Pointy Heads

‘SO much for the Silence of the Lambs. The biggest horror story playing in Hollywood last week was The Silence of Katie Holmes. The actress was to give birth in silence and without drugs.

She was also expected to look on – maintaining an awe-struck if not a fearful silence – as boyfriend Tom Cruise celebrated the birth by scoping up the placenta and eating it.

On Tuesday we heard that Tom thought these ephemeral organs were “very nutritious”. As he said: “I’m gonna eat the placenta. I thought that would be good. Very nutritious. I’m gonna eat the cord and the placenta right there.”

“Right there”!? Were we to imagine that rather than frying the placenta with some fava beans and a little Chianti, Cruise intended to tear into the rubbery organ at its freshest?

Not since Quasimodo took his hump to Hollywood had a bump caused so much wonder, horror and revulsion.

On Wednesday things took an unexpected turn when we learned that Katie was wavering in her commitment to silence.

She was not sure that having the birth at home was such a good idea atfer all. She’d heard talk of a place called a “hospital” where there were “doctors” who handle lots of births.

These doctors wore “white coats”, which may or not be relevant to the Holmes-Cruise romance.

But Tom was, as a source told us, set on a home delivery. So too was his mum, Mary. Mother and son were united and Katie was starting to “feel totally isolated”.

They didn’t want to hear about her mad hormone-addled about thee hospitals. Tom bought her a “personalised pacifier”, made of the finest rubber and moulded to fit Katie’s teeth. That would keep her quiet.

And then it happened. The planets were in alignment. The baby was coming. Katie spat the dummy.

The Church of Scientology and its follower Tom Cruise may well dictate that the mother must remain mute in the throes of birth lest the baby become traumatised, maladjusted and suffer later in life. Nature dictates the mother should scream her head off. Katie was removed to a hospital. And Katie was given drugs.

And the world was given 7lb 7oz and 20-inches of Suri. The name means Princess in Hebrew and “pickpocket” in Japanese. And it also means “pointy nose” in Indian, which should not be confused with pointy head…’

Posted: 24th, April 2006 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

No Defence

‘“THIS is the picture that will horrify Arsenal soccer chief,” write the Sun, and we are concerned.

Is this is a shot of the team’s superstar Thierry Henry at a clandestine meeting with Tottenham Hotspurs’ board? Is the photograph of a player entwined with George Michael and a suggestive pink tutu?

No. This is the War on Terror and the picture is that of Sun reporter Anthony France standing inside Arsenal’s new state-of-the-art stadium.

Having posed as a workman – see hard hat, fluorescent jacket and possible builder’s crack – France strolled “UNCHALLENGED” past a security guard and made his way to the side of what will be the pitch.

France then deftly maintained his ingenious disguise by wandering around aimlessly for 40 minutes. He sat on seats “reserved for aces like Thierry Henry”. He walked down the players’ tunnel. He checked out the home team’s changing room. And, as evidence suggests, he posed for a photograph.

This is deeply fascinating, and only gets more so when the Sun wonders what could have happened had France been a terrorist.

As an “insider” says: “Everyone knows major sporting stadiums are a target. If al-Qaeda wanted to blow it up it would be their easiest ever job.”

Indeed, detonating a bomb inside an empty stadium cannot be all that hard for terrorist masterminds.

But the Sun has overlooked one key fact. No, not that letting of a handheld explosive in a cavernous building might have passed off unnoticed. The Sun has ignored the fact that Osama bin Laden, the shadowy leader of al-Qaeda, is an Arsenal fan.

He’s not exactly likely to blow up his team’s new ground. Now, if this was White Hart Lane, the might be a case to answer. Altogether now (in a whisper): “He’s hiding near Kabul/ He loves the Arsenal/ Osama/ Oh oh oh oh!”

Posted: 19th, April 2006 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (3)

Telling Tales

‘IF you look round the poker table and you can’t see the mug then the mug is you. Your best course of action is to quit before things get worse – or seek out Wayne Rooney.

On Monday we read that between September last year and February England’s football hero ran up gambling debts of £700,000.

Of course, Rooney is a high roller – he earns £100,000 a week. He can afford to lose the cash. He’d only have given it to his girlfriend to spend in Primark. No big deal.

Only it is a big deal. Rooney is unhappy that no-one warned him against chasing his losses. He’s refusing to pay his debt.

Which surely leaves our Wayne in line for trouble? Or not. Because the Mirror told us that gambling debts are not recoverable by law. The Mirror’s hastily produced “sports betting expert” said that debts to bookies are debts of honour, and there is “precious little” honour among punters.

And there is virtually no honour among our diving, spitting, cheating footballers.

On Tuesday we heard that things could be worse for Rooney. Team England are due to book into a hotel in Baden Baden for the World Cup, a place famous for its casino.

Happily for young Rooney, rules state that punters must be over the age of 21 to enter the place, leaving 20-year-old Wayne on the outside.

So what’s a young man in the wilds of Germany to do if he can’t gamble? The Star had one idea. As its front-page headline said: “ENGLAND’S TOP STARS ADDICTED TO WEB SEX.” Just think how many hours online Wayne could buy for £700,000.

Problem is that whatever Rooney does someone will be watching him. We are turning into a nation of snoops and sneaks.

On Wednesday we heard that the grass up a water hog campaign, part of the widening hosepipe ban, was attracting lots of calls from worried sprinkler watchers.

As the Guardian reported, 90 calls had been made to Thames Water’s hosepipe hog hotline. South East Water had taken 100 calls, and Three Valleys Water 124.

But the area’s tops grasses were Southern Water’s customers, having given the company a mighty 1,500 tip-offs.

The only thing for it is to comply with the water board’s wishes, or plant a huge row of Leylandii around your estate. These trees should stop the neighbours from peeping over, seeing your water features and grassing you up.

And, with any luck, your mighty hedgerow will envelope their gardens in total shade, so preventing unnecessary evaporation from their new bog-style lawns.’

Posted: 15th, April 2006 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Water Beds

‘ON Monday, Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, arrived in the UK with lots of baggage – chiefly the war in Iraq.

Rice was in Blackburn and Liverpool for the second of her dates with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

But Rice’s baggage was holding her back. She was not welcome at Blackburn’s Masjid al-Hidayah mosque. She was heckled at Blackburn’s Pleckgate high school. Poet Roger McGough declined to take part in a gala evening in Rice’s honour (so not all bad, then).

At least nothing could stop Rice attending the football match between Straw’s beloved Blackburn Rovers and Wigan. Sadly, there was something. TV deals meant the match was rescheduled, meaning Rice was shown around an empty stadium.

But such is the special nature of this relationship that Condi may not have noticed the lack of fans and vulgar chants about her and Bush.

And on Tuesday we saw that things between Condi and Jack were as special as ever. On board a flight to Kuwait, Condi offered Jack her bed.

This was ‘Bedgate’. And not wishing to spark a diplomatic incident, Jack gallantly took Condi’s bed and got his head down for the night. She bunked down on an aisle. And there was much love a mile up.

Down on planet Earth, the war on terror arrived in a cab on route to Tees Valley airport. On Wednesday, we saw Harraj Mann plug his MP3 player into a taxi’s onboard entertainment system and take the driver on a trip down memory lane.

Mann sang Procal Harem’s Whiter Shade of Pale. He belted out Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song. And he gave full throat to the lyrics to The Clash’s London Calling.

The driver had heard enough. He called the police. The cops raced to the scene and frogmarched Mann off for questioning. “What’s this about engines failing? When is the meltdown? War is declared! On whom?”

Mann was eventually released. But the message was clear – we were being watched. We live in uncertain times. The Government wants us to watch each other. Grass up a benefits cheat, urges the Government’s TV advert. Grass up a non income-tax payer. Grass up a singer.

And on Thursday we were being urged to grass up people who flout the hosepipe ban and water their, er, grass.

Three Valleys Water wanted you to file an anonymous report called “Report A Waterhog!”. In the section marked “irresponsible water user” you could grass up the man giving his lawn a drink. Tell a tale on that woman cleaning her motor. Snitch on the neighbour giving his colon a quick run through.

In the spirit of saving the planet – and not out of revenge or spite in any way at all – we did as 11 people have already done and filled in the form.

Irresponsible water user: water companies. How often do they waste water: 24-hours a day. How long do they waste water for: 24-hours a day. Time of waste: 24-hours a day. Well, 915 million litres of water a day leaks from the system.

Wrongdoers must be stopped. It is the duty of the righteous. Only who is right and who is wrong. On Friday we read that ancient papers found in Egypt claim Judas Iscariot is innocent.

This wrong ‘un accused of betraying Jesus Christ for thirty pieces of silver, his name a byword for deceit and treachery, was simply misunderstood. Thanks to the lost Gospel of Judas, we got to see the man behind the myth.

Judas was one of the goody guys. He never sold out Jesus in the gardens at Gethsemani. Although, he may well have used a hosepipe…’

Posted: 10th, April 2006 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Self Control

‘SCOTLAND the brave. So brave that on Monday we watched locals step outside into the icy driving rain to smoke a cigarette, or a salmon.

Monday brought news of the smoking ban in public places north of the border.

Of course, all this banning is for the common good. As the Times reported, 13,000 Scots die from smoking-related disease each year. Passive smoking accounts or 865 Scots every year. In all, 27 per cent of Scottish adults smoke. And 23.8 per cent of Scots women smoke during pregnancy.

Critics point out that Scottish people will still die, even with the ban in force. Until the Government rules otherwise, death will come to us all, including Scots, both smoking and non-smoking.

But if you think that ban is tough, on Tuesday we looked on as Tom Cruise got the family home ready for the arrival of little Ron Hubbard Holmes-Cruise.

Cruise likes rules so much that he is establishing bylaws in the Beverly Hills mansion he shares with Kelly Holmes.

Here’s one of them: “Maintain silence in the presence of birth to save both the sanity of the mother and child.”

Failure to do so will inflict “psychic” damage on the child which can only be addressed through years of therapy.

While we wonder what kind of raucous din Cruise’s mother made in the labour ward, we got to see what happens when rules are broken.

On Wednesday we saw Whitney Houston looking less then her best. “WHITNEY ON CRACK,” said the Sun’s front page. And there were “shocking pictures”.

Inside the paper, over a double-page spread, readers got to see inside Whitney’s bathroom. They saw a spoon covered in cocaine (“SORDID”) and a pot full of rubbish, said to include crack-smoking paraphernalia. “PITIFUL,” said the Sun.

And there was another rule breaker, 14-year-old Leanne Black, Britain’s youngest drink driver?

We got to see what kind of racket Leanne’s mother made in the maternity ward when the Press caught up with Nora Black. “Why don’t you write the truth about my daughter for once?” asked loving mum Nora. “Tell everyone she is posh and a f***ing good score for any man?”

What is the country coming to? Tsk! Who is in charge of this violent mob?

With Tony Blair away, Prezza was in charge. There he was in the Commons fielding questions like Abu Hamza in cricket whites.

On the subject of council tax, Prezza had this to say: “That I think is what we have done, that is what we continue to do and, as for the argument about the payment of the council tax, let me tell him and he must know again in the comparison between our Government and his Government, that we gave in the response 39 per cent increase in real terms in council tax compared to the last five years of which he had some influence where there was an actual reduction of 7 per cent in real terms of contribution to councils for their council tax.”

You still there? At least thanks to what the Star termed the “art” of sternomancy we can see what Prime Minister Prescott has in store for us all by looking at his breasts.

Not that diplomats should be judged on their breasts alone – not with so many arses around…’

Posted: 3rd, April 2006 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Neighbourhood Watch

‘AND the search for a new resident Islamic nutter goes on.

Not too far back finding a bearded loon to say something unpleasant was easy. A visit to the local benefits office would turn up no end of hairy self-styled clerics.

They’d tell you how evil you were and how unless all Muslim prisoners were released, Tony Blair resigned, Wham! reform etc., he and his scarfies (those yobbish Muslim yoofs with scarves wrapped gangsta-style around their faces) will kill you all.

Nowadays, things are harder and nutters are pretty thin on the ground. Which means the Sun is forced to look for Omar Bakri, the mad mullah in the green Ford Galaxy. And they’ve had to go to the Lebanon to find him.

It seems that the Tottenham Taliban has invested in the property market, buying a four-bedroom flat in Beirut for he and his brood.

For his £150,000, and the £100,000 refit, Bakri is the proud owner of four bedrooms, two bathrooms, four toilets, antiques from the Far East and a £5,000 sun awning on the balcony.

Neighbour Boutros Hahoon says the inside is decorated “like a palace”. “It seems as though he has made enough money to come to Beirut and live in luxury for the rest of his years.”

Good for him. Is it not the British dream to retire to the sun? But the Sun wants to know where the cash came from. So it asks Bakri. “What has it got to do with you?” he replies. “It is my money and it is none of your business where I got it or what I do with it.”

He may be right. Problem is that until the Press finds a new nutcase to gawp at, Bakri will remain the Sun’s business.

The search goes on…’

Posted: 30th, March 2006 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Things Can Only Get Sleazier

‘“I’M bound to say not all the information is out yet, and we’re still looking at it.’ So said Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott in his customary obfuscating manner on Monday.

Prezza was talking about the cash for peerages scandal, but he might just as easily have been talking about his wife’s hair, integrated transport policy or the EastEnders omnibus. Or sleaze.

Things have changed since new Labour introduced us to their project. We bought the message. We clapped along to the song. We may even have seen a small circular disc of light above Tony’s bouffant.

But that was then. Tony is no longer Bambi, bouncing into the political forest with wet nose and bustling tail – he’s another star of fiction. On Tuesday we became Alan B’Stard MP, the revolting venal Tory of the 1980s television series.

The Telegraph said that B’Stard was to be recast from the sleazy Conservative of the Thatcher and John Major years into a slimy, self-serving, corrupt Labour MP.

New Labour – old Tories, albeit a sexless version. And just like the Tories of old, new Labour are making a hash of the trains. On Wednesday we heard that the 8.02am Cambridge to London express is the most overcrowded train in the country.

Statistics released under the Freedom of Information Act, and looked over by the Telegraph, said 433 passengers want to use the 234 seats on this service.

And there was more. Thameslink’s Sutton to Luton 4.33pm train has provided 412 seats for 618 passengers. And Southern’s 7.51am shuttle from Victoria to London Bridge has 635 seats for 944 passengers.

Let the train take the stain, and practise your surfing as you glide round corners and catch a wave of red hot coffee from the trolley dollies as they weave their snack carts through the masses.

The trains are overpriced and overcrowded. But comments made by London mayor Ken Livingstone suggested to us that if anyone can get the trains to run on time it is Ken. Not that Livingstone is in any way a Nazi. It’s just that he… Oh, well, just listen to what he said and make up own mind.

Livingstone thinks brothers Simon and David Reuben are a hurdle to his Olympic Games 2012 plans.

The Reubens are part of a group wanting to construct a shopping centre, car park and homes in Stratford, East London. A spokesman for the Reuben bother said Livingstone is “misinformed” and they have “worked ceaselessly to try to move the project forward for the benefit of London”.

Livingstone thinks otherwise. He also thinks that Reuben is an Iranian name, and not in the least bit Jewish (the brothers are Indian-born Jews). As Livingstone said: “If they are not happy they can always go back and see if they can do better under the ayatollahs.”

Asked by a reporter to explain what he meant by that, Livingstone resisted the urge to compare the journalist to a concentration camp guard, and said, “To Iran.”

What do you make of that? Is Livingstone anti-immigrant? As Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain told the Times: “It’s an extremely unpleasant remark that no mayor should say to any immigrant. This isn’t a Jewish issue but of treating citizens equally, irrespective of origin.”

That Livingstone should represent Londoners is a tragedy. That he refers to people’s ethnic origin is shameful and pathetic to score points.

The only good news is that Livingstone won’t be mayor for ever, let along a thousand years.

On Friday we read that London could well be under 20ft of water by 2100. And what that will do to the trains is anyone’s guess…’

Posted: 27th, March 2006 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Mother’s Little Helpers

‘CAREER stalled? Stuck in the same old rut of appearing on reality TV shows and nodding your head on 100 Best TV Socks II?

What you need is a drugs story. Before he was, allegedly, found in possession of drugs, George Michael was just another man in a balaclava.

Boy George slunk into a New York courthouse a forgotten man. He came out with an order to attend a drugs rehabilitation programme and a renewed fame.

The adventures of cocaine Kate Moss and Pete Doherty have hardly harmed their careers: Kate continues to wear clothes and Doherty’s music is an irrelevance to his rich career as pop’s favourite “f***wit”.

So come on, celebs, tell us your drugs stories and we’ll see you get a mention in the Press.

Come on, Danniella Westbrook, former EastEnders actress and a women who nose (sic) a thing or two about drugs. The Sun is listening. What’s your drugs story, Danni?

On Monday, Danniella claimed she had snorted cocaine minutes after giving birth to her son Kai. In her autobiography, The Other Side of Nowhere, Danni says she staggered from the delivery room to take drugs.

She also smoked crack while pregnant with daughter Jodie. And once took so much cocaine she passed out. “My skin had gone green and my lips were blue. Kai was begging me to wake up.”

And wake up she did. And Danni remained awake long enough to pen her life’s story and tell us all about those drugs.

The result is that Danni and Drugs is one of the most overexposed double acts in the business, right up there with Pete & Drugs, Kate & Drugs and Ant & Dec.

Like Fred and Ginger, Desi and Lucille, Pinky and Perky and all those other great double acts that have entertained us down the years, the mention of one name demands the inclusion of the other.

But they do not always last. And on Tuesday we heard that Jennifer Aniston wanted to go it alone. She no longer wished to be “poor” Jen, former wife of Brad Pitt.

The Sun looked at a copy of Jen’s interview with Vogue magazine and heard the actress say she has had enough of being part of a “sick twisted Bermuda Triangle” with Brad and Angelina Jolie. “It makes my skin crawl,” said Jen.

That’s a comment that neatly brings us to the story of Kevin Federline, ferret-faced husband to popstar Britney Spears. News was that Brit wanted to stop Kev blowing her fortune on cars, jets and white vests. From now on Kevin would be given an allowance of £250 a week.

As the Star’s insider said, Kevin will be given the cash for clothing, nightclubs and drinks. And as long as leaves himself with enough money for the night bus home, he should be fine. Because any big items like cars will need to be approved by his wife.

It was hard to imagine another double act behaving in the same fashion, and Wayne Rooney limiting the spending power of his shopaholic lover, Coleen McLoughlin.

In her weekly column for Closer magazine (we read it so you don’t have to), Coleen told us how you too can look like a full-figured girl in a baggy velveteen tracksuit.

Coleen noted: “You don’t have to spend a fortune and you can’t beat Primark for pyjamas.” You don’t have to, but if you can spend a fortune, you go for it. And if it is your lover’s fortune, go for it hard.

We were all ears. But on Thursday we had to cover them up. New of the Spice Girls reunion tour was causing us no end of pain. But then we read in the Sun that the tour was off.

Promoters had pencilled in dates for November and December this year to mark the tenth anniversary of the group’s debut single, Wannabe, getting to No.1 in the charts.

But the girls thought better of it. A source told the Sun that Melanie C, the band’s Coleen McLoughlin template – albeit in a shiny shellsuit to Coleen’s baggy velveteen number – wanted to concentrate on her solo career.

Her Poshness was now “heavily into fashion”. The source said that Vicky realised the gig could be a “PR disaster”.

And the idea of a heavily pregnant Geri Halliwell fighting herself into a Union Jack dress and stacked heels to kick the air with Girl Power was frightening, and no way for a child to come into the world.

Whatever the dramas of the birth, Geri will be a great mum – Geri will be a great celebrity mum.

She might even be the best mum in the business – better than those other mums in the running for this year’s title of Celebrity Mum of the Year.

On Friday we got to see how tough the competition is. The Sun said that in the running for the prize was one Kate Moss, known to the masses outside the kindergarten gates as Cocaine Kate. She’s a model mum, starring in photoshoots for some of the biggest fashion houses, and one of the smaller recording studios.

“KATE’S ON SNORTLIST FOR MUM OF THE YEAR!” said the Star. It said she was a “shock contender” in the running for this most worthy of prizes.

But where was the shock? As the Sun noted, the holder of this esteemed title was none other than single mother Kerry Katona. Like Moss, tired and emotional Katona was once separated from her offspring by a spell in rehab.

Indeed, looking down the list of agonists, it became pretty clear what kind of criteria the judging panel looked for when it came to giving some celebrity mum the silver-painted dummy, or whatever form this prize takes.

The final list included none other than the ubiquitous professional swearer Sharon Osbourne, a woman so keen to do right by her adolescent children Kelly and Jack she invited cameras into her dog poo infested family home to film their every move.

Of course, the winner should be Danniella Westbrook. She has taken the role of celebrity mum to dizzying heights…’

Posted: 20th, March 2006 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Acting Up

‘HOORAY for Hollywood. The mere mention of the word Oscars banished bird flu, Islamic nutters and MRSA from the news pages. Such is the power of cinema.

And such if the power of a woman’s tears. Perhaps sensing that she was destined to win a best actress Oscar for her role in Pride & Prejudice, Keira Knightly practiced gushing like the best of them at LA restaurant The Ivy.

The Star said that Knightly’s tears only abated when, safely back at the Chateau Marmont hotel, she shared a cup of tea with the overexposed Sienna Miller.

By Tuesday, we realised that Knightly’s professionalism had been for nought. She had failed to win a statuette. Although, Britain did have Rachel Weisz to cheer as she accepted her best supporting actress Oscar for The Constant Gardener.

But Weisz wasn’t having it all her own way. Pregnant and dressed in demure black, her dress was not going to win an award.

But another British girl would triumph. Sienna Miller, fresh from pouring tea, had gotten dressed in what the Mail called a “dog-collared patterned sack”. Miller had won the paper’s Worst Dressed Prize.

The Sun went further still and called Miller’s dress a “CRIME”. Not since Hugh Grant wore a syrupy grin in a police mug shot had a British thespian committed such a gross act of indecency over there.

If only Miller had had some advice. If only she had stayed in Blighty and read Victoria Beckham’s “10 style commandments”. Like No.4: Invest In Timeless Classics. “Buy classics that will never date,” said Posh. Like trousers. And socks.

What would Posh have worn to the Oscars? And what will Posh wear when, as we heard on Wednesday, she holds Katie Holmes’s hand in the delivery room.

Vicky might be too Posh to push, but Her Poshness had, as the Star told us, been asked to be the actress’s celebrity birthing partner. The Star’s source said that the actress and the retired singer are close pals. “Victoria has become a mother hen to Katie and was thrilled when she asked her to be her birthing partner,” said the insider.

“Twice a week they set aside half an hour to discuss any worries Katie might have and practise breathing techniques.”

And Vicky knows all about breathing, considering herself something of the expert in the field. As such, Holmes had chosen well.

Posh would make a much better maternity ward mate than, say, Pete Doherty. For one thing, Doherty might break the Scientology taboo and brings drugs into the labour ward. For another, he might turn up on the wrong day.

On Thursday the Mirror saw Doherty leaving Thames Magistrates’ Court in Central London. Doherty had been attending a drug rehabilitation order review hearing, in which District Judge Jane McIvor praised Doherty’s “progress” in not testing positive for illegal narcotics. “His determination seems to be increasing, not decreasing,” she told all assembled.

So Doherty walked free. And, as the Mirror reported, a hack popped up to ask the singer if he was now drugs free. Doherty had no truck with such probing questions about his personal life. “What sort of question is that to ask on a Tuesday morning?” asked Pete Doherty. But it was Wednesday, so perhaps the journalist who fielded the question should have expected a simple “yes” or “no”.

Posh won’t let Katie down. No chance. Posh is reliable and honest. She would no more fail to show up and help her showbiz pal than she would “cynically and hypocritically” seek to present an untrue image of her and Day-vid’s marriage to the public for financial reasons.

As Posh had said: “We do not deny that we promote ourselves as a happily married couple. We say that because it is true.”

So when the couple’s former nanny Abbie Gibson said in an article in the News of The World (“Posh and Becks on Rocks”) that the Beckhams’ marriage was a sham, Posh was offended, outraged and ready to go to court.

And we were ready to listen. So imagine our shock when on Friday, with the hearing scheduled for June, the Mail brought news that the Beckhams had changed their minds. They will not be taking the stand. The case had been dropped.

It is still hard to believe Posh passed up the chance to tell a captive audience how utterly in love she and Day-vid are.

But it is not to be. And we may never know if Posh is a woman with a perfect life, or a pretty fine actress…’

Posted: 13th, March 2006 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Baa Humbug

‘WELCOME, bienvenido, foon ying, witajcie and much else besides to our new feature on political correctness going mad.

As the Times reports, traditional nursery rhymes are being altered to avoid causing offence. Toddlers at the Sure Start nursery in Sutton Courteney, Oxfordshire, are singing from a new songbook.

Instead of “baa, baa, black sheep”, the children now ask the “Rainbow Sheep” if the gender non-specific animal has any wool. Not that a sheep should have only wool; sheep are just as able as the rest of farm animals to have leather, suede and fur. Let us not discriminate and revert to hackneyed and arcane stereotypes. Sheep are people, too.

But not everyone agrees. The Times says that critics will seize on this as an example of political correctness. And over in the Mail we read that the nursery rhyme has “fallen victim to the drive for political correctness”.

Stuart Chamberlain, who manages the progressive nursery, explains. “We have taken the equal opportunities approach to everything we do,” he says. “This is fairly standard across nurseries. We are following stringent equal opportunities rules. No one should feel pointed out because of their race, gender or anything else.”

Indeed. Why should the black sheep be asked for its wool – three bagfuls! – when there are plenty of white sheep in the field? Why has it been singled out?

Or might it be that the black sheep has pushed itself to the fore, realising that the only way for its kind to achieve any kind of status in the white sheep’s world is to become an entertainer, in this instance, a singer?

Either way, it goes against the grain of equal opportunities. Better if the black sheep gave one bag of wool to the master, the white sheep gave a bagful to the dame and the third homosexual rainbow sheep gave its wool to the little lad who lives down the lane. This routine would then change at regular intervals so sheep and customers aren’t accused of exercising bias.

Better even if the sheep started taking delivery of their customers’ human hairs, black, white and even ginger.

In the meantime, Gervase Duffield, a Conservative district councillor representing Sutton Courtenay and Appleford, is unhappy.

“It’s the sort of thing that people continually do nowadays — it’s become something of a curse,” he says. “Why do people waste time and money doing this sort of thing when there are far more important things to think about when it comes to educating our children?”

That’s a big question. It might even be bigger than “Have you any wool? And it should not just be directed to black sheep, but thrown open to the entire field…

More political correctness stories to follow…’

Posted: 8th, March 2006 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Stars In Cars

‘“DOPE ME UP BEFORE YOU GO GO,” said the Star’s front page on Monday morning. “CARELESS SPLIFFER,” announced the Mirror and Sun in perfect harmony on their respective cover pages.

“George Michael drug arrest,” said the Mail, the paper correctly realising that when it comes to the lexicon of drugs its readers’ knowledge begins and ends with HRT.

The story was that in the early hours of Sunday morning, a passerby had spotted the singer slumped at the wheel of his car. Worried that the driver was ill, this concerned citizen had dialled 999. The Mirror said paramedics arrived. They looked at George. And they called the police.

Police came. And George was arrested on suspicion of being unfit to drive. As a cop told the Mail: “He was taken to a police station and was searched. He was found to be in possession of a controlled substance, a Class C substance.”

This substance was sent away for testing. And George was bailed to return in March, when he may face a charge of possessing what is thought to be cannabis.

And there was more. The Sun said police allegedly found not only cannabis on George, but also GBH, a drug the Sun knowingly refers to as “Liquid Ecstasy”. And then there were the masks and sex toys apparently found by police in the boot of George’s motor.

We were given a clue as to what Geroge used such devices for when on Tuesday the Star narrated a cautionary tale about the dangers of using cannabis.

As the Star reported (“He trawled hotel in balaclava for sex”), the singer, allegedly, had got into difficulties while on a night out in the Hilton London Metropole hotel.

A hotel source told the paper how George was found wandering the corridors dressed in his hood looking for the room of a man he’d met in a bar and arranged to meet.

George could remember that his assignation was to take place on the fifth floor, but not which room. So he had knocked on a door. Only it wasn’t the right one and the resident, on seeing a man in a balaclava at his door, called security.

Not long after, Michael returned to the scene without his headgear and once more knocked on the same door. Again the resident called security. Guards arrived and apprehended Michael, who is reported to have offered the time honoured defence: “Is this the Hilton?”

Michael was then escorted from the premises to his car. But where was it? “He couldn’t even remember where he parked his car,” said a guard.

For anyone interested in witnessing what might well be evidence of the effects of cannabis use on the short-memory, the source says that the entire conversation was caught on CCTV.

While we waited for the footage to form part of some anti-drugs film, the music business was rocking to some other sensational news. Eat yer heart out Cliff Richard. There was a new star of religious pop on the scene. And he had something to say.

Take it away MC Hamza: “I was born to be a solider, Kalashnikov on my shoulder, Peace to Hamas and Hezbollah, That’s the way of the lord Allah.” Great rhyming stuff. And it got better when the Sun told us that the rapper was Mohammed Kamel Mostafa, Abu Hamza’s oldest child.

While hardline Islam was getting jiggy with it, on Wednesday that hardcore rocker Pete Doherty was out for a drive in Brimingham. And he was part of a convoy. The Mirror said that trailing the singer along the road were a motorway patrol car, two police motorcyclists and an unmarked vehicle.

Eyewitness Mike Kelly explained what he had observed: “I saw a large blue three-litre Jaguar with personalised plates being chased at speed the wrong way up a one-way street.”

Kelly made for a good witness, the kind of person Geroge Michael could use on his staff should cannabis damage his short-term memory and he experience more trouble identifying his car.

And this Kelly was thorough. He went on to say how the car stopped and the two police motorbikes stopped either side. “Doherty got out without a struggle… He looked completely out of it, staring into space… He didn’t seem too steady on his feet and had to be guided to the back of the police Volvo.”

Doubtless Mr Kelly could have provided us with details of the Volvo’s engine capacity and colour, but in the meantime we busied ourselves dissecting the facts such as they were.

And the shock was that, as the Sun said, the Jaguar so expertly described by the aforesaid Kelly was, allegedly, stolen. The paper said that police were already following Doherty when a camera took a picture of the Jaguar and it flashed up as stolen on the force’s database.

For his part, Doherty said he bought the care legitimately but the vendor was a man who “gets confused and forgets where he puts things”.

Which made us wonder. Had George Michael ever owned a blue three-litre Jaguar? And we urged him to think very hard before answering.

More on Doherty was to come. On Thursday, the Sun heard a source say that Doherty was being given counselling for manic depression. Any fans who wanted to check up on Doherty’s progress could catch his performances at Homerton Hospital, East London, where he was said to be making regular visits.

And while Doherty was indoors talking about his condition, he was not outdoors getting up to no good. It was in keeping with the Sun’s “Get Pete off the Street” campaign, launched to get the singer locked up and helped.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of a national newspaper calling for a mentally disturbed 27-year-old to be incarcerated – a “pal” said Doherty’s problems were rooted in his relationship with his strict Army major father – the Sun should have considered the fact that a jailed Doherty was a Doherty who can no longer populate their news pages.

And that would have meant no news of Doherty on Friday. We read in the Star that shambling rocker Ozzy Osbourne wanted to help Pete Doherty ditch drugs.

Said Ozzy: “I’ve been to the pits of hell with addiction and although it’s f***ing me off to see him f***ing up his life, I’d help him in a minute if he asked.”

Ozzy was sure that he could provide the real help Doherty needed. “Why the f*** isn’t anyone helping the boy?” he asked. “It’s not entertaining to watch.”

And therein was the rub. It might not be edifying, it might reflect badly on the audience, but Doherty’s antics have been entertaining.

Just as we stare at Ozzy as he vibrates and gibbers his way to the fridge, we gawp at Doherty. Well, who doesn’t rubberneck at a car crash? Or a popstar parked up on the side of the road..?’

Posted: 6th, March 2006 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Panic Stations

‘OLD sitcom writers never die, they just go and work at the Mail.

It was hard not to smile as the Mail used its front page on Monday to scream: “DON’T PANIC.” It was dear old Lance-Corporal Jones, the hysteric from Dad’s Army.

Jones knew that bird flu was on our doorsteps, pecking at the silver lids on our British pintas. He was manically running about the place telling us to remain calm.

Problem was “We’re all doomed”. “Bird flu at our door,” said the Mail’s Private Frazer. “Hotlines swamped. But Minister says: We’re prepared. (Now isn’t that what they said about foot-and-mouth?”)

The minister making the news was John Reid, the defence secretary. He noted that two dead birds had been taken away for tests in northern France. And he had heard that scientists were investigating the deaths of swans found in Suffolk, Hampshire, Yorkshire and Lancashire. Fowl play had not been ruled out (the Mail, we should be working together, call me).

Crikey! Things were looking grim. Perhaps it would have been best just to leave the country. Permission to speak, sirs and madams, we asked. Would you mind if we were excused? We had to see a man about a birddog.

Only, there was no escape. Facts were facts. Even disgraced, discredited and jailed historian David Irving would be hard pressed to argue with the truth that birds killed by avian flu had been found on the Continent.

(Although if Irving did say there was bird flu close by, chances are only loons, the Iranian regime, die-hard Nazis and idiots would believe him.)

Bird flu did not need Irving. What bird flu needed was a celebrity face.

MRSA had Lesley Ash. Breast cancer had Kylie Minogue. Even lowly acne had Cameron Diaz. I could have gone on. But at no point would we have encountered the celebrity face of avian flu. Until last Wednesday.

All hail Oprah Winfrey. Speaking in the National Enquirer, the maven of the talk shows was telling her people “It’s going to happen”. Bird flu will sweep across the US.

“I feel hopeless,” said Oprah. “If that virus mutates into a contagious human flu, no one on the planet will be safe.” Not Oprah. Not Paula Abdul. Not even Dr Phil.

Oprah called for her Government to prepare for the worst. She said that when it came to being vaccinated against the disease “I’m getting mine now”.

Which was some news – as the Mail said in its bird flu “Q&A”, no true human vaccine existed. Perhaps Oprah plans to inoculate herself with Nobilis, the only vaccine that’s approved for use on poultry?

Whatever she wants, Oprah will have to bone up on avian flu if she is to become its celebrity spokesperson.

Meanwhile the birds were busing being, well, birds. And on Thursday we read the joyous news that Kyala and Oscar Penguin had given birth to Toga II, the sibling of Toga I, the stolen bird that now resides in your chest freezer.

Of course, if penguin a la mode was not your thing, we were minded to try something meatier.

On Thursday we read the Star’s news that cannibal killer Armin Meiwes wanted to “only eat beautiful people”.

German-born Meiwes is facing a retrial in Frankfurt for killing and then eating a man he met on the Internet.

In 2004, “evil” and “hungry” Meiwes was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years’ choky for the manslaughter of one Bernd Brandes. The pair had met on the Internet and after the usual chit-chat they met up for a dinner date – in which Brandes agreed to be dinner.

And with Brandes been and digested, Meiwes had drawn up a menu of people he’d like to eat. And top of the list was…Robbie Williams.

Jail sure had given Meiwes a healthy appetite, because Robbie was only the appetiser. After the singer, Meiwes wanted to tuck into Liam Gallagher, Barry Manilow and Hugh Grant (a man not averse to being gobbled by strangers).

No mention was made of recipes (ideas to the usual address). But with a diet rich in meat, we urged Meiwes to take care and balance his diet with fruit – like Apple Paltrow-Martin, Peaches Geldof and Halle Berry.

But at least Meiwes is a good cook. Well, he is German. As the Guardian told us on Friday, Germany had performed very well in a competition held by the World Association of Cooks Societies, and staged at a salubrious college of further education in Colwyn Bay, Wales.

The Germans had won a gold medal. And the Welsh had won the top prize, too. Sadly, the French did not do that well.

The Guardian said the French had been expected to do very well. Billed as the “Thierry Henris” of the cooking world, the French would dazzle. They’d score for fun. They’d wink at the cameras and try and flog you a nippy hatchback car. You’d buy one. And they’d win.

Only they did not. And one judge was not so sure they will take kindly to losing. Said he: ‘I just hope it doesn’t mean they take offence and drop out again.”

Of course, such is the nature of the awards industry that the French are free to set up their own league and create prizes that only they can win.

Well, if it works for the Baftas, the Brits and the Oscars, why not for the Foodies?’

Posted: 27th, February 2006 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Fowl Play

‘AFTER those images of Muhammad, the world awoke on Monday to see the face of another religious figure.

And – for shame – the years had not been overly kind to Jesus Christ, the leader of worldwide Christianity.

And there he was. We learnt that that he lived in Italy. He had assisted hair, not much height and a neat line in little shiny shoes. He laboured under the name Silvio Berlusconi.

At the start of his campaign to remain as Italy’s secular leader in April’s general election, Berlusconi outlined his manifesto to become its spiritual leader, too.

‘I am the Jesus Christ of politics,’ he said. ‘I am a patient victim, I put up with everyone, I sacrifice myself for everyone.”

But while Berlusconi was dying for our sins (see hair), there was more trouble for our boys in the Middle East.

Last year’s news of what went on in initiation ceremonies at a military base in Taunton surprised few.

What we heard and saw on video was all too believable. Indeed, it sounded like the sort of thing that many young Britons did for a laugh on holiday, and we agreed that it was nothing to be proud of.

If the lads were prepared to strap foam mats to their arms and dance around like demented chicken as, naked and drunk, an NCO, dressed as a schoolgirl, encouraged them to kick each other in the head, what would they get up to when in a real battle zone?

Were they being toughened up to receive punishment or being given a crash course in how to dish it out?

Mindful of those images, we avidly read news of another video of our servicemen behaving badly.

There they were – eight British soldiers assaulting four unarmed Iraqi youths, with a truly sadistic commentary provided by the man with the video. (The Independent heard the lunatic with the camera shouting: ‘Oh yes! Oh yes! You’re gonna get it. Yes, naughty little boys. You little fuckers, you little fuckers. Die. Ha Ha.’)

It was all pretty revolting. But some were not convinced. They wanted the thing put in perspective. Did you see the riot before the defenceless boys were dragged off and beaten up?

For a nation that gets its kicks from laughing at video tapes of people diving headfirst into empty swimming pools and getting their tongues caught up in ceiling fans, perhaps we were being awfully prudish about the latest home video from Iraq.

But while the Ministry of Defence’s police were interviewing Corporal Martin Webster about his directing – and sending his efforts in to You’ve Been Framed for a £250 bonanza – we heard news of more senseless violence. Step forward Dick Cheney.

Sad to say the Vice President of the United States did not capture on video the moment when he mistook 78-year-old lawyer Henry Whittington for a Texan quail (everything’s bigger in Texas). So there was no £250 for him.

And while Whittington fought for his life in hospital, the health of everyone in Britain suddenly got a whole lot better.

“Britain gives up smoking,” said the Times’s front-page headline. And we wondered if we had all, like some North Korean Army display team, acted as one?

Feeling refreshed, clean and so very righteous, we read that the Commons had voted to ban smoking from all pubs, clubs and workplaces from next year.

Ms Hewitt, the odourless Health Secretary, told the paper that smoking was to be banned in “virtually every enclosed public place and workplace”.

Serve food or don’t serve food, the ban on smoking in pubs will hold just the same. Even if all the members and staff at your private club smoke like camp fires, the ban will hold.

That was the good news. Now for the bad news: the fags won’t get us but the birds will. On Thursday we heard that as many as 15,000 swans infected with the H5N1 virus are scattered throughout Europe.

But the Government had a cunning plan. Should an infected wild bird be found, swan or otherwise, the authorities will set up a one-mile exclusion zone around it.

The aim is to protect poultry from infection. Inside the zone, poultry movement will be halted. And, strangely, poultry and pigs within the zone will be tested for the virus.

Pigs. Why pigs? Do pigs fly? There were no pictures of an airborn pig coughing and spluttering as it winged its way over the Channel, and we can only imagine it to be so.

In which case, look out – especially when walking beneath trees and cranes where a pig might be nesting.

But on Friday we learnt that things might not be so bad. The Channel might yet widen. The barrier that keeps them out could grow.

As the Times showed with the aid of a double-page picture, by the next millennium “disastrous climate change” will have drowned vast swathes of this fair land.

The Fens and large areas of the East Midlands will be submerged. In 3006, London will be twinned with Atlantis. And over on the Continent, the Netherlands will be best viewed by submarine.

Good news. But is the climate changing too slowly to save us from killer swans? If so, what can we do speed things up. Burn more fossil fuels? We’re on it. Bar-B-Q more chicken? Watch the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs do their worst.

The time to act is now. Before it’s too late…’

Posted: 20th, February 2006 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

The Crack Of The Masses

‘WITH Kate Moss been and gone, the papers needed a new Public Enemy No. 1. And on Monday they spotted him. “NICK HIM,” ordered the Sun’s front-page headline.

Dressed in what passed for militant Islam chic, the youth was seen posing outside the Danish embassy in London.

Upset at those now infamous cartoons of the prophet Muhammed, the youth had dressed up as a suicide bomber and joined a mob of rabid “hate-filled” extremists massed to give full throat to their anger. Inside the paper, there was another shot of the man who got the outfit but not the ambition.

The Sun and the Mail wanted to know who this fool was. And the Star obliged. “UNMASKED,” said the Star’s headline. The wound-be suicide bomber was a British yoof from Bedford

He was called Omar Khayam. And speaking in quatrains, the bespectacled protestor edged his way past the placards calling for death to this one and that one and told the Star that he dressed as he did to “make a point”, to “highlight double standards”.

While the Star and Express listened to Khayam’s apology, there were calls for the cops to just nick him.

But should the police have done more and arrested the protestors? As the Independent said: “To have pulled people out of the crowd could have inflamed passions further. It would also have required the police to make snap judgements about which slogans might be unlawful and which the exercise of free speech.”

And the police are not all that good at making snap judgements. In the pursuit of victim status, a few wrongful arrests would have surely delighted the militants.

But on Tuesday those who wanted Khayam nicked heard some good news. We read the Mirror’s front-page news that he had been jailed for six years in 2002 for possessing crack cocaine with intent to supply.

We were interested. We wanted to know if extreme Islam gave you a similar high to illegal narcotics. Was the ‘E’ to the rave what militant Islam was to raving madness? Could you scream yourself into a state of ecstasy? If so, would militant Islam be reclassified as a Class A drug?

One thing was for sure, the cartoons were big news. The toons – the ones Alan Coren, writing in Wednesday’s Times, called “so ill-conceived, so ill-drawn and so unfunny” – were the top story.

Everyone had something to say about them. Surprising, then, that we never heard what Abu Hamza thought of these crass drawings.

Not that we will be hearing much from the firebrand for the next seven years – he was found guilty of six counts of soliciting murder and jailed.

But while Hamza went to prison, another headline maker remained at large. On Thursday, we saw Peter Doherty escape a jail term.

As the Sun said (“Potty Peter let off with smack on bottom”), Doherty had walked free from Ealing Magistrates’ Court in West London.

Up before the Beak on seven counts of possessing drugs, the Sun said Doherty was looking at a seven-year stretch. The paper noted how Doherty looked “bleary-eyed and disorientated” as he pleaded guilty to all charges against him.

The Beak mulled things over and sentenced Doherty to a year of rehabilitation and ordered that he pay £129 costs.

He was understandably chuffed. As he told Radio 1: “As far as drugs are concerned it’s difficult. But I’d rather be outside with no smack than inside prison with no smack. I want to keep off crack and heroin.”

And the natural high of Muslim extremism, if he can help it…’

Posted: 13th, February 2006 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Kiss ‘N’ Chantelle

‘ON Monday, we heard a tapping sound. Tap! Tap! Tap! It was the sound of those bureaucrats at the EU chipping away at our British way of life.

Already they’ve taken our patriotic pounds and our island-race inches and, buoyed by those successes, were plotting to strip us of our honest pints.

The Mail said that the traditional pinta was under threat from the EU, which wanted to replace it with litre and half-litre bottles.

For your information, the Mail said that a half litre of milk was 64millilitres smaller than a pint for milk, prompting “fears” that customers will be short-changed.

Terrible! Quite so. What’s this about 64millitres? Had the world gone stark raving bonkers? Once the Mail goes the way of the metric masses, we are surely racing pell-mell to Hell in Marcel’s handcart.

Who would save us? Where was Britannia? We needed a champion. And – hurrah! – if it wasn’t the blonde tresses and puckered lips of Chantelle, riding in on a white limo to save the day.

How the Mail cheered. It compared the Big Brother winner to Eliza Dolittle. It called her “natural” and “unexpurgated”. She was “herself with such a sweetly artless and unspiteful sang-froid that the viewing public…became entranced”.

Chantelle had bottle. The cream had risen to the top. She was the full British pinta.

Little was heard of Chantelle on Tuesday. Doubtless, she, like Anita Singh, spokesman for animal rights campaigners People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), was incandescent with rage at the sight of Camilla Windsor planting a tree with a dead rabbit hanging from her throat.

OK. A bit over dramatic. In truth, the rabbit was dead. It might not have fought for its life, happy to give up its skin for so noble a cause as keeping Camilla’s wattle warm and, dare we say, snug.

On Wednesday, we were not told what Chantelle thought of the news that Oslo was the world’s most expensive city, nor what she thought Cocaine Kate Moss had said to the cops during.

As for Moss, the Sun thought the case against her was over. It said Moss had enacted “THE GREAT ESCAPE”. It heard one cop admit that the case against her was “a dead duck”.

The Star was less certain. It said that police were going to prepare a report for the Crown Prosecution Service. The CPS would study the case against Moss and decide what to do next.

And the judiciary must tread carefully. The Star said that it, and we, should not get “starstruck”. “This was a really important investigation into serious claims of cocaine dealing.”

Sure. Just as the Star’s more prominent story on how chav-tastic Coleen McLoughlin’s new pet Maltese terrier wore a pink hoodie was a comment on corruption in British football.

On Thursday, we read with interest that Jordan was downsizing. What was more, her implants would be auctioned off on the Internet. Who would not want a pair of Jordans of their very own?

This was terrific news for Katie’s fans – although perhaps not so marvellous for the mo-del’s pint-sized husband, Peter, who may by forced by his health insurers to wear eye protectors when in close proximately to his uplifted wife.

But there was also bad news. We cancelled the crabsticks. Stopped the jellied eel machine. Called off the agents. News was that Chantelle was not going to marry her Big Brother housemate Preston. At least not until Preston had first married and divorced Camille Aznar, or taken up polygamy.

The Mirror, which specialises in this kind of hard news, said that Preston had proposed to his French girlfriend (a claim later denied by the would-be groom).

For her part, Chantelle remained upbeat and was keen to focus on the positives. “I’d love to be a bridesmaid at his wedding to Camille,” said she bravely.

But on Friday, the Star had sensational news. “CHANTELLE & PRESTON BABY SHOCK,” announced the front page of the paper.

Gripped, we read on. But – for shame! – things were not as they seemed.

Take this headline: “QUEEN IS COKE ADDICT.” It looks and sounds sensational when splashed across a front page.

Only, the story behind the headline – Queen is a Yorkshire terrier who drinks nothing but Panda Cola – undermines the tale’s lurid suggestion of Her Majesty screaming for Charlie while lying face down in a silver salver of Grade A narcotics.

Deprived of a decent news story, a well-crafted headline can often stand in place of the scoop.

Not that Chantelle is anything other than premier news fodder, it was just that the Star didn’t bring news of any Chantelle-Preston baby (even if it did mock up a picture of what such a creation would look like). The story was that expectant mums were “racing” to name their newborns Preston and Chantelle.

“I’m living the dream,” said Chantelle in the Mirror. Indeed. Could any of it be real..?’

Posted: 6th, February 2006 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

George & The Whale

‘WAS the whale that swam up the Thames into the heart of London a portent of doom? Was Wally/Willy/Whaley trying to tell us something? If she was, Neptune should have sent Flipper as his emissary because all Wally did was swim, swim some more and then die.

This left Monday’s Mirror to ask: “Why did he die?” In “FAREWELL TO WHALEY”, we heard that the whale’s death may have had something to do with the disorientating effects of a recent series of military explosions close to the Thames estuary.

It just might have had something to do with the fact that the whale was followed up the Thames by a flotilla of boats, forced to beach and lifted onto a grotty barge.

But what about those shadowy military explosions? It’s unlikely we’ll ever know what they entail – unless an undersea rock tells all.

On Tuesday, we learnt that rocks do indeed know many things. They are privy to secrets. There are rocks in Moscow that have been communicating with British spies. Rocks must not be taken lightly. Rocks should be watched closely.

The Russian were taking no chances and had even filmed one particular rock for a TV expose. The Express published a still of the rock fraternising with our man in Moscow, Andrew Fleming.

The Russians claimed that within this boulder British intelligence has secreted a hi-tech transmitting device. It was delicate, leading–edge espionage.

Enthralled, we looked at the ensuing images of Fleming logging on by drawing back his right leg and giving the rock a kick. Perhaps this was the only way to get the rock to talk, even it did look like a form of torture.

But such is the price of freedom. What matter how you get your message across so long as the masses get to hear it?

So the rock gets a kicking. And George Galloway gets booted out of the Big Brother house, branded a venal, bullying, conniving etc. etc. etc. swine etc. etc…

What some people will do for Palestine, eh? We’re sure George will be saluted in the Middle East for his courage, strength and indefatigability in branding Jodi Marsh “wicked”, pretending to be a pussy cat and gamely wearing middle-aged denim for the cause.

But, much as we’d like to see Galloway embark on his new career as the face of Go Cat Tuna Herring and Vegetables, we struggled to see how wearing a toupee, dressing up as Dracula and smoking barred him politics.

Indeed, looking at the Tory benches – featuring the likes of Michael Fabricant, Michael Howard and Ken Clarke – we suggested Galloway has just hitched his colours to the wrong mast.

With 64.7 per cent of the popular vote behind him, Galloway could still flourish in the hallowed halls of Westminster.

Indeed, if he wears Bono’s new range of planet-saving fashion, Galloway may yet rise to the top.

“We’ve come up with a sexy, smart, savvy idea that will save people’s lives,” said Bono in the Sun, displaying a rare mastery of the language of marketing.

“It’s conscious commerce for people who think about their spending power and say ‘I’ve got two jeans I can buy. One is made in Africa and is going to make a difference and the other isn’t. What am I going to buy?”

Hmmm? Tough choice. Do you go for the jeans made in an impoverished part of the world or get the branded ones made in a sweatshop in mega-rich China?

Good job the likes of Bono and Galloway are on hand to help us do the right thing…’

Posted: 30th, January 2006 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Losing The Plot

‘WHAT would happen if you were kidnapped in Iraq? Sure you’d begin to worry, and wonder why you’d never changed your name from Moshe Finklestein. But what do you think would be going on back home?

Your local MP would be asking questions in the House? Of course he would. The news bulletins would feature a recent photograph of you looking trustworthy, perhaps standing on a beach with some blonde? For sure. Liverpool would be gloomy? Could it be anything but?

But you might not be all that missed. On Monday we heard that British reporter Phil Sands had been rescued by US soldiers on a routine raid in Baghdad.

Sands had not been reported missing. His family had not appeared in the media begging the hostages to release their son. A candlelit vigil had not been organised.

It’s all very well kidnapping someone to make a political point, to exact revenge, to extort money, or just for the kick of it, if the world at large knows about it. But we didn’t know. No-one realised Sands was missing.

And no-one was that bothered that he was free. No protracted, well documented period of incarceration meant that by Tuesday Sands was old news.

While Sands cursed his lack (no book deal or appearance on Richard & Judy for the forgotten man), on Tuesday, we got to learn about Ziggy the parrot.

Ziggy had grassed on his owner’s cheating lover. He’d heard it all. And when the time was ripe Ziggy told Chris how Suzie had been billing and cooing with a pretty boy by the name of Gary.

Phil Sands could do with an agent like Ziggy. Sands could also do with trying to remember to be dressed up as, say, Batman or Captain America next time he’s kidnapped. The papers love a man in uniform – especially one that doubles as children’s pyjamas.

And there are plenty of such outfits going spare. You see, Fathers 4 Justice has disbanded. The group that campaigns for equal rights for dads is no more.

Things turned nasty for the group on Wednesday. “PLOT TO KIDNAP LEO BLAIR,” announced the Sun on its cover page. The paper said that sympathisers of the F4J group planned to snatch five-year-old Leo, the Prime Minister’s youngest child, and hold him as their hostage. They would keep him for a short time and release him unharmed.

“Fortunately we think we have nipped this in the bud at an early stage,” a security source told the paper. And it was indeed fortunate – for the would-be kidnappers.

“SAS hero” Andy McNab, a man every bit as shadowy as the Fathers 4 Justice Penguins, Riddlers and Jokers, said any attempt to snatch Leo would have been met by instant death.

“If they’d gone ahead, they’d be lying dead on the ground with bullets in their heads.” He went on: “I can guarantee these men’s plan would have failed.” The police shooting innocent people dead? Who’d ever believe that?

But on Thursday, Graham Manson, a member of the Fathers 4 Justice splinter group The Real Fathers For Justice, confirmed the McNab line.

Speaking of the four would-be kidnappers, Manson told the Sun: “They were told by SO12 officers that they knew what they were up to – and that they would be shot if they tried to carry out their plan.”

And what a plan it was. As the days passed we leaned more of the dastardly plot. Dressed as Father Christmases, four men met in a pub and discussed ways in which they might achieve their aim of justice for dads. And kidnapping Leo Blair was mentioned.

The men would wait until Christmas Eve 2006 and then, in the dead of night, sneak in to No 11 Downing Street via a chimney and, having eaten the complimentary mince pie strategically left as a marker outside Leo’s door, spirited the little lad away. Ho! Ho! Ho!

That, and just about any other plan you can think up, might have been true. You see, we never got to learn the details of the dastardly plot.

Indeed, so cunning and threatening was it that the police arrested not a single plotter. Not one of them. And you know how much the police love nicking people.

But not to worry, because on Friday we heard of another plot. This one was big. It was from Osama bin Laden.

But why was Bin Laden speaking after so long a hiatus? Why did the man who hadn’t issued any of his trademark threats to the world for the whole of 2005 think last week was the right time to release an audio tape?

Was the media savvy Bin Laden taking advantage of a slow news day? With George Best buried, Elton John married and F4J disbanded, was Bin Laden seizing his chance to hog the limelight?’

Posted: 23rd, January 2006 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Slings & Arrows

‘HOW do you stop London winning the right to host the Olympic Games in 2012? With pink icing? A chocolate fondant? A rich orange cream with five marzipan rings?

On Monday, the nation’s hungry young pastry chefs were backing the capital’s bid to host the 2011 Worldskills tournament, previously known as the Skills Olympics

And not only them, but hairdressers, web designers, florists, floor tilers, a London mayor and the Chancellor were hoping to impress the two visiting judges who sit on the tournament’s organising board.

So long as the bid team keep the doyens of the games away from London’s Tube workers, cabbies, bus drivers and traffic wardens, we have every chance of winning the right for hat makers to stick another feather in London’s bowler.

Sadly, the competition is only open to those of you under 22 years of age, meaning Prince William is already too old to win a gong for ironing, boot polishing and laundry – three things that will make a soldier of him as we watched him begin life at Sandhurst.

But Wills is free to enter the contest to design a fitting tribute to his great granny, the Queen Mother. Perhaps Wills can outdo our budding welders, joiners and carpenters and come up with something in gin and wood.

But, sadly, the nation’s mechatronics experts are unable to compete. On Tuesday, we read the brief: “Ease of ongoing maintenance by the Royal Parks is a key issue, so the use of water and moving parts is to be discouraged.”

This monument needs to be a blends of science and art. And don’t be put off – science is easy. As far as Dr Martin Stephen, headmaster of St Paul’s public school, London, told us on Thursday, earning a GCSE in science is as easy as dribbling your dinner into a bib.

“The new GCSEs are to real science what baby food is to steak,” said he. “They will bore the pants off many students, not inflame them with a new love of science.” Science has been “dumbed down and broadened out”.

Nonsense. Science was just becoming useful. Just get a load of the sample exam question that appeared in the Mail: “Ali likes potatoes. He knows potatoes can be cooked by frying them or boiling them. Write down one other way to cook potatoes.”

Answer: Place exam paper, GCSE exam certificates and other wastepaper into a large bin. Set fire to paper with match. Throw on potato.

At least maths teaching was improving. Education Minister Phil ‘The Good’ Hope was of the opinion that darts sharpens the mind.

Stepping up to the oche, Phil made his views known in the Mirror. “You need to know your maths if you’ve got two darts left and want to win the match,” said he.

“Darts, whether you’re watching or playing, can show people how useful maths can be in sports and life.”

Which means it could be time to bring darts into the classroom. Or to take the kids to the darts.

Let’s see how fast the scholars can work out the price of two double snowballs, a lager top, five shandies and a brandy and fizzy orange before sir hits his double top.

While Hope was trying to deflect the slings and arrows away from his colleague Ruth Kelly, John ‘Integrated Transport Policy’ Prescott hit the headlines.

As the Express screamed from its front page, the words hanging like a pall over a photo of a grinning Prezza: “JAIL THIS COUNCIL TAX CHEAT.”

As the Mail so succinctly put it in its headline: “While your council tax soared, Prezza wasn’t paying his.”

Honest John was forced to admit that for the last eight years he had not paid a single penny in council tax on his Admiralty Arch flat.

Cabinet Office rules clearly state that if the grace-and-favour home, such as Admiralty Arch, is the main residence, then responsibility for paying council tax is down to the minister who lives there.

But something went wrong. And none of it was Prezza’s fault, not really. The Mirror branded Prezza “blundering”, and heard him apologise for his “inadvertent error”, a “genuine misunderstanding”.

As such, Prezza might like to note that the current fee for living in this Band H London pad is £1,236. And, yes, that is in pounds sterling and payable not just once but every year.

Bullyeye!’

Posted: 16th, January 2006 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Drinker’s Party

‘WHY did you drink that over Christmas? Because it was cheap? Because it was there? Because the rules of Beer Bungee clearly state (code 7, subsection 153a) that you must?

On Tuesday, we learnt the real reason. We drink because the headshrinkers at the big ad agency tell us to?

As the Times reported (“Adverts do make teens drink more, study shows”), advertising works. A study at the University of Connecticut found that Americans between the age of 15 and 26 were heavily under the influence of adverts for booze.

Indeed, the boffins behind this study noted a correlation between the number of alcohol adverts viewed and the number of drinks scarfed – each additional ad led to a 1 per cent rise in the average number of drinks consumed.

It was sobering stuff. But what if the ruse could be subverted? Would we all drink less we watched a bad advertisement for drinking?

We needed to put the theory to the test. We needed someone who could make drinking look staid and dull. We needed Charles Kennedy.

And on Friday, Kennedy massed the troops and gave it his best shot.

Like a Scottish Mars bar, The Scone had been battered. Charles Kennedy admitted that he was being treated for alcoholism.

Politicians love empathising with the great British public, and it was hard not to think that, given the nation’s love of booze, Kennedy was striking a chord of kinship with the electorate.

While other politicos kiss babies to look like family men, Kennedy dips his lips into a vat of the hard stuff. You can trust a man who likes a drink. Kennedy was one of us.

Not that being us is all that good. The Mail spotted a report in The Lancet stating that over the past 40 years alcohol consumption in the UK has doubled. Drinking to excess now kills 22,000 of us a year.

And it damages careers. Just ask Kennedy – who resigned his post at the weekend…’

Posted: 9th, January 2006 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Chucked Out

‘WELCOME to Oldham-on-Sea. Welcome to Sydney’s Cronulla Beach.

On Monday, we were greeted by the truly unattractive sight of 5,000 of Australia’s rainbow peoples – white, pink and red – marauding along Sydney’s Cronulla Beach, shouting racial slurs, wielding beer bottles and banging on about “100 per cent Aussie pride”.

Angry at an attack on two lifeguards by a gang of Lebanese youths, the white locals ran amuck. “No more Lebs [Lebanese],” they chanted. As one white yoof explained by way of letters printed on his back: “We grew up here, you flew here.”

Although some of the Lebanese residents may have arrived by boat – like those patriotic invading whites of yore.

But we got the message. We left the Australians to pick out pieces of broken glass from their Christmas dinners on the beach, to choke down the bile with yet another cold one necked under a merciless sun, and wonder what 10-year-old Libby Rees made of it all.

On Tuesday, we were introduced to Libby, a kind of Vanessa Feltz for the Bratz generation. Libby had written a book called Help, Hope and Happiness. It was a work that taught today’s child how to cope with life.

On Wednesday, Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy was looking for help. Everyone was out to get him. ‘We must lance the boil,’ said one of his own.

As political nicknames go, “The Boil” was not the nicest. It lacked the Priapic sexuality of Kennedy’s predecessor Paddy Ashdown’s “Pantsdown” or the menace of Dennis Skinner’s “Beast of Bolsover”.

Poor old pimply Kennedy. We turned to Libby’s book. We noted that in times of stress she advised: “Scream, shout, stamp your feet, whatever you feel like doing. This physical activity will help you release all the anger inside.”

But this was Charles Kennedy. He didn’t shout. He didn’t scream. He reasoned. He appealed to the better you. He just wanted you to understand how much nicer things would be if only you’d agree with him.

When, as the Guardian reported, around six LibDem MPs told Kennedy to his face that he should step down, we hardly expected fireworks.

“I told him that he had reached the end of the line,’ said an unnamed MP. ‘It was a desperately civilised conversation, as you would expect from Charles.

Oh, how very dull. While defenestration is too desperate, and a knife in the back too bloody, Kennedy’s removal looked like being too boring.

We like out politicians to have a bit of dash and vanity about them, not to confront their critics over sugary tea and scones.

Better if Kennedy had stood down. Let someone else have a go. Someone already with a following. Someone like Jesus. As Cliff Richard explained on Thursday: ““If Jesus was PM, we’d have no problems whatsoever.”

And he was right. If Jesus were our leader, the drinking laws would be a doddle – at chucking out time the wine would be turned back to water.

The NHS would be sorted as Jesus cured patients with alternative therapies, like inviting the lame to touch the hem of his doctor’s coat. And children would be eating more fresh fish on Friday.

And Cliff and Tony’s duet would be the Christmas No.1…’

Posted: 19th, December 2005 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Groomed For Stardom

‘THAT was the week when marriage made a comeback.

First up was David Cameron. At the start of the week we learnt that Dave was married. We were learning more about Dave all the time. And we listened attentively at the news that Dave had a wife. She had brown hair. She was called Samantha.

This was certainly interesting. But it was just the start. The Telegraph said Samantha’s great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother was none other then “pretty, witty’ Nell Gwyn, Charles II’s mistress.

If true, Samantha had blood as blue as her husband’s Tory credentials. It also meant she was the product, however distant, of a single, unmarried mum.

As was Dave. Cameron was revealed to be Williams IV’s great, great, great, great grandson. And whisper it quietly, but this link was rooted in one Elizabeth FitzClarence, the King’s illegitimate daughter, born of Dorothy Jordan, the King’s mistress, and, like Gwyn, an actress.

If Cameron ever gets into No.10, it surely bodes well for the monarchy, the performing arts and single mums.

But marriage was the thing. The Civil Partnership Act came into force. At last, Elton John was free to marry his lover David Furnish.

But where will they do the deed? Of course! There could be only one place. The do would be at Windsor Guildhall – the very venue where Charles made an honest woman of Camilla.

“Queens wed at Windsor,” said the Sun in shocking pink. It then went on to say that Elton will achieve a notable first when he marries Furnish and so become the first Briton to marry a man having already married a woman – he married Renata Blauel in 1984.

Although if you look at Camilla from a certain angle…

A man could form a legal bond with a man. Truly. Paul Gascoigne could marry George Best. Granted, Best would need to be alive to say the necessary vows. But, in a way, though he was no longer among the living, Best wasn’t being allowed to pass over.

No Best meant the papers could not rely on tales of the former footballer’s liver to fill the gaps on slow news days. Best would have to hang around until a successor was found.

And as a guard stood by Best’s grave – to keep away souvenir hunters and tabloid hacks looking for his ghost – the new Best was discovered and dragged blinking into the limelight.

Who was this slurring figure? Why, it was our old mucker Paul “Gazza” Gascoigne. “Get help now…or end up like Bestie,” said the Sun. This was a “WARNING TO GAZZA”.

It was a similar thing on the cover of the Mirror. There was a looming shot of Paul Gascoigne, newly freed on bail from 14 hours in police custody on an allegation that he assaulted a photographer.

And the headline: “I’M NO BESTIE.” Gazza wasn’t wrong. Whereas Best only inflicted damage on his own liver, and latterly one borrowed from a donor, the allegation was that Gazza had wounded the face of one Steve Farrell.

Gazza told the Mirror, “I’m not like him [Best]. I’ve got my alcoholism under control”. The Mirror duly employed a sports writer to pen a piece entitled: “TRAGIC ECHOES OF SAD GEORGE.”

Not only had George Best – four Miss Worlds, lots of gongs and all but a State funeral – been dubbed “SAD”, but he’d now been bracketed with Gazza, a man who married someone called Sheryl (whom he allegedly hit), had routinely behaved like a buffoon and once cried on the pitch.

“It didn’t take Paul Gascoigne too long to start playing catch-up with George Best,” said Oliver Holt.

Now, if Gazza can just hook up with Alex Best, win the European Cup and fondle Terry Wogan…’

Posted: 12th, December 2005 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Lest We Forget

‘THE one positive that came out of George Best’s passing was that the BBC was forced to break its obsession with Strictly Come Dancing.

Rather than peppering its news broadcasts with the latest must-know goings on from the celeb dance contest for BBC employees, the corporation showed us footage of Best scoring any one of three goals.

Meanwhile, in the print media, every article on Best was accompanied by shots of said three goals, a few words from his playing and spectating peers and the universal hope that he would be remembered for being a great football and not just a drunk. There would then follow a piece about Best’s drinking.

And then there were his women. On Monday, Gina DeVivo, an ex-mo-del with whom Best had an affair in 2003, told the Mirror how Best had told her about his “SECRET KIDS”.

“I asked George how many children he had and he told me three – two girls and a boy – but was extremely sad that he was only in contact with his son Calum,” said the blonde.

How sad. But let’s not let this overshadow his playing carer (insert footage of Best beating Ron ‘Chopper’ Harris to the ball).

Better to move on and see what kind of world Besty had left behind. They were hard times when Best was plying his trade. But football has gone soft and nowadays hard men get their kicks by joining the Royal Marines, strapping bits of foam to their arms and jumping about like demented chickens.

When we first saw those grainy images of naked members of the Royal Marines standing in a field fighting with mats rolled around their wrists we were appalled.

After the shame of non-firing guns and boots that melted in the heat, what hope now for the brave men of 42 Commando Royal Marines forced to take on the enemy with not a stitch of clothing on and armour made from sponge?

Then we read the reports, as in the Times (“Naked fight film sparks calls for new crackdown on bullies”), that the men were not fighting the Iraqis, but each other.

And on Tuesday there was more. The Sun produced a compassionate and very serious report about initiation ceremonies at a military base in Taunton.

We were told that recruits were made to “SLIDE down a muddy hill, EAT Weetabix covered in dirt and SINK pints of milk until they are sick”.

It sounded all too believable. Indeed, it sounded like the sort of thing that many young Britons do for a laugh on holiday, and we agreed that it was nothing to be proud of.

Unfortunately, the days when an apprentice had his penis stuck in a bottle and his scrotum covered in boot polish are long gone. And the military, like everyone else has to move with the times.

But what can they do? Their hands are tied with red tape (metaphorically, we hasten to add) and until they are free to run things properly, we can expect more of these shameful revelations.

And on Wednesday, things were getting more touchy-feely. As the Mail reported, West Mercia Police Force had recruited Mary Gober, the motivational guru who has worked for Marks & Spencer.

Nicknamed Mrs Motivator, American Gober had been employed for a fee of £200,000 to devise a training scheme which will invigorate they who handle 999 calls and general switchboard enquiries.

“Put a smile in your voice,” said Gober. “”Everything I do or say is either a service or a disservice to another person.”

Sounded great in theory. And we went to find out if it worked in practice. We dialed 999. “Hello, caller,” came the chirpy voice.

“Help! I’m under attack. My life is in jeopardy. They’re coming in through the windows. Come quick. Help!” we urged.

“Your call is very important to us. You are held in a gently meandering queue. Try not worry. Think of a green field and lying by a smooth sun-dappled pond… Your call is very important to us…”

It was enough to turn us to drugs. And, on the subject of illegal narcotics – not the legal ones GPs hand out like Smarties – the Government was adamant.

Calculations had been performed. MPs with pasts had been consulted. Researchers had been busy with cigarette papers. Finally, Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, was ready to deliver his verdict. You could get 512 spliffs from one 4 ounce block of hash. Official!

If you had more than 4 ounces, or 512 joints, in your pockets you were a consumer. Any more than that and you were a dealer.

But in the face of so much change, at least we could rely on the police to remain constant. And so it was on Friday we turned to the Times and read: “Sexism and homophobia still ‘endemic’ in all police forces.” Well, at least the institutionalised racism wasn’t making news anymore.

The paper had seen a Home Office report that said sexism and homophobia were “rampant” in the police service. The report said: “Women, minority ethnic and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender officers continued in large numbers to feel excluded, uncomfortable and discriminated against.”

Tim Newburn, one of the report’s authors, said: “Sexism is endemic, that is to say everywhere. Not just in every force surveyed, but in every part of every force.” From the bottom of the white, heterosexual male copper’s brandished truncheon all the way to the tip of his nipple-shaped hat.

A hat removed and held in trembling hands at the memory of George Best…’

Posted: 5th, December 2005 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

It Was The Best of Times…

‘“WHERE did it all go wrong?” asked the waiter confronted with the sight of George Best sipping champagne in bed with Miss World, fivers sprinkled liberally over the bed.

If you want to know how good George Best was, conjure up an image of that scene and then remember last Monday’s grainy images of Rooney’s clandestine meeting in the less than salubrious kitchen of an Altrincham club with personal assistant Emily Fountain.

Just what did Rooney do in that brief period of time, the six minutes and 22 seconds he supposedly passed with the giggling Emily? Just what could anyone do? What would Best have done?

Not that Best was not up going out much. While Rooney was frequenting bars and entertaining girls with repartee and ready wit, Best was on his last legs.

And thanks to the News Of The World‘s shot of the legendary player, we all got to see a yellow and sallow Best on what would become his death bed.

Did we want to see this? Was this how the man would be remembered? What could have been gained from showing us a picture of a dying man? Perhaps this was some heavy-handed attempt at an anti-drinking message.

If it was it had come too late. The drinking laws were changing. On Thursday we would be free to drink ourselves into oblivion.

On Tuesday, the Mail was all Tony Hancock-like doom and gloom, reminding its readers that the taxpayers will be left to pick up a £70m tab for the move to 24-hour licensing, the Express lightened the mood.

Here came the laughing policemen of Ipswich to slay us in the aisles. This sketch relied on a visual – a picture of two cops standing outside “THE LOCK ‘EM IN” public house.

This image appeared on the cover of a leaflet, 30,000 of which were delivered to clubs and restaurants in the town. The pamphlet read: “The Lock ‘Em Inn is conveniently located within easy reach of Ipswich’s pubs, clubs and criminal courts. The accommodation is minimalist chic created for you with economy in mind.”

Such fine wit needed little commentary, but still sergeant Neil Boast wanted to explain all. “The leaflets are cheeky but we want people to realise that being locked up in the cells is not a pleasant experience,” said he.

Although, at least now you can get a drink when you are released, day or night.

By Wednesday, the eve of the move to all-day drinking, the Telegraph was seeing only trouble ahead.

By way of illustrating how drinking will turn Britain into a mass pub brawl, the Telegraph has nipped down to the genteel Dorset resort of Bournemouth to see what booze can do to even the best neighbourhood.

The paper heard from Sgt Chris Weeks, of Dorset police, who described the town’s Walkabout as “being out of control”. The pub contributed to “unacceptable levels” of crime in the area.

So back in September, when the pub applied to renew its license, the local council refused. The pub was to be shut down.

Here was an example of how the Licensing Act 2003 was working to give communities the power to control their own areas.

But then the pub appealed. And after a six day court case, costing the taxpayer an estimated £30,000, magistrates in Blandford, Dorset, said the pub could stay open.

Tobias Ellwood, the local Tory MP, saw this as an example of the wider problem: “We have just seen a council trying to flex its muscles by using these new powers and the magistrates have overturned them. There are no powers there at all.”

Time was ticking. “We listened for the bell. “Last orders!” came the landlord’s beery voice. “Last orders on civilisation.”

And then Thursday came. As the Times reported, around 70,000 of the nation’s licensed premises were allowed to sell booze after 11pm – 20 per cent of which are now legally able to remain open after 1am.

Anyone who still wanted a drink could pop along to their local supermarket and join the all-night party in aisle 12. Perhaps with the right music, some dimmed strip lighting and a few samples from the deli counter, Tesco’s could become a major clubbing franchise.

On Friday, we dared not open our eyes to see what had become of Britain? Would we be able to lift our heads from the sticky pub table that had become our new bed?

The Sun was first to look. It saw “BOOZINESS AS USUAL”, saying how “little of the predicted mayhem occurred”.

But your view depended on what you were looking at. Was the glass half full, half empty or being brandished in your face by a drunken thug?

While the Sun saw a shopper benignly stocking up on “tipples” in a supermarket at 1:40am, and the Mirror spotted a trio of laddish students merrily chinning bottles of hooch in Newcastle, the Mail clacked its marmalade-coated tongue and asked: “Just a quiet night on our streets, was it?”

There then followed pictures of drunken behaviour: yobs being thrown from a Bristol nightclub; bouncers giving chase to said yobs; a drinker confronting police in Nottingham; and a jelly-legged yoof sinking to his knees in Cardiff.

And, what with this being the Mail, there were a few snaps of young women showing lots of flesh as they caroused in the streets of Plymouth.

Drinking to excess will surely do for us all. As it had done for Best…’

Posted: 28th, November 2005 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Britain’s Least Wanted

‘THE sky really was falling in on Chicken Licken. Bird flu was coming to get him, and it was going to spread to Cocky Locky, Goosy Loosey and Henny Penny. And then Foxy Loxy and the King were going to get it. They were as stuffed as Turkey Lurky at Christmas time.

On Monday, the Mail was telling us that bird flu was mutating into a form that can be easily passed to humans. Over in Vietnam, chicken watchers had noticed that the virus was starting to change.

“We have to get the message through that this is going to be much more serious,” said Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer. The virus “will come”. “The fight will be an extended and protracted one… We can’t be alarmist.” Too late for that. We were alarmed – the Mail had seen to that.

And then there was that other bird who would do for us all – Kate Moss. Having corrupted the morals of London, Moss was heading to Little Faringdon, Oxfordshire.

Last time Moss was in town, widow Sylvia Griffiths, 82, said she was “disturbed many times late at night”. “She got a drum kit for Christmas and kept us up banging it,” said Sylvia.

And there was Wesley Hunt. He said that at Kate’s village parties there was “coke everywhere”. Oh? “Kate had her own special snorting room. It was a small lounge with a glass-covered table.”

Was there nowhere safe for us to be, the good, bird-flu fearing, non-celebrity masses? Perhaps Moss had hit upon something. Why not just put all the celebs and nasties in one place? Why not send them as far away from decent society as possible? Why not send them to a jungle clearing in Australia?

But who would go? The Mail knew. It told us that Jenny Frost was in the I’m A Celebrity holding bay. Jenny’s the uber-thin former member of Atomic Kitten. And there was Carol Thatcher, doing for her family’s honour what her mother Maggie once did for the British coal industry.

Others keen to sleep beneath the stars, and be mocked by Ant and Dec, were revealed to be: DJ Sara Cox (a woman who talks as if her mouth is already stuffed with beetles), Emmerdale actress Sheree Murphy, Food and Drink presenter Jenny Goolden, former Blue singer Antony Costa, Tommy Cannon, Sid Owen and Jimmy Osmond.

Let them east bugs! Well, bugs are better for them than the usual British fayre. On Tuesday the Guardian reported that it costs the health service more to deal with poor dietary habits than smoking, which is around £1.5 billion.

And over in the Telegraph, we learnt that children who were fed home-cooked meals were at a lower risk of heart disease.

Perhaps we should all eat bugs. Perhaps the celebs would outlive us all. Junk food would kill us, and the only humans left alive would be the small platoon of minor talents living in the Queensland bush.

And at their head would be Carol Thatcher. On Wednesday, the woman who would surely be leader of the human race was talking to the Express.

In “I’m a celebrity…don’t tell mum”, Thatcher said she was too frightened to tell Maggie she was on the show.

“I think she’ll probably be very critical,” said Carol of her mum, “I can’t say it’s her sort of show so I might just tell her that I’ve done it when I get back.”

Get back? What made Carol think she was coming back? Celebs will do pretty much anything to be noticed. If the show’s producers asked Carol and her tribe to remain in the jungle for the next few years, they surely would. They would develop the frontiers of reality TV. They would go into a new space.

On Thursday, the Times reported (“’Reality’ show stars will be taken for one galactic ride”) that plans were already afoot to blast a galaxy of our brightest stars into the cosmos.

We would thrill as Rebecca Loos tossed off a Martian. Delight as Jade Goody feasted on space kebabs. Swoon as Peter Andre showed planet Earth that his career could defy gravity for a third time.

But it was not real. It was a hoax. As the paper explained, the four contestants – selected from nine hopefuls preparing for a five-day orbit of Earth at the “Space Tourism Agency of Russia” – were going to remain on terra firma.

But why? Why not send them into space for real? On Friday we spotted the new Crimestoppers website. Inspired by the American FBI’s internet site of most dangerous criminals at large, the Crimestoppers version featured the UK’s most wanted.

“Have you seen any of the villains on Britain’s first FBI-style website?” asked the Mail. Readers were duly presented with mugshots of 12 felons, the so-called “Dirty Dozen”.

A quick once over revealed – surprisingly for the Mail – no picture of George Galloway, Cherie Blair or any Frenchman who worked at the EU.

But why not adapt the theme? Why not create the Least Wanted list and turn it into a reality TV show for celebs.

The chosen are then dressed as parrots and sent to a quarantine centre in Essex…’

Posted: 21st, November 2005 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Injury Time

‘HOW many days left? No, not until Christmas – until Tony Blair does something truly radical and leaves before he’s forced out by his Labour colleagues unwilling to spend the next few years drifting along to defeat at the next General Election?

Some say it’s 90 days off. That is, after all, the magic number Tony likes best.

On Monday the arbitrary number of 90 was the one on everyone’s lips. Why this number was chosen from all those others was a moot point.

Some say 90, being the length of football match, would connect with the public. Tony had appeared on Football Focus the weekend before to help further cement this link between politics and the national game.

Perhaps for this reason the footy mad Sun loved 90. Banging up terror suspects without charge for 90 days would save us all. Anything less would be a “VICTORY FOR TERROR.”

The alternative – which looked like being 28 days – was just too awful. It might have been double the current 14 days, but so what? Tony wanted 90. The Sun wanted 90.

And so did Ann Widdecombe, who told the Sun: “If we now end up with 28 days and someone on the 29th day goes out and kills someone, where will that leave us?”

It was hard to say. But perhaps in a similar spot than if we ended up with the full 90 days and someone on the 91st day went out and killed someone, or everyone.

What to do? On Tuesday, Tony had come up with another radical plan. Before terrorists strike, let’s make copies of each of us. And what more useful person to clone than Tony?

The Sun said that Tony was to be interviewed by, er, Tony, or at least an approximation of the leader as portrayed by mimic John Culshaw.

Tony should be warned that agreeing to be questioned by Culshaw doing Tony might not bode well.

Meeting your doppelganger is a prelude to imminent death rather than an invigorated political life. And then there’s the title of Culshaw’s TV show: Dead Ringers.

But before Culshaw can get Tony back on the box, the Mirror heard what Baroness Kennedy had to say to Tony.

“A person’s mental resilience can be broken down over a long period of detention. But the innocent break down as readily as the guilty,” she said. She went on: “And once on the statute books, laws tend to remain there. Terror laws usually expand to other areas of crime. So this law could be used against YOU tomorrow.”

And on Wednesday the Express wanted to ask Tony a question. It wanted Tony to “TELL THE TRUTH”. It wanted to know if Leo Blair had had the single MMR vaccine – which has been linked with autism – or three separate jabs.

The Express said the Prime Minister was under “growing pressure” to “come clean” after Dr Laurence Gerlis , billed as a “top Harley Street doctor” and “personal friend” of the Blairs, had apparently told one of his female patients he “knew for a fact” Leo had been taken to France for the single jabs. (When confronted, Dr Gerlis told the paper he’d heard this alleged fact from another source, and couldn’t remember who.)

If only Tony had had just that to worry about. And while the Express missed the main debate, and wasted its time investigating a little kid’s medial history, the MPs voted.

On Thursday the papers were full of the result on the terror Bill. As the Independent reported, the 90-day detention plan had been rejected by 322 votes to 291. A total of 49 Labour backbenchers had joined the Tories and Liberal Democrats to reject the proposal. Tony was seen “grim-faced and shaking his head”.

Tony had lost. It was his biggest disappointment since realising that Ugly Rumours were not going to be his ticket to fame and fortune. Teflon Tony’s coating had been scratched.

Defeat over his terror Bill had certainly wounded the Prime Minister. As the Telegraph said: “Tony Blair has finally lost the power to get his agenda into law.”

Outgoing Conservative leader Michael Howard, who knows a thing or two about losing, said Blair’s authority had been reduced to “vanishing point”. He said: “This vote shows he is no longer able to carry his party with him. He must now consider his position.”

He’s “ON HIS WAY OUT”, said the Express on its front page. “It’s the “BEGINNING OF THE END?” asked the Mail hopefully. “TRAITORS,” screamed the Sun.

“Congratulations to the rebel MPs,” said the Sun sarcastically. “Their act of treachery is a betrayal of the war on terrorism.”

Was it? Tony Blair and his Government had been defeated, as up to 47 Labour MPs joined the Opposition in voting against the terror Bill. And, in turn, the Sun failed in its efforts to get the law passed.

But surely not giving too much power to the State is a sign of strength not weakness. What happened to “We are not afraid” and all that post July 7 desire to carry on unchanged? Does giving the State more and more power help us? Or is it the behaviour of a country gripped by paranoia and fear?

But, not to worry. It wasn’t really even a defeat. Not really. In any case, as Tony had said when defeat looked likely: “Sometimes it is better to lose and do the right thing than to win and do the wrong thing”.

Course it is, Tony. And it wasn’t his fault. As the Telegraph told us on Friday, the police were the losers. They had not lobbyed MPs hard enough on the 90-day plan.

It was Charles Clarke’s fault. The Home Secretary was gracious enough in defeat to hold his hands up. The Independent heard him tell BBC radio: “I regret that I got the judgement wrong in terms of the House and the ability to get that position through, and there are lots of issues to be looked at from that point of view.”

So Tony might be still around in 90-days time. After all, why should he leave..?’

Posted: 14th, November 2005 | In: Broadsheets | Comment