Web Monitor
14:58 UK time, Tuesday, 15 December 2009
A celebration of the riches of the web.
Today in Web Monitor: Sting's spare lyrics, holding fire and the noughty step.
• , singer Sting reveals some unwanted mail attention:
"People send me song lyrics all the time. It's difficult. I'm not sure what they want me to do with them. Looking at lyrics without the music is like looking at a one-legged man."
• why rappers hold their guns sideways. He finds out from firearms experts that it is actually pretty bad for aim, and may have only become popular after being seen on television. And there is an advantage for TV and films:
"Directors may prefer the style because it makes it easier to see both the weapon and the actor's face in a tight camera shot."
• The noughties as it lists the people who ruined the decade.
If they are not in the list for being too bad, they are in the list for being too good and making everything else seem "unambitious" (cue David Simon, creator of the TV series The Wire).
Next to Dan Brown - in the list for encouraging conspiracy theorists - is bestseller Rebecca Farnworth. If you haven't heard of her, it may be because she's the ghostwriter of Katie Price's debut novel Crystal. This outsold the entire Booker prize shortlist, much to the Guardian's dismay:
"Farnworth hadn't published a single book at the time of agreeing to write Price's works, and Price herself said she wasn't keen on reading them. Yet these setbacks never prevented the pair from machining the kind of 'sassy' prose that set gender equality back 40 years, nor did it stop them from using the kind of celebrity marketing strategy that had already reduced the music industry to a cash-poor game of Celebrity Squares."
Links in full
The 
