A* in same-old-same-old at A-level

Yes, A-level results day. You've got to love it, if only because it gives you a dead-cert front page for the next day's edition, no matter how hard that splash-worthy line can be to find some years.

However, despite the story, there's one thing that never, ever changes, and that's the front page image.

As I don't have an inexhaustable supply of money with which to purchase newspaper subscriptions, I rounded up the images from 'digital editions'. Or websites as us technophobes call them.

Here is a selection of the crackers I found...

http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/ went unorthadox, choosing not to show us a single face, instead opting for the 'shadow shot'. Either that, or someone can't crop a picture properly...

The Brighton Argus went rather more upmarket, with the classic 'posh girls who got 17 As'-style pic. Men across Brighton retired early...

This was a PA pic used by the Daily mail on their site. It's fine, but I think the girl in the centre gives it away that it was a staged picture...

Worcester News up next, and at least they tried to pull off a slight, if tired, variation, in the form of the 'photographer on his knees' shot...

The Manchester Evening News went with a classic 'jumping for joy' number, again, rather spoiled by poor cropping work. We need the feet. The feet...

http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/ is perhaps the most traditional. Jumping; tick. Feet in shot (take not MEN, tsk); tick. One of the subjects being a tit; tick. Job done.

The Bolton News is a victim of cuts, I think. You can almost hear the editor shouting "for God's sake just send a reporter out with his camera phone, I want an exam picture up there in ten minutes or you are fired!" Okay...

The Birmingham Mail (http://www.birminghammail.net/ for some reason...) is caught between two stalls. The jumping shot (see checklist above as to why they clearly failed on that one) and the smiling as we look at our results sheet shot.

But my favourite of the day has to be the Oxford Mail, not because it's a bad picture, just because they went completely mad with it, therefore exposing the fact that it really isn't that good a picture...


Anyway, I'll be back soon. Emails to the usual address: thehaplesshack@gmail.com.