man and shirt

DAVID MILIBAND quit frontline politics yesterday and faced the press outside his London home. The fact he wore a shirt and a pair of trousers to stand on his doorstep caused consternation at the Guardian and the Daily Mirror. This was Miliband appearing before them without his usual razor-sharp suit and “perfectly-knotted” tie. Nothing else for it but to wheel out the fashion experts. Trouble is, they can’t agree on a single point . . .

Under attack? Swing into action

FROM the newspaper – and I use the term lightly – that brought us the Japanese dress that turns into a Coca-Cola machine to ward off rapists, comes the tale of the Ukrainian bra that can be converted into a life-saving face mask to counter a radioactive or biological attack

Someone’s on another planet

MANY of today’s nationals carry claims by US military personnel that aliens have been tampering with the world’s nuclear weapons – including Britain’s. The Daily Telegraph goes one better and publishes this useful and essential guide on how to spot a flying saucer:

Boom, boom, boom, boom

PUTTING aside the rather unsavoury fact that the Daily Mail was once an ardent supporter of Hitler, Franco and Mussolini, the newspaper brings us this not-unrelated survey – conducted by the Radio Times – of our national leaders and their favourite poems

Right round the houses (No 10)

APPARENTLY there’s no soft option – that’s the overriding theme this week. We need pain if we’re to survive. But there is a soft option – and that’s to be a newspaper columnist and write about inflicting pain on others. In fact, options don’t come much softer. So let’s poke the comfy settee of media commentary to see what they’ve been up to this week . . .

School’s out for ever

IN a hotchpotch of tortured grammar, the Daily Mail adds a new dimension to that age-old question: if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it does it still make a noise?

Feeling a little pail?

LET this be a warning to budding chefs contemplating following a recipe from the Daily Express food section . . .

Blowing the whistle: Top five budgie facts

THE Daily Mail is one of many papers that carry a story of intrigue and murder in the budgerigar breeding world. Feathers are flying after one of Britain’s top breeders found his prize bird had been “stamped on” and many more stolen from his aviary the night before a show. What makes the Mail’s report intriguing – and certainly worth tweeting – is a “Feathery Fact File” full of incredible assertions that require a more detailied explanation. So with the help of the internet, we’ll try to put some feathers on the bones

It’s an age old problem

THE planet Daily Mail brings us a story about the fear of retiring without sufficient funds to buy wool and knitting needles. What it hasn’t taken into account is that those of us approaching the 55 in the headline will never actually get there because the pensionable age is being dragged away from us like a sack soaked in aniseed

Nailed: another Jesus image

THE Daily Telegraph has another Jesus image story – this time it’s a telephone pole somewhere out in the wilds of the US. This year alone we’ve had more comings than we know what to do with. The story demands humour. But, this being the Telegraph, all we get is stony ground. The image was seen, according to the Telegraph, by Rickey Navarre, who said: