✒ As you may possibly have noticed, the flappy bit of the paper that wraps around G2 has been getting a lot of attention recently, thanks to the remarkable work of Nick Davies and his colleagues in exposing some of the dirty tricks used by the News of the World – not least its hacking into the phones of murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler.
As Alexander Chancellor put it last Friday, MPs "should recognise the service done to them by the Guardian. According to Peter Oborne of the Telegraph, the Guardian did 'a wonderful service to public decency by bringing to light the shattering depravity of Mr Murdoch's newspaper empire' . . . It is worth pointing out that, however ghastly journalists may be, nobody would know anything about anything without us – not even the extent of our own ghastliness."
Over at guardian.co.uk/g2, there were few tears for the Murdoch-Brooks axis of evil. "It's easy to gloat," said LittleRichardjohn. "Fun too."
"My, how the mighty have fallen," agreed queenofromania. "If it weren't so sad, I'd be laughing, like this. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Less hysterically, francoisP asked: "Can I just thank the Guardian for running with this? Give yourselves a pat on the back." We'd be delighted to. But optimist99 spread the credit – and the blame – a little thinner. "Good on the Guardian," s/he wrote. "Good on Private Eye. Good (to some degree) on the BBC. Shame on the Tory trolls who attacked the Guardian for seeking out the truth. Shame on the Metropolitan police commissioners – heads of the home secretary's private army. There is an Augean stables here that needs clearing out. The relationships between the Murdoch empire and Blair/Cameron are a cancer on the British political scene."
Not everyone was in party mood, however. "There's truly an odd collection of people celebrating the demise of the News of the World," wrote IXUS, "right through to unfaithful celebrities, hypocritical and dishonest MPs, the gang who [never] plotted to kidnap Victoria Beckham and, of course, the 100-odd other criminals convicted and put away as a result of revelations in the NotW . . . The NotW has been responsible for the forestalling and ending of much criminal activity and wrongdoing in the UK."
If you're wondering about that bit in square brackets, we'd better explain that the Beckham kidnap trial collapsed because the News of the World paid £10,000 to the key witness. Sorry to split hairs.
Moving on . . . Nicetime warned us to watch our backs. "Apparently Rebekah Brooks said the Guardian had been out to get them for years, and they eventually succeeded. I profoundly hope the Graun and its sycophants will have cause to remember Admiral Yamamoto's words after Pearl Harbour: 'I fear all we have done is to awake a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.'"
Nice try, Nicetime, but if you read these pages last week you'd have seen that we've been menaced by pros. With an ass-whupping from Alex Reid hanging over our heads, we're all trembled-out.
✒ We don't have the energy to worry about Harry Potter fans, even if Tanya Gold has set their cauldrons bubbling. "Harry Potter is duller even than Frodo Baggins of Lord of the Rings," she wrote in Wednesday's cover story. "He is too whiny, racked and self-righteous. He has no sense of humour, although he does smirk. Harry is an everyman, and that is why he sells. If he can save the world, then so can a cat." And this is a woman who has read all the books and seen all the films – twice.
On Twitter, @AmandaPCraig thought Tanya's article was "hysterically funny", while on the website romannosejob declared: "I just think wizard and magicy stuff is rubbish. I liked dinosaurs and spaceships when I was a kid."
"I enjoyed the article," said Ononotagain. "Thank heavens there are others out there who aren't members of the Church of Harry Potter." Others, however, would happily have consigned the heretics to Azkaban prison. "As an 18-year-old, this is my generation's story," said jcurno. "So back off, you cynical muggles, before I crucio you!!"
theoceansswitc was equally unamused. "I was like you once, smugly declaiming the Potter series as a stupid, twee children's story that was beneath my more discerning tastes. And then I listened to the Stephen Fry audiobooks and discovered that, actually, there's a great overarching narrative beyond the separate book stories . . . Why does it bother you so much that lots of people like Harry Potter?"
Why, theoceansswitch? Do you really need to ask? Have you ever seen Tanya and evil Lord Voldemort in the same room?
✒ We can only hope Luisa Dillner made us a few friends by questioning the advice to drink eight glasses of water every day. She definitely struck a chord with frombeefsteak: "This myth is spouted by peddlars of pseudoscience – I've seen it in women's magazines, heard it from 'personal trainers' and dieticians on the telly. Oh, and it must be mineral water, complete with plastic bottle, preferably imported . . . I'm amazed I manage to sleep eight hours without dying of dehydration." cookeryteacher, meanwhile, harked back to a golden age before health fascism and extravagant table settings. "THANK GOODNESS SOMEONE HAS SPOKEN OUT AGAINST THIS RIDICULOUS MYTH," he or she bellowed. "My family, like lots of working-class families, always did and sometimes still do eat a meal without a drink (and have a nice cup of tea afterwards). I only came across a jug of water on the table when I visited a posh schoolfriend's family."
✒But did we ignore the week's big story? Of course not. It fell to Jess Cartner-Morley to celebrate the birth of the fourth baby Beckham. "Harper Seven is more than the name of the world's most famous newborn," she cooed. "It is a measure of how far the Beckham brand has come in the 12 years since they named their first son Brooklyn. When Brooklyn was born, the media reaction could be summed up as: how typical that such a ridiculous couple should pick such an eye-roller of a name. The eye-rollers haven't got far this time, because the consensus seems to be that it is a really nice name."
Nice, agreed hidingfromsomeone, and cutting-edge. "Harper, rather than being made fun of in the playgrounds, will probably blend in. I have a friend (in the US) who has two daughters, Oakley and Peyton. While these names are practically unthinkable over here, like many other American imports, they're surely only a few years away. Harper, Peyton, Addison, Emerson, Marley . . . they're all coming!" cannedmockduck hoped not: "Harlow, Harper, Marlow, Ava, Mckayla, Mckinzie, Six, Seven, Steak, Kidney. So common."
"It sounds like the name of a perfume," guffawed arty123. "Not cool, just pointlessly obscure!"
"How can a parent look at a beautiful newborn baby and decide to call them Peyton?!" wailed youcantalan. "The mind boggles."
How would you feel if your kid's name was being picked aton like that? Mewl had an inkling, given that a stranger once accused her of naming her daughter after a champagne producer. "What a snivelling stuck-up lot Guardian commentators are. Sometimes I read the articles and think that the writers are on another planet - and then they are joined by the commentators who sound like they've fallen down the sniveling hole of their own snotty snot canal."
Have you fallen down a snotty snot canal? Do you wish more newspapers had the guts to pay prosecution witnesses? Is G2 too muggle for its own good? Get commenting.
The big question: How do you pronounce 'business'?
Last Friday Zoe Williams complained about contestants on The Apprentice pronouncing "business" as "bizniss". Cue much head-scratching . . .
• "Care to tell us how you pronounce 'business'? With the middle 'i' voiced? Because that would just be weird" – Rotwatcher
• "So it rhymes with Loch Ness? That can't be right, surely . . ." – domfloyd
• "Buzzness? Busyness? Bissness? We should be told!" – nellie792
• "Pronunciation fans, I reckon Ms Williams would say business with the neutral vowel in the final syllable rather than an 'i' or 'e' sound" - bobsclock
• "I reckon she talks dead posh so would pronounce it BUUUUYZNAAYAIS" - MonsieurBoulanger
• "I pronounce 'business' as follows: 'bollocks'" – jonar
"None of the charity shops in my area are allowed to sell exercise videos for 'health and safety' reasons. Nor knitting needles, for that matter" – whodhavethoughtit
• "Children should not be allowed in the plane's main compartment. Put them where the baggage goes. Is it pressurised? I don't know and nor do I care" – beedeepee sorts out air travel
• "I can't believe it! No mention of Stephen Fry. That's just lost me a £5 bet" – TheW14 finds fault with our Twitter coverage
• "I've been to New Zealand once. It was just like being in Britain – not to be recommended" – MarkDJ reminds us that it's often better to travel in hope than to arrive
• "Everyone else has said what I wanted to say but better . . ." – faddamplus sets an example in modesty
• If you would like to comment on any of the stories in G2, or just want to join in the debates, go to guardian.co.uk/g2 to add your comments, tweet us @guardiang2 or email us at g2feedback@guardian.co.uk. The most interesting feedback will be printed on these pages on Fridays
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