Thursday, March 06, 2008

Gordon in the morning: Swayze and means

Well, it could have been worse. We were worried that this morning's Bizarre would have attempted to crowbar in a reference to how he was once a ghost, but the coverage of Patrick Swayze's cancer isn't quite that cloying. Not quite, anyway. With Emily Smith covering the story, and Emma Morton (the Sun's health and science editor) explaining what cancer is, Gordon is left with little to do but invite people to send messages of support:

Now, the 55-year-old could be spending his last few precious weeks with his family as pancreatic cancer takes hold.

Leave your messages of support by using the MySun link below.

If you did have weeks to live, it's not clear how much of that "precious time" you'd want to spend wading through heartfelt but poorly constructed messages from Sun readers.

Gordon and Emily have a difference of opinion over exactly what Patrick is like. For Gordon, he's:
DIRTY Dancing heart throb PATRICK SWAYZE

but for Emily, he's:
DIRTY Dancing hunk PATRICK SWAYZE

Presumably Gordo was worried that calling a man a hunk makes it sound like it's your opinion, whereas "heart throb" is an observation of other people's reactions.

There's something heartwarming about Emma Morton's attempts to explain pancreatic cancer to the Bizarre readership:
THE pancreas is a gland that secretes digestive enzymes and produces important hormones like insulin, writes The Sun’s Health and Science Editor Emma Morton.

Pancreatic cancer is notoriously difficult to treat. And it is hard to diagnose, because of its location at the back of the abdomen.

Emma's faith that "abdomen", "enzyme" and "insulin" are going to illuminate the matter for Gordon's readers is touching. Perhaps she should have seen how Gordon handles pregnancy before deciding where to pitch her piece. Angelina Jolie, we're told by the HTML page title, is
Busty and pregnant

while
Super-fit NICOLE KIDMAN also looks swell as her baby bump begins to bulge.

There's not much sign that Gordon thinks his readers did more human biology than giggling over page 72 in the text book.


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