Play With Words

Stephen Bates wrote in The Guardian:

The courtship is being conducted with all the formality of a Jane Austen novel. Effie is being introduced to the others one at a time and for strictly limited hour-long meetings each day to avoid unpleasantness on either side. Informally, the keepers call it speed-mating.

What is this all about? Obviously there is certain ‘Kate Moss of gorillas’ who is about to be introduced into the ‘Gorillas Kingdom’ in London Zoo.

How the Kate Moss of gorillas gave Ziggy the hump at London Zoo’s new enclosure

Daniel Taylor of The Guardian describes the difference between two teams that will meet this evening:

It was a classic shot of the differences between the two teams who will meet in Catalonia this evening – on one side, the millionaires with their diamond earrings and Louis Vuitton man-bags and, on the other, the assortment of part-timers, wannabes and never-will-bes with their modest tracksuits and the air of lost tourists.

And David Rodrigo, coach of Andorra, says:

We think of them as excellent football players but we will not be asking them for their autographs. And they might be famous but we do not consider them to be from another planet. We will do everythng we can that England won’t want us to do. We want to show them that a small nation can play football as well but we will also provoke as many problems for them as possible.

Andorra’s jacks of all trades get ready to enjoy spot of overtime

Nancy Banks-Smith of Guardian explains the plot of the new American TV series Kidnapped:

We meet them the morning a New York Times reporter arrives to do a feature on “Breakfast with the Cains”. She should have stuck around for elevenses because – what a scoop – Leopold is kidnapped on the way to school, and his bodyguard shot and left starfished on the road.

I like the expression ‘starfished’.

elevenses: pl.n. Chiefly British. Tea or coffee taken at midmorning and often accompanied by a snack.
scoop: Informal. An exclusive news story acquired by luck or initiative before a competitor.

Nancy Banks-Smith on last night’s TV:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv_and_radio/story/0,,2033152,00.html

Kathryn Hughes explains Jane Austen’s philosophy is more about pragmatism than romance.

Everyone in Austen’s world comes with a price tag that announces, in terms as clear as a livestock auction, just how much money is on offer and how much is expected in return. Thus a stonking great income of £5,000 a year is quite enough to wipe out body odour and the fact that no one in three counties can stand your screechy laugh. But with only a paltry £100 a year, you’d better have the kind of cleavage Andrew Davies dreams about.

Never mind the cleavage

Andrew Davies: writer of Sense and Sensibility (2007 TV series), Bridget Jones 2, Bridget Jones’s Diary

Guardian’s Michael White explains Charles Clarke and Alan Milburn’s 2020 Vision website is about to those uninitiated:

Does yesterday’s call by Charles Clarke and Alan Milburn for a wholesome debate on Labour’s future policy direction mean what it says on the website tin. Or is it really a surrogate leadership campaign, one in which Corporal David Miliband is pushed up out of the Flanders trench by a couple of grizzled old sergeants who want someone else to test the machine guns?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2023852,00.html