Celebrities Category
Celebrity news & gossip from the world’s showbiz and glamour magazines (OK!, Hello, National Enquirer and more). We read them so you don’t have to, picking the best bits from the showbiz world’s maw and spitting it back at them. Expect lots of sarcasm.
Noel Gallagher on hating Christmas
Noel Gallagher hates Christmas. Well, I guess if you’re called Noel you might well try to break free of nominative determinism. He does protest a lot…
Posted: 24th, December 2017 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Greens attack Amir Khan over desecrated Christmas tree
How do you decorate your Christmas tree? Like you, I like baubles, tinsel and Bruce Willis wiggling through an air vent.
But Amir Khan rejoices in hate. The boxer recently seen on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! has got death threats for his tree.
The story turns out to a little different from the Star’s front-page headline. “While everyone’s asleep, daddy put the Christmas tree up,” said Amir on an Instagram post. He then hoped his daughter would like it: “Lamaisah’s going to be happy. Christmas #MerryChristmas2017.”
The Manchester Evenings News says that Amir is a “devout Muslim”, an this might be in some way linked to one kind heart replying to the image: “I promise to god i want kill you and your family amir.”
Another aded: “Muslims don’t celebrate Christmas. It’s one thing to give out cards at school your respecting other faith and their celebration but putting up a tree in your own home….poor kid will be well confused.”
How about if he sticks a Star of David on the top and call it a Chanukah Bush? Better?
Another expert replied: “I read the Quran and it is clear that Jesus is also a prophet. People slating him must not read the Quran.”
What’s Jesus got to do with a pine tree in the lounge?
And why are the Press looking at Khan’s critics as people obsessed with religion, rather than humbugs? This is about a tree dying for our sins. I’d be looking hard at the Greens, for whom the Christmas Tree is an act of desecration.
Posted: 21st, December 2017 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids | Comment
50 Shades of guilt: Bruno Langley had legal sex with young woman
Heard the one about the famous actor and the young woman? The Sun leads with news that Bruno Langley, aka the “Corrie pervert”, “preyed on a 16-year-old girl” five years ago. In November, Langley admitted molesting two women at the Band on the Wall on Swan Street, Manchester. He was sentenced to a 12-month community order at Manchester Magistrates’ Court. He must sign the sex offenders’ register for five years. Langley apologised for his “disgraceful behaviour”.
In sentencing, District Judge Mark Hadfield told the actor: “You have lost your good name and I know nothing of showbusiness, but… in the current climate, I suspect it may be very difficult for you to gain employment in that industry in the future.”
Well, quite.
Here he is on the front page the subject of a shag ‘n’ tell, one which might be sub-headed: “Actor has consensual sex – shocker!”
On page 5, we read that when on a date with the 16-year-old, he “spied the erotic novel 50 Shades in her handbag”. Says the woman, who is not named in the story: “He then asked me to read it to him, which was so embarrassing and cringeworthy.” I know. I’ve read it. Not that this is a book review, of course. It’s a review of Langley’s character. And when we read that “the sleazy soap star” pulled her when he “marched over to her at party in July 2012 – just weeks after she left school”, we are sickened.
The sleazy sod. Sun readers must be disgusted at men getting turned on by “girls” and chatting to them:
In the Sun – tasteful adverts to listen to “mother and daughter sex sounds”
The Mail reads the Sun’s story and thunders: “Disgraced Coronation Street star Bruno Langley, 34, ‘had sex with a 16-year-old girl and pleaded with her to read passages from 50 Shades of Grey'”.
The sick sod.
As seen in the Mail back in 2008- The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said the “irresponsible” Ryan Air advert appeared to link teenage girls with sexually provocative behaviour.The advert was printed in the Herald, Daily Mail and Scottish Daily Mail.
Posted: 18th, December 2017 | In: Celebrities, News, Tabloids | Comments (2)
Meghan Markle’s dad Thomas is an international man of mystery
Meghan Markle has a “mysterious dad”. And by mysterious we mean not a man who weaves mysteries, vanishes in puff of smoke or is, as one dictionary defines it, “difficult or impossible to understand, explain, or identify.” We mean a man who doesn’t much fancy being a celebrity.
The Daily Mirror makes Thomas Markle Senior its front-page story. They say that aside from his family, “no-one even knows where Thomas Markle Senior is.” It might be less a mystery than a question of budgets and being bothered to track down a man who was living in Rosario Beach on Mexico’s Baja California Peninsular. He moved on, says the Mirror, “determined to avoid any chance of public attention”.
Not that the man’s absence detracts from the story. He “gets by on his £1,307 monthly pension”, we learn. How the Mirror knows what money he earns and spends is moot. The ‘facts’ are provided to fit the narrative of the future princess’s dad living if not in poverty then at least in humdrum simplicity. Thomas is “driving around in an old batted blue Chrysler PT Cruiser”. His new family-to-be are “one of the richest and most powerful in the world”. He “devoted his life to his daughter”. He “may” be avoiding the spotlight “due to the humiliation of bankruptcy”.
Thomas Markle’s “solitary life means Harry has still not met his future father-in-law”. Or as the Mail puts it: “EXCLUSIVE: Prince Harry has met his girlfriend Meghan Markle’s father.”
That’s not to say the Mail isn’t also on the scent.
“Why is Meghan’s dad so determined to hide from the world?” wonders the Mail. “Where is the elusive Mr Markle? Why has this enigmatic man concealed his whereabouts so determinedly?” And: “After all, placed in his position, many fathers would be singing their joy from the rooftops.” Why, because an American – a citizen of the world’s greatest republic, a bastion of freedom and hope to the world – is getting shackled to a man who symbolises inequality? Maybe not because the Sun says Meghan’s dad is “said to be impressed by Prince Harry”.
Shedding light on the international man of mystery is Thomas’s brother Michael, who tells everyone: “Tom is trying to comply with the royal directive to keep a low profile so that’s where he’s coming from. He doesn’t want to upset the Royal Family.” Indeed, there’s nothing like a normal bloke to undo the ‘magic’ of monarchy.
Posted: 4th, December 2017 | In: Celebrities, News, Royal Family, Tabloids | Comment
The Mel B sex tapes no-one has to see
In good news for anyone on the web, former Spice girl Mel B has settled her divorce from Stephen Belafonte. She will pay him £3m over the next three years and money from the sale of their home, says the Star. The paper puts the total figure at £6.5m.
The deal also affords both parents time with their six-year-old daughter Madison. And her future seem more secure because the better news is that the settlement comes with a guarantee Mel and Steve’s “sex tapes will be destroyed”.
Amen.
Posted: 29th, November 2017 | In: Celebrities | Comment
When Harry met Meghan: tabloids deliver the wedding, the dress and honeymoon facts
By now you’ll be wondering what Prince Harry and Megan Markle are up to. Thankfully, the tabloids understand your thinking and have produced a few words on the prince and his paramour.
The Sun: 25 pages.
Daily Mail: 18 pages
Daily Star: 6 pages, including one of Page 3 stunna “Royal fan Megan”
Daily Express: 7 pages
Daily Mirror: 9 pages
What about the wedding:
THE MOTHER-IN-LAW
“Tourits flocked to Kensington Palace last night to salute the happy couple and tell of their excitement that ‘new Diana’ Meghan’ will become a royal… She’s very appealing to people, like Diana was” – Star
“Diana would have been thrilled – Meghan’s just the kind of woman she wanted to be” – Mail
THE DRESS
“Meghan Markel’s wedding dress with a glamorous red-carpet gown” – Express
“EXCLUSIVE: Fit for a Princess! Will Meghan Markle choose an Australian designer to make her bridal gown for the ultimate modern Royal wedding?” – Mail
“Meghan Markle is likely to opt for a low-key, cool designer to create her wedding dress” – Standard
“She once revealed what her dream dress would be when talking about her character Rachel in legal drama Suits, who wore a wedding gown in one episode. She revealed the dress worn in the show wasn’t her “personal style”, adding: “I’m a lot more relaxed than Rachel… Classic and simple is the name of the game, perhaps with a modern twist. I personally prefer wedding dresses that are whimsical or subtly romantic.” – Star, “Meghan Markle’s wedding dress REVEALED: Harry’s fiancee’s dream gown PICTURED”
THE COAT
“Did you spot Meghan Markle’s subtle fashion nod to Princess Diana?.. With the photocall taking place in Princess Diana’s former residence, it seems only fitting that Meghan would wear white, a nod to Diana and the memorial white garden that was created in her memory this year to mark the 20 year anniversary of her death.” – Marie Clair
“Meghan wore a white coat…it did slighlty resemble a dressing gown” – Sun
The coat “was not unlike something her future sister-in-law the Duchess of Cambridge would wear” – Mail
“Meghan’s journey to fashion icon status continued yesterday when she wore a white-belted coat” – Mirror
THE WEDDING FOOD
“Roast chicken, sweet potato and white-bean soup” – Mirror
THE HONEYMOON
Bostwana; Croatia; Bordeaux, Athens, Madrid, New York – Mirror
The Seychelles is “the red-hot favourite” – Star
Posted: 28th, November 2017 | In: Celebrities, News, Royal Family | Comment
Bruce Lee’s 10 Rules For A Better Life
Bruce Lee (November 27, 1940 – July 20, 1973) writes his 10 Rules to Live By:
1. You will never get any more out of life than you expect
2. Keep your mind on the things you want and off those you don’t
3. Things live by moving and gain strength as they go
4. Be a calm beholder of what is happening around you
5. There is a difference a) the world b) our reaction to it
6. Be aware of our conditioning! Drop and dissolve inner blockage
7. Inner to outer ~~~ we start by dissolving our attitude not by altering outer condition
8. See that there is no one to fight, only an illusion to see through
9. No one can hurt you unless you allow him to
10. Inwardly, psychologically, be a nobody
Posted: 27th, November 2017 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Ant McPartlin: airbrushing the drugs doesn’t make him a role model
Ant McPartlin, the taller one from Ant ‘n’ Dac, is on the Sun’s cover. “ANT NOT GOING HOME TO WIFE,” runs the headline. A “source” tells the paper that Ant and his wife, Lisa Armstrong, are “struggling to find a way to move forward together”.
Lest anyone suppose there was something more to this story, on page 7 readers are told: “ANT’S FACING XMAS ALONE.” Poor Ant! The “telly favourite faces a lonely Christmas in a rented pad.” Anything else? Well, Ant is “getting over an addiction to painkillers following knee surgery”. Nothing illegal, then. No illegal drugs are mentioned, just the ones sanctioned by the State and pumped out by big pharma. “Ant is focused on recovery,” adds the source.
Lest we wonder why Ant has left home and how it is that recovery does not include being in the bosom of his family, the “source” tells us that Ant is delighted the “public still support him” and his wife is “having a good time with her pals”.
We do like Ant and Dec, who are easily the best things about I’m A Celebrity, which features a nice enough platoon of celebs. The pity being that none of them are interesting. But there is something PR-driven about the Sun’s “exclusive”. It was the Sun which broke the story about “booze, pills and substances”:
In a world exclusive interview, emotional Ant tells The Sun on Sunday: “I was at the point where anything — prescription drugs, non-prescription drugs — I would take.
“And take them with alcohol, which is ridiculous. The doctors told me, ‘You could have killed yourself’. ”
Dec is the victim:
Squeaky-clean Ant’s descent into dangerous prescription drugs came after he damaged his knee in 2014, then had a botched operation on it the following year.
Is he that squeaky clean? Dan Wootton says he is. And he adds: “Ant is bright-eyed, trim and sporting a youthful new hairstyle when we meet.”
In 2013, Ant and Dec were interviewed in the Guardian:
By the laws of show business, at least one of them should have succumbed to the traditional hazards of child stardom – drink and drugs, sexual transgression, monstrous egomania. Yet, with the solitary exception of a drunken night involving Dec and a lap dancer, which ended up in the tabloids, the pair have been almost freakishly clean. Have they never even tried taking drugs?
“Years ago, yeah,” Ant admits, “but we’re not really druggy people, that’s the thing. I think you either go into that crowd as a kid or you don’t, and we didn’t. We found the love of alcohol very early on and we stayed with it.” Laughing, Dec adds, “There’s a real pub culture where we’re from in Newcastle, so we’re just more boozy people.”
If one had ever been at risk of self-destruction, though, who was the likelier candidate? Without hesitation, both point at Ant. “Probably me, yeah,” he admits. Dec points out affectionately: “There’s nothing like the love of a good woman, though.”
Ant’s plight then becomes a campaign:
“‘I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE’ Three ex-addicts reveal agony of getting hooked on prescription medication like TV star Ant McPartlin
The number of opioid painkiller prescriptions in the UK has doubled over the past decade to 24 million – yet nobody knows how many people are struggling with addictions
We should all wish Ant McPartlin well. But to suppose he’s not a human being susceptible to the same temptations as the rest of us buys into the myth that anyone who appears on the telly is a ‘role model’. We don’t mind it when rockers and artists take drugs and illuminate our lives with bursts of vibrant culture, so why should we care if a talented, immensely likeable and engaging TV presenter does? Screw the PR guff. What Ant does to his own body is his own affair. We’re big enough to understand that, right?
Posted: 27th, November 2017 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, Tabloids | Comment
Paul Hollywood’s Indian Summer
No topless photos of Paul Hollywood, 51, the TV baker leaving his wife of umpteen years. No photos of Paul in his undies, posing with a cheeky glance to camera as his taps his buttocks. And no revelations that he likes to hang homemade ring donuts on his manhood in the way the actor John Bindon used to hand five half-pint glasses on his penis.
Instead we get Paul telling us that years ago a fortuneteller told him he would be “very wealthy and very famous” (Daily Star), and two big photos of Summer Moneys Fulham, a 22-year-old barmaid (Daily Mail). In one, Summer does the splits on the bar of a Kent pub where she met the TV oven stuffer. In another she smiles in a low-cut top.
The Mail recalls Hollywood’s affair with Marcel Valladolid, his co-judge on the US version of the Great British Bake Off, telling readers that he called it “the biggest mistake of my life”.
On the Mirror’s front page, it’s “Bake Off Paul” and the “barmaid”. Hollywood ‘Splashes the dough” (geddit?) on “young barmaid Summer Monteys-Fulham”, now given a hyphen.
The message is clear: he is money and fame; she is seduction and regret. Love and sex are different for girls.
We read that Summer has “apparently quit her job”, deleted her social media profiles and moved out her parent’s “£1m home”. Her life seems to have been changed since the Sun on Sunday broke news that she and Hollywood had become friends. “It has clearly upset her a lot,” says an unnamed source to the Mail.
So the single woman gets profiled and finds herself in the paper, the object of our heated debate and judgement. Wonder what the stars said lurked in store for her.
Posted: 27th, November 2017 | In: Celebrities, News, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment
Jack Maynard: let’s feed him to the cockroaches and Dennis Wise
They’re gunning for Jack Maynard, the YouTuber who left the I’m A Celebrity Jungle accused of making alleged racist and homophobic tweets. Exposed by the Sun, Maynard is hammered by the Mirror, which leads with his face and the headline:”Teenage girl: I’m A CelebJack begged me for pic in my bra.” It might have been kinder to have Jack Maynard buried in a cockroach-infested hole in the Australian jungle with Dennis Wise for company. But that’s not to diminish from his apparent offence. Being buried alive for TV entertainment was too good for him.
On page 8, we read: “Your boobs are nice & would look good in bra shot…Ever take one?” The claim is that Jack “pestered the girl” when Jack was 17. We’re told there is “no suggestion he knew the girl was only 14 at the time”.
We then get introduced to the ‘victim’, who says she was a fan of Jack’s brother Conor Maynard and “sought his advice on becoming an online model”. They then allegedly got into an exchange, in which Maynard was told he is only famous through his brother and he told her: “Who the fuck even are you? You’re an ugly freak.”
We then hear from her: “I looked up to Jack as a role mode and I found his persistence annoying. But I saw it as relatively harmless flirting given the small age gap… I don’t think he was aware I was younger than him. He was just a bit of a dickhead…” The Sun ignores the bra and says, “he had also begged a 14-year-old fan to send him nude pictures.”
The Sun also quotes the ‘victim’, no aged 10, who says: “He was 16, I was 14. It was something that happens to everyone. [The Mirror said he was 17.] I never once felt harassed. We were kids, it’s not once harmed me at all in any way. It’s in the past. It is a serious allegation to make, but you’re a kid, you make mistakes. He didn’t know how old I was, and I didn’t know how old he was at the time. I cannot stress enough that the messages were harmless.”
And that’s it. “I’m sorry to anyone that I upset, anyone that I offended, anyone I made feel uncomfortable,” says Maynard. “Growing up I was all over social, my entire life was on social media an through that it led to be my job. I’ve tweeted some bad things, some horrible things, that I’m just ashamed of.” The Sun says he wad “grinning” and “smirking” when he apologised in a video.
Thankfully, no journalists ever said anything that might have caused offence.
Posted: 24th, November 2017 | In: Celebrities, News, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment
David Cassidy RIP
Farewell, David Cassidy, who rose to fame as The Partridge Family’s resident singing heartthrob.
Posted: 22nd, November 2017 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Jack Maynard: outrage as ‘racist’ vlogger avoids being eaten by rats
So farewell, Jack Maynard, aka ‘YouTuber Jack Maynard’, who has left I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! to sort out “circumstances outside camp”. Maynard wanted to “do the internet proud”. And he did just that, introducing the TV-watching tribes to life on the web. As the Sun thunders: “YouTube sensation, 22, was forced to apologise for racist and homophobic slurs on his Twitter account where he branded users ‘retarded’.”
Twitter’s a bit like a 1970s comedians showcase, albeit without the wit, laughs, likeable characters and fun.
The Sun took it upon itself to “reveal” some of Maynard’s “racist and homophobic tweets”, although it saw reason to edit them. Too rude for the paper that used to feature stunnas on Page 3 and still advertises phone lines for onanists seeking on-the-clock relief – yesterday readers were invited to call “X-Rated Cheap Girls – 18-94 Year Olds” and “HOT GIRLS [age unspecified]”. Thankfully, Pink News is less prudish. Damning Maynard as someone “famous for being the younger brother of singer Connor Maynard”, we read:
When an abusive commenter suggested he had profited off of his brother’s fame, Maynard hit back: “Completely forgot you know how I got it YOU RETARDED FAGGOT”.
He also used what the mainstream media terms ‘the N-word”. Censorship is provided by the Sun. (If you want to read the bad words, you need to get yourself on twitter.)
So Jack’s gone to spend time with his selfies, denying his accusers the chance to watch him being locked in a buried coffin and terrorised by rats. You had your chance.
Even better is the “spokesperson for the vlogger” – yep, even narcissists have their limits – who tells the Sun:
“Jack is ashamed of what he said in these tweets, many of which were deleted a long time ago and were sent in response to a neighbour who was bullying him. Jack was a lot younger when he posted them in 2012 but realises that age is no defence.”
Anyone else read that and see an adult explaining the action of a child? Jack is a big boy, says the grown up, and he knows he has done wrong. That leads to the a classic non-denial denial with sympathetic back story:
“He would never use that language now and realises that, as someone who was bullied himself, this kind of retaliatory, inflammatory, insulting language is completely unacceptable.”
Look at Jack Maynard less as the perpetrator, but as a victim living out fantasies born of a difficult childhood.
Posted: 22nd, November 2017 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment
Bad Seeds Rule: Nick Cave sticks it to the BDS bigots
Did Nick Cave bow to the censors and boycott Israel? Nope. Cave recalled his reaction to Brian Eno inviting him to sign a boycott list. “On a very intuitive level I did not want to sign that list, there was something that stunk to me about that list,” Cave said. “Then it occurred to me that I’m not signing the list, but I’m also not playing Israel. And that just seemed to me cowardly, really. So after a lot of thought and consideration I rang up my people and said, ‘We’re doing an European tour and Israel.’ Because it suddenly became very important to me to make a stand against those people who are trying to shut down musicians, to bully musicians, to censor musicians, and to silence musicians. At the end of the day, there’s maybe two reason why I’m here. One is that I love Israel and I love Israeli people, and two is to make a principled stand against anyone who tries to censor and silence musicians. So, really, you could say in a way that the BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement] made me play Israel.”
Now on tour in Israel, he adds:
“So at the end of the day there are two reasons why I am here. One is that I love Israel and I love Israeli people and two is to make a principled stand against anyone who wants to censor and silence musicians. So really you could say in a way that the BDS made me play Israel.”
Take it away, the righteous Nick Cave:
Posted: 21st, November 2017 | In: Celebrities, Music | Comment
Kenneth Branagh and the actor formerly known as Michelle Pfeiffer star in journalism horror show
Michael Pfeiffer
Copy and past news now, as the Metro tells us that Kenneth Branagh is starring in a remake of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. On set he was delighted to see fellow star “Michael Pfeiffer“. Any relation to screen goddess Michelle Pfeiffer? Dunno. But the rest of the busy tabloid media also salute the great Michael Pfeiffer:
Daily Express:
Speaking with ITV’s Lorraine, he said: “There was a lot of mutual respect.
“The first time they met on the platform I was on the train watching them all getting ready to come on. They were so sort of shy with each other, it was like the first day at school… Then the first person up the steps was Michael Pfeiffer and she had tears in her eyes and I thought, ‘Christ, we haven’t started and she’s already upset!’ And I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ and she said, ‘I just met Judi Dench!’”
Daily Mail:
He told Lorraine: ‘There was a lot of mutual respect. The first time they met on the platform I was on the train watching them all getting ready to come on. They were so sort of shy with each other, it was like the first day at school. ‘Then the first person up the steps was Michael Pfeiffer and she had tears in her eyes and I thought: “Christ, we haven’t started and she’s already upset!”
Daily Mirror:
“They were so sort of shy with each other, it was like the first day at school, then the first person up the steps was Michael Pfeiffer and she had tears in her eyes and I thought, ‘Christ, we haven’t started and she’s already upset!’ and I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ and she said, ‘I just met Judi Dench!’”
He added: “Judi Dench is the secret to casting movies basically, you cast her and she’s an actor magnet.”
Isn’t modern journalism great. (Copy and paste at your leisure.)
Posted: 17th, November 2017 | In: Celebrities, Film, News, Tabloids | Comment
Everyday censorship: Ta-Nehisi Coates says whites can’t sing the n-word in rap songs
Can white music fans sing along with rap music when the lyrics include “nigger”, the so-called ‘n-word’? Surely, they should be able to sing what they want to, as should we all. The word is laden with power. But should it only be said and heard in an educational context? Context and intent matter. If the white fan wants to sing along with the pop star they like, then the word is not being used to attack and demean.
But writer Ta-Nehisi Coates thinks otherwise. He says it’s not ok for whites to say certain things whatever the situation. Whites should self-censor, inserting a ‘bleep’ whenever the ‘n-word’ occurs. They can engage with the black musician but only to a point.
When did censorship become the right thing to do?
A white student asks author @tanehisicoates if it’s cool to rap along to songs with the n-word in it, and Coates responds brilliantly. pic.twitter.com/2NGf81oK8o
— Matt (@mattwhitlockPM) November 10, 2017
Posted: 14th, November 2017 | In: Celebrities | Comment
The rapper who makes the most self-references is…
Who is the world’s most self-regarding rapper? John Lemon has compiled an analysis of self-mentions by rappers to find out which of them wants it to be about ‘me-me-me’. The number one act is Nicki Minaj.
1st: Nicki Minaj (11.5% of all words)
Three albums. 17,665 words. 2026 explicit references to herself
A self-reference every 8.78 words
42.87 self-references per song
An average of 371.55 words per song
On “Right By My Side” she referenced herself every 3.5 words, or 28% of the song
Her most word-laden song is “All Things Go”, at 718 words, with 67 self-references
It;s just her, herself and more of her.
Spotter: BB
In 1980 Sesame Street toured a saxophone factory and I was hooked
I used to play the alto sax. Badly. I knew I was not all that good a musician when the school violin virtuoso was invited to listen to me play. ‘Too sharp,’ he said. ‘Too flat.’ To me it all sounded the same.
In 1980, Sesame Street toured a saxophone factory. Background music was supplied by an off-camera sax player, playing freestyle. the only word he said was “Saxophone”. And with that I was hooked.
Yeah! (Anyone know his name?)
Spotter: Laughing Squid
Posted: 22nd, October 2017 | In: Music, TV & Radio | Comment
Bananarama are not a patch on the ‘original girl bands’
The Telegraph has news for fans of the world’s “original girl band”. You know…Bananarama.
Pretty good, if not exactly the Hamilton Sisters and Fordyce, aka The 3 X Sisters, seen below in the 1935 vintage:
And what of the Chordettes, the Fontane Sisters, the McGuire Sisters, the DeCastro Sisters and The Supremes? And…
Well, yeah…
But my pick… Take it away, The Ronettes!
And…
Posted: 22nd, October 2017 | In: Broadsheets, Celebrities, Music | Comment
Julia Roberts wins an award for ‘courage’ and the truly courageous get schooled
Dontchaloveshowbiz? At the James Corden-hosted amfAR Gala in Los Angeles, Julia Robert won a gong for…courage. Roberts has done good works in the fight against HIV/AIDS.AmfAR is “dedicated to ending the global AIDS epidemic through innovative research”. All good. But “courage”?
Courage is defined as the “mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty”.
Aside from the hyperbolic language, Vanity Fair tells us of the do: “While accepting her award on stage at the sprawling home of billionaire investor Ronald Burkle’s Green Acres Estate in Beverly Hills.”
Courage under crystal in the bijou home ballroom.
And then there was this:
Try not to vomit if you watch this>> Meryl Streep & Hollywood ..Don't You DARE EVER Preach To The Rest Of Us You Sanctimonious Hypocrites pic.twitter.com/lHYJyAE8C0
— Leah STANDS 🇺🇸🎸 (@LeahR77) October 15, 2017
Gotta love the Hollywood elite, the people who gave Dances With Wolves seven Oscars.
David Letterman nails it as he introduces Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon – “Pay attention, I’m sure they’re pissed off about something”:
Posted: 20th, October 2017 | In: Celebrities, Film, Key Posts | Comment
Jim Davis: Garfield’s owner Jon did not drink dog semen
In 1990, did Garfield’s owner John scarf a cup of dog semen?
Have yall seen this Garfield where Jon drinks dog semen? What a great comic pic.twitter.com/I522ZgtRWP
— Reliable Truck (@ccchauffe) January 22, 2015
In the May 1990 strip, Jon is with Garfield’s veterinarian, Liz. Jon drinks a cup of something. Liz tells him: “Congratulations, Mr. Arbuckle. You are going to give birth to a fine, healthy litter of puppies.”
Semen? No. You can’t get pregnant form ‘oral sex’. Says Jim Davis:
“On the farm, we used to give first-calf heifers a high protein supplement to help them deliver healthier calves. The supplement was provided by our vet… I assumed that there would be a similar supplement for dogs. So Jon is drinking a protein-enriched drink formulated for a pregnant dog. There you have it!”
Spotter: AV Club
Posted: 20th, October 2017 | In: Celebrities, Strange But True | Comment
Jamie Oliver’s sugar tax pushes lazy eaters to fruit juices
Jamie Oliver has fiddled with food every since Tony Blair realised the chef was popular on the telly and grabbed him for a conflab. Oliver has been raging against sugar for some time now. But signs are that it’s not working:
Jamie Oliver’s 10p tax on sugary drinks sold in his Italian restaurants has resulted in a significant drop in sales, a study has found.
Oliver gathers up all the 10ps and invests them in “food education and water fountains in schools”. He’s a food colonialist teaching the slack-jawed and sugar-toothed how to drink from a standpipe and worry about food. Sod the toque blanche and get the lad a pith helmet.
Now the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health tells us that sugar-sweetened drinks flogged in Jamie’s Italian-style eateries fell 11% in the first 12 weeks of the levy. At the end of six months, sales were 9.3% lower than before the tax was brought in.
The odd bit is that fruit juice sales were up 22 per cent – you know, those pricey drinks packed full of sugar.
The study, however, does not tell us how Jamie’s faux Italian outlets have fared as a whole over that period. I did have the misfortune to visit Jamie’s Italian at Gatwick Airport just the other week, and can reveal that his cooked breakfast (‘The Full Monty’) was greasy, unsatisfying, badly presented (it came on an oily skillet), mean (3 nasty little mushrooms; two splats of cherry tomatoes; a drool of beans; two undercooked sausages; innersole bacon; charred squares of potato; missing onions; a dry slice of black pudding; and poached eggs that were well cooked but trimmed to the size of tic-tacs) and expensive (£10.25).
Professor Susan Jebb of University of Oxford tells the Times, Jamie’s experiment was “encouraging news for public health ahead of the introduction of the soft drink industry levy”.
Oh, and this:
Jamie Oliver is to close six of his Italian restaurants after tough trading and the “pressures and unknowns” following the Brexit vote.
Oliver intends to close Jamie’s Italian restaurants in Aberdeen, Exeter, Cheltenham, Richmond, Tunbridge Wells and Ludgate Hill, near London’s St Paul’s Cathedral, by the end of the first quarter of the year.
Blame Brexit, then. Easy.
Posted: 18th, October 2017 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, The Consumer | Comment
Lysette Anthony and Harvey Weinstein in Trial By Media
Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood mogul accused of multiple crimes against women, is all over the tabloids.
The Sun leads with the “3 Brit Victims”. Alleged victims, of course, a fact given credence with those inverted commas. Weinstein is deserving of a fair hearing. Innocence must always be presumed.
The pick of the alleged victims seems to be Lysette Anthony, a former model and actress, subject of the Sunday Times’ scoop: “Lysette Anthony: I answered the door. Harvey Weinstein pushed me inside and raped me in my own hallway.” That’s a headline and a half. And because it is a headline, it counts as opinion not fact.
Lysette Anthony’s allegations reach use via Charlotte Metcalf, a “close friend” of the actress. The pair went to a police station, where Anthony made her allegation. It’s serious stuff. Her words are weighty, and she should be afforded respect. The sincere hope is that the matter goes to court. Our opinions matter not.
Metcalf writes:
She was nervous but the officers were sensitive and reassuring. Afterwards I sat down with her and she told me the full story which she has agreed I should now make public.
Are we entertained yet? Stay tuned…
We hear that Lysette and Weinstein first met in New York. “Over the net few years she would have lunch with Harvey from time to time when he was in London. At that point she experienced nothing untoward: ‘The lunches were invariably in hotel suites but I felt comfortable in Harvey’s company. We had become friends.'”
And then she claims he attacked her:
“He pushed me inside and rammed me up against the coat rack in my tiny hall and started fumbling at my gown. He was trying to kiss me and shove inside me. It was disgusting.
She tried pushing him off but he was too heavy. “Finally I just gave up. At least I was able to stop him kissing me. As he ground himself against me and shoved inside me, I kept my eyes shut tight, held my breath, just let him get on with it. He came over my leg like a dog and then left. It was pathetic, revolting. I remember lying in the bath later and crying.”
Anthony says she never told the police not her agent. She claims that around a year later, she met Weinstein again. She took her out for dinner. He was “perfectly charming”. He bought her a coat on the way home. “I thought it was his unspoken way of apologising for what had happened,” says Lysette. “I assumed that was that and we went our separate ways.”
And then…?
“From this point on, if I ignored Weinstein’s calls the assistants started ringing and if I ignored them his assistants called my agent to set up a meeting. What you have to understand is that no one turned down an opportunity to meet Harvey Weinstein. No one. I’d never told my agent about the rape, so it was impossible to explain why I didn’t want to see him.
“The meetings would start with a chat in a hotel suite. The assistants would disappear and then he’d disappear and return in a robe demanding a massage. By then I’d just given up. I knew I was powerless and at least I wouldn’t have to do much. I was just a body, young flesh. It wouldn’t take long and no one knew.”
And there it is, out there in the court of public opinion, the story of the actress and her alleged rapist.
Weinstein the “sex beast”:
This has to reach court. Weinstein must have the right to defend himself. And society has the right to judge the matter. Anything less than law-based justice reduces alleged horrific crimes into a nasty form of entertainment…
Posted: 16th, October 2017 | In: Broadsheets, Celebrities, News, Tabloids | Comment
Courtney Love in 2005: don’t go to a private party with Harvey Weinstein
As the media tries Harvey Weinstein in the court of public opinion, we cast our eye back to 2005, when at the “Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson”, reliable source of wisdom Courtney Love was warning young actresses not to accept an invite from Harvey Weinstein to attend a “private party” at the Four Seasons. She never did say where young actresses looking for the part should go with Harvey. but the Four Seasons was a no-no:
And everyone laughed..
Spotter: TMZ
Posted: 16th, October 2017 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Hillary Clinton throws Harvey Weinstein under the bus (with all of Bill’s women)
Did you roll your eyes and let you mouth fall agape when Hillary Clinton told Andrew Marr about Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood mogul accused of rape? There’s delusional and there’s Hillary Clinton levels of delusional:
“I was really shocked and appalled because I’ve known him through politics as many Democrats have. He’s been a supporter – he’s been a funder for all of us, for Obama, for me, for people who have run for office in the United States. So it was just disgusting and the stories that have come out are heartbreaking. And I really commend the women who have been willing to step forward now and tell their stories.”
This is same Hillary Clinton who allegedly vowed to “destroy” women who accused her husband, Bill Clinton, of sexual harassment – who, according to the New York Times, was part of a devious campaign to see one of Bill’s ‘victims’ branded a “bimbo” and a “pathological liar”. Does Bill get a pass when we talk of sexual predators? Is Hillary so delusional – so iconic – all talk of her being her husband’s enabler is taboo?
She goes on to tell Marr:
“But I think that it’s important that we not just focus on him and whatever consequences flow from these stories about his behavior but that we recognize this kind of behavior cannot be tolerated anywhere, whether it’s in entertainment, politics. After all, we have someone admitting to being a sexual assaulter in the Oval Office. There has to be a recognition that we must stand against this kind of action that is so sexist and misogynistic.”
No. Donald Trump has never admitted to being a sexual assaulter.
She then encourages comparrisons between Trump and Weinstein.
“I’m not a psychologist, I can’t draw that conclusion. There are credible reports from women about both that sound very similar.”
Trump’s “pussy” comment was nasty. He has questionable views on women. But he has not been accused of rape. You know who has? Yep, Harvey Weinstein and…Bill Clinton.
Get a load of this exchange:
MARR: “And this depends on women coming forward and the courage to come forward. And yet in your book the three women, brought onto the stage by Trump, attacking your husband and you kind of dismissed them. Was that the right thing to do, are you sure about that?”
CLINTON: “Well, yes, because that had all been litigated. That was the subject of a huge investigation as you might recall in the late ’90s and there were conclusions drawn and that was clearly in the past.”
But the past cannot be so easily boxed up:
“I was 35 years old when Bill Clinton, Ark. Attorney General raped me and Hillary tried to silence me,” Juanita Broaddrick tweeted from her home in Van Buren, Ark. “I am now 73. . . . it never goes away.”
Harvey Weinstein deserves a fair trial. Hillary Clinton deserves to have her record looked at. Justice must not be denied.
Posted: 15th, October 2017 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment
Why Brexit is good for tea and tigers
Hold fast there! No need to flee Brexit Britain, where glorious democracy rules and inspires. I’ve been offered a Portuguese passport – something to do with the Inquisition and the Portuguese being sorry. Mrs Anorak qualifies for an Irish passport. Do we want them? Judith Kerr, author of The Tiger Who Came to Tea and other books – is a Jew who escaped the Nazis. Now living in London, she tells the FT:
“As soon as the vote of Brexit came through half the people I know were trying desperately to work out whether they had Irish grandmothers. But I would never take dual German nationality because I owe this country too much, and I wouldn’t want to dilute it.”
You might not like the result of the Brexit vote, but by god you should rejoice in it.
Posted: 15th, October 2017 | In: Celebrities, News | Comment
