What the papers say

Journalist Nikki Hinman takes a look at what is making the headlines in Tuesday's morning papers.

Political manoeuvring of a humiliating kind takes the lead in the News Letter which says the Ulster Unionist Party has been "evicted" from its main Westminster office.

While, says the News Letter, this is a damaging blow to its status, salt is rubbed in the party's wounds, after finding out that the new tenants will be the DUP.

It reports that the fourth largest party in the House of Commons is now the DUP, and it is entitled to the privilege of a chief whip's office, alongside Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems.

The News Letter also unravels an obscure piece of history which has come to light after a spring clean by Orangemen in Bangor.

They have discovered an old banner in the hall, but it is not one of theirs.

This one - which depicts a paddle steamer sailing in the town's harbour - belongs to a long-forgotten temperance society called the Independent Order of Rechabites, dating back to the mid 1800s.

Choppy waters

What is known about the Rechabites, says the News Letter, is that they preached the virtues of a life of sobriety and the vices of the demon drink.

Photographs of the torrent of water pouring through the village of Boscastle bring home the impact of the floods in Cornwall.

The Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph each use the same powerful image across the full width of their front pages, showing the choppy waters surging past neat Cornish cottages, and leaving cars tossed in their front gardens.

The floods are also the main story in the Daily Express and the Daily Star, which calls the devastation "a disaster".

The Daily Mirror devotes its front page to further claims about the married woman alleged to be having a relationship with the Home Secretary, David Blunkett. The paper says she is expecting a baby.

The Irish Times continues reporting that hospitals have been paid to remove pituitary glands from dead patients, to be later used in the manufacture of growth hormones.

Wasp infestation

The drug company, Pharmacia Ireland, said the funds were paid to hospitals to cover additional costs of removal and storage of the glands, some of which had been removed from the bodies of children.

The Irish Independent has the health service in its sights as well, claiming that a lethal superbug has forced the orthopaedic unit to close in a County Meath hospital, where more than 50 people have now had their operations cancelled.

The Irish News informs mid-Ulster that it is in the thick of a wasp infestation.

Pest control officers are now receiving about 60 calls a day from the great swatting public of Armagh and Craigavon - where reports are coming in of wasps nests the size of two or three footballs - with one claim of a nest the size of a microwave oven!

Some see the funny side of the poor ticket sales at the Athens Olympics.

The Telegraph's cartoonist depicts a spectator in an almost-empty stadium, with a medal round his neck, saying, "I got that for buying a ticket".

The Guardian has been hunting for bargains but found few cut-price tickets on offer.

Its reporter eventually tried the internet auction site, e-Bay, and narrowly missed out on two tickets for badminton: they went to a successful bidder for just £1.46.