主播大秀

A look at the stories ranking highly on various news sites.

Never underestimate the power of a cat video to shoot up the most-read list of a news site. Readers of Ireland's Independent watched a while cars whizzed past. The text heightens the drama, reporting he was "frozen to the spot" while an "extraordinary rescue operation swung into operation, a task that was a race against the clock" but essentially he was just sitting there. Until he was taken away, that is.

? New Yorker readers clearly want to find out the answer as the question is in the title of the New Yorker's most read article. Apparently, the answer is if it is based in the woods, the founder meditates at his desk and aspires to become a sort of world philosopher. The article tackles the tricky question of accusations the hedge fund Bridgewater being a tad "creepy". Even if it were true, it doesn't seem to have done it any harm as the magazine points out last year alone, the founder earned between $2-3bn.

When a basketball star retires what is their concern? Chinese star that despite getting $18m (拢11m) when becoming an NBA player, he is still a worker. Yao Ming makes his case in a popular Xinhua Net story:

"When I was a kid, I was told communism was everything was shared by all. So, I could be called capitalist with so much money 30 years ago, but in fact I earned the income through hard... work, so I am still a blue collar,"

A new form of parental neurosis is being spread on a popular Newsweek article. It starts "It is no longer enough to raise children who are brave, curious, hardworking, and compassionate. Nor is it sufficient to steer them toward the right sports, the right tutors, the right internships, and thus engineer their admittance to the right (or at least a good enough) college." Because now, it says, you have to start worrying about how you are going to raise a "". "America" it panics "is so far utterly failing to produce a generation of global citizens." The comparison it makes is a quarter of US public schools not teaching language skills while 200 million Chinese children are learning English.

If US parents reading the Newsweek article decide to up sticks and bring up their children in another country, they could do worse than Finland. That's according to a popular Salon article which argues . Back in the 1970s it made teaching highly esteemed and a difficult profession to get into - with only one out of 10 people applying for teaching jobs being appointed. So they don't compare teachers in national tests, instead relying on trust.

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Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.

1. The ideal slice of toast should be cooked for exactly 216 seconds.

2. Stick insects can go without sex for one million years.
More details

3. The key to a happy marriage is based on the wife remaining slimmer than the husband.

4. People working out in a gym can cause tremors in buildings.

5. Lions will most likely attack humans just after a full moon.

6. Tall people are at greater risk of cancer.
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7. Jalfrezi is now Britain's favourite curry.

8. Diamonds are not forever, they evaporate under exposure to light.

9. Mount Everest is getting higher.
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10. The Speaking Clock still receives 30 million calls each year.
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Seen 10 things? . Big thanks to David Devine for this week's picture of 10 stamps.

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Why do people still dial the Speaking Clock? Phone engineers use it as a test number as it is always answered.
Gordon Stewardson

The Speaking Clock article states:"The original Speaking Clock and two subsequent models were developed by the Post Office in the UK, although one was sent to Australia." Why did it have to go and was it happy there?
Julie, Egham, UK

What a coincidence that the UK's first Trekologist is a Star Trek fan!
Paul, Cheltenham

Wax apples I presume?
Malcolm, Wrexham, Wales, United Kingdom

No J. Paul (Thursday's Letters), they're not making the deliveries of sand to Horse Guards for next years Olympic Games... they making it for next months Test Event to make sure everything runs smoothly when they do have the Games next year. "The deliveries came ahead of a beach volleyball test event, starting on 9 August,"
Malcolm Rees, Aldershot

Laura (Thursday letters), I'm not sure if children in the Maldives have the same cultural icons, but anyone with kids back home would suggest that your nickname is less to do with nominative determinism and more to do with the fact that Laura rhymes with .
Ruaraidh, Wirral, UK

So, er, is there an equivalent of the for people who've scored zero in any form of news quiz? I'm, er, asking for a friend. Yes. Obviously.
David Richerby, Liverpool, UK

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Winning entries in the Caption Competition.

The competition is now closed.

This week it was a person taking part in a bee bearding competition in China. Contestants use queen bees they have reared to attract other bees onto their bodies. The winner attracted 26.86kg of bees onto his body in 60 minutes.

Thanks to all who entered. The prize of a small amount of kudos to the following:

6. Valerie Ganne
Derek regretted buying a new set of clothes with his Nectar card

5. DPNixon
Even Lady Gaga had second thoughts about this one.

4. Dyeb51
Wax on - Wax off

3. Cairngorm McWomble
Sebastian's organic sunblock had its drawbacks.

2. MightyGiddyUpGal
Wendi Deng plots her revenge.

1. Clint75
He had sacrificed himself, but at least the rest of the class could enjoy their picnic.

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Paper Monitor always has a grudging respect for journalists who use their own private lives as material for their work.

It's quite one thing to have your thoughts on Eurozone contagion or anti-social behaviour in Rotherham splashed across the newspapers. But it's quite another to have your innermost private thoughts manhandled by subs and spread all over the feature pages.

In the Daily Mail, . Talking about meeting up again with her first love after 33 years. She's blunt, to say the least.

"He was probably 5st heavier than when I had last seen him, carrying a lot of extra weight around his face and midriff. His hair was grey, and he was sporting a half-baked beard which, I assumed, was there to hide his jowls."

OK, so at this point Paper Monitor is wondering if Rosie Knight is this feature writer's real name. And if jowl disguise man is reading. He is named as Tom. It's safe to guess he wouldn't be pleased.

There's also an anecdote about the first love inviting Rosie back to his posh house to have a swim in his pool while his wife was away.

Staying with the Mail. The website has being sold to American and British soldiers. The Queen and Osama Bin Laden are represented.

There's a bit of controversy from commenters at the bottom. But Paper Monitor, who knows a thing or two about chess, can only notice that the bishops and knights are too similar.

On to the front page of the Sun, there's a literary reference. Their coverage of the new bailout for Greece. It's "Grecian earner". Paper Monitor wonders how easy it is to make the link to Keat's Ode on a Grecian Urn.

Paper Monitor, in any case, derives more enjoyment from the pun on the main story inside the paper.

"I owe youzo."

Oh, you're spoiling us.

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Am I missing something here? They are making the first deliveries of sand to Horse Guards Parade for the Beach Volleyball for next year's Olympics. As the Games will be held in August, what are we planning to do for The Queen and Trooping the Colour in June, especially considering it just happens to be Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee Year? She can always take a bucket and spade with her...
J. Paul Murdock, Wall Heath, West Midlands, UK

Re: Google+ effect: Are we going back to having acquaintances? To be honest I have the same 2 categories on Facebook. People who make it onto my main list - and the others.
Brian Martin

Does this count as nominative determinism? Surely he must be one to be doing this?
I'll get me pitchfork...
Fi, Gloucestershire, UK

I'm teaching abroad, and because of my name (Laura)I'm often referred to as "Explorer". It's seems quite fitting as I moved 5,000 miles away on a whim. Is this nominative determinism or something else?
Laura, Maldives

Dave Stead (Wednesday's Letters), if you want to schedule a meeting in five working days, try asking your colleagues for it in a Sennight. Go on, please.
CJ, Cambs

Ah, yes, Paul, Ipswich, (Wednesday's Letters), but that city is Manchester !
Paul Greggor, London (ex-Liverpool)

Thursday's Popular Elsewhere - "Chumming" a new word? Haven't you heard of a film called 'Jaws', released in 1975?
Dec, Belfast

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A look at the stories ranking highly on various news sites.

In the current spirit of declaring relationships, a popular Independent article reveals their . Well, they were "briefly friends" in the 90s at least. On a trip to Brighton to visit Burchill, Rebekah went to a fortune teller and ended up "fuming" for being told although she thought she was a career girl, she should settle down instead.

The , cries the Times popular article. Your average interview implies the intimacy between journo and star. Instead it is more an agreement between the powerful PR people and the hack about what will not be said. This attempt to lift the lid on the world gets very near to suggesting a kind of writers' strike until celebrities stop their demands. Only, the journalist seems so scared about suggesting such an idea they go under the pseudonym Victoria Smith.

The most-read lists are seeing the rise of a new phrase: the tiger wife. The Daily Mail's popular article lists the and being married to Rupert Murdoch. It claims she "clawed" her way up the social ladder by being ruthlessly ambitious in a manner demonstrated by Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair.

And over at the modern day Vanity Fair they just decided to . In, we assume, a wholly unscientific comparison, the merits of a trophy wife are pitted against the tiger wife for their background, education to what films they watch. While the tiger wife is on first name terms with Warren Buffet, the trophy wife knows serge the hairdresser. You get the idea.

The presumptions about what make a perfect wife continue in the Adeleide's popular Daily Mail article. This time they don't have to be trophy or tiger. They just have to be thinner. The paper quotes research from the University of Tennessee which tracked couples over four years to find that . The paper has added their own findings:

"Model Heidi Klum - who has retained her svelte figure - married singer Seal in 2005 and they have repeatedly renewed their vows.
听
"David Beckham and his ever-slender wife Victoria also show no sign of losing the shine from their union 11 years after the event."

So that's proved then...

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

Today's Daily Express appears to be obsessed with Tuesday. It has a feature - the reminiscences of a producer who worked there in the 1950s - pegged off the 主播大秀 programme The Hour. It went out on Tuesday.

They have a big two-page spread on the "". It celebrates Wendi Deng's defence of her husband Rupert Murdoch. Err, that was on Tuesday too chaps.

A hypothetical defender of the Express might point to the fact that today's Daily Mail also has a "" piece.

The Sun has something from even further back. "Amazing pics of WW2 carnage," it says. But Paper Monitor will never hear any criticism of features about WWII. And there's actually some rather fetching colour photos here.

In any case, the Daily Mail goes even further with from 100 years ago.

Anyway, moving to more recently reported events, the Mail cannot resist the scandal of 13-year-olds being expelled from a top public school for having sex in a sandpit. They've got a from someone who was at the school. And is now promoting a novel.

But perhaps the best feature from today's papers is just a single page column from in the Express. He tries to explain the consequences of the Eurozone going off the rails, but in a tone sufficiently measured for Europhiles as well as Eurosceptics.

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A look at the stories ranking highly on various news sites.

What could possibly get readers clicking more than arguably the world's biggest media mogul being called to account by MPs? Animals, of course.

First up to steal the limelight is the leopard who strayed into a village in north-east India, attacking a forest guard. Daily Mail readers are clicking on the article "" even more than "Wendi to the rescue". The photos look like the forest guard is giving the leopard a piggy back while villagers watch from a roof, before the animal was shot with a tranquiliser.

The double whammy of uninvited predators comes from the Guardian. A and had to be lifted by a crane and to be released back into the sea. A research group was conducting a shark population study by throwing out food when the shark jumped onto their boat. The story also teaches us a pleasing new word: chumming, it turns out, means throwing bait.

Atlantic readers are delving in that all important technological advance, you know, the one that revolutionised society. Yep, you've guessed it - the pizza box. The article insists the . The corrugated cardboard and carefully placed vents has solved the problem of being able to simultaneously keep in the heat and let out the moisture, creating a veritable engineering feat. And every good article has an expert, writer Alexis Madrigal has pinpointed the "undisputed expert on pizza mobility solutions" Scott Weiner. We hope that is on his CV.

A good bodice ripper is a literary genre doing remarkably well, but Wall Street Journal readers are finding out the details are fantasy. This may seem obvious, given they are fiction but the article reveals , so to get accurate details in their novels. The only problem is what they've found out may not fit with the genre - Victorian ladies wore shirts underneath their bodice meaning if the gentleman did try to rip it off their efforts would be in vein.

The New Yorker readers do succumb to the . Her shaving-foam pie deflecting antics have prompted the magazine to delve into the archives to find out what else she has done for her husband. It turns out Wendi encouraged Rupert to take up yoga. So now you know.

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So apparently "Medieval suits of armour were so exhausting to wear that they could have affected the outcomes of famous battles". And there I was thinking they were just a bit of light-hearted battlefield fashion.
Sam, London, UK

Re: Wendi's skill at slapping down an assailant (Paper Monitor). I wouldn't call it skill, more like Basic Instinct and plenty of rehearsal, must happen a lot.
Wendy Crossley

Julie Marrs (Americanisms: 50 of your most noted examples), "gotten" is in fact an old English word (still used in the phrase "ill gotten gains"). Like "fall" instead of "autumn", it went to America and then the English word subsequently changed. Can't really criticise the Americans for that.
Andy, UK

Regarding number 29 in (Americanisms: 50 of your most noted examples). Of all the phrases which I could use when talking with American colleagues, saying something would be ready in a fortnight instead of two weeks was the best. Most were completely dumbfounded by a word, which is used often to describe two weeks. So I endeavoured to make sure my schedules were generally 10 working day periods.
Dave Stead

Mr Clarkson had claimed he would "resign in a heartbeat" if he was asked to move to the city. Go on then, ask him. Please.
Paul, Ipswich

One of my colleagues was in the British forces and suffers from tinnitus. In the interests of medical science, I'd be happy to hold a giant magnet to his head to find out what happens.
Anita, Poole, Dorset

Anon (Tuesdays letters), much as i admire your modesty, would you mind if i took the kudos for getting a letter published on your behalf?
Ed, Wakefield

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

It's the morning after the day before.

People in Newspaperworld were nothing less than tantalised by yesterday's phone-hacking hearings. Rupert Murdoch being grilled, Rebekah Brooks being grilled etc.

Of course, an "incident" took place. It's the subject of criminal proceedings so we won't go into details. But suffice it to say, this morning's coverage is all about a spot of boxing. Or at least the cuff around the ear delivered to the person who is the subject of the proceedings. By Rupert Murdoch's wife Wendi Deng.

The Times headlines its account of her actions as "Crouching Wendi, hidden dragon". It's cos she is Chinese, you know. And there was that film in Chinese. Geddit? DO YOU GEDDIT?

"Ms Deng seemed to land her smack straight in the face of the [person who is subject to the proceedings]." Scribe Valentine Low channels the 1950s while describing Deng as "smart as well as decorative".

her speedy leap to Rupert's defence and swift blow came because she is a former champion volleyball player.

Using an open palm, she brought down a blow hard and with full fury on to [the person's] head, just as if she was spiking a volleyball.

The Daily Star boils it down further with "GOTCHA: Murdoch's missus whacks loon".

Rachael Bletchly in the Daily Mirror turns out a dramatically written colour piece about the episode. Most exciting line:

I found myself wedged next to ex-Lib Dem MP Lembit Opik.

Ah, it was an accidental wedging was it?

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Winning entries in the Caption Competition.

The competition is now closed.

This week it the Lower Keys Underwater Music Festival in Florida. More than 500 divers and snorkelers swam down to see acts like "Eel-vis Presley" and "Bob Marlin".

Thanks to all who entered. The prize of a small amount of kudos to the following:

6. Raven
Bob Marlin? Was he with the Whalers?

5. Pendragon
At least it's drier than Glastonbury

4. LaurenceLane
Just practicing my scales.

3. BeckySnow
Twenty years on and skint, the remaining members of Nirvana release Nevermind II.

2. Mr Snoozy
Event organisers were said to be upset that Moby had declined their invitation.

1. Rob Falconer
James Blunt regretted asking his fans where they'd like him to perform next

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I know how they feel.
Mike, Newcastle upon Tyne

Re: Mystery of mole's second thumb solved I once met a cat with eight toes on each foot. We decided it was probably an octo-pus.
Susan, Newcastle

Dear Rob (Monday's letters), imminently,
Anon

Re: Firstly, they should stop leaving all the moving jobs to the men; and secondly, they have clearly not tried to find a pair of jeans with a 30" waist and a 36" inside leg.
Basil Long, Nottingham

Aha! I think this counts as a true all-noun headline on the news front page: "Berlusconi sex trial bid setback."
Fi, Gloucestershire, UK

Nominative determinism. Is it too late to mention
Jeremy, Aylesbury

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

It is high noon - or, more accurately, high 1430 BST- for the biggest news story of the year.

The introductory paragraph to the offers both a neat summary of events to date and an encapsulation of the fevered mood among those covering them:

The phone hacking scandal that has claimed the jobs of Britain's two most high-profile police officers, caused the closure of one of the country's most famous newspapers, prompted 10 arrests so far and led to calls for the resignation of the Prime Minister reaches a critical juncture today with a moment of high drama to rival anything that the British media has produced before, either in real life or fiction.

The impending appearance of Rupert and James Murdoch before a committee of MPs investigating the affair has Fleet Street barely able to contain its anticipation.

According to the media tycoon "faces the modern equivalent of being flogged through the streets of London... This is Rupert Murdoch's Tyburn."

"Westminster is a seething cocktail of charges and conspiracies, with a lynch mob mentality ruling the Commons' corridors."

Even the Murdoch-owned Times predicts millions will tune in to watch the confrontation live, quoting a source who predicts the spectacle will be

Dissenting voices are, however, to be found in the Daily Mail. Its whether "all sense of proportion been lost in this furore". Likewise, says he finds himself "out of sympathy with people -- mostly politicians and journalists -- who are reacting much as might be expected if an enormous meteorite had landed on Hemel Hempstead".

Whatever your view of the affair, Paper Monitor directs your attention to - the reporter responsible for pursuing the scandal to its current point - profiling Sean Hoare, the first ex-News of the World journalist to claim that his former editor Andy Coulson knew about phone-hacking.

Hoare was, of course, found dead yesterday, and his posthumous profile is one of the most powerful pieces of writing Paper Monitor has read for some time.

Davies portrays Hoare as a man of contradictions - a working-class "'clause IV' socialist who still believed in public ownership of the means of production" and yet "found himself up to his elbows in drugs and delirium" while working the showbusiness beat.

Hoare was, Davies says, a "born reporter... a warm, kind man, who could light up a lamp-post with his talk" and yet, unlike many of his less scrupulous colleagues, "did not play the bully with his sources".

But the lifestyle took its toll. As he threw himself into covering the celebrity world, he would start each day with "a rock star's breakfast" - a line of cocaine and a shot of Jack Daniels.

As his health deteriorated, he was sacked by Coulson, prompting him to speak out. Poignantly, Davies describes a troubled soul who nonetheless sought redemption:

He liked to say that he had stopped drinking, but he would treat himself to some red wine. He liked to say he didn't smoke any more, but he would stop for a cigarette on his way home. For better and worse, he was a Fleet Street man.

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In case you're wondering why you haven't seen her lately - she seems to have
James, Dunedin, NZ

Anyone else hurriedly read this headline and conjure up the scene of a veteran rocker committing a somewhat unlikely act of heroism?
Paul, Marlow, UK

Come on! Did we really need a physicist to tell us that the heavier and higher the object, the harder the hit is going to be?
MF, London

Nadja (Thursday's letters), does it make a difference whether you stack 拢50 notes, 20s or tenners? I thought they were all about the same thickness (unless there is someone out there that knows better...)
Phil Warne, Nelson, NZ

In today's Popular Elsewhere: "The start of the season involved flying cars..." Wow, where can we buy one of those, please?
Rob Falconer, Llandough, Wales

Doesn't this simply reinforce the old adage, attributed to Dr Johnson: "Knowledge is not a knowing thing, it's knowing where to find it"?
Fee Lock, Hastings, East Sussex

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A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.

It has been apparent for many years that the pop music festival is now as much a part of the British society summer season as Glyndebourne or the Proms.

So, too, is the newspaper feature in which a middle-aged refusenik, accustomed to upper-middle-class life's many fineries - say, or - braves the mud and loud noise of Glastonbury and Reading, and finds it wanting, but learns a valuable lesson about something.

And today that most small-and-large-c conservative of papers, the Daily Telegraph,

This is not the clash of cultures on which such articles thrive. Latitude is, after all, widely regarded as the cosiest, most family-friendly and socially upscale of its genus, and is regularly described as the "Waitrose of festivals".

Mr Gimson may be reluctant to attend, convinced that 拢170 is "grotesque amount to pay for the privilege of sleeping in a field", but, grudgingly brought along by his teenage daughters, he comes to appreciate the experience. "But my idea of a good time is still walking along Offa's Dyke in the rain," he concludes, with what is perhaps the most Daily Telegraph sentence ever written.

A more surprising juxtaposition of social mores comes from whom, it transpires, is a keen admirer of the British monarchy.

The author of Murder Was the Case and Gin and Juice declares: "If I ever got to Buckingham Palace, oh my, I'd be like 'Well hello Queen ma, pleased to meet you'."

For such an occasion, he promises, he would wear "the flyest suit you'd ever seen and a fly hat to go with it because I know the good lady likes wearing hats... I heard she likes yellow so I'd make it yellow".

He also promises to produce some "baby-making music" for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Paper Monitor keenly awaits the results, by royal appointment.

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A look at the stories ranking highly on various news sites.

A peculiar story is getting Independent readers clicking on it, most probably because its headline including the words 鈥溾��. It refers to a Russian video posted online urging women to strip off in support of the Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Presidential elections are coming up next year and the paper suggests Mr Putin may run for them.

However, the听story doesn鈥檛 appear Russia Today鈥檚 most-read list - an even weirder one does: 鈥溾��. The questions are endless and not quite answered. How can you tell a ferret is depressed? How does it convince the ape and parrot to come with it?
The depression, so the story goes, is not diagnosed but a presumption by the circus owners who say it is caused by bad weather. The ape was later found hugging a dog but it is hoped the ferret will return once it gets hungry.

On to more serious subjects for New York Times鈥� readers. The paper finds one . A popular New York Times article says that despite rising prices of courses and the reduced likelihood of getting a job on graduating, law schools are seeing bulging classes. But one law school head has been campaigning for 11 years that it is immoral to charge so much and carry on taking on students who won鈥檛 get jobs. Although he鈥檚 got nowhere so far, Richard Matasar is standing down from his job at New York Law School, leaving behind him a strange听career where he complains about the industry but carries on accepting the students.

. That鈥檚 what we learn in NPR鈥檚 most popular article. The connection to army veterans has led to increased funding for investigating why people hear ringing in their ears. Research suggests that it may not be a problem with the ears but instead to do with a loose connection in the brain instead which they hope could be curable by holding an electromagnet to people's heads, it says.

The Apprentice UK听final through the Guardian鈥檚 live blogger Heidi Stephens. She sets out all the characters in pantomime fashion, from Magazine Mike to Evil Claude. Ms Stephens gets increasingly despairing until she crescendos with 鈥淪orry, how have ANY of these idiots ended up on the Apprentice? I wouldn't give them 拢2.50, let alone 250 GRAND.鈥� But she turns it around by the time the winner is announced with an impromptu 鈥渉appy dance鈥�, an admission of getting a bit over emotional and the question 鈥淚s it possible I might have invested too much in this show?鈥�

to do some expensive car spotting. The paper says it is the start of 'The Season', when dozens of wealthy Arabs escape the blistering heat in s for a tour of the most exclusive holiday destinations in Europe. The start of the season involved flying cars, some worth over a million pounds, across to London to start a tour of European cities.

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