Papers spy economy's green shoots

Something must be in the spring air. The newspapers are uncharacteristically upbeat about economic matters.

The Daily Express wonders whether High Street price cuts might provoke millions of bargain hunters to "kick-start the economy" .

In a headline, the Daily Mail asks: "Are those green shoots?

And the Financial Times goes so far as to suggest that Treasury officials believe the second bail-out of the banking system might just have worked.

Ad slump

If anyone is being hit by the recession, the papers would have you believe, it is the very wealthy.

According to the Daily Mirror, reality TV judge Simon Cowell has offered to take a pay cut at ITV, which has been hit by a slump in advertising revenue.

And the Times reports that another victim of the downturn has been the UK's pheasant and partridge shoots.

It says City firms who thought nothing of spending £24,000 at a shoot are cutting back, hitting landowners hard.

Border country

The arrest of 12 people suspected of involvement in an alleged terror bomb plot sparks concerns in the newspapers about border controls. Among others, the Daily Telegraph says one of those being questioned was allowed to enter Britain even though his papers "were all over the place" .

A senior police source tells the Daily Mail this is "absolutely typical... We see this sort of thing all the time".

"We are under attack," says the Sun, "so let's put up the shutters."

Stranger than fiction?

Charles Dickens was especially proud of the passage in Oliver Twist where Bill Sykes murders his girlfriend, Nancy, the Guardian reminds its readers.

Now, it reports, present-day novelist Rebecca Gowers believes Dickens had closely modelled the episode on a real-life killing from 1850.

But Preston Builder Malcolm Snape has also learned that art apparently imitates life, according to the Independent.

Mr Snape is threatening to sue comedian Al Murray, who lampooned him onstage after they fell out over building work. Mr Murray did not comment on the report.