The agony and the ecstasy. Yesterday former Liberal senator Amanda Vanstone wrote a touching story in The Age of “Auntie Wilma” (a friend of a friend) and her run-ins with her unscrupulous GP, who had prescribed unnecessary and sometimes dangerous pills. But looking at the photograph from yesterday’s print edition, we are wondering exactly what sort of blood pressure medication Auntie Wilma was on. To the best of our knowledge, medication does not come in heart shapes, or imprinted with alien heads in flouro colours. Perhaps Auntie Wilma’s GP was Dr Hunter S. Thompson? At any rate, the imaged used in the online version looks slightly more medical.

Auntie Wilma The Age

That’s just not cricket. Pommy cricket fans are very displeased with their country’s comportment in the recent Ashes whitewash. The Daily Mail has four clear pages today on “The Ashes Shambles”, apportioning blame to the coach, the players, the fans and just about everyone it can think of. We are proud of our boys in green and gold but are feeling a smidge sorry for the Poms, who are going home to headlines like this:

shamed England

Speaking of cricket, an eagle-eyed reader directed our attention to The Advertiser‘s front page yesterday. We’re glad we were playing England, and not India …

The Advertiser

The Oz still frigid on Snowden. The New York Times and The Guardian have called for clemency for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, but The Australian isn’t having a bar of it. In a blistering editorial today the Oz says Snowden deserves no mercy, and that he “may” have damaged intelligence operations and strengthened al-Qaeda.

The Australian Snowden editorial

Video of the day. It’s still the silly season (in our heads, anyway), so let’s take a look back at some of the greatest TV news bloopers of 2013 …