Swine flu spreads on front pages

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The spread of swine flu to London public school Alleyn's divides picture editors on Tuesday.

The <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/98993/Pig-flu-hits-another-school">Daily Express</a> and <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/79384/Pixie-s-school-is-hit-by-swine-flu/">Daily Star</a> opt for the celebrity connection, carrying pictures of former pupil Pixie Geldof.

The <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6222747.ece">Times takes a more sombre view,</a> using images of worried mothers picking up anti-viral drugs for their children.

The <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1176873/Swine-flu-Its-just-like-cold-says-girl-12-hit-public-school.html">Daily Mail, meanwhile, has cheerful 12-year-old Sophie de Salis on its front page.</a> She caught swine flu, but says "it just felt like a normal cold".

'Dead parrot'

The papers make grim reading once again for Gordon Brown.

In its editorial, <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.express.co.uk/ourcomment">the Daily Express thinks</a> "it is impossible to see Mr Brown being allowed to lead his party for much longer".

Acid-tongued <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1177301/LITTLEJOHN-Just-like-Monty-Pythons-parrot-Government-ceased-be.html">Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn agrees.</a> "Most folk have worked out that this is a dead government," he writes.

"Just like Monty Python's parrot, it has ceased to be. Nailing it to the perch doesn't fool anyone."

'Framed'

The <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/real_life/article2411968.ece">Sun ploughs its own front page furrow</a> with a first-hand account from a male victim of domestic violence.

The paper says "34 men were killed last year by their partner or ex-partner", yet "men are frequently too embarrassed to reveal what is going on at home".

The <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/05/04/shannon-matthews-mum-i-only-miss-sex-and-shopping-115875-21332499/">Daily Mirror also leads with an exclusive story</a> - a prison interview with Karen Matthews, mother of Shannon.

In it, she protests her innocence of her daughter's "bogus kidnapping" and insists she was "framed".

'Lopped off'

It seems the famous tale of Vincent van Gogh cutting off his ear may be untrue.

The <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/may/04/vincent-van-gogh-ear">"legendary act of self-harm", as the Guardian puts it,</a> may actually have been perpetrated by van Gogh's friend, the artist Paul Gauguin.

Two German historians now claim he "lopped it off with a sword during an argument," <a class="inlineText" href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/5274073/Van-Goghs-ear-was-cut-off-by-friend-Gauguin-with-a-sword.html">says the Daily Telegraph.</a>

<a class="inlineText" href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/was-truth-the-biggest-casualty-in-the-case-of-vincent-and-his-severed-ear-1678988.html">If they are right, warns the Independent,</a> "the history of art, and the history of ears, may never be the same again."