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.

Pooping on your own doorstep...

Well hello my little Droogies, long time no speak, which of course is entirely my fault so I apologise.

To be honest, not a lot has made my ears prick up recently (although I did receive a very funny email about a certain newspaper which I have chosen not to highlight - thanks though, you know who you are).

However, something always comes along, and an email detailing some fine, fine work by the Croydon Advertiser came up trumps.

An interesting splash last week, exposing a brothel in the borough (unfortunately, I can't provide a link as they haven't - as far as I can see - uploaded the story to their website. Can you believe that?).

Basically, a brothel has been operating in West Croydon under the guise of a massage parlour and one intrepid reporter exposed it as a fully-fledged knocking shop.

Shock horror, obviously, leading to pure admiration at the Sherlock Holmes-like detective work involved in deducing something unsavoury may be going on...

However, here is the catch. Turn to the classifieds and you find the usual assortment of ads for massage parlours and the like and yes, you guessed it, there is an ad for the very parlour exclusively revealed to be a knocking shop just 50-odd pages earlier.

How embarrassing.

Why, for God's sake, didn't someone think to check this?

We all appreciate ad revenues are falling constantly and we are struggling to prop up our rich owners, so why bother with such a story (particularly one as unoriginal as this) when you are adding to the problem yourself by giving them an outlet to advertise their 'services'?

I ask you, a newspaper that runs a story exposing a brothel which is advertising with them should be exposed as a very, very poor publication, which I am more than happy to do here.

You can't take their money then call them scum. Get a moral grip people. We all know this goes on, yet turning a blind eye is one thing, being a damn hypocrite is another entirely.

Someone needs to be hauled over some very, very hot coals for that corker. Holier than thou my arse.

And we can't even read the bloody 'Exclusive' story online anyway. If it wasn't so pathetic it would be hilarious.