Paper Monitor
12:50 UK time, Monday, 29 August 2011
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
New Yorkers had been told to expect scenes only found in water-borne disaster films. The city had effectively been shut down by the authorities who warned that Hurricane Irene would bring chaos to its streets. But luckily it weakened into a tropical storm and most areas in the city experienced no more than high winds and light flooding.
This throws up an issue for the papers who were expecting to have near-apocalyptic pictures of the Big Apple to run this morning. But they have accepted defeat gracefully and used pictures of people doing rain dances and creating an impromptu water slide instead.
But Paper Monitor's favourite is on the front page of the Daily Telegraph. Under the headline, "Hurricane? What hurricane?", there's a picture of bare-chested Canadian firemen playing a game of improvised ice hockey in Times Square.
However, the fact New York escaped the devastation which affected other parts of the US East Coast has not deterred the Daily Mirror. Its front page has the city "battered" by the storm.
No Monday is now complete without the usual round of X Factor stories, where the papers reveal the secrets of the contestants who wowed the judges on Saturday night.
The Daily Mirror has unveiled the self-confessed "shy and ugly" Johnny Robinson as a professional drag queen, while the Sun's front page exclusive is that R&B singer (and former jailbird) Derry Mensah save his friend's life after he was shot in a gangland shooting.
The Daily Mail has gone straight for the X Factor jugular by asking "Cheryl and Simon who?" It says a record number of viewers tuned into Saturday's show - 11.4 million to be exact - despite the disappearance of the nation's sweetheart Cheryl Cole and TV's Mr Nasty from our screens.
However, the Sun has a more pressing question - Where's Wally?
In this case, he is somewhere on a super fan's back. Yes, 22-year-old John Mosley has had a giant tattoo inked on to his back. It features 150 characters among the landmarks of his home city of Norwich and hiding somewhere in there is his cartoon hero Wally. It took 24 hours and it was also for charity, Paper Monitor hastens to add.
SPOILER ALERT, SPOILER ALERT - the stripy-shirted Wally is next to some bathing beauties in bikinis. And very happy he looks too.
The 
