The Word on the Street: Get married at the Mirror, last day at the Channel 4 races

Piers Morgan, editor of the Daily Mirror, gave a lot of space to his latest wheeze – having his office registered as a place to hold weddings. The veteran royal reporter James Whitaker is to be the master of ceremonies, with the first wedding on Valentine's Day. Alas, what Mr Morgan did not know is that, legally, once you are registered you are obliged to take bookings from the general public. So, the editor's office at the Daily Mirror will be a busy, if romantic, place.

¿ Channel 4's daily lunchtime racing programme is to be scrapped in early March, five months after the launch of this attempt to attract new viewers to the sport of kings. Unfortunately, the half-hour coverage of one race a day attracted only the old kind of stalwart – as indicated by the type of advertising that monopolised the programme: that is, elasticated trousers (£6.99 plus P&P), anti-snoring devices, retirement bonds and – most frequently of all – personal loans and "reorganise all your old loans into one big new one".

¿ A curious message has gone up on the noticeboard at the Evening Standard. Mike Anderson, managing director of the London paper, congratulates the staff on a 24 per cent rise "in readership". We hope that the joy of the editor, Veronica Wadley, and her staff won't be spoilt by the official ABC circulation figures, which unsportingly show year-on-year losses. Mr Anderson also has a memorable justification for the 5p price rise. "It makes a simple two-coin transaction," he reassures bewildered staff.

¿ Much fun is had in The Observer's media diary over a rumour that The Sunday Telegraph may employ Ian Hargreaves, described as "former editor of The Independent on Sunday", to train some Sunday Telegraph staff. Mr Hargreaves would be better placed teaching accuracy at The Observer. He was the editor of the daily Independent and never edited The Independent on Sunday.