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.
RIP Maurizio Zanfanti, aka Zanza, the Lothario from Rimini who has died aged 62. He succumbed to a heart attack, possibly brought on by exhaustion at having to tell every holidaymaker they were ‘bootifall zike therstars’. His obituary in the Daily Telegraph is memorable. They say he died during sex with a 23-year-old tourist (Sun) or was she 25 (Telegraph)?
He died of a heart attack at around two in the morning in his Mitsubishi Pajero 4×4, parked in a small peach grove owned by his family, seconds after making love with a 25-year-old Romanian woman, who raised the alarm.
Giles Coren, The Times’s self-satisfied journalist, has been tweeting to The Guardian’s Michael White. Or to be precise, tweets have been tweeted on the two men’s respective twitter accounts. Maybe they were hacked? Alan Rusbridger, the former Guardian editor, has seen the nastiness and wonders: “I wonder if @thetimes has social media policies for its contributors?” The account @pickwick tweets: “Self-proclaimed controversialists hastily deleting their own tweets when they get a bit TOO controversial is my new jam.”
Things kicked of when White’s account tweeted that watching Coren and another as yet unidentified person (s) debate something or other was a “clash of egos like watching dinosaurs at play.” Strange turn of phrase. Dinosaurs were egomaniacs? Discuss. White’s twitter account then tweeted: “Do you suppose a meteor strike might take care of the problem.” Is he wishing them extinct – dead? And aren’t they only a problem if you care? Easier to ignore braying ninnies then watch them and attempt to shame them in public, no?
The Coren account took the bait and responded that White looked like Davos is Dr Who. @GilesCoren (GC) asked: “Anyone know who this old cunt is?” To which @MichaelWhite (MW) replied: “This ‘old cunt’ knew your dad Giles. Clever, funny man. What went wrong.” To which GC waited and thought if any reply was required it would be laced with a rapier wit. Or why not save it for Coren’s newspaper’s column? No. GC went full Elon Musk: “My dad said you fiddled with kids. Is that true… He’s dead so you can’t sue him. But he did suggest you put your fingers in knickers without asking. In this new age you may have to answer for this. Of course, you could always not invoke dead men to insult their children. But then you’re a mean old cunt aren’t you. So you do.” MW then tells him to go to bed and “wake up a better person”. To which GC snarls: “You fucking bastard. I’m going to find you and I’m going to beat you to a fucking pulp.” Which given Coren’s demeanour of a cocky softy might be the wittiest thing either of them apparently said. Maybe the twitter accounts were hacked?
Self-proclaimed controversialists hastily deleting their own tweets when they get a bit TOO controversial is my new jam pic.twitter.com/9osu56ssDQ
The art of Cold War Steve is to feature in an exhibition at The Social, London. Called A Brief History of the World(1953 – 2018), the show’s running thread is the presence of British actor Steve McFadden, famed for playing tough nut Phil Mitchell on the BBBC dystopian soap opera, EastEnders. There’s fun to be had in spotting famous faces from the world stage and British telly. Personal favourites are poleaxed TalkSport DJ Alan Brazil and the late Cilla Black offering a quizzical look to us from the montage – a look that says ‘Who invited you?’ and ‘What the bloody hell am I doing here?’
Christopher Spencer, the talent behind @ColdWarSteve explains it simply: ” The more incongruous they were, the funnier.” And, boy, are they funny:
More from @ColdWarSteve on Twitter. A Brief History of the World (1953 – 2018) is at The Social from October 15.
Dave Haslam tweets this huge mural of The Fall’s former frontman Mark E Smith (5 March 1957 – 24 January 2018) being painted outside a chip shop in Prestwich by graffiti artist Akse P19.
Giant mural of Mark E Smith outside a chip shop in Prestwich currently in the process of being painted by graffiti artist Akse P19 pic.twitter.com/CMjGdAzJDx
Farewell Chas Hodges, aka Charles Nicholas Hodges (28 December 1943 – 22 September 2018), the piano-playing half of the brilliant Chas and Dave. Even Arsenal fans enjoyed his hymn to Tottenham Hotspur, Ossie’s Dream, when the little Argentine hoped to “win the Cup for Tott-ing-Ham”.
The songs were brilliant, like this love song:
But Chas Hodges did not die because he lost a “battle” with cancer. The Mirror’s trite take that the Chas and Dave star died because he lost a fight with a deadly disease is the worst of journalism.
Deeper into the cut-and-paste Wikipedia balls on the career of a very talented musicians, the Mirror adds: “He and Joan – an original Playboy bunny and actress – put up a united front as they battled cancer together, along with their children and two grandchildren.” No. She did not battle cancer. The children did not battle cancer. Chas did not battle cancer.
So entrenched is that hackneyed balls about ‘battling cancer’ that the Sun commissioned a feature published yesterday. Deborah James told Sun readers: “I hate ‘battle chat’ when it comes to cancer…”
We don’t lose people, friends don’t succumb to it, loved ones weren’t too weak and they certainly didn’t lose their battle. It’s clear, you can’t fight your OWN cancer. It’s not something we win or lose, it’s out of our control.
Even suggesting to people they can is unhelpful and naive.
One day one and in the very same Sun:
More battles with ‘cancer battles’ soon. In the meantime, here’s a message from Chas to anyone using the dread phrase ‘battle with cancer’…
What’s it like to have sex with Donald Trump? Until Melania goes full Princess Diana and reveals all, we can roll over and ask Stormy Daniels (aka Stephanie Clifford) about intercourse with The Don. “It may have ben the least impressive sex I’ve ever had,” is the lead quote on the Mirror’s front page. So there’s Trump in his ‘I’m Number 1 why Try Harder’ T-shirt possibly expecting new adventures with a professional shagger. Reading Stormy damn Trump brings to mind the tennis pro playing with the happy amateur. The pro knocks the ball over the net with spin, power and guile; the amateur hits a sublime return, his game improved immeasurably by the skill of his partner . I once played head tennis with a top footballer. With an equally hapless mate, I could manage 6 or seven headers. But with talent we got to 20, 30, 40… So, Donald Trump, what’s it like to have sex with a pro?
On page 7, we learn that Trump’s penis is “smaller than average” but not “freakishly small”. “He knows he has an unusual penis,” says Stormy T-Cup. “It has a huge mushroom head like a toadstool.” did little Mis Muffet sit on the engorged tuffet? “I lay there,” she says enticingly, “annoyed I was getting fucked by a guy with yeti pubes and a dick like the mushroom character in Mario Kart.” so much for the fantasy porn star level sex. Stick with the love doll, smut enthusiasts. You won’t get judged.
On page 10, Stormy’s lie-there-and-tell becomes “Donald stump”. In the Sun, we learn that Stormy’s tribute to gaming forms part of her book, Full Disclosure. Donald isn’t a “fun guy” in bed, the paper puns. We’re reminded there and in the Express that Trump denies the affair. She claims to have been paid “hush money”. And Trump reimbursed his then lawyer, Michael Cohen, for the money she received, $130,000. Yep. That’s what it allegedly costs to shag an angry woman who thinks you’re an inadequate loser. There’s a book in it – but not a token entitling the bearer to a discount on marriage guidance…
Bad news, pop fans. Lana Del Rey will not be headlining the Meteor Festival in Tel Aviv. She can’t make it because the venue, Kibbutz Lehavot HaBashan, is in Israel and she been cowed by activists and censors working for the quintessentially white, middle-class Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Del Rey did say, “performing in Tel Aviv is not a political statement or a commitment to the politics there”, adding that “singing in California” does not equate to a support for the government there either. But according to the BDS lobby, Israel is a case apart from all other countries. Del Rey was free to play in Madrid, and thus support the government’s attacks on Catalan separatists. But Israel is out. Israelis – Arabs, Christians and Jews – are forbidden from hearing Del Rey sing live in a socialist idyll. She tweets:
“It’s important to me to perform in both Palestine and Israel and treat all my fans equally. Unfortunately it hasn’t been possible to line up both visits with such short notice and therefore I’m postponing my appearance at the Meteor Festival until a time when I can schedule visits for both my fans, as well as hopefully other countries in the region.”
As her managers looks at venues in Iraq, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the totalitarian, racist hellhole that is Dubai (fly direct from Gatwick), we wonder about the lack of Western campaigns for equal rights in any of those countries. Don’t those Arabs trapped in fascist kingdoms deserve freedom and an alternative to absolute monarchism, misogyny, the persecution of homosexuals and marginalisation of ethnic minorities? Or do they target Israel because unlike lobbying to stop gays from being executed in Iran, demonising Israel might actually get results. Those uniquely barbaric Jews are more likely to listen.
There’s a thrill in spotting a famous face. And we can imagine the excitement when, as Fox News puts it in breathless tones, “‘Cosby Show’ actor Geoffrey Owens [was] spotted bagging groceries at NJ Trader Joe’s.” Admittedly, I’ve no idea who Owens is, but if others do then I’m happy to gawp and learn. The 1980s show’s Bill Cosby, aka Dr. Heathcliff “Cliff” Huxtable, would have been a bigger draw, as would have Lisa Bonet, the elfin object of ruby adolescent dreams, who appeared as his daughter Denise. But Owens, who played the hit show’s Elvin Tibideaux (1985–1992; thanks Wikipedia), is who we have in the crosshairs, and Fox News is excited.
Worker spotted working. “I had a job and I still have a job,” says man.
Geoffrey Owens was “spotted by a local shopper at the Clifton, N.J. store, standing behind one of the checkout counters and wearing a Trader Joe’s staff shirt with a name tag that read, ‘Geoffrey’.” The local shopper was thoughtful enough to take pictures of Owens at work. As these “exclusive photos reveal”. He “wore a Trader Joe’s t-shirt with stain marks on the front as he weighed a bag of potatoes.” But that’s still a cleaner living than hanging out with Bill Cosby, as many might say.
Owens is billed as a “former star”, which is not exactly true because people still recognise him, which makes him more than starry enough for a Fox News exclusive and, most likely, a stint on Celebrity Big Brother and Celebrity Bake Off.
The star spotters are revealed as Karma and Yanelle Lawrence, 50, and Yanelle, 40. “I was getting a bunch of groceries and he wasn’t really looking at anybody, but he said, ‘Have a nice day,'” says Karma. “He looked bloated and fat and unhappy.”
This week Geoffrey Owens, next week Brian Bonsall. Who knew life could be so exciting? Have a nice day!
Right now hundreds of skeletal and grey-skinned models are ordering double celery in the hope of getting work. Cosmopolitan magazine has featured a big girl on its cover and the dye is cast. Not only do bigger-boned models fill more of the page, thus negating the need for copy and ads for weight loss, liposuction and cosmetic surgery but the also make the magazine relevant in its ‘Celebration of Diversity and Difference’. This means anyone can be a model because everyone is beautiful. And with bigger pool to pick from , modelling rates are bound to plummet. Whereas ‘super model’ Linda Evangelista reportedly said “I don’t get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day” in the 1980s, today’s tall and skinny bird will be there for 10,000 lira (Turkish) and sleep standing up.
Tess socks it to the ‘haters’
And so the debate: will Tess Holliday, the Cosmo cover model, prove that we – given that so many of us are fat as the nation reels from an obesity crisis (see all press) – prefer to buy magazines that reflect us as we truly are: fat? Or are mags just a trite form of escapism in which we fetishise other people as celebs and learn how to look like them, dress like them and smell like them?
Cosmopolitan Super Diets & Exercise Guide Spring/Summer 1980 cover with Kathy Davis
The encouraging news is that if you’re big you’re more likely to sweat than someone who’s thin, thus making it easier for perfumiers to fill vials with the celebrities’ essence from their scraped sheets and underwear. Look out for a whole range of Tess Halliday scents with names like ‘Difference’, ‘Diversity’ and in a bid to reclaim the word from the haters, ‘Obese’.
In the meanwhile, we can fret about how many children – won’t somebody think of the the children – will be inspired to pile on the pounds by Cosmo mag’s brave stance – the answer being none. Oh, and the rest of you can pick up a copy of Cosmopolitan magazine for free in your – get this – gut-busting gym.
NOTE: Cosmo’s editor in chief is Michele Promaulayko, who got the job “having spent eight years as executive editor prior to her blockbuster run at Women’s Health“. On Women’s Health you can read lots and lots and lots about how to get slim and stay slim.
When not thinking up news way to spunk cash, Chloe Green, daughter to Topshop owner Sir Philip Green, left the family’s massive motorised yacht, straddled a jet ski and set about saving the planet from waste. Accompanied by her lover, Jeremy Meeks, aka Hot Felon on account of his popular police mugshot, Green set about cleaning up the planet she lives on.
“Today Jeremy and I went past a little cove and found the craziest amount of plastic and polystyrene,” says Chloe of their day out from sunbathing. “We made it our mission to gather a team together to clean it up… This is nothing compared to what is going on in the world but as quick and easy as it was so get it cleaned up there is no reason why we can’t all do our part.”
Inspirational stuff, of course. We can all learn from the billionaire’s daughter and create our own teams of cleaners. Next stop: the Philippines (or is that where the absurdly rich mine nannies?)
Minted tax-exile Bono, aka Paul Hewson, aka the stately Mr G21, has not been wasting his bath time. He’s thought up a new way to irritate everyone: the U2 singer will wave the EU flag on stage when the band begin their European tour in Berlin. It’s “provocative”, says Bono in Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper.
“I’m told a rock band is at its best when it’s a little transgressive: when it pushes the bounds of so-called good taste, when it shocks, when it surprises,” he writes. “Well, U2 is kicking off its tour in Berlin this week, and we’ve just had one of our more provocative ideas: during the show we’re going to wave a big, bright, blue EU flag.
With a rebel yell, Bono will wave the EU flag that pokes a finger in the eye of those elitist, conformist swine in Catalonia, Greece and Portugal. Waving the flag of those lands’, let’s call them the oppressors is, says Bono, a “radical act”, something akin to buttering your bread only on one side and taking one bottle into the shower.
Stop Press: In other news, the EU plans to keep the same flag after Brexit, with the UK’s star being adopted by planet Bono.
Did you “remember Madeleine McCann” this summer, heeding the advice of Mirror columnist Fiona Phillips to not “let your holiday be the one we all read about”? You all must of because the papers did not make single mention of any new child getting kidnapped on holidays, let alone launch into a voracious feeding frenzy as the media did in 2007 when Madeleine McCann became ‘Our Maddie’. Eleven years on, Operation Phillips is a success. Cheers, Fi, we don’t know how many children your advice to “forgo all of the adult holiday pleasures all over again to make sure our kids were safe” saved. Maybe none. Maybe one. Phillips has a story:
I thought of this when I read about Janet Alexander who’s suing Thomas Cook after her daughter was “abducted” from a holiday kids’ club.
Was the child abducted or not? Pull up a sun lounger and play detective.
She left five-year-old Rose at a supervised play area at their hotel in Turkey while she took her other daughter scuba diving. When she returned an hour later there was no sign of Rose. Janet thought her daughter was dead or faced being abused.
Was she?
Thankfully, another guest spotted Rose near a main road with a strange woman wearing a hijab.
It seems a pretty safe bet to say that Janet doesn’t wear an hijab and this was not a case of mistaken identity. It might also be that women in hijabs arouse more suspicion among columnists than those who do not, or are very good at helping kids who have wandered off cross the road. Discuss.
A frantic search for the child was then launched and Janet has described seeing staff turn to a woman in a hijab and speak to her in Turkish…
In Turkey!?
It is believed the ordeal came to an end 40 minutes later when another hotel guest spotted the blonde youngster walking with a woman in a hijab near a main road within the hotel grounds.
If only we knew what colour hair the hijab woman has we could form a better opinion of her intentions. Blonde hair: likelihood of innocence high (see Myra Hindley); dark hair: likelihood of guilt high (see Mother Teresa).
As that legal matter grinds on, we rejoice in the news that the case of Madeleine McCann has been “SOLVED!” So goes the National Enquirer’s front-page headline, which heralds the the story of a convicted pedophile who allegedly stole Madeleine McCann. Who is this wine? Well, he’s dead. He died a year ago. His name? Dunno. But he is “This man kidnapped little girl & sold her into slavery!” Fact! And where’s Maddie? “She’s still alive,” declares the Enquirer. But where? Dunno. Maybe they’ll find out in time for next week’s deadline.
Billy Joel, the singer, thought it a good idea to wear a yellow Star of David stuck to his jacket during a concert to remind President Trump that “Nazis aren’t good people”. The stars are not yet official tour merchandise but give it time.
In the meanwhile, should all people who don’t like Trump wear the yellow stars Jews were forced to wear on pain of enslavement and death under the laws of the Third Reich? Or might it be that if you keep evoking Nazis, turning the horror of the Holocaust into a live event, you demean what went before, you reduce the horror and turn genocide into a routine happening?
Joel told CBS News that the president’s comments after a woman was killed last August when a suspected white supremacist struck a crowd of counterprotesters with a car “enraged” him.
“The president said, you know, ‘There’s some good people on that side …’ No, Nazis aren’t good people,” Joel told CBS in an interview that aired Sunday.
Said Joel:
“It really enraged me, actually. My old man, his family got wiped out. They were slaughtered in Auschwitz. Him and his parents were able to get out. But then he was in the U.S. Army during the war and fought with Patton and was shot at by Nazis. My family suffered. And I think I actually have a right to do that.”
You don’t need murdered relatives to advertise your opinion that Nazis were bad dudes. Plenty of Germans whose family were Nazis – real ones – agree with you. But you do need to wonder how calling a prat like Trump a Nazi serves the victims of the greatest crime? Is Trump gassing people to death in industrial ovens? Are racial laws banning untermensch from marrying Gentiles and owning property on account of their race? Are we so needy and lacking in direction and moral purpose that we eye the Holocaust with envy, and invest huge power in every act of racism by some dickhead so that the knowing are elevated to the rank of saviours? It looks like it.
This crass, historically illiterate narcissism destroys the past. It undermines the truth. It buys into the nastiness that wonders why the Jews and the gypsies and the gays didn’t just fight harder. It makes the dead weak and complicit and the living their betters. It turns the Nazis into something eternal and magic, an anti-human that can be summoned at any moment and never beaten. What a low opinion of humanity that is.
In the post-Savile era, the BBC is so desperate to look decent and worthy that it broadcast live a police raid on an innocent man’s home. The celebrity in the Beeb’s cross-hairs was Sir Cliff Richard, who had been implicated in an incident at a Billy Graham evangelist rally in Sheffield in the 1980s involving a boy under the age of 16. The Metropolitan Police’s Operation Yewtree shoved the allegation on to South Yorkshire Police in June 2014. A month later the police and the State broadcaster colluded in the interests of “breaking news” and PR to show us Cliff’s home being turned over. He was out at the time. It was revolting stuff. But it wasn’t out of keeping with the BBC and police’s frenzied pursuit of salvation and purpose, in which accusers became ‘victims’, accusations are considered “credible and true” and the accused branded guilty without any need for such nuisances as evidence, proof and a trial.
Sir Cliff, who was told in 2016 that he’d face no charges, sued. And yesterday the 77-year-old singer was awarded £210,000 in damages. More damages are sure to follow. South Yorkshire Police has already paid £400,000 in damages.
Mr Justice Mann told the court:
“The material at trial demonstrated not only that people were very excited at the prospect of this scoop, but also that they were very keen to preserve it as their own. The latter point is demonstrated by a number of things, including the very questionable (in contractual terms) exclusion of ITN from knowledge of the launch of the helicopter and the fear, expressed in emails, that Sky News might pick up the event.
“I think and find it likely that this is what motivated the BBC in relation to timing at the end of the chain of events. It was important, if possible, to get the news to broadcast for 1pm (ITN would have a lunchtime broadcast at 1.30pm), rather than waiting any longer.
“That led the BBC to truncate, unfairly, the opportunity for Sir Cliff to get in a reply before the first broadcast.
“I emphasise that I am not finding that there is anything inherently wrong with a desire to beat a rival to a story. What happened in this case was that that view unduly skewed other judgments that had to be made.”
This was the stodgy BBC engaging in competitive journalism with commercial broadcasters. It wanted to use Sir Cliff to prove that in the new arena it too could shout “First!” The police used the reality show to trawl for more ‘victims’.
BBC News director Fran Unsworth has issued an apology, albeit one with a sympathetic back story and mealy-mouthed lament:
“We are sorry for the distress that Sir Cliff has been through. We understand the very serious impact that this has had on him. We have thought long and hard about how we covered this story. On reflection there are things we would have done differently, however the judge has ruled that the very naming of Sir Cliff was unlawful.”
Why name an innocent man? Was he a danger to the public? Was Cliff more Pied Piper than Peter Pan? What evidence did the police hope to find at his unoccupied home? What would this compelling evidence look like on the telly? Where was Sir Cliff – wasn’t he the story, rather than his house?
“So even had the BBC not used helicopter shots or ran the story with less prominence, the Judge would still have found that the story was unlawful; despite ruling that what we broadcast about the search was accurate.”
Man has home searched. Fact. Broadcasting it live and naming the celeb, who must be presumed innocent to showcase your own sound morals. Sensationalist horror show. This is a pathetic apology.
“This judgment creates new case law and represents a dramatic shift against press freedom and the long-standing ability of journalists to report on police investigations, which in some cases has led to further complainants coming forward.”
Trawling for ‘victims’ on a live reality TV show is not an investigation, at least not one any sensible and circumspect institution should be dabbling in.
And it could be you:
“This impacts not just the BBC, but every media organisation. This isn’t just about reporting on individuals. It means police investigations, and searches of people’s homes, could go unreported and unscrutinised.”
Balls. The BBC went for Sir Cliff because he is famous.
“It will make it harder to scrutinise the conduct of the police and we fear it will undermine the wider principle of the public’s right to know. It will put decision-making in the hands of the police.”
If it is so awful, how the bloody hell did you – top State-approved journalists – all agree it was a good idea? Why didn’t the BBC apologise earlier? Why did the BBC fight the case? Has anyone been sacked? Will ‘lessons be learned’?
Ubiquitous Tory MP Anna Soubry has called for “Cliff’s Law” to ban media from naming suspects before they are charged. Oh, the sick irony of Sir Cliff having his own law, thus cementing his name with an accusation of which he is entirely innocent. Bad practice makes for bad laws. Soubry is as vain and monocular as the BBC reporters who sought to make names for themselves on Sir Cliff’s back.
“We don’t believe this is compatible with liberty and press freedoms – something that has been at the heart of this country for generations. For all of these reasons, there is a significant principle at stake. That is why the BBC is looking at an appeal.”
TV soap actors aren’t really acting. They’re just cast to play themselves in a studio setting. This is why Shane Richie gets to be Red Coat on EastEnders, Hollyoaks is about middling students learning to get a job, Emmerdale is no longer called Emmerdale Farm – how many actors know the right end of a sheep? – and Ross Kemp can play a bullet-headed, muscular meat sock on EastEnders with genuine empathy.
So here’s Kemp reacting to England beating Colombia in the World Cup:
Becky Vardy has issued a no comments. In “Vardy hits back”, Jamie Vardy’s wife is wrapped in the England flag. As patriotic as Britannia – albeit more demurely dressed (Britannia bares a naked breast on the silver and gold coins) – over pages 6 and 7 Vardy has a no comment for the Wags who troll her.
“Have they got nothing better to do? It’s probably a massive fat Russian that doesn’t have any mirrors in the house. They just do it to get a reaction. They won’t get one from me.”
You can read Becky’s non-reaction on page 1, 6 and 7.
News that Bear Payne — offspring of former One Directioner Liam Payne and former Girls Aloud hair model Cheryl Cole (see tattoo) – is to be divided between his estranged parents is odd. “CHERYL AND LIAM SPLIT,” says the headline. “They’ll share Bear.” Share Bear sounds a bit like Care Bear, the cutesy 1980s dolls, or Hair Bear, as in The Hair Bear Bunch!, a 1970s American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera. Share Bear could be a new toy and tribute to marriage guidance: a soft Bear that rips in half, allowing both parties on a break-up to take one part each – Liam gets everything above the waist; Cheryl the lower half.
The Sun adds on Page 5 that Bear is Liam and Cheryl’s “Whole world”. It’s Bear World, a place of dirty nappies, spit-ups and gurgles. We also hear that the split is “amicable”, which says something about the level of passion their love affair, and how the split is down them being in “differing stages of their lives” – he is in shorts; she is in rollers.
The couple first met on the X Factor, where Cheryl was a 23-year-old judge and Liam a 14-year-old contestant. When they got together, love was so real, true and lasting that young Liam told us, “I celebrate Valentine’s Day every day.” Each morning there Mr Valentine was in his tux clutching a bear tied to a heart-shaped helium balloon. Eventually, of course, the thrill of popping to the shops for a teddy wears off and you make the choice: garage forecourt flowers or a Bear that actually grows and vomits.
Compare and contrast the following news on Clean Bandit (the soundtrack for Marks & Spencer – the bands rider is Marks & Spencer mozzarella salads and quinoa) – fronted by a couple of poshos, including Grace Chatto. In 2017, Chatto wore a pro-Jeremy Corbyn t-shirt for a BBC broadcast. In a bid to retain its commitment to political impartiality, the Beeb blurred out the slogan championing ‘Jeremy Corbyn’, theformerstar of Iran’s Press TV. Chatto, a keen Corbynist, talked about that and the band’s headlining of Jez Fest. Chatto told the Huffington Post:
“Well, I think the BBC has shown, you know, they showed a really terrible bias against Jeremy Corbyn in the run-up to the general election, and that [censorship] was just part of it…
[Labour] had that huge triumph in the election, and I think the media’s been a bit different [since the election result]. But now the BBC bias is kind of like creeping back a little bit. I think, anyway…
“For me, I’m not that interested in reading newspapers, for example, so the Labour Live event is a really good way for me to engage in party politics and hear speeches and have discussions. It’s all changing.”
In 2015, Clean Bandit were at another politically infused festival: the European Olympic Games in enlightened Azerbaijan. That’s the country where “dissenting voices are practically absent from mainstream media and critical journalists risk arrest and imprisonment”.
“President Ilham Aliyev has been waging a relentless war against his remaining critics,” Reporters Without Borders said in 2017. It said “independent journalists and bloggers are thrown in prison if they do not first yield to harassment, beatings, blackmail, or bribes.”
Musical interlude:
Emin Milli had something to say about the The Games:
UK band Clean Bandit, the supposed stars of the closing ceremony, did not even mention their appearance to their thousands of social media followers…
The regime decided it would target the messengers, banning journalists and human rights activists from the Guardian, Platform and Amnesty from entering Azerbaijan during the games.
t seemed like a public relations disaster but perhaps Aliyev doesn’t care anymore. His people have even started issuing threats to Azerbaijanis abroad.
Last week, I received a message from Azad Rahimov, Aliyev’s sports minister: “We will get you wherever you are and the state will punish you for this smear campaign against the state that you have organised. You will get punished for this. You will not be able to walk freely in Berlin or anywhere else. You must know this.”
It would appear that Azerbaijani journalists and activists are not safe at home or abroad.
Something else for censorship-busting Chatto not to read about in the papers she doesn’t read.
The National Enquirer’s “world exclusive” is unequivocal: “ISIS Kill Plot Foiled! Sniper Caught Stalking Prince George!” An ISIS sniper in London got that close to the heir? How close? Well, there’s photographic proof. “This chilling image shows the heart-stopping moment that little Prince George cheated death!” thunders the magazine of record. A figure at a window “appears to be holding a rifle and looking down at the two royals.” The caption chills: “Under the gun!”
Well spotted, NE, because to the rest of us the gun looks uncannily like a camera. The ISIS sniper is also disguised. The bearded, gurning loon looks like a bloke with what might be a smartphone. He’s having a gander at George as the lad is trotted off to school surrounded by men with gun that look like guns.
It’s another lucky escape or G. It was only last October that the NE uncovered a plot to kidnap him. Terrorists were going to snatch Prince George and demand a $50million ransom to his safe return. “This is as real as it gets!” a Royal “insider: told the Enquirer. “It could have been the biggest disaster in the history of the monarchy. For Prince William and his wife, it must be a living hell!”
ISIs
A bigger disaster than Prince Edward’s Royal It’s A Knockout, Princess Diana dying in Paris tunnel, the English Civil War, King Edward VIII being a Nazi, King Harold being shot in the eye, the pathetic sight of King Canute trying to hold back the waves, Sarah ‘Fergie’ Ferguson? This:
This?
“According to the information, which is being kept from the public, a small terrorist cell spent weeks hatching a plan to snatch George, either at school or on the 3.5-mile car ride to or from his family’s home in Kensington Palace,” says the source, publicly.
Of course, the NE knows that something might happen. The fantasy needs a kernel of fact to keep the readers reading. After all, Princess Anne was almost kidnapped. In May 2018 an Islamic State supporter named Husnain Rashid, of Nelson, Lancashire, wanted young George to be targeted. He posted a photo of George’s school superimposed with silhouettes of two masked jihadist fighters. He wrote: “Even the royal family will not be left alone. School starts early.” He also mused on poisoning fruit, vegetables and ice-cream in stores.
Rashid got no closer to George than a post on social media. When police arrested him, the jihadist pretended to faint. He lived with his mum and dad. He was 32.
But it could happen, and should it let now-one say the NE never warned you…
There is indeed a gender pay gap out there. Some of it is – whisper it gently though we must – entirely justified. Women do tend to take career breaks, there is what is called occupational segregation – people deciding to pursue careers in different occupations – and it does tend to be men who are stupid enough to think that success at work is the be all and end all of life. There are other times it’s entirely justified too – no one is going to be surprised that Tom Cruise gets a higher paycheque than whichever blonde is the arm candy this time around.
There’re also times when it’s rather less justified. And the answer there is for women to take matters into their own hands. To complain and demand that is. Which is exactly what Haim have just done:
All-female band Haim say they fired an agent after discovering they were paid just a tenth of the amount of a male artist on the same bill at a festival.
The US rock group – made up of sisters Este, Danielle and Alana – called the pay gap “insane”.
For those who don’t know these things, band pay at a festival will vary wildly. There will be those there just to get the exposure and maybe thereby get onto the radio. There will be others whose presence on the bill is what sells the tickets to the whole gig. Those latter will gain very much higher pay of course:
“We had been told that our fee was very low because you played at the festival in the hope that you’d get played on the radio,”
Well, that’s OK, as long as everyone knows the deal on the way in.
“We didn’t think twice about it, but we later found out that someone was getting paid 10 times more than us. And because of that we fired our agent.”
Maybe that is OK and maybe it isn’t. But that is the correct answer even so. Not to complain to the world nor to insist that the law must be changed, but to fire the person who negotiated the price you didn’t like.
Of course, it’s always possible that demanding more money means no bookings to play festivals but as these things work out this would also mean no gender pay gap, wouldn’t it? For we do only measure the gap among people who get hired. Those entirely unemployed aren’t included in our numbers.
In Now Mag read the story of Gemma Collins, the really irritating/ bubbly one of TV’s The Only Way is Essex.
What’s the best advice you give in the book?
Well, if you read it, you would know, so… I think wait until you get a copy and then you’ll be able to embrace the book. It’s hard to do an interview if you haven’t done any research on the book or been sent it. I’m going to get them to send you a book and you can read up on it and then maybe we’ll do this another time. Because we’re meant to be doing an interview on the book, but you haven’t got the book in front of you, so you don’t know what it’s about. (PR: Do we have the next question?) (To the PR:) Do you see what I’m saying? It’s hard for the girl to do the interview if she hasn’t got the book and stuff. (PR: Absolutely. So what was your next question for Gemma?)
Want to know the “truth” about “the hours” before Ant McPartlin went drink driving? The Mirror thinks its readers do, leading with the story of the build up to Ant’s crime. On page 9 we get the facts: Ant had a row with his wife Lisa Armstrong. They argued over – get this – who had first dibs on their dog. One of Ant’s “pals”, of which he seems to have many and all of them unnamed and with a hotline to the tabloids, says, “Lisa is no angel in this. She would been giving it back, and then some.”
The “pal” then calls Lisa “stubborn”, stating that the rows are all “rooted in the fact Lisa refused to believe the marriage was tover”. News, indeed, to anyone who thinks the rows were “rooted” in Ant rooting the PA, taking drugs and drunk driving.
Anyhow, “hours” after the row over the dog, Ant crashed his Mini into two cars while well over the drink-driving limit.
It’s her money as well
The story has one spot of new news: divorce lawyers are trying to decide how to “divide Ant and Lisa’s fortune“. Finally! All that guff about him giving her half of his fortune has stuck in the craw. The Mirror gets it.
Ant MacPartlin’s drugs habit and drink-driving have kept the papers busy. And now we read about his lover, one Anne-Marie Corbett, a 42-year-old married mum-of two. She used to work as a personal assistant to Ant and his wife Lisa. All tawdry and predictable stuff: married TV star takes drugs, drinks too much and shags blonde. But what’s interesting is how the tabloids are taking sides. You can tell which side they are on – Ant: the one who might give you interviews, sell newspapers and secure TV exclusives; or Lisa: the woman who won’t.
The Sun is Team Ant. Describing Anne-Marie as Ant’s “rock”, the Sun produces these photos of the trio:
The Rock and the Hard Face. Ann-Marie is “upset” says the caption. Poor Anne-Marie.
The photo the Sun chose to show of Lisa, who is not a drink-driver, has not taken drugs and has not been comforted by another
The happy couple – look how happy Ant is. And we want him to be happy. He’s on the telly.
The Sun also adds that “blazing rows over his £62 million fortune have made it [divorce] increasingly acrimonious”. His fortune? Not their fortune? Childhood sweethearts Ant and Lisa have been married since 2006. This is about Ant and us continuing to like him. Good old Ant:
Good old Ant sharing his money with his wife. Waddaguy!
The Mirror leads with news that Lisa “suspected” Ant was with Ann-Marie “months ago”. Poor Lisa. Let’s take a look at her:
Page 5 family – Lisa looks pretty good
Lisa Armstong in “torment”
The hard-faced blonde
The Mirror says Lisa and Anne-Marie were “pals”. Anne-Marie split from husband Scott in October last year. But that has nothing to do with Ant, say “insiders”. Perish the thought. Ant and Lisa broke up “10 months ago” – “long before he started dating his new love”. Ten moths ago was September 2017.
Over in the Mail and Lisa is looking happy. Ant is looking happy. Anne-Marie is wearing a “blue summer dress… with a plunging neckline, wedge heels, red lipstick and a Lulu Guinness tote bag”. She looks “glamorous”. The Express says Anne-Marie wore her “blonde hair loose”.
The final words is with an “insider, who tells the Express that Ant “could decide to to return to I’m A Celeb. That’s how far things have changed thanks to Anne-Marie”.
More ‘no news’ news on the Sun’s cover: David Beckham and Victoria are still married. Yesterday they held hands at a London fashion event. It was a “show of unity”. North and South Korea have nothing on this.
Inside we see Beck and Posh sat either side of Edward Enniful. He’s not a marriage guidance therapist. He’s the editor of Vogue magazine, the monthly advertorial album for big-spending brands.
The Sun is very much on the side of the lucrative couple, hoping their front-page presence sells papers in the same manner as Jade Goody once did. But while Goody was dismembered and stuffed for our entertainment, Posh and Becks are dipped in aspic, the only signs of change being a new doodle on his head. But – what’s this? – the Sun says it’s got a photo of Posh “SMILING”. She “breaks into a rare grin”. Want to see it? Here you go:
So happily married, so never-changing are Posh ‘n’ Becks, as constant in the world of brand mascots as Tony the Tiger and the Laughing Cow, the only newsworthy option is o splinter into two separate companies.
Fiona Phillips and Gaby Roslin are plugging a new Channel 5 TV show. Called Shop Smart: Save Money, “their new TV show that encourages savvy shopping”, says the Daily Mail. Both presenters are keen to show how they learnt the value of a coupon and special offer from periods of poverty and periods of “financial issues”. “When I was a student, I had £5 a week to live off,” says Roslin.
Even now, she says she still can’t scatter the cash. ‘I have bills to pay like everyone else. Mortgage, gas, electricity, water, car. We all do.’
Prescient stuff. Says Roslin: “My parents weren’t well off and I was brought up thriftily.”
From the age of three, all I wanted to be was on television. My dad was a Radio 4 newsreader. He was a friend of Valerie Singleton and I used to go to Television Centre to watch Blue Peter being broadcast…
I got into King Alfred’s, a co-ed, progressive school in Hampstead.
King Alfred School is fee paying. It’s located in one of the country’s most expensive places to buy a home. The current fees t the school are:
Reception, Years 1 + 2 (4 – 6 years): £ 5,177 per term
Years 3 – 6 (7 – 10 years): £ 5,965 per term
Upper School (11 – 18 years): £ 6,241 per term
The Sun says: “Gaby Roslin is well-placed to give advice on how to get value for money.” Here’s a bit more about King Alfred’s:
You were not told who was top or bottom and you called teachers by their first names. At first, you didn’t have marks. I wasn’t very good at maths but they didn’t say: “Let’s drop it.” You discussed it with the teachers.
Cynics would call it the kind of school wealthy kids who don’t need to write CVs go to.
