Paper Monitor
11:56 UK time, Friday, 29 June 2012
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Paper Monitor wasn't sure this morning whether to reach for the works of Shakespeare or turn to one's best-loved rags for some grand theatre, played out in the medium of sport.
Well, hardly a day goes by without yet another dramatic development in the sporting world. Today your humble columnist can't help but notice that the narratives are reaching increasingly tragic proportions.
"Stabbed in the Beck", declares the Daily Star, with righteous indignation. The protagonist of the headline is of course the slighted England midfielder, international football star and modeller of own-brand undercrackers, David Beckham. His feelings on his omission from Team GB are only to be imagined... or not, according to the Daily Mail ("AGONY") and the Sun ("DEVASTATED").
"Golden bawls", declares the Star (Paper Monitor wonders if there is photographic evidence for this). However, for those who have so far failed to engage in the full emotional ramifications of his fall from grace, some helpful juxtaposing of happy-smiling-Beckham-pictures with sad-frowny-Beckham-pictures help get the message across.
Meanwhile on Centre Court, Rafael Nadal's early exit from Wimbledon has drawn metaphors from the warlike to the space-age. He was blasted/crushed/ejected/destroyed
depending on whether one reads the Independent/Guardian/Mirror. (see what they did there?), appended with suitable illustrations of the apparently agonised tennis pro.
In other news, banker Bob Diamond has been awarded the nickname "Bob the Rob" by the Sun for the latest rate-fixing revelations at Barclays. Paper Monitor can't help but wonder whether such a jaunty Warner Bros sobriquet quite encapsulates events - it is no match for, say, "Fred the Shred".
In fact, it sounds a bit like something Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men might say.
Bob the Rob.
Bob a job.
Flobbalob.
Flobbadob.
Loblob.
The 
