For Kate's bump, read Kate's bumpy ride.
If you had suffered morning sickness as badly as the Duchess of Cambridge did when she was expecting Prince George, would you go bouncing down the river in a jet boat?
If you were regarded as an international role model for motherhood, would you be photographed drinking wine when pregnant?
I think we can assume that the Duchess will not be producing a sibling for George within the next nine months.
Yet this morning the Star has a white-on-purple ROYAL WORLD EXCLUSIVE above the splash heading "Wills: baby no2 is on the way".
If you had suffered morning sickness as badly as the Duchess of Cambridge did when she was expecting Prince George, would you go bouncing down the river in a jet boat?
If you were regarded as an international role model for motherhood, would you be photographed drinking wine when pregnant?
I think we can assume that the Duchess will not be producing a sibling for George within the next nine months.
Yet this morning the Star has a white-on-purple ROYAL WORLD EXCLUSIVE above the splash heading "Wills: baby no2 is on the way".
On the way, that is, in the sense of perhaps there'll be another baby sometime. There is no attempt to hold up the "Kate's expecting" pretext conveyed by the heading beyond the front page.
The third of the three pars on page 1 says: "It's the clearest clue yet that Wills and Kate are already trying for a brother or sister for eight-month-old George".
The hint came in a remark the Prince made to a woman who made a shawl for George: "You might have to make another one soon" - and the "soon" is disputed.
Eight words are enough to drive Fleet Street into a frenzy. Far from being exclusive - as the Express, Mirror and People also claimed - the "story" appears almost everywhere. Only the Independent on Sunday and Observer ignore it. Kate is the front-page picture for the Telegraph and Sunday Times - and both refer to the hint in their captions.
In the end, they all accept that the most they've got is a hint. So why go so far over the top with the headlines? And why claim as exclusive a story that patently isn't? If Kate had been pregnant and the Star had got the story to itself, would it have diluted the front page with the promise of a free box of Maltesers and four other puffs (one of which points to yesterday's Sun splash)?
If it was exclusive, why did the Mirror make its readers wait until pages 14-15 for the story, the Express to page 5 and the People to pages 12-13?
Hats off here to the Sun, which didn't even make it a page lead, but used it as a picture story on 15.
The Independent on Sunday may shun the royals, but it, too, comes a cropper on the exclusive front. Its splash on GPs is shared with the Telegraph, and its leak from the UN's latest climate report is not only shared with the Observer, which leads on the story, but less detailed and doesn't even include its title. It's a shame, because the paper is looking good in spite of its shortage of resources.
The third of the three pars on page 1 says: "It's the clearest clue yet that Wills and Kate are already trying for a brother or sister for eight-month-old George".
The hint came in a remark the Prince made to a woman who made a shawl for George: "You might have to make another one soon" - and the "soon" is disputed.
Eight words are enough to drive Fleet Street into a frenzy. Far from being exclusive - as the Express, Mirror and People also claimed - the "story" appears almost everywhere. Only the Independent on Sunday and Observer ignore it. Kate is the front-page picture for the Telegraph and Sunday Times - and both refer to the hint in their captions.
In the end, they all accept that the most they've got is a hint. So why go so far over the top with the headlines? And why claim as exclusive a story that patently isn't? If Kate had been pregnant and the Star had got the story to itself, would it have diluted the front page with the promise of a free box of Maltesers and four other puffs (one of which points to yesterday's Sun splash)?
If it was exclusive, why did the Mirror make its readers wait until pages 14-15 for the story, the Express to page 5 and the People to pages 12-13?
Hats off here to the Sun, which didn't even make it a page lead, but used it as a picture story on 15.
The Independent on Sunday may shun the royals, but it, too, comes a cropper on the exclusive front. Its splash on GPs is shared with the Telegraph, and its leak from the UN's latest climate report is not only shared with the Observer, which leads on the story, but less detailed and doesn't even include its title. It's a shame, because the paper is looking good in spite of its shortage of resources.
The People boasts of an exclusive not only on the baby that isn't, but also on Peaches Geldof and on its splash "Violent rages of Costa killer".
(By the way, the quotes are not necessary on the word killer, since Mayka Kukucova has admitted shooting the so-called King of Bling Andy Bush, but claims that she was acting in self-defence).
In this story Bush's 19-year-old daughter Ellie describes Kukocova as obsessively jealous, like a child who couldn't control her anger. Nick Dorman reports that on a shopping trip Kukocova had been upset that Bush wouldn't buy her things she wanted. “She went into a blind rage, screaming and threw a handbag at him. She did it to purposefully hurt him and then stormed off. We didn’t see her for a few hours, it was a common thing.”
“She stamped all over his laptop, then put it underneath a tap and put it back in the case. When we got back to England he realised but he tried to ignore it. He thought he could change her."
(By the way, the quotes are not necessary on the word killer, since Mayka Kukucova has admitted shooting the so-called King of Bling Andy Bush, but claims that she was acting in self-defence).
In this story Bush's 19-year-old daughter Ellie describes Kukocova as obsessively jealous, like a child who couldn't control her anger. Nick Dorman reports that on a shopping trip Kukocova had been upset that Bush wouldn't buy her things she wanted. “She went into a blind rage, screaming and threw a handbag at him. She did it to purposefully hurt him and then stormed off. We didn’t see her for a few hours, it was a common thing.”
“She stamped all over his laptop, then put it underneath a tap and put it back in the case. When we got back to England he realised but he tried to ignore it. He thought he could change her."
But look here, at pages 24-25 of the Mail. Ben Ellery in Spain and Nick Craven in London write about Ellie Bush and her opinion of Kukucova. She's like a child, apparently, and can't control her anger. There was a shopping trip and a thrown handbag, and a laptop held under a tap. And it's not only the quotes that are virtually identical: both papers illustrate the story with the same photograph - although the Mail flips its version (naughty!)
If this was a catch-up job, it was a supremely slick operation even by the Mail's high standards.
If this was a catch-up job, it was a supremely slick operation even by the Mail's high standards.
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