It was some time before it was my turn to sit in the chair. I'd worked my way through the magazines and papers that Reno scatters around his barber shop for people to while away the wait, stared idly for a few minutes at the traffic hurrying around Holland Park roundabout, all the time listening to him chatting as he worked steadily with his scissors and clippers. Waiting can be a questions of compromises; you do things, often from boredom, that you'd never do normally. I did. I turned to my right and picked up the only piece of newsprint I had n't touched. It was the Daily Mail. Not something I do regularly. Let's put it this way: it's a question of taste. We don't agree, we don't get on. Some relationships are like that

Their point of view and mine don't touch in anyway. Well, that's not entirely correct, I'm prepared to agree with them on football results, and sometimes the weather forecast, only, though, after I've stuck my head out of the window and verified for myself, but that's as far as we can go. It's a little too shrill for my Guardianista ears for one thing; blimpish, choleric prose for another; very traditional too, life was always better fifty years ago. Always. Places were known then. I think in their heart of hearts they rue feudalism passing. Squires, manor houses, doffing caps, that kind of thing.

And does it know how to champion grievance and belittle at the same time? No contenders left standing here. If you're American and reading this, then imagine Fox News with pages and ink, then you'll get the sense of what they're all about.

The headline shrieked just as it had done the previous day, and no doubt would on the next and the one after that. Yet, it got me thinking. Not about the article, or even what was in the rest of the paper; no, something altogether different. This: the Daily Mail Fridge magnet series. Make a Daily Mail headline on your fridge door using their favourite trigger words. The permutations are immense. It'd be pretty outspoken too. Might end up peeling a couple of layers off the fridge door.

Imagine what you could with these words, for instance, I've seen them appear over the years in their most emboldened font: there's betrayl - they like that; or anger and outrage; farce, yes, they are keen on that word, seen it very recently; then's these close relatives, fiasco, chaos, and crisis. Bungling is another frequent guest on their front page, usually preceding minister or department. Cynical and hypocritical get in there as well.

Then there are these words, the bad words, never to be used when children are around, or servants (it's that kind of paper, or feels it is). These are the Devil's works, the snares that always hobble this country, or at least if you follow their editorials, that is: Europe, and wait for it the baddest of all....Brussels. Oh, I'm shivering. The taboo word.

Nearly forgot, have to have some quotation marks as well for those times when they want to make a point. Important, might have to be sarcastic, even ironic, according to circumstances...you would n't mock though, would you. Would you?

What do you think, will fridge magnets like this find a market, or should I leave musing and simply get my haircut?