How words find themselves becoming hot

It was the famous summer heatwave of 1976 when a tabloid newspaper first came up with the headline. 'Phew! What a scorcher'.

- with Mike Hill

It is a phrase that instantly slipped into popular culture, and whenever warm weather comes around, it gets wheeled out.

As the mercury soars once again, it gets me thinking of some of those other phrases from the red tops' heyday which have slipped into common parlance.

It's the sort of shorthand which once only made sense in the pages of the News of the World - but you might hear people using in everyday conversation.