Papers celebrate 'kiss and tell' revelation

The much-anticipated releasing of the name of the Premiership footballer at the heart of a privacy row over a "kiss and tell" story provides much fodder for the tabloids.

It is something of a first for two papers who have done their fair share of publishing now and saying sorry later - both the Mirror and the Sun get their apologies in first.

Sorry to disappoint you, the Mirror tells its readers, but THIS is the sex scandal soccer star.

"It is Garry Flitcroft!" announces the Sun and then, in helpful parentheses: "He plays for Blackburn Rovers".

The footballer, now revealed as the mystery player accused of two extra-marital affairs, is hardly a household name, according to the Guardian.

But the story is not about another footballer caught cheating on his wife, says the Sun, it is about the freedom of the press - about ordinary men and women having the right to know when rich role models are caught conning the public with their disgraceful behaviour.

Israeli offensive

For the broadsheets, the Israeli assault on Yasser Arafat's stronghold is the uncontested lead.

The death of a Palestinian fighter in the fighting in Ramallah is captured in a chilling sequence of photographs carried by most of them.

At 1003 he was sipping tea, says the Times. At 1013 he was dead, shot by an Israeli sniper.

The Guardian calls the Israeli offensive a "war to the finish" while the Mirror urges the Israelis and Palestinians to learn the lessons of Northern Ireland.

What the Middle East needs now, it says, are leaders prepared to ignore the hotheads and mad killers and who will turn the other cheek, so that the tide of bloodshed there can be turned too.

Lucky lamb

A grim picture from the height of the foot-and-mouth epidemic makes a re-appearance in the Daily Mail.

But next to the heartrending image of Lucky the lamb, almost drowning in a sea of mud on Good Friday, 2001, is a photo taken a year on of Lucky the Sheep - now with her own lamb called Pepsi.

The Mail says it seems a fitting sign of hope after the devastation of rural Britain.

But it warns that despite the continuing hardship and worry for farmers, the government is showing only a cursory interest in the needs of the countryside.

The Titchmarsh factor

It is not just Lucky who has been enjoying the spring sunshine - the papers are full of stories about the early heatwave.

A headline in the Express sums up the sense of disbelief: "It's Easter and it's sunny - really!"

The paper says that in Aberdeen, youngsters played happily in the North Sea, normally freezing cold at this time of the year.

The Guardian reports that nurseries and garden centres are also braced for what many expect to be their busiest weekend - ever.

If the weather holds, £200m could be spent on plants alone, and a similar amount on trappings such as sheds, trellises, pond liners and gnomes.

The annual spree is now apparently known in the trade as the Titchmarsh factor, after the ubiquitous television gardener.

A spokesman for the Horticultural Trades Association, which represents garden centres, tells the Guardian that - next to sex - gardening is now the most popular pastime in Britain.