Key Posts Category
The 12 best Nativity scenes of all time
THE Nativity is the story of Christ’s birth. But what was it really like? Had only the little donkey been able to talk or the inn keeper reacted to the yells of childbirth to see what was up in his barn, we might have known a bit more about the wonder. Helpfully, others have recreated the Nativity tableau. We bring you the 12 Best Nativity scenes of all time:
Posted: 23rd, December 2011 | In: Key Posts, Photojournalism | Comment
Queen rents Kensington Palace to Russian Olympic team
HER Majesty The Queen is cashing in on the London 2012 Olympics by renting a field adjoining Kensington Palace to Russian visitors. The Palace is home to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and the fragrant Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, whose rent must be up for reappraisal.
Occupy Kensington Palace will boost the Queen’s Sovereign Grant. That’s the plan that gives Liz 15 per cent of all Crown Estate profits. With that she must pay for her palaces, travel, bowling alley, indoor golf course, ribbon cutting, paint sniffing excursions and to feed the willowy blonde she visits on the fabled Sixth Floor of the Harvey Nichols department store in London.
And so it is that to augment this income, Sergei Kolushev and his Eventica outfit have leased – get this – Perks Field for 28 days from July 27 next summer.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 22nd, December 2011 | In: Key Posts, Royal Family | Comment
There’s nothing “ethical” about these patronising Christmas gifts
SO-CALLED “ethical Christmas gifts” have become a familiar feature of the holiday season. Every year, charities like Oxfam, Christian Aid and World Vision encourage us to give up presents in favour of certificates for things like goats, dung, condoms and hygiene instruction for people in the developing world.
It is customary for these initiatives to adopt a patronising tone, both towards Western consumers, who are encouraged to have a guilt-free shopping experience, and towards Third World recipients, who are encouraged to smile and be grateful for the paltry presents charities bestow on them. Just take a look at this video by Oxfam. It explains to shoppers how the charity’s scheme, Oxfam Unwrapped, works as if they were five-year-olds.
Ethical gift schemes tap into the anti-consumption vogue in the West, whilst perpetuating the idea that people in the developing world should gladly accept small-scale solutions that may help them cope with poverty, but not escape it. In the West, a familiar dilemma for shoppers is what to buy for a man or woman who has everything, but when it comes to the developing world the message is that beggars can’t be choosers.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 22nd, December 2011 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)
The X Factor Voiceover Man Strikes Back
IT’S The X Factor uncut. Peter Dickson is the X Factor voiceover man striking back. (Yep, we found another version.)
Posted: 22nd, December 2011 | In: Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comments (8)
Kim Kardashian’s disaster tourism trip to Oprah’s Haiti therapy suite
KIM Kardashian has been to Haiti. The National Enquirer watches the earth move and screams:
“OUTRAGE AS KIM MEETS EARTHQUAKE ORPHANS!”
The NE says the trip to Haiti was all part of Kim Kardashian’s plan to make herself look good. During a 48-hour stay, Kim and her mother Kris Jenner checked into the $1,000 a-night Presidential suite at the Karibe Hotel, “the best lodging in Port –au-prince” – a title akin to being the poshest woman in Wayne Rooney’s harem. Most damaging of all, Kim and her momager met orphans bussed in to meet her and after shaking hands, reportedly, wiped her paws with hand sanitizer.
This is compared and contrasted to the goodness of Oprah Winfrey, who visited the J/P HRO settlement camp and passed the time “talking with some of the refugees through an interpreter”. Like Kim, she was well photographed.
A source says:
“Oprah believed Kim went down to Haiti to soley repair her image, and not to help out with the relief effort.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 21st, December 2011 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comments (3)
The best British news photos of 2011
THE best British news photos of 2011:
rison inmates evacuate their accommodation blocks at HMP Ford near Arundel, West Sussex after about 40 prisoners began a riot and set alight buildings in the open prison, according to the Ministry of Justice.
England’s Kevin Pietersen with the ashes urn after winning the fifth Ashes Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground, Sydney, Australia.
A gust of wind catches The Duchess of Cornwall’s umbrella as she arrives in Steeple Ashton, Wiltshire, to meet members of the Wiltshire Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers.
Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney (centre) scores their second goal from inside the penalty area from an overhead kick
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leaving Belmarsh Magistrates Court after his extradition hearing to Sweden to be prosecuted over claims of sexual assault, in south east London.
Posted: 21st, December 2011 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Peter Andre And Katie Price reunite for 2012 reality TV show
KATIE Price and Peter Andre are to become “close again”. Not only close to each other but, one imagines more vitally, close to the paparazzi. Katie Price and Peter Andre may even become close enough to play each other’s spouse in twin reality TV series.
The Sun says Katie Price and Peter Andre are “planning to take their kids out together as a family in the New Year”. It’s a two week heads up to all photographers.
A family friend is on hand to tell the Sun:
“They’re ready to move forward together and have discussed being seen in public again. It’ll be day trips with the children — working things out generally and taking those important steps to improve the relationship.”
And what better place to improve their relationship than in the media glare? And they might be quids in. As heat magazine told us:
“Pete spends more than £600 a week on beauty products, tanning, haircuts and manicures.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 21st, December 2011 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment
Bradley Manning: the sexual torture of a mentally ill hero
US ARMY analyst Bradley Manning, 24, is appearing at a courthouse in Fort Meade, Maryland. It’s a military hearing to decided whether Manning should face court-martial for his alleged role in leaking classified material to WikiLeaks. Did Bradley Manning orchestrate the biggest national security leak in U.S. history? And even if he did, what harm did he do?
Also appearing are:
Adrian Lamo – a former hacker, who gave the chat logs to authorities, leading to Manning’s arrest
Jennifer Robinson – lawyer for Wikileak’s fonder Julian Assange
David Coombs – Bradley Manning’s attorney
This is a big deal. Bradley Manning is number 8 on Time’s list of 2011’s 100 most influential people. Bradley Manning was jailed at Quantico, a Marine base in Virginia. He passed his days in solitary confinement for 23 hours each day. He was forced to stand naked during inspections. He was not given his glasses. He could not see properly.
His one hour of exercise was in an empty room.
Daphne Eviatar noted:
Manning is also said to be a threat to himself, given the serious trouble he’s in. As a result, he’s on “Prevention of Injury” watch, which accounts for the lack of sheets and pillows. But his lawyer thinks that’s a ruse. And indeed, it’s hard to imagine why prison officials would treat someone who they worry is mentally disturbed by isolating him to the point that, as medical experts have documented, is likely to make him crazy.
There is no little irony in the how the US treated the whistle blower.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 21st, December 2011 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Black Luis Suarez’s career suicide: Liverpool star did racially abuse Man United’s Patrice Evra
LIVERPOOL striker Luis Suarez did racially abuse Manchester United’s Patrice Evra. The Uruguayan has been handed an eight match ban. The FA’s Independent Regulatory Commission have buried Suarez, who says he is innocent. He says the word “negro” is nuanced. It is merely observational.
That commission is made up of:
PAUL GOULDING QC (chairman): Lawyer and wualified FA coach.
BRIAN JONES: Chairman of Sheffield and Hallamshire FA.
DENIS SMITH: Ex-Stoke defender who has managed York, Sunderland and Oxford United.
The, alleged, key quotes from Liverpool’s 1-1 with Manchester Untied are:
Evra: “Don’t touch me, you South American”
Suarez: “Porque, negro?”
Evra is booked. He shouts at the referee Marriner: “You’re only booking me because I’m black”
Suarez: “I called him something his team-mates call him and even they were surprised by his reaction”
Andre Marriner may care to contact his own lawyers. If Evra said that, it is despicable. But it is the racism that end careers, not the perception of it. Is guilty then Suarez has committed career suicide.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 20th, December 2011 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comments (10)
Sleeping Kim Jong il is laid out like a fairytale princess
KIM Jong il is dead. His body has been put on display in glass box. Given that this is Christmas time, you can’t help thinking Kim’s mourners in North Korea and China are waiting for a Prince to ride in and give the leader an awakening kiss, like in the fairytale pantomime.
Prince Harry could do much to improve the West’s relations with North Korea if he can muster the courage to plant a smacker on Kim’s lips. Of course, if Prince Harry breaks the glass, kisses Kim il Jong and then the despot fails to awaken there will be a nuclear war and Harry will look gay and weird. But them’s the risks. Peace in Neverland was never achieved at no cost.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 20th, December 2011 | In: Key Posts, Politicians | Comment
Woman has working pen in her stomach for 25 years
TWO questions to the 76-year-old female who lived for 25 years with a working plastic felt tip pen in her stomach:
1. How did it get there?
2. Where can I get one?
The woman was suffering from weight loss and diarrhoea. An internal probe revealed severe diverticulosis and a pen she has swallowed.
Questions are answered in turn:
1. She was investigating her tonsils when she slipped and the pen fell in.
2. The pen was a ruddy felt tip! Felt tips run out in seconds. The British Medical Journal is lax in its duty to mankind that it fails to identify the make and model of this magic marker.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 20th, December 2011 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Courtney Stodden does Santa – literally (photos)
DEMURE teen bride Courtney Stodden, 17, has followed her Pumpkin Patch outing with a Santa Claus photoshoot. It’s classy stuff from La Stodden, who we last saw having her breasts authenticated on Dr Drew’s magic box. Stodden’s husband, 51-year-old barely known actor Doug Hutchison, is attempting to turn Santa’s beard into a merkin. What has Santa done to deserve this? What has Christmas done to deserve this? Why didn’t Heidi Montag insist all her offcuts were incinerated? Has the Easter Bunny be warned?
Posted: 19th, December 2011 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment (1)
Gifs of the day: suicide cat flies
GIFS of the day are brought to you by: suicide cat; the best dive outside of the Olympics; cats are scary; and the accident everyone save one saw coming…
12 Crazy facts about Kim Jong il
KIM Jong il has died. North Korea mourns. And we wonder what the man was really like. Here are 12 crazy facts about Kim Jong il:
Kim Jong il was a superhero
North Korean legend has it that Kim Jong Il was born in a secret place by North Korea’s most sacred mountain, Mt. Paekdu (aka Baekdu mountain). At the moment of his birth, a double rainbow appeared and a new bright star shone in the heavens. Either that or he was born in Siberia in 1941 when his father, Kim Il-sung, leader of a “patriot and revolutionary family” was in exile in the former Soviet Union in 1942.
Kim Jong il can control the weather
According to the book by Chol-hwan Kang and Pierre Rigoulot (2005). The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag, Kim control the weather. (see rainbow and star) Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-01104-7
Kim legalised drugs and gave them out for free
Kim was once addicted to painkillers. Sot hat he would not enjoy the experience alone, he allowed (surely ordered? – ed) his staff to inject themselves with painkillers so they too would experience the joy of addiction.
Kim Jong il was shortist
Kim Jong il issued pamphlets advertising growth drugs. Small people would take the bait and be whisked away to live in splendid isolation on previously “uninhabited islands”. Critics say Kim Jong il was trying to kill off the shorties. But others go with the theory that Kim understood their pain and wanted the shorts to live without being looked down on by tallies – literally.
Kim Jong il understood disability
In readiness for the World Festival of Youth and Students in 1989, Kim deported disabled people from Pyongyang. Once more, Kim understood suffering. He knew that watching the able bodied running and jumping would be unbearable for the disabled. so he sent them to live in splendid isolation. And all was normal.
Kim Jong il loved Hennessy
Kim Jong Il was Hennessy customer No.1. Dr. Jerold Post said Kim invested $600,000 to $850,000 annually on the amber nectar. . He is partial to the Paradis cognac, which can sell for over $700 per bottle. In comparison, the average North Korean makes about $1000 per year.
Kim Jong il created the world’s best run city
Kijong-Dong is a wonderful place on the border with South Korea. There is no poverty. No crime. No traffic jams. No blackouts. No residents. But there is a 300lb North Korean flag, visible from much of South Korea.
Kim Jong il ran a waterpark
Images of Kim Jong-Il’s mansions reveals a supreme slide of freedom. Everyone gets a go. It’s Communism, people. just need to wait until Kim has finished.
Kim Jong il loved train travel
Was Ki Jong il afraid of flying – or was he just afraid of flying in North Korean planes? In any case he loved to move about in armoured trains. And the North Koreans were happy as larry to push and pull him along (see pedestrian motorways of North Korea).
Kim Jong il was the world’s best golfer
It was 1994 when Kim Jong Il shot an impressive 38 under par, including 11 holes in one. It was golf. Hey, it was crazy golf. Happily, while envious foreign media ignore Tiger Kim, local media were there to record the action as fact
Kim Jong il loved the movies
So keen was Kim to make a Godzilla movie that he kidnapped South Korean director Shin Sang-ok and his wife Choi Eun Hee and encouraged them to make Pulgasari. Shjooting took Shin on location to Austria, from where they escaped.
Kim Jong il loved The Omen
Did Kim kill his younger brother Kim Shu-ra? Did Kim casue Kim to drown in the family’s swimming pool when he was five?
Kim Jon il invented the sandwich
North Korean newspaper Minju Joson heralded Kim’s invention of the Kimwich – a delicious invention of “double bread with meat”. Any meat would do. Rat. Dog. Mum…
Posted: 19th, December 2011 | In: Key Posts, Politicians | Comment (1)
Kim Jong-il dies of physical fatigue – a North Korean life in photos
RIP North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. You were a terrific puppet made flesh and bone. You were the star of Where’s Kim? You ate live fish. You were shortist:,
In preparation for the World Festival of Youth and Students in 1989, Kim Jong Il had disabled residents removed from Pyongyang. The government also distributed pamphlets advertising a wonder drug that would increase the height of short people.
How did Kim Jong-il die? North Korea’s state broadcaster says Leader No. 1 died from “physical fatigue” while traveling on a train. The North Koreans pushing the train are inconsolable with grief.
Kim’s son, the generously built Kim Jon-un (left), is unlikely to work so hard for the good of his nation’s pomade industries. But he will make a bigger target in his otter skin hat….
Posted: 19th, December 2011 | In: Key Posts, Politicians | Comment (1)
Panto stars The Krankies used to be swingers – who knew?
THE Krankies used to be swingers. Who could have guessed that Ian and Janette Tough, who play father and son act The Krankies were into unusual sex? Who? Who????
Says Janette, star of kids TV show Crackerjack and panto:
“We went out for Sunday lunch one day and got a bit romantic out at sea. We nearly ended up in France. I couldn’t make it last that long now.”
All together now, kids: I see Paris, I see France, I see… France might be euphemism?
Says Ian:
“It was never involved, lovey-dovey stuff with the others.It was just these incredible parties that would get out of hand. Janette might ask, ‘Where’s Ian?’ and they’d happily tell her I was in the room next door with a dancer with my trousers around my ankles.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 19th, December 2011 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comments (3)
Nick Davies is looking for paedos in Murdoch’s Wapping
GUARDIAN journalist Nick Davies stands accused by the Sun and others of “sexing up” his reports about phone hacking at the News of the World.
Following the revelation that it probably wasn’t News of the World journalists who deleted key voicemail messages from Milly Dowler’s phone, as Davies claimed on the front page of the Guardian in July, some are now wondering if Davies has been over-egging the pudding in order to make tabloid hacks appear *really* evil.
If this is the case, it wouldn’t be the first time Davies allowed his desire to brand a bunch of people as evil to override his responsibility as a journalist to be completely accurate and objective.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 18th, December 2011 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)
Roy Keane on Manchester United: Which managers are in Manchester United’s Alex Ferguson’s pocket?
ROY Keane no longer talks to Manchester United’s manager Alex Ferguson. The Sunday Times says Keane declined to attended Ferguson’s 25th anniversary party.
Why? Well, Keane, the former Manchester United captain Roy Keane, says that in April 2008, he was the subject of legal action by the club. The legal threat resulted from Keane’s article in the Irish Times of April 5, 2008, in which he was criticle of United.
Says Roy Keane:
“The way it [his exit from United] ended, the legal letter, I couldn’t have gone and sat there like everything was great. He [Ferguson] would come and we all stand up and clap, I couldn’t have done that.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 18th, December 2011 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment (1)
Scarlett Johansson is now known as Loobum: ScarJo is dead
SCARLETT Johansson wants us to know that she hates being called ScarJo.In conversation with USA Today, ScarJo says:
“Oh, it’s awful. It’s a laziness. People can’t actually say the whole name? It’s just bizarre. How come Daniel Day-Lewis isn’t subjected to like, ‘DaDay’? So Cate Blanchett is not, like, ‘CaBla’? Why is that? Why do I have to get stuck with a mangled moniker?”
Usually the abbreviated names are saved for people who are entertaining and leave you comfortably numb, like Tamagotchi Pets that cry real tears: Jedward (John and Edward Grimes), SuBo (Susan Boyle), SyCo (Simon Cowell), The Hoff (David Hasselhoff) and LiLo (Lindsay Lohan).
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 17th, December 2011 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment
Lesbian pulp fiction turned on men and released women
BEFORE on-demand internet hardcore pornography was piped into every home and lipstick lesbianism sold records there was the popular erotic fiction of the 1950s and 1960s. Top of the heap was lesbian pulp fiction. These included titles like Lesbian Gym, by Peggy Swanson, and The Women of Beaver Mountain – “frustration and boredom drove them to explore newer and newer ways to make unnatural love.” If you knew the way, you could read Libido Beach – “a modern Isle of Lesbos, a sun-drenched Sodom just an hour from Manhattan.”
The lurid, titlating covers were aimed at men. But the best-written stories were for women.
The pick was Ann Bannon (the pseudonym of Ann Weldy), who wrote six lesbian pulp fiction novels known as The Beebo Brinker Chronicles. The “Queen of Lesbian Pulp Fiction” wrote of Sapphic sorority girls and Greenwich Village lesbians.
The first paperback to address a lesbian relationship was published as early as 1950. Women’s Barracks by French-born writer Tereska Torres became a sensation. Published by Gold Medal Books, the story was loosely based on Torres’ experiences in the Free French Forces in London during World War II.
Women’s Barracks sold 4 million copies and was selected in 1952 to become an example of how paperback books were promoting moral degeneracy, by the House Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 17th, December 2011 | In: Flashback, Key Posts | Comment
Sam Main Fights Alan Pollock In The Game Of Sympathies
SAM Main versus Alan Pollock is the dinner party chat of the day. Sam Main is the student who was forcibly thrown off a Scotsrail train for having the wrong ticket. Alan Pollock is the man who did the throwing.
The Dail Mail headline tells its readers:
Hounding of a first-class hero: The banker who threw a foul-mouthed student off a train could end up in court
Yeah. Alan Pollock is banker. In this Game of Sympathies, that might be a game changer.
The Mail’s Andrew Malone set a scene like Alan Pollock’s defence brief addressing the jury:
Relaxing on the train after a 12-hour day at the office, all Alan Pollock wanted — along with his fellow commuters — was for the journey to pass peacefully and painlessly.
In the Game of Sympathies, Malone has picked up a the Sympathetic Back Story card.
While his young children would be in bed by the time he got home, Mr Pollock was looking forward to a glass of wine with his wife as he headed back from his job at an investment bank in Edinburgh.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 17th, December 2011 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (15)
Jyoti Amge photos: world’s shortest woman
THE Guinness World Records says that Jyoti Amge, 18, is the shortest woman in the world.
Jyoti Amge, previously the world’s shortest teenager, is 62.8cm (24.7in) tall. She is a full is 7cm shorter than the previous record holder Bridgette Jordan.
Jyoti Amge, of Nagpur, India, has a condition called achondroplasia, a kind of dwarfism.
She tells media:
“It is wonderful to celebrate my 18th birthday with a new world record, it’s like an added birthday present. I feel grateful to be this size, after all if I weren’t small and had not achieved these world records I might never have been able to visit Japan and Europe, and many other wonderful countries.”.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 17th, December 2011 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment
The Most Women Hating And Mocking Adverts Ever: Before PC
SEX sells. This much we know. Today, sexiness, nay, sexual availability, is used to sell anything and everything. But before political correctness arrived to make porn a feminist statement, and make it no longer socially acceptable to call a black man “Sooty“, misogyny ruled. We’ve compiled a list of old school adverts that to work would, nowadays, need to come embroidered with a massive dose of irony. Or, better yet, the roles would be reversed. Current advertising mores state that men are idiots to be endured, mocked and tamed by sassy women. One day, those ads will look at ridiculous as these:
Posted: 16th, December 2011 | In: Key Posts, The Consumer | Comment
The best Christmas present ideas ever
CHRISTMAS is coming fast. You need a gift. But what to get… What to get? Panic ye not. Help is here. We’ve compiled the best gifts ever. You can’t go wrong with these. These are the best Christmas present ideas ever.
And for her…
Posted: 15th, December 2011 | In: Key Posts, The Consumer | Comment
Madeleine McCann: Metodo 3, 8 New Old Clues And NoTW Editor Myler Denies Gerry McCann
OUR Maddie: Anorak’s look at Madeleine McCann in the news: Metodo 3 PR, the News of The World denies Gerry McCann’s claim, and new old eight clues…
Daily Star: “MADELEINE MCCANN: COPS’ 8 NEW TIPS”
BRITISH police hunting for Madeleine McCann were last night examining up to eight “important” leads after meeting private eyes.
We know this, how?
Four detectives visited the Spanish HQ of the Metodo 3 investigation agency, which spent six months working for parents Kate and Gerry. The Brit officers, from a 30-strong Metropolitan Police team carrying out a review of the case, took away around 30 boxes of documents.
Go on:
The agency’s director Francisco Marco told a Spanish TV show [The Ana Rosa Programme]: “I think there are six, seven or eight very important leads in there. They were passed at the time to Portuguese police who ignored them because it was a very politicised issue.
“They didn’t want to look into anything that didn’t come from their own sources because of Portuguese chauvinism. We were never allowed to do a proper job. Scotland Yard can now continue with all the work we did inside and outside of Portugal.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 15th, December 2011 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann | Comments (2)
