Paper Monitor
13:34 UK time, Friday, 22 June 2012
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
If you're only going to read one Rio summit article then the Times is the place to be.
does what it says on the tin.
There's very little environment in the piece. Let Paper Monitor rephrase that. The environment explored by hack Tom Whipple is the Love Time Hotel, one of Rio's many rent-by-the-hour venues.
"It is the third day of the Rio+20 environmental conference, and Rio is full," he explains. So full in fact that delegates have had to book into these cheap palaces of carnal delights.
Just in case readers might be scared off by the byline - "Tom Whipple Science Correspondent" - there is a large picture of him, naked but for a strategically placed towel, reclining with a glass of champagne on the hotel bed, his reflection captured in various mirrors.
Champagne is one of the safer options on a menu that also includes "vibradores" and "penis grande com cinto". Paper Monitor's limited Portuguese reckons the last word means belt. Think about it.
The incongruity of delegates staying in a hotel with such racy props is impossible to avoid. There in the lobby "holding iPads, was a high-level delegation from Nigeria discussing sustainable development strategies."
They are not feeling in their element, though. "We are looking for another hotel," Professor Olubukola Oyawoye tells Whipple. "We are trying to find a better environment." Seeing as she is state commissioner of environment, this seems rather poignant.
The choice of a love hotel has some unintended consequences for the Times' man. "At the Love Time, a stern sign at the door warns against prostitution. A bit like a bring-your-own-bottle restaurant, it instead allows guests to choose who they invite upstairs, and then levies an appropriate corkage fee."
So, when Whipple is visited by a colleague from the Sunday Times, £15 is added to the bill. Imagine putting that on expenses.
The 
