CONSTANTINE THE PHILOSOPHER UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ARTS

STRICTLY FOR THE SUPER-RICH:

THE WORLDS MOST EXPENSIVE PENTHOUSE
Stylistic Analysis
Seminar Work

KAA/MGRSAJ/08

Winter 2014

Martina Jurikov
MAAJm09

The text

Strictly for the super-rich: the worlds most expensive penthouse

Its got a cinema, a marble disco, an infinity pool with waterslide, a bedroom the size of two tennis
courts and tables upholstered in stingray skin. Got 260m? Then the penthouse in Monacos
new Odeon Tower could be for you

From atop the Odeon Tower penthouse, residents will be able to launch themselves down a curving slide, plunging two storeys into the open-air
infinity pool below

Its just another day in sun-kissed Monaco, the supercharged playground of the super-rich. In the harbour,
gigantic yachts are jostling for position, while, outside the casino, souped-up sports cars growl their way
along the boulevards. But there is a new arrival to this hottest of global wealth hotspots. Rising above the
orgy of oligarchs toys, the Odeon Tower now stands as the definitive beacon of super prime property. It is
one of the tallest residential towers in Europe topped with what is being marketed as the most expensive
penthouse in the world.
For those who already have it all, the Odeon Tower has a little bit more. When it is completed next year, the
penthouse will have its own gym, sauna, cinema, library, whisky bar and billiard room, plus a master
bedroom the size of two and a half tennis courts all spread over five double-height floors. There will be
tables upholstered with the skin of stingrays and shelves crafted from ebony. Rooftop hot tubs will bubble
next to green walls trickling with waterfalls. After dinner in one of the six different salons (prepared by staff
in one of the four kitchens), your guests will ascend a sweeping marble staircase to your very own
nightclub, complete with a backlit marble dancefloor. From there, they will be able to launch themselves
down a curving slide, plunging two storeys into the open-air infinity pool below.
And the price tag for this skyscraping fun palace? Around 260m.
This is for the serious oligarchs, the wealthiest of the wealthiest, says Edward de Mallet Morgan, of estate
agent Knight Frank, whose task is to find a buyer in his address book of what are known, in his world, as
UHNWIs: ultra-high-net-worth individuals. It is his role to befriend the worlds wealthiest and become their
luxury lifestyle therapist, advising on everything from superyachts to private jets, in the hope of clinching a
property deal. And he is all too used to their stratospheric standards. One clients wife recently turned her
nose up at a place along the coast: This is a millionaires house, she said sniffily. Show me the
billionaires.

The definitive beacon of super prime property an architects rendering of the Odeon Tower in Monaco

We meet on the deck of Norman Fosters new Monaco Yacht Club a building as brash as the boats it

serves as the Monaco Yacht Show unfolds below us. The yachts, it becomes clear, are like bait for
superprime buyers. They come in swarms, says De Mallet Morgan. Where there are yachts, there are
usually transactions going on and deals to be done. So who is he lining up for the tower? Were talking
about the sort of people who have half a dozen properties around the world already, he says. They
probably have a country house, a place in the city, a ski chalet, an island in the Caribbean or a place in
Miami, and perhaps an estate in Africa. A pied-a-terre in Monaco completes the set: registered as the
primary residence, it provides a handy way of dodging taxes on untold billions.
The principality has long been a haven for those with assets to hide, but the Odeon Tower is an entirely
new phenomenon, the result of increasing pressure on the 2 sq km microstate. For 30 years, there has
been a tacit ban on building tall, following the steroidal boom of luxury apartment blocks in the 1970s and
early 80s. The prohibition led to an ambitious plan to extend into the sea: a Dubai-style peninsula had been
proposed, providing an extra 15 hectares to accommodate the growing flood of flight capital, but Prince
Albert blocked the plan in 2008 when the financial crisis hit (though a downsized version of the plan has
since returned). So the only other option was to go tall.
The result, in the form of the Odeon Tower, is the kind of building Bond villains could only dream of. Clad in
reflective blue glass, the stout girth of its two crescentshaped wings rise up to sharply pointed blades,
giving the top a serrated crown that lends it an air of menace. Verging on a parody of the Thunderbirds
Tracy Island, the tip was originally intended to open up, like the petals of a crocus, to reveal a helipad. But
Prince Albert decreed it too risky, all too aware of the negative publicity a chopper crash atop this temple to
Mammon would bring.

It is not hard to see why angry neighbours have already nicknamed it the Odious Tower the Odeon tower (centre) in Monaco, currently
under construction. Photograph: Oliver Wainwright/Guardian

In this strange consensual dictatorship, where development deals happen behind closed doors, quite how
the project came to pass remains a mystery. We had never planned to build a tower, says Daniele
Marzocco, of the family company behind the 700m (544m) project. We proposed a villa for the site in
2003, then the ambition got bigger.
One of the largest developers in Monaco, Marzocco has turned its hand to everything from pink palazzos
encrusted with wedding-cake mouldings to rusticated stone castles. The Odeon, its first venture into
contemporary, is the work of architect Alexandre Giraldi, purveyor of a kind of flash mogul-moderne. The
tower is curved, he says to make it more sensual and shapey. It is blue, he adds, to connect with the sea
and sky. It is certainly hard to miss: a big vertical swoosh makes it look like its been squeezed into a
swimsuit, while an LED-embedded facade will make it even more garish by night. It is not hard to see why
angry neighbours have already nicknamed it the Odious Tower.
So who exactly will live here? Twenty-six of the 250 apartments have already been sold, to a mixture of
Europeans, while buyers of the upper duplexes and penthouse are expected to be Russian, or from the
resource-rich Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan.
At least half of our clients are moving to the state for security reasons, says Marzocco, whose own father
was kidnapped by the mafia in the 80s in Italy, prompting the entire family to up sticks to Monaco. Here, no
street is unwatched by surveillance, and there are more police officers per capita than in any other country
and you can rest assured they wont be investigating where all your money comes from.

Introduction
The article I chose for my analysis was published on September 30 on the webpage of
one of the oldest British newspapers, The Guardian. It is categorized in the Culture section,
subsection Art and design. The author Oliver Wainwright is is the Guardian's architecture
and design critic, according to his profile. Trained as an architect, he has worked for a
number of practices, both in the UK and overseas, and written extensively on architecture and
design for many international publications. He is also a visiting critic at several architecture
schools, (www.theguardian.com). He runs his own Architecture and design blog at this
webpage, part of which is also this particular article.
The reason why I chose this article is the figurative language the author uses, which
interested me from the very first time I came across it. This article is about a newly built
skyscraper, named Odeon Tower, in Monaco intended as a residence for the wealthiest people
from all around the world. It not only describes the looks and furnishing of this building, but
also hints to some mysteries behind this project.

Textual analysis
As I have already said, what attracted me the most about this article was the figurative
language the author uses when describing the building. From the introductory paragraph the
description is based on accumulation and enumeration of items which you can find inside of
the building. A good example is the very first sentence: Its got a cinema, a marble disco, an
infinity pool with waterslide, a bedroom the size of two tennis courts and tables upholstered
in stingray skin. And this feature is also present in the next two paragraphs. Especially the
second paragraph is almost entirely made of such sentences.
Another typical feature is the use of unique and poetic epithets and metaphors and
unusual collocations. Some examples are provided here:
Epithets: sun-kissed Monaco; souped-up sports cars; untold billions; serious oligarchs;
luxury lifestyle therapist; stratospheric standards; screscentshaped wings; serrated crown;
rusticated stone castles; pink palazzos encrusted with wedding-cake mouldings; steroidal
boom; stout girth.... and many more.
Metaphors: orgy of oligarchs toys; air of menace; temple to Mammon; purveyor of a kind of
flash mogul-moderne; they come in swarms; growing flood of flight capital...
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The author also makes a great use o personification and simile, as exemplified here:
Personification: gigantic yachts are jostling for position; sports cars growl their way along
boulevards; clad in reflective blue glass; financial crisis hit....
Simile: the Odeon Tower stands as the definitive beacon of super-prime property; a
building as brash as the boats it serves; like the petals of crocus; vertical swoosh makes it
look like its been squeezed into a swimsuit; yachts are like bait for superprime buyers...
But what is the most striking about the text is the frequent use of superlatives and
hyperboles by which the author probably wanted to point out the extraordinariness of the
whole building: supercharged; super-rich; global wealth hotspot; bedroom the size of two
tennis courts; super prime; one of the tallest residential towers; the most expensive
penthouse; the wealthiest of the wealthiest; ultra-height-net-worth; superyachts; superprime
buyers; who have half a dozen properties; ambitious plan...
The text is overloaded with superlatives with frequent repetition of the prefix super-.
Further there can be also spotted some words of foreign origin, such as: chalet; pieda-terre; peninsula; villa; duplex; surveillance; per capita; some of which represent
professional terms from architecture.
The text also contains few clich phrases: turned her nose up at a place; has long
been a haven; behind closed doors; came to pass; remains a mystery...
And idioms: lining up; hard to miss; turned its hand to everything; its not hard to see
Periphrasis can also be found here: Monaco, the supercharged playground of the super-rich;
Metonymy: microstate (= Monaco), price tag (=price)
And a kind of autonomasia as well: the worlds wealthiest; the wealthiest of the wealthiest.
As for the phonetic expressive means, it seems that the author used none on purpose,
but in some instances, maybe unintentionally, his choice and combination of words created
interesting phonetic effects. These are the few examples I noticed: supercharged playground
of the super-rich; gigantic yachts are jostling for position; souped-up sports cars; orgy of
oligarchs; upholstered with the skin of stingrays; rooftop hot tubs; walls trickling with
waterfalls; sensual and shapey.
Regarding the syntactic structure, the author uses mostly compound sentences. He
does not use too many extremely long, nor too short sentences. The average length of
sentences is from 1 to 2 lines. However, the text is not monotonous. The author skilfully
alternates the shorter sentences with the longer ones, so the reader does not get bored of it.
This also helps to maintain a steady pace of the text. He also incorporated some direct speech
to add the text some drama and keep it lively.
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There are four rhetoric questions, three of which are immediately answered within the
text: And the price tag for this skyscraping fun place? So who is he lining up for the tower?
So who exactly will live here? The answer for the fourth one is left for the reader: Got
260m?
The most typical feature of sentence structure within this article is fronting. But there
can be also found an example of prosiopesis: Got 260m? Moreover, an ellipsis marked by set
of three periods is specifically used in the pictures descriptions: The definitive beacon of
super prime property an architects rendering of the Odeon Tower in Monaco; It is not
hard to see why angry neighbours have already nicknamed it the Odious Tower the Odeon
tower (centre) in Monaco, currently under construction. Its purpose here is to provide a
description of what you can actually see in the picture, following the authors comment.
There are some examples of subordinate clause in parenthesis: After dinner in one of
the six different salons (prepared by staff in one of the four kitchens), your guests will
ascend... We meet on the deck of Norman Fosters new Monaco Yacht Club a building as
brash as the boats it serves as the Monaco Yacht Show unfolds below us. The text in
parenthesis provides additional information about the dinner and the deck. Elsewhere in the
text the author uses just the normal structure of relative clause to insert some additional
information into a sentence, for example: ...says Edward de Mallet Morgan, of estate agent
Knight Frank, whose task is to find a buyer in his address book of what are known, in his
world, as UHNWIs: ultra-high-net-worth individuals; or ...says Marzocco, whose own father
was kidnapped by the mafia in the 80s in Italy, prompting the entire family to up sticks to
Monaco.
But he also uses two other, less usual structures for providing the additional
information or explanation. The first one is a clause or phrase attached at the end of the
sentence by using dash: Its got a cinema, a marble disco, an infinity pool with waterslide, a
bedroom the size of two tennis courts and tables upholstered in stingray skin. It is one of the
tallest residential towers in Europe topped with what is being marketed as the most
expensive penthouse in the world. When it is completed next year, the penthouse will have its
own gym, sauna, cinema, library, whisky bar and billiard room, plus a master bedroom the
size of two and a half tennis courts all spread over five double-height floors. Here, no street
is unwatched by surveillance, and there are more police officers per capita than in any other
country and you can rest assured they wont be investigating where all your money comes
from.

The other one is the use of colon to join two independent clauses when the second one
explains or illustrates the beginning part: Strictly for the super-rich: the worlds most
expensive penthouse; The prohibition led to an ambitious plan to extend into the sea: a
Dubai-style peninsula had been proposed... It is certainly hard to miss: a big vertical swoosh
makes it look like its been squeezed into a swimsuit... These two features seem to be
characteristics of the authors own unique writing style, because they happen to be used in his
other articles as well.

Stylistic analysis
This article is a blog; that is a frequently updated online personal journal or diary
(http://blogbasics.com/what-is-a-blog/). As such, it is a piece of journalistic writing. Though
published in The Guardian, which is generally considered a quality newspaper, in style and
content it more resembles a piece of tabloid writing. It picks a sensational topic, exaggerates
it, and hints at some mysteries behind the project, not clearing anything. It does not describe
any interesting life event, just informs about the latest hit related to the lifestyle of the richest
people in the world. The author does not investigate the problems any further or deeper. He
only provides an overview of the situation.
There may be two reasons why it is more like a tabloid: The first one is based on the
fact that blog, or weblog as the original term was, as a genre belongs somewhere in between
the objective and subjective style, more inclining to the latter one. The other is, that being
published online, the Internet provides a space for opening up and broadening of the scope of
styles, so The Guardian can attract and appeal to wider range of readers so that everyone can
find there something to his likes and interests. I have not found out whether this particular
article was published also in the paper form of the newspaper. But nowadays with the
modernization and virtualisation it is often so that what cannot be published in paper form
because of space limitations or the nature of the newspaper gets into its online form, which is
more accessible, interactive and provides many additional features.
But back to the article itself. Blog is a relatively young genre, being developed just in
the 1990s with the invention of web publishing tools and the implementation of Internet
access to majority of households, and its most distinctive characteristic is that it presents the
authors subjective opinion on the chosen topics. However, in this article the authors opinion
about the Odeon Tower remains unknown for the reader. There is only one comment clause,
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but which is only a general statement: The yachts, it becomes clear, are like bait for
superprime buyers. Unless we try to guess it from the overall style of the article, there is no
specific element to reveal the personal attitude. But even then it would be questionable, as I
will discuss later. In spite of the interesting figurative writing style, the author remains largely
factual as if to remain true to the nature of the newspaper. He does not comment on his
findings trying to be objective, if by objective we mean restraining from stating positive or
negative comment or not holding side with the rich neither with the people displeased with the
building. But of course, there are several kinds of blogs with varying level of subjectivity,
from highly specialized and scientific with very little to no subjective markers up to personal
diaries as the most subjective. And this one, according to its description on the webpage, is a
specialized blog on architecture and design; therefore we cannot expect it to provide authors
own views.
As for the essential characteristics of an article, it has got a precise, descriptive
headline directly revealing what the content is. It does not involve any metaphorical devices,
so the reader immediately has a clear knowledge of what the article is about. The language is
normal and simple. Strictly for the super-rich: the worlds most expensive penthouse. The use
of superlatives creates an effect that the object it talks about is a sensation, surprising news
and a great hit. However, it begins with the word strictly which creates the feeling of
something forbidden and implies it is something very special and luxurious.
The headline is followed by short introductory paragraph consisting of 3 sentences
which reveal something more about the building, particularly mentioning the most surprising
information about the building the price of the apartment. Though written as a question, this
piece of information actually comes as an immediate answer to what the readers wonder about
and desire to know the most from when they first put their eyes on the headline. Son there is
some interaction already going on in between the headline and the introductory paragraph as
if they were having a dialogue together. This effect is even strengthened by the fact that they
are detached from the main body of the text by a picture. And since the headline and the
introductory paragraph is all that usually appears in the newsfeed on the main page of the
newspapers website, they have to be shocking in order to attract readers attention and make
them interested and curious to know more, which they are.
I have already mentioned that the author uses rich figurative language for the
description of the building. In the first two paragraphs the language is obviously notional.
From the grammatical point of view, there are many open compound words and noun phrases.
They are ordered in a way that creates a gradation. The first item in a sentence is followed by
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a more unusual one. At the end of a sentence then comes the most surprising and most
luxurious one creating something like a climax.
From the point of view of literary devices, he uses a lot of unique epithets,
paraphrases, personification, metaphors, similes and enumeration. Reading it feels like
reading a part of some short story or children story. It enhances the readers imagination and
can almost feel like if he was walking the places himself. Even the initial part of the first
sentence: Its just another day in sun-kissed Monaco... sounds like a beginning of a good story
and one would expect something exciting to follow, even though I know that such stylization
is a frequent start of many journalistic reports when the journalists want the readers feel
related and involved. This makes the story much more personal. Actually, when I was reading
it for the first time, I do not know why, but it reminded me of an old Disney short movie
called The Little House, which is a curious association because while The Little House tells a
story of a small country house being overwhelmed by urbanization as the time passes,
praising the simplicity of rural life, this article presents its exact opposite admiration of the
latest architectural contraption in all its loftiness. Nevertheless, reading and imagining the
lines: In the harbour, gigantic yachts are jostling for position, while, outside the casino,
souped-up sports cars growl their way along the boulevards it feels like from a fairy-tale.
And probably that was the authors aim. To present the Odeon Tower like what all the
architectural world and its makers believe it to be like a dream come true; like a real fairytale accommodation or even more than that.
Another interesting feature of the authors style within this text is the switching
between narrative approaches. At the beginning he often directly refers to the reader by using
pronoun you, for example: the penthouse in Monacos new Odeon Tower could be for you;
...your guests will ascend a sweeping marble staircase to your very own nightclub... The aim
is to influence the readers perception of the text and his attitude about its subject. It makes
the reader feels as if the apartment already belonged to him. However, in the fourth paragraph
the author uses a direct speech, which again distances the reader from the text. It becomes just
an ordinary third person narration and the reader feels to be only an observer of the situation.
But then in the fifth paragraph the author suddenly uses pronoun we: We meet on the deck of...
This makes it sound more personal, but this time not in terms of the readers but the author. He
describes his personal experience as if it was happening at the current moment. The reader
feels like seeing the whole situation through the authors own eyes. The rest of the article then
continues to describe the history of the development of the plan to build this skyscraper, the
style being an ordinary report. Only in the very last sentence he again addresses the reader
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directly: and you can rest assured... I think the reason why he varies these several techniques
is to keep the article lively and interesting, and not to bore the reader with monotonous style.
Next, I would like to comment on the use of rhetoric questions. Their timing is
accurate. Except for the first one, they seem to come exactly at the points when the reader
would himself ask that and they request answers for the things the reader was thinking about.
It is like if the author was reading the readers thoughts following the development of the text
and its content. Thinking about it now, it is a bit frightening, but it is actually very satisfying
for the reader, because at these points everyone would be naturally curious about the two most
important things about the building the price and its future inhabitants.
The last thing to consider about the content of the article is its meaning. On the first
sight it seems pretty clear it is very positive about the building and seems to be praising it
utterly. However, after a closer inspection this becomes dubious. There is only one case of
easily identifiable irony in the text, the passage: One clients wife recently turned her nose up
at a place along the coast: This is a millionaires house, she said sniffily. Show me the
billionaires. Obviously, here the lady thinks the millionaires houses something of little
value to her. Yet when we consider the fact that the current residents from the Odeon Towers
neighbourhood do not like the building very much, the whole article seems to have a twofold
meaning. They even nicknamed the building the Odious Tower, a name which is itself a pun.
In the light of this knowledge the text can be read in two ways: ironic and literal. We
have to bear in mind that the majority of The Guardians readers are ordinary working middle
class and lower business class people who could hardly ever in their lives earn enough money
to afford such an accommodation as described here. And this is also the target readership of
this article. They would probably read it just out of curiosity, the same as when they read
about the lives of TV stars and other celebrities. They just want to know how it is to be
famous or super-rich. But they would not have any sympathies to this kind of living. Ordinary
people are often rather jealous of it. So they would probably read this article with envy or
even scorn. They may perceive all the praiseworthy words and superlatives to be just ironic
overstatements mocking the lifestyle of the richest, pointing out its vanity. Because what is
the use of all that money? They will die anyway. They should better invest it into charity and
save the whole world from hunger. Such is the thinking of the ordinary people with just
average salary.
On the other hand, people who could really be concerned in the building would read
the article as it is as a praise of the Odeon Tower. But I doubt that those for whom the
building was designed would ever read it. The mentioned billionaires would hardly bother
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themselves with reading any architecture blogs on the Internet as long as they are not famous
within their high circles. They have other sources of information on such topics.
So how then the article should be understood - ironically or not? Since at the bottom of
the article there is a note that: Oliver Wainwrights visit to Tour Odon was provided by
Groupe Marzocco, it suggests that the article might be a sponsored advertisement for the
developer, thus written as obligatory praise. But other people can be able to read in between
the lines and understand it differently. Even the quite colloquial style and hints at some
problems behind the project suggest (such as who approved this project or why it got so big
when they planned only a villa) it is supposed to be read ironically. The colloquial feeling is
created by over-repetition of the affix super- and the words and expressions like: hottest of
global wealth hotspots; turned her nose up; shapey; mogul-moderne... or the syntactic
structure of sentences, for example: Got 260m?; For those who already have it all, the
Odeon Tower has a little bit more... Well, such is the art of journalists, and writers in general,
that different people can read the same text in a different way, each finding his own meaning
in it.

Yet there is one more and very important thing we cannot forget to consider about this
article. Being published on the Internet, a major role in its perception play the extra-textual
features graphic and visual expressive means. From my personal experience I can only
confirm their great influence on the readers. When I first discovered this article, I saved the
webpage in a PDF format. But later when I started working on its analysis, I opened the link
to the original page only to find out that the design of the whole Culture section has been
recently reworked and redesigned. So I could compare how much the visualization of the
webpage affects the readers perception.
In the old version of the webpage the text of the article occupied only the left half of
the screen, the rest being covered with advertisement and suggestion of other articles which
were not even related to this one in content. It all looked very messy and felt overstuffed. But
now, the new version of the webpage has much better and reader-friendly organization. Even
though the text occupies half of the screen as well, it uses bigger font and is much better
readable. On the left along the main text there is a photo of the writer, on which when you
click it redirects you to the authors profile where you can find his short biography and list of
all his articles. This is very helpful because the reader can find his all the information about
the writer he wants in one easily reachable place. Then on the right side there is an advert at
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the top with suggestions of other articles below it, but this time they are not so prominent as
they used to be, and thus not so disturbing.
The headline is written in big white bold letters and the introductory paragraph is also
in white letters. Both the headline and introductory paragraph are written on fuchsia pink or
purple background banner, this being the distinctive colour of the Culture section. It has a
calming effect and feel of comfort. The text is divided into several paragraphs with varying
length; the shortest being only one line informing about the price of the apartment. The text is
interrupted only with one advert positioned somewhere in the middle of the article. It is a little
bit annoying because it takes half the width of the space reserved for the main text, so one
whole paragraph is misshaped because of it.
The text is supplemented with three big bright colourful photos of the building
accompanied with short description in gray letters in different and smaller font than the main
text is in. The description in each is actually a sentence from the main text. Each photo has a
little circle in its upper right corner on which when you click it will open the photo in full
screen size. They present wonderful views of sunny beach resort. The aim is to attract the
readers and appeal to their senses as the full-screen photo can totally absorb you and you
nearly feel as if you were physically present in that place. This feature was absent in the old
version of the webpage. Moreover, the pictures were of smaller size back then, so they did not
have that big effect.
But the most important and useful feature of online articles are the hypertext links
which are something like a physical and directly present allusions. The hyperlink is indicated
by blue-highlighted words in the text. When you click on it, it will take you directly to the
page which speaks about or describes the highlighted word. There are eight hyperlinks in total
in this article. Some of them, particularly the words Monaco and UHNWIs will redirect you to
other related articles within The Guardian. Others, Alexandre Giraldy; Marzocco and
Norman Fosters new Monaco Yacht Club take you to the companies websites. When you
click on Tracy Island it will show you its picture on Google; Dubai-style peninsula redirects
to YouTube video visualizing the project and the Odeon Tower gets you to a photo virtual tour
in the building. The use of the hyperlinks is not only to show the reader more attractive
related sites, but it also helps him to understand the article better. Were there no hyperlinks,
the above mentioned names would be mere allusions for the reader. He would not have any
idea what or who they are, so he would probably skip them in reading not wondering about
them any further, and thus he would never know what is their role within the article and how
much they complement to its overall understanding. His understanding of the article would
9

not be complete or proper. Or on the other side, if the readers were curious in those names,
they would have to search for them elsewhere. But the hyperlinks make the search a lot easier.
When you are interested in what for example UHNWI is, you just click on the word and you
will find it out in a moment.
Actually, only two of these hyperlinks are allusions in the true poetic and stylistic
sense and that are: a Dubai-style peninsula and a parody of the Thunderbirds Tracy Island.
Not knowing them would greatly affect the readers understanding of the text, because they
help them to visualize the situation. Apart from these there are two other relevant allusions,
these being without a hyperlink: temple to Mammon and the kind of building Bond villains
could only dream of. These do not provide any indispensable information, they have rather
only poetic effect.
Though the hyperlinks are the most important extra-textual features; yet there few
more the importance of which on the readers perception of the article, however, should not be
undermined. The first are the numbers of comments and shares, which can be found right
under the writers photo. For some readers these may function as guiding markers to the
content of the article. If there are high numbers it signalizes that the article is interesting,
valuable or controversial and this makes the readers curious to read more. The numbers are
also important factor in determining the popularity of the article. Based on them it can appear
in lists of the most popular article per certain period of time, what in turn gives the article
some special quality and help spread the authors fame. When an article appears in the
popularity list, the readers will remember it and next time when they see another article from
the same writer they will be more eager to read it, because they would recognize the name and
try to qualify and compare his journalistic skill with the previous one. Or they would know
they can expect a certain degree of quality with him and so the writer will build himself some
constant readership.
The second feature I had in mind along with the popularity numbers is the presence of
discussion forum below the article. This is especially welcome by the readers because it gives
them an opportunity to express their opinion on the article immediately and interact with the
writer. This way the readers can feel m more personally involved in the making of their
newspaper and closer to the writer. It is also useful for the writer because he gets a direct
feedback from his readers which may be different from the professional view of his
colleagues and the editors. The comments of the readers may eventually inspire him to further
investigation of certain topics.

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