Tales from the Water Cooler: Publish and be dimmed

Your intellectual integrity is perfectly safe

Regular visitors to this column will know that I often enjoy laughing at Britain's other, lesser newspapers (in truth, this tends to involve something called "The Daily Mail"). If you were with us last week (and if you weren't, I want tweets explaining why not), you'll know I renewed my attack on another member of the so-called competition by suggesting that i occupied editorial heights to which a comic like Metro could never ascend, even if it wore a jet-pack. How wrong I was; how wide of the mark to suggest Metro gets away with having a mental age of four just because people are too sleepy in the morning to make a proper value judgement on its ineptitude. Indeed, two Metro stories this week made me realise that I was very wrong to suggest the paper was both staffed and read by sugar-rushing toddlers.

First, there was the tale of the US church which, when viewed on Google Earth, resembles a giant penis. Arf! The crack editorial team then executed a knockout one-two punch 24 hours later by publishing a story which told how someone had found a caterpillar which looked exactly like Iron Man. Arf again!

What was I worried about? Your intellectual integrity is obviously perfectly safe. And next time someone sniggers while you are mouthing the words in Metro on the train, show them either of these nuggets of news gold. That'll learn them.

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