WhatisNews?

Unpopular estate agents

It's official. Estate agents are not only the second most unpopular profession in Britain (after MPs). They've also been voted the most overpaid. They beat lawyers, plumbers, electricians and even footballers. Of course, the estate agents themselves are up in arms about this. "It's the wide boys who give the profession a bad name," said one. "Lots of estate agents are just scraping a living."

Many estate agents can barely afford to buy lipstick.

Cheap opera tickets (but not for the likes of me)

The Royal Opera House has come up with a new wheeze to make itself appear democratic and inclusive and various other contemporary buzz words. It's selling off 100 of its best seats for a tenner each. The tickets - for seats that normally cost up to £175 - will be flogged 90 minutes before curtain-up on Monday nights, first come, first served. Sounds great, but really it's only any good if you can spend a day sitting on the pavement in Covent Garden. In other words, the people who get to buy these tickets will be students, assorted other layabouts and Japanese tourists who are prepared - and able - to queue for six hours. I suppose it's equality of a kind, but it doesn't seem fair to the vast majority of British people who a) live outside London and b) have to work in order to pay the taxes that go towards funding opera houses.

Condi's face

"Condi" Rice's face always reminds me of a bulldog that's been forced to lick its own puke from a thorn tree. I trust she'll be looking even less cheerful this evening. By then, I'm hoping the September 11th Commission will have at the very least forced Ms Rice to grovel for the American administration's failure to take Al Qaeda seriously.

Keep smiling.

Some cool sites

If you're a long way from home and yearn to see a real newspaper front page from back wherever, turn to the newseum - a brilliant site with today's front pages from hundreds of newspapers across the world. Server's a bit slow, mind you.

And if you're curious to find out more about how those front pages were designed, check out newsdesigner, a fascinating blog that goes behind the scenes in the print world. (Thanks to uber-blogger Stu Hughes for pointing out the latter...)

The passion of the Mel

Every day at work one or other of the born-agains here ask me if I've been to see The Passion of the Christ yet. The answer is no. For a start I am clinically allergic to the work of Mel Gibson. Even the slightest exposure to Mad Max, Braveheart or one of the Lethal Weapon franchises brings out in me a strong urge to separate Mr Gibson from his lustrous 70s bouffant and the head on which it rests. Secondly, although Mel thankfully doesn't appear in this epic (though I hear his is the hand that hammers in the first nail) I just don't think I can stomach two hours plus of flagellation, extreme violence and spoken Latin. I had four years of it at school (the Latin, I mean) and I think I'd just be sitting in the cinema revising my conjugations (amo, amas amat...)

"My husband went to Jerusalem and all I got was this lousy T-shirt."

Cartoon time

Thanks to Julia for this...

Blue skies

Don't you just love the UK Ministry of Defence? They bought eight Chinook helicopters for £259 million, only to discover they need another £127 million worth of software upgrades to fly properly.

Apparently the helicopters need extra navigation kit in order to be able to fly through clouds. Nobody from the MOD bothered to check they actually had this kit before writing the cheque.

Is this the right way for Baghdad?

Hello? Isn't this a bit like buying a brand new car and only noticing when you get it home that it doesn't have any headlights?

The MOD has carried out a number of internal investigations since the balls-up and says it will "learn lessons for the future." I wonder what those will be?

The MOD is a bloated, over-funded relic of Britain's imperial past. How many teachers, nurses or hospital beds would that £259 million have paid for? Why are we still spending so much money on guns, bombs, soldiers and helicopters that don't actually work? I wish somebody could explain this to me.

Take note

I am a recently converted disciple of Moleskine notebooks. These gorgeous objects are a modern incarnation of the notebooks used by Bruce Chatwin and Ernest Hemingway, amongst others. Perfect for those of us with literary pretensions... Just discovered a blog devoted to Moleskine notebooks (better than another one about knitting, I say).

Philosophical thoughts

My old university has decided to close down three departments in order to "meet student demand." Sociology, anthropology and philosophy will get the axe, as we journalists like to say. In their place will come courses on Egyptology, translation and - God help us - media studies. Does the world need another media studies course? I doubt it. In fact, I'd say Egyptology would come in more handy.

The thought of a university that doesn't teach philosophy is horrific. Not unlike going to a Chinese restaurant and finding out there's no crispy duck on the menu. Even if you don't want it for yourself, it should be there for people who do. Without it, can a Chinese restaurant legitimately describe itself as a Chinese restaurant?

Funniest sitcoms

Apologies for the silence. I'm still reeling from the news that Only Fools and Horses is supposedly Britain's best sitcom. Actually, it's the one that oiks get all gooey about, appealing as it does to that great British quality - maudlin sentimentality.

As for Vicar of Dibley, I'm staggered that it was in the top 50, never mind the top 3. But this being 2004, we were urged to vote for it not because it was funny, but because it was about a woman.

What was so offensive about the competition itself was the gaggle of "celebrities" hired in to act as "advocates" for a particular show. Thus it was Carol Vorderman - that great expert on British comedy - who told us to vote Dibley. It was obvious that with one or two exceptions, these slebs would have endorsed any programme they'd been paid to. A ghastly piece of television.