Chunky knit genitals and the family-friendly paper with a new set of boobs every single day of the week

I've never had much time for tabloid journalism and every so often I spot something which confirms my misgivings. For all it's exposed nipples and papping of female 'celebrities' sunbathing in the noddy or falling out their tops while falling out of a nightclub, once proceedings move beyond base titilation the Sun comes over all nudge-nudge, wink-wink and adopts a tone of cod-moral disapproval.

A case in point is its coverage of the latest promotional stunt for Sacha Baron Cohen's new film, Bruno. The premise of the event was a fairly ham-fisted pastiche of the controversial United Colours of Benneton adverts of the 1990s ("United Colours of Brünotton", in case you were wondering). Baron Cohen and a few others appeared in the middle of Berlin wearing chunky-knit body suits (most of which were pink, with a yellow one and a brown one chucked in for good measure).

The Sun, in it's infinite wisdom, decided to pixellate the family jewels of each of the suits. Yet, ITN, the Daily Telegraph and the Evening Standard (and these are just the ones I discovered before I got bored and stopped looking) left the images untouched for the world to see the crocheted genitals in all their glory.

Hats off for the man behind the stunt to pay such attention to detail that he gave the 'black' body suit a tiny penis and endow the 'Chinese' one with something that could, at first glance, be mistaken for a French riot policeman's nightstick.

As for the Sun's approach, it's the journalistic equivalent of a bunch of geezers sitting in a pub, drinking pints of Carling, using terms like "John Thomas" or "member" to refer to a penis: utterly laughable and cringe-worthy in one fell swoop.

Shh...their spies are everywhere.

I spent most of today sneezing my own brains out at the office. It's official, my hayfever has kicked in. This relatively recent development has only begun to afflict me in the past few years but now, each summer for one or two weeks straight, I am rendered incapacitated by sniffing, snorting and rubbing my nose red raw with supposedly supersoft tissues - all the while necking antihistamines like I'm trying to take an overdose.

Forgive the graphic detail, but today my left nostil ran like Red Rum on steriods, it just wouldn't stop. And it was of the particularly thin kind that creeps up on you with no warning. Most embarrassing when talking to your editor.

By the time I got home my schnoz had started behaving itself and what could have been a potentially fraught trip to the supermarket passed off without incident.

I returned to my laptop and logged into my email. Ooh, I have 1 new message.

"Kleenex Tissues is now following you on Twitter!"

HOW DID THEY KNOW!? Did they plan this? I've come to the conclusion that's all one big conspiracy and they must release vast quantities of pollen and other airborne irritants from a gigantic Tuppaware container somewhere over the channel and wait for the prevailing winds to take hold.

Their marketing manager is a genius.

Is there something we should be told? (after Private Eye...)

I don't usually go in for these, but this occurred to me during a recent flick through the papers.

Cast them as cousins.

Anyway, now to the serious business. Yesterday Newcastle United Football Club placed a notice on it's website declaring that, once again, the club is up for sale, this time around for the princely sum of £100million. A steep sum for an outfit playing in the second tier of English football, you must agree.

The latest move to find a buyer can only have confirmed among the most ardent supporters what outsiders knew long ago: the club is under the stewardship of a complete amateur. At the time, Mike Ashley's acquisition was seen by some as a welcome move given the burgeoning trend of low-profile foreign money men taking controlling stakes in top-level teams.

While cries of "Cockney Mafia!" have since echoed around St James' Park and beyond many fans were pleased to see the old administration make way for the new. How things change. While the faithful are die-hard to the point of self-denial, it has become increasingly clear to fans and commentators alike that the club was being run by someone without even the first idea how to do so.

The unprofessional - if direct - nature of Ashley's way of advertising his desire to rid himself of this multimillion-pound burden is all too apparent. What compounds it is that this is only the latest incident in a long-line of forehead-slappingly stupid moves.

"What's that?" said Ashley to no-one in particular when he heard of Manchester City being offloaded by its unscupulous former owner to a band of oil-rich squillionaires from the Middle East, thus simultaneously purging the club of any lingering scandal and pumping its coffers full of dosh that they would be hard pressed to actually spend despite laughable delusions about being a 'big club'?

"I'll have some of that," he must have muttered to himself as he got on the blower to his travel agent.

The thought of someone of Ashley's not inconsiderable mass touching down in Dubai and stepping out of an air-conditioned first-class cabin into 40-degree heat is comical enough. But the notion that the kind of individuals to whom he was looking to sell would just allow him to turn up at their corporate headquarters with the keys to SJ'sP and a stack of replica shirts with "Sheikh" printed on the back is staggering in its ineptitude. Something tells me necking cocktails in public during the holy month of Ramadan didn't do him any favours, either.

What's more, it seems that no-one has yet learnt from Ashley's mistakes. Fans have espoused the need for a manager who loves the club to sweep in and take over, perhaps in tandem with a new owner who understands what NUFC is all about. This would surely only compound their woes and see them sink ever deeper into the mire. Tough love, or perhaps no love at all and instead sheer pragmatism, is what is needed now more than ever.

And the sooner Mike Ashley sells, to almost anyone, the sooner the club can begin to redeem itself in the eyes of football fans in general and, most importantly, its own supporters. The faithful might still believe in their side's stature for the time being. But something tells me that, by the time the whistle blows on the first day of the season and they line up to face not Manchester United or Chelsea but instead the likes of Plymouth Argyle and Doncaster Rovers, the shit will have well and truly hit the fan.

For a comprehensive and compelling look at the club's current need for a detached and utterly unromantic manager, read Times columnist Matthew Syed's thoughts on the matter - rightly described by my friend and fellow blogger Matt as "the most 'nail on head' article I've ever read".

Is this Silvio Berlusconi's penis?

Adolescence is a time of upheaval, change and discovery but despite this it does, from time to time, offer the odd chance to stop a short while and reflect. Such is the effect of impending adulthood and burgeoning indepedence, it's only natural to ask questions about the world and think of what the future holds.

At the age of 17 or so, these questions can be glaringly short-termist, such as 'Will I pull at the house party on Friday night because two of my friends have gotten some in the last month and it's starting to get ridiculous?'. Or they can take a more laudible and far-sighted character, such as 'If I do a degree in Sociology will I still be sniggered at in a decade's time?'.

However, I would be so bold as to wager everything I have and, were it possible, everything I ever will on the fact that not once did it cross my mind to ponder, even for a second, the following question, which at the age 23 I now find myself incapable of avoiding:

'Is this the president of Italy nursing a semi-on?'

For me, the tan lines are a dead giveaway - although, if there's one major world leader who would sunbathe naked it's this guy, right?

El Pais
BBC News