A slight delay in posting this Daily Mail online headline, during which I’ve tried and failed to find its provenance. The subbing teams for the paper and web are completely separate and no one seems to know where this came from. Possibly even the wire. In any case, flat caps off.

Old man goes shopping

Of course, one of the reasons this seems such a clever headline is because it adds sparkle to the story “old man goes shopping”. In fact you’ve got to wonder whether it’s a story at all without the headline. Does anyone care about Dick Van Dyke’s appearance in a supermarket car park? If they’ve just run the story to do the headline that seems to detract from it a little, but then again we’ve all got those rainy day headlines for stories we’d love to see. Perhaps this will inspire me finally to research that article on emphysema: ENGLAND EXPECTORATES.

However as online journalists they will know that the internet can always make a funny situation funnier. (Just try searching for what Angelina Jolie would have looked like with both her legs exposed at the Oscars.) Predictably, another tabloid sub – Dave Brommage – improved it instantly on Twitter: STOOPED AND PALLID, FRAGILE-ISTIC, EX-SWEEP LOOKS ATROCIOUS.

Read that and laughed so much I floated up to the ceiling.