headline of the month

The last entry in my headline of the month was over three months ago. My first for the year. From France24

The weakest Linke: German far left party mired in controversy

A very clever way of combining puns in English and German. Linke is the German word for left (both directionally and politically, just as in English). From a French news outlet no less. Très bien.

headline of the month

From Reuters

Michael Jackson scarecrows get Taiwan birds to beat it

Similarly, from ABC News (Australia) reprinting the article from Reuters but modifying the headline (they are good with puns).

Jacko scarecrows get birds to beat it

The story was about a rice farmer in Taiwan dressing a scarecrow as Michael Jackson. Reuters could have had a bit more fun but only gave one more fun sentence.

But not everyone in the family thinks the scarecrow idea is a thriller.

You know I'm bad, I'm bad...

headline of the month and fishy puns

From ABC News (Australia)

Elusive marriage-wrecking fish carps it

In reporting the death of a 45-year-old much loved carp in the UK, only Australia's ABC came up with a headline with a pun. Even worse were some of the comments including, in sequence

I shouldn't carp but that fish has haddock. I hope it goes to a better plaice. (David Skidmore)

Indeed - not even the most gillful of sturgeons could have warded off the bream reaper here. (lefthandside)

His sole has gone to a betta plaice, he's with the angelfish now. fin. (pun gent)

You're saying he's with his Cod? (bark)

Surely you both mean a 'batter plaice' (KJ)

stop this wordplay nonsense, it's making me feel eel. (Glen)

Smells a bit fishy to me.

See ITN News report

headline of the month

From Canberra Times

Snuffles snaffles $1000 truffle

There is even a cute photo of Snuffles in the article.

headline of the month

From The Republican (Massachusetts)

Lord Jesus Christ suffers minor injuries in downtown Northampton crosswalk mishap

Of course, an explanation was required

Savino said officers checked Christ’s identification at the scene and confirmed it was his legal name.

There should be a law against the use of certain names, as there is in the UK.

headline of the month

From The Age

'Desperate to get home': Melbourne trio's $4000 ash dash a rash cash splash

Almost onomatopoeic.

headline of the month

From Iowa City Press-Citizen

Ronald McDonald arrested for pot

McDonald's corporation did not issue a statement. It is not known whether the alleged offender was asked to change his name.


photo from Foods for the soul

headline of the month

From SBS World News online, reporting on the current concert tour in Australia by Whitney Houston

Houston, we have a problem

Even better was their tweet on Twitter

Whitney Houston had fans on their feet during her Sydney performance, but many of them were looking for the exit

Corny but clever.

headline of the month

Pilgrims in Ireland have been visiting the Marian Shrine in the village of Knock in County Mayo. The Irish Times reported that on 31 October, about 10 000 people attended a supposed apparition of the Virgin Mary, where people claimed to see the sun shimmering, changing colour and “dancing in the sky”. As a result, there has been a rise in eye damage.

Australia's ABC could not resist an appropriate headline

Irish pilgrims blinded by the light

No other media outlet saw the light.

headline of the month

One of Italy's most wanted mafia bosses was recently arrested in Italy. This was widely reported and a few media outlets picked up the Agence France-Press (AFP) feed. Only one newspaper came up with a decent headline. From Sydney Morning Herald

Mafia top rooster caught hiding in hen house

Shame on the rest.

headline of the month

Four months since we last had one. Better late than never.

From Perth's Sunday Times (online as PerthNow)

WTF? PM Kevin Rudd goes f*%@ing ballistic, again

What the?

headline of the month

From the Adelaide Advertiser

Pull down those erections!

Making up that headline wasn't that hard, considering the original source in the China Daily (English edition)

Sex-theme park closed prematurely

I wonder what the original Chinese language headline would have been, considering that Chinese language is renown for word play.

headline of the month

Okay, it's the second one for March, but takes the cake. Originally printed in The Times, but The Australian just had to make up a different headline

Name shame causes Cock shrinkage but Wang is on the rise

Gutter journalism indeed! ;-)

headline of the month

From The Observer (UK)

Support child labour

From one of Britain's most progressive newspapers.

headline of the month

From the (Melbourne) Herald Sun

Wine OK for babies

I had images of red wine in baby bottles.

headline of the month

Okay, it's the third one for January, but how could one resist?

From UK Daily Mail

How wine can turn you into a werewolf (And the bad news is, we're not joking)

Go on, click on it. You know you want to.

headlines of the month

From a number of media outlets

- Mermaid discovery confirmed (Brisbane Times)
- Mermaid found on Great Barrier Reef (NT News)
- Scientists' hopes up for discovery of Mermaid (The Australian)

Actually, I only read one of them. Had to. How can one not?

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Cooler day today.

headline of the month

Actually two for December.

From the Daily Telegraph (Sydney)

Princess of Whales to pauper: Mimi Macpherson
By Glenis Green
December 27, 2008 12:00am

FROM the Princess of Whales to pauper in just 11 years - how could it have gone so wrong for Mimi Macpherson?

The story is only newsworthy because Mimi is the sister of Elle Macpherson, otherwised nobody would give a toss.

And from Reuters and subsequent variations in media outlets

Peruvian Jesus born to Virgin Mary on Christmas
Fri Dec 26, 2008 12:46pm EST

LIMA (Reuters) - Virgin Mary, a 20-year-old Peruvian woman, gave birth to a baby boy on Christmas day and named him Jesus, Peru's state news agency said on Friday.

The baby's father, Adolfo Jorge Huamani, 24, is a carpenter. Religious Peruvians compared him to Joseph the Carpenter in the Bible.

"Two thousand years later the story of Bethlehem is relived," read the headline about the birth in El Comercio, the main newspaper in Peru, a predominantly Catholic country.

The mother, Virgen Maria Huarcaya, delivered the 7.7 pound (3.5 kg) boy, Jesus Emanuel, in the early hours of Christmas at the central maternity hospital in Lima, the capital.

Not really news as the mother couldn't possibly have been an actual virgin in the biblical sense! In any case, news desk editors could not possibly resist a headline from that story.

headline of the month

I enjoy reading word play (puns) used in newspaper headlines. After all, writers also need a bit of fun.

This one from the Northern Territory News was very clever.

Gypsies, amps and thieves

REBEKAH CAVANAGH

October 29th, 2008

ROAMING Irish gypsies have targeted power-stricken Territorians by selling them dodgy generators that could be fatal.

I might assume that younger print journalists are unfamiliar with old Cher songs, so it was probably a quick-witted editor.

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Today was a very busy day. I was up at 6am and the front door had one coat of paint by 7.30am.

Nell, Declan, Olivia and Kim came over for dinner. Technically Olivia did and didn't as Nell brought over her own baby food. I made roast rolled shoulder of pork (marinated in the soy, preserved lemon and marmalade mix that I usually use), roast sweet potato and beetroot, with blanched asparagus.

not the rain in Spain...

Sometimes a newspaper comes up with a gem of a headline. From The Guardian

Train in Spain sets out to beat the plane

Madrid-Barcelona link is part of 220mph network taking on the airlines

Paul Hamilos in Madrid
Saturday February 2, 2008
The Guardian


The Ave S103 train at Santa Justa Station, Seville. Photograph: Alamy

Delays and disruption, disgruntled passengers left standing on platforms, accusations of political incompetence and financial mismanagement: the development of the Spanish railway system has a number of things in common with its British counterpart. But when the new high-speed link between Madrid and Barcelona sets off later this month, those complaints will be set aside as the super-slick Ave S103 service carves its way through the Spanish countryside at speeds of nearly 220mph.

The Ave S103 is the kind of train that British commuters can only dream of, and forms the centrepiece of plans to make Spain a model for the rest of Europe, and the world leader in high-speed trains by 2010.

Its 200-metre aluminium chassis carries 404 passengers, whose reclining chairs - which can swivel to face the direction of travel - are fitted with video and music players.

"They are the future of travel in Spain and show that the train is anything but obsolete," said Aberlado Carrillo, the director general of the state rail operator Renfe's high-speed service. "Trains will again be the dominant mode of transport in this country."

In its first term in office, the socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has spent €21bn (£15.7bn) as part of a 15-year €108bn project to transform the rail network. Around 70% of this will be spent on the Ave (short for Alta Velocidad Española, or Spanish high speed).

The aim is to have 10,000km (6,200 miles) of high-speed track in Spain by 2020, meaning that 90% of the population will be no more than 30 miles from a station through which the train passes.

The Barcelona line is to be extended to Perpignan in France, making the Catalan capital just four-and-a-half hours from Paris. Work to join Madrid and Lisbon is under way.
...

The success of the Madrid-Seville corridor - the first high-speed link, which opened in 1992 - is partly a result of its pricing policy, with affordable tickets that help to keep demand high and trains full. The 290-mile journey takes two-and-a-half hours, and costs between €28.90 (£21.60) and €72.20 (£53.95) - prices that might make British travellers green with envy.

It will be the Madrid-Barcelona connection, though, that will test the high-speed service. Business people in Spain's two largest cities, with a combined population of 10 million, have been crying out for the Ave for decades. But its development has not been without problems. The inauguration was delayed by landslides that brought chaos to Barcelona's commuter service, as contractors rushed to finish the line at the end of last year.

When it finally gets running, the S103 will cover the 410 miles to Barcelona in two hours and 35 minutes, taking two hours off the journey time. But it will face stiff competition from the highly successful air-shuttle, with a route that is one of the busiest in the world.

The "air bridge" operated by Iberia airlines allows passengers to turn up at the airport, buy a ticket, and board, within 20 minutes. Iberia alone has 60 flights a day, carrying 8,000 people.

Antonio Mayo, who is in charge of the service, is not worried by the train. "We have faced competition from other airlines before, and we welcome the fight with the Ave," he says.

"We can offer one thing they cannot - time. In normal circumstances, a businessman can get from his house in Madrid to a meeting in Barcelona in under two-and-a-half hours. The train cannot do this."

Mayo accepts that Iberia will take a hit in the first few months, but he believes that an executive who needs to be in a meeting at 9am will always choose to fly.

Carrillo argues that the comparison between train and plane is a false one. "Time spent in a train is time won, while in a plane it is wasted," he says. "In a train you can work, read, talk, use the internet, eat, or simply relax and enjoy the journey. With a plane, the only objective is to arrive.

"Personally, I am not bothered if the plane arrives 20 minutes earlier than the train. The question is how that time has been used."

The fact that more than 80% of travellers choose the Ave over the plane on the route between Madrid and Seville supports his argument.

There is also the environmental question: trains produce at least four times less carbon dioxide per mile than planes, and even less when compared with short-haul flights. Spain is preparing itself for a future in which there may be limits on the number of flights a person is allowed to take, particularly within the EU.

In the end, says Carrillo, it will come down to the quality of the service: "What we are offering is unavailable in the rest of Europe in terms of comfort, speed and punctuality."

Look away now if you are a British commuter used to mind-numbing delays: if an Ave train arrives more than five minutes late, passengers are reimbursed the full price of their ticket. And the only problem for those hoping to get their money back is that the trains are nearly 98% reliable.

The train from Madrid to Barcelona currently takes four and a half hours and is far too long for the distance covered. Madrid to Seville is an excellent high speed service, which was built for the 1992 Expo. If I remember correctly, we were even given hot cotton face towels.

More from railway-technology.com, especially about a future high speed link between Madrid and Lisbon.

Of course, some slow trains are about the journey, like the Andalucia Express, which is one of the world's great train journeys. I quite enjoyed it in 2000.

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I've just been watching episodes of Angel and Hex.