The future of Page 3?Musgo Dumio_Momio

In the last week, The Sun newspaper has had a bit of a moment (we’ve all been there), and, basically, everyone’s been concerned. As uncertainty swirled – and page 3 lost and gained its capital P by turns – we all tutted, while checking the tabloid’s temperature (lower than normal, incidentally) and asking something along the lines of, "You OK, hun?" First, there were boobs; then, there were no boobs; and suddenly, there were boobs again. And, by now, we may well be back to no boobs, who knows? Either way, it’s been exhausting.

Rupert Murdoch, David Dinsmore and co. are clearly having trouble making their minds up. And I get it: topless ladies, almost topless ladies, topless ladies, almost topless ladies… It really is a head scratcher. But, luckily for them, I have the answer! (Indeed, I have all the answers – but that is mostly beside the point, here). And, fully aware that, between writing and publication, a Sun PR bod could, at the drop of a family-values newspaper, torpedo this column entirely, I am about to be very, very helpful.

First things first, the big question: Page 3 or No More Page 3? Now, this is the easy bit: trust me, Rupes, enough with the shilly-shallying – it’s got to go. No More Page 3, all the way. I do appreciate, however, that this leaves you with a bit of a dilemma. Get rid of Page 3, and you do still actually have a page 3. A third page. Bar simply going straight from page 2 to page 4 (an option – but, ultimately, unworkable), you still have to put something on page 3. And this is where, as promised, I start getting really helpful. You’re welcome, in advance.

So far, The Sun’s foray into nudity-free journalism has gone only so far as near-nudity. We’ve swapped topless women for women in tiny bikinis. A step in the right direction, sure, but I say, why stop there? Just think of all the things in the world. You can take boobs out of the equation, and still there are so many things which could go on the third page of a newspaper.

For example, a Page 3 Bookshelf. You know, just a really sexy, well-alphabetised shelf of books. I’m talking A right through to Z. Austen to Zola. And all the books just happen to be the same height. And they’re all in pristine condition. And there’s a preponderance of hardbacks… That sounds pretty hot to me. And besides, if the thing that you’re objectifying is, in fact, an object, people are far less likely to object. You get me?

But perhaps we should be aiming to move away from the sexy stuff entirely. In that case, might I suggest a page entirely dedicated to James Blunt’s latest biting Twitter comebacks. Twitter is a big place, and things have a habit of getting lost: people miss stuff, and it is simply a matter of public service to fill them in when they do.

I will concede, however, that, if you’ve grown accustomed to looking at topless women over your morning cornflakes, the Twitter œuvre of a barely-famous crooner, who was never that popular in the first place, might not quite cut it. Reading about how he finds self-deprecating ways of taking his detractors down a peg or two – primarily revolving around finding words to rhyme with his last name – might seem a bit mundane after boobs.

Thus, I propose yet another alternative (see how helpful I am being?!): sloths. In the valley of the internet, the man with a sloth is king. That is just a fact. Science. And so, I think I may possibly have hit upon the ideal solution here. Because there is nothing sexy about a sloth. I mean, really. They’re adorable, bless them, but in an entirely non-sexual way. And non-sexual is really the whole point of the exercise here. Our main criteria in our search for the perfect Page 3 replacement should be: would you mind seeing it on a train? If the passenger next to you were looking at it, would you want to move?

And that’s the great thing about the sloth idea. No-one could possibly feel uncomfortable sitting next to a man on the train looking at pictures of sloths. Nay, that would be uplifting. Because it is impossible to look at a sloth and not smile – even people who think they’re too cool for sloths know this.

Rupert Murdoch, David Dinsmore – YOU’RE WELCOME.