England Win The Ashes In Photos: Let’s All Do The Sprinkler

THE Ashes: England won in Melbourne and retain the Ashes. Australia is now playing for that hollow sporting quality: pride. And then England rubbed salt into the smarting eyes of Ricky Ponting and his team by dancing. In public. The dance is Graeme Swann’s The Sprinkler. Dads and Stags planning the wedding, know that it goes like this: you put one hand behind your head, stretch out the other arm and pretend to be a lawn sprinkler. (Liquids and a priapic X-rated version can be added for rugby club dos.)

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Anorak

Posted: 29th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment

Merry, Happy And Delicious Kwanzaa: More Cake Less Marijuanakaa

MERRY KWANZAA! It’s seven crazy nights of a celebration that fits in between Christmas and New Year.

It’s got the lights of Diwali.

It’s got the longevity of Chanukah.

It’s got cake! Get a load of the cake! Who wants some..?

Anorak

Posted: 28th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment

Joanna Yeates’s Murder In Photos: A Blonde Victim Always Sets The New Agenda

JOANNA Yeates was murdered. The 25-year-old Bristol woman was strangled. She died from what police term a “compression of the neck”.

Police believe her body was left on a verge (not a ditch) in Longwood Lane, Failand, North Somerset “several days” before she was found.

The last known movements of Joanna Yeates were on December 17. She went to the Bargain Booze shop. She then bought a pizza in Tesco Express in Clifton. Police believe she went to her home. A receipt from her shopping trip was at the flat. The pizza was not there.

Joanna Yeates’s death is horrific and unexplained. A killer is at large. But why is her death leading the news agenda?

Anorak

Posted: 28th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment

Joanna Yeates: The Mail’s Theories, Melanie Hall And 27 Murders

JOANNA Yeates: The photos, the theories, Melanie Hall and Greg Reardon.

We do not know how 25-year-0ld Bristol Joanna Yeates died. But the Mail has a few ideas.

Alongside photos of “distraught parents” David and Teresa Yeates laying “a bouquet of yellow roses with a picture of their daughter on her graduation at the scene” where her body was found and Miss Yeates’ boyfriend Greg Reardon leaving “a bunch of red and yellow carnations at the spot”, we learn:

One theory police are believed to be working on is that Miss Yeates was abducted, knocked unconscious and then died of hypothermia after being pushed out of a car and into the snow.

Anorak

Posted: 27th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (2)

Ashes Aside, Australia Still Kings Of Marginal Sports

‘DURING the last Ashes series in 2002, we wrote about the tiresome claims of Australians – faithfully echoed by our own (largely Australian-owned) media – that theirs is a nation of sporting champions.

We easily demolished this fantasy, pointing out that Australians, like the Americans with their so-called “World Series” baseball, are careful to concentrate on sports that nobody else plays – or at least, nobody English.

We pointed out that cricket is a peripheral pastime in this country, and that when Shane Warne – one of the best players of all-time – played for Hampshire he got paid for a whole season what a top Premiership footballer would earn in a week. The only time most Englishmen watch cricket is when the Australians come to town, and then it’s a bit like watching the Harlem globetrotters – lots of clever tricks, but of no real importance.

Posted: 27th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comments (3)

Joanna Yeates: Armchair Detectives And The Suicide Bridge

JOANNA Yeates: The 25-year-old woman is dead. How the Bristol woman died and why are the subject of much speculation.

The Independent calls the death of a young woman a “tragic mystery”. The Telegraph calls it a “murder mystery”. It is neither. It is a criminal case being investigated by the police. But the press feel a need to get their readers involved. And so the death of Joanna Yeates becomes an episode of Armchair Detective.

Chief narrator is the Mail, which leads with a photo not of Jo Yeates on her own but of her with her boyfriend Greg Reardon. He lived with her and reported her as missing. Beneath the photo the Mail asks a question:

“WAS JO HELD PRISONER FOR HER EIGHT LOST DAYS?”

Anorak

Posted: 27th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment

Julian Assange Signs Book Deal With Company That Lied About Its Nazi Past

JULIAN Assange, of Wikileaks, has signed a book deal worth $1.5million. That’s not too shabby. Will it be enough for Assange to keep back a few leaks for the serialisation?

And does he need the money? On the Forums, reader Cheryl points to an article that says Assange has taken a 66,000 Euros salary from Wikileaks. CBS declares:

Wau Holland has paid a total of 100,000 Euros in salaries to the entire WikiLeaks staff, which means Assange is getting the lion’s share.

Reader Yampster take a different view:

So he’s really raking it in then. 😉

In all the German-based Wau Holland Foundation collected about $1.3 million in donations in 2010 on behalf of WikiLeaks. It will be interesting to see how much cash came from the New York Times, The Guardian and others who got early access to the leaks.

Anorak

Posted: 26th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (2)

Coco Austin Is Anorak’s Woman Of the Year

COCO Austin is Anorak’s Woman of The Year. (Image: that’s her Christmas card.)  She will most likely be Anorak’s woman of the next year to come. Coco is on Twitter dishing it to those who say she’s too big to be a mo-del:

To all these Glamour Magazines that R hating on me. Eat your heart out!Sorry that I’m too thick for you

Anorak

Posted: 26th, December 2010 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment

Who Is Hamburg’s Christmas Day Kitten Killer: 4Chan, Reddit Will Find Out

MARY Bale and Bosnian puppy tosser have nothing on this teenager thought to be from Hamburg, Germany – (the IP address of the YouTube video loader has been linked there)  – who stuck two live kittens in a plastic bag and used a vacuum cleaner to remove the air.

He filmed it and posted the video online. For added impact, you can hear the strains of John Lennon’s Merry Christmas (War Is Over) playing on.

Peta is on to him. But this one calls for 4Chan…

Anorak

Posted: 26th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comments (9)

Jeremy Marks And His British Saviour Neil Fraser: Interview

ANORAK caught up with Neil Fraser. He’s the British / Canadian Google programmer who read on Reddit about the hideous treatment of Californian teenager Jeremy Marks at the hands of a zealous, fearful police force and biased judiciary. He stepped in. His actions led directly to Marks being freed.

Neil Fraser, posted $50,000 bail to get Marks out of the Pitchess Detention Center. He tells us:

I’m a dual citizen of Britain and Canada. The US justice system is horrific. At least in Britain when you are kettled it’s only for a few hours. Whereas here, if you are poor it is indefinite detention without charge.

On the other hand, the United States does have the best legal system (and health care system) in the world – if you are rich.

In many ways the US is like a modern version of Victorian England, but with the added dimension of race.

Anorak

Posted: 25th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment

Jeremy Marks Spent Months In Jail For Filming An LA Cop Arresting A Weed Smoker: Neil Fraser Saved Him

JEREMY Marks was saved by British Google worker Neil Fraser (pictured left).

Marks was jailed for filming a LAUSD campus police officer arresting a 15-year-old boy at a bus stop for smoking a joint. The cop has a gun. The cop has pepper spray. The cop has a big stick. The cop is one Erin Robles.

She uses her baton and sprays the youth with mace. Had only marijuana been made legal, none of this would have occurred. But the law is an ass. And the youth massed about Officer Robles have little or no respect for it. None come to her aide. But, then, none assist the teenager either. They stand around filming the incident. And then a voice yells out: “Kick her ass.”

If you were the officer would you worry? She says the youth called her a “bitch” and a “dyke”. He struck her. She dropped her can of pepper spray. Another youth picked it up. The officer slams the teen’s head into the bus window. Hard.

Anorak

Posted: 24th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)

Joanna Yeates: Skiing, Architects And Pizza

JOANNA Yeates is missing. There is talk of her having been kidnapped. Her father David Yeates issues a plea:

“If she is dead, please tell somebody where she is, we want her back.”

It’s grim stuff. The 25-year-old was spotted on CCTV leaving the Ram pub in Park Street, Bristol, on December 17. Signs are that made it back to the flat she shares with boyfriend Greg Reardon. (He reported her missing.) On her way from the pub, she had bought a Tesco pizza. Det Supt Mark Saunders tells us:

“I believe on the night in question Joanna got back to her flat and this would have been shortly after 8.30pm. I believe she went back to her flat and that is because we found within the flat her coat, her mobile phone and her keys but what we have not found is any evidence of this pizza or the box or the wrapping.”

All facts. But what else?

Anorak

Posted: 24th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts | Comment (1)

Awkward Santa Claus Moments: Picture Gallery

WHAT about those scary shopping mall Santas, those men who smile as the screaming child dandles on their knee? (Who in their right mind volunteers to be a Santa Claus?) The children love Santa, so they say. Santa creeps into your room at night, kids. Don’t try to stay awake. You can’t. He waits. He knows. The Mall Santa is coming. And we have pictures of those Awkward Santa Claus Moment:

Anorak

Posted: 24th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment

Natalie Portman Smells Of Vegan And Dior Fur

NATALIE Portman, star of Black Swan and an all round babe, is the new face of Miss Dior perfume. Nice work. Only, Portman is a vegetarian activist. And she does not use animal products, like fur and leather:

I’m often interrogated about being vegetarian (e.g., “What if you find out that carrots feel pain, too? Then what’ll you eat?”).

She tells InStyle magazine:

One of the things that’s been so nice is that Dior made all of the shoes for me with no animals and no leather or anything because I don’t wear any leather… They remade all my shoes so I can wear Dior shoes without taking lives.

Phew! Good job Dior never stuck her in its fur range. Still, Portman agonised:

“It was definitely a war inside my head for a long time and finally, I was like, we can actually do something very positive with this, especially given the kind of company Dior is, which is truly elegant.”

Smell that, readers? Now that’s a perfume…

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Spotter: Blisstree, Holly Wont

er new set of animal-rights ethics:

“One of the things that’s been so nice is that Dior made all of the shoes for me with no animals and no leather or anything. They remade all of my shoes so I can wear Dior shoes without taking lives.”

One of the reasons the 29-year-old beauty decided to work with Dior was because they share the same ethics as her.

She said: “It was definitely a war inside my head for a long time and finally, I was like, we can actually do something very positive with this, especially given the kind of company Dior is, which is truly elegant.”

You won’t find many diehard fashionistas argue with that. But it must have been quite a feat to convince John Galliano to remake everything with vegan-approved materials, considering what he sent down his runway this year. Let’s just say it’s not the type of company a true vegan would associate with. Especially when the activist in question has compared eating meat to rape.

But don’t take my word for it. Consider Style.com’s narrative of Dior’s Fall 2010 Ready-to-Wear collection:

After Karlie Kloss had swept on, swirling a brown leather highwayman’s cape over a ruffled pink chiffon dress and brown thigh boots, the narrative was established: This was to be a brisk albeit slightly perfunctory trot around the circuit of Galliano’s longtime favorite eighteenth-century redingote shapes, hacking jackets, and jodhpurs, interspersed with many more of the little chiffon dresses. …

As the show took a detour into citified country clothes—checked wool pencil skirts, baker boy caps, and a blanket coat in mohair—it was the knitwear that ended up commanding the most attention. This is, after all, the season where unexpected ways of knitting have been a focal point in such influential collections as Prada and Dolce & Gabbana. Dior’s answers were a cream oversize cardigan-coat, threaded through with blue satin ribbon, and two lacy raschel-knit dresses.

The whole impression? Item by item, there was plenty to go on, from the furs—treated to a new technique that mimics dressy layered frills, edged with an eyelash fringe—to the heavily reiterated thigh boot to the dirty-pastel georgette evening gowns.

Leather, silk chiffon, wool, mohair, and fur — it takes imagination to incorporate that many animal products in one collection. Not to mention that Christian Dior Beauty — which manufactures the very perfume that is lining Natalie Portman’s pockets — is on animal-rights group’s Uncaged U.K.’s boycott list for its policy of testing on animals. In all, Dior sounds like PETA’s worst nightmare. And it would be Natalie’s as well if she could only see around those dollar signs that are clouding her vision.

Anorak

Posted: 23rd, December 2010 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment (1)

Inside Tommy Sheridan’s Manchester Sex Club: Photos

TOMMY Sheridan lied about a visit to Cupid’s, a swinger sex club in Swinton, Manchester. He said he was not an adulterer. He took the News of The World to court. He won £200,000 in damages. The NoTW said he had lied on oath. Today, a jury agreed.

Anorak

Posted: 23rd, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Politicians | Comments (3)

Christmas Is Evil: Fanatical Islam And Daily Mail Agree

MEET Abu Rumaysah. He says Christmas is evil. Boo! Hiss! Can Mr Rumaysah be the new Islamist panto villain we’ve been waiting for ever since wire bearded Omar Bakri left the Islamist scene and Abu Hamza went to jail? The Mail shares few a words with the man who has stuck up posters in Tower Hamlets, east London, decrying the evils of Christmas. Read what he says below.

If your replace the word “Islam” with “Great British values”, Abu could be reading from a letter he’d written for the paper:

“But our main attack is on the fruits of Christmas, things like alcohol abuse and promiscuity that increase during Christmas and all the other evils these lead to such as abortion, domestic violence and crime. We hope that out campaign will make people realise that Islam is the only way to avoid this and convert.”

The group runs a website called xmasisevil.com. Again, it reads like a Daily Mail letter:

“If Jesus were alive today would he join you. Of course you know very well he would not, he is someone who called for goodness and condemned evil.”

If Jesus were alive today he’d support Spurs and have a timeshare in Miami. He’d also be turning Muslims onto Christianity.

The Star’s Tom Savage tells of “fury”. But one Anorak writer who lives in the area says she can’t find any evidence of fury, and realises that the posters will soon be covered up by another poster for the Fistmas sex party (this years it’s at a disused church Stepney). And lastly, there’s Abu’s song. It’s rubbish. His 12 Days of Christmas lacks punch, rhythm, and raw singa-longa-bility:

On the 1st day of christmas my true love gave to me an S….T….D. On the 2nd day debt On the 3rd rape On the 4th tennage pregnancy Followed By An Abortion Raves Claiming God Has A Son Blasphemy Exploitation Promiscuity Night Clubs Crime Paedophilia Paganism Domestic Violence Homelessness Alcohol Drugs…

Altogether now…

Anorak

Posted: 23rd, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)

Julian Assange Suffers Like The Jews: Meet Wikileaks’s ‘Anti-Semitic’ Spokesman

JULIAN Assange says he is suffering like the Jews of 1950s America. Says Mr Wikileaks:

“I’m not the Jewish people, but the people who believe in freedom of speech and accountability [are in the same boat].”

This would be funny were Assange not being serious. This is Assange who did not want to reveal his address to the court, and who says he has some information that could damage fortunes at a big bank – but will only release it should said bank behave as he deems proper.

But the best bit is that Wikileaks is associated with “Israel Shamir,” a.k.a. Adam Ermash or Jöran Jermas.

The Guardian’s Andrew Brown says Shamir is the Wikileaks spokesman in Russia. Brown tells us:

His latest book, in Russian, is called is called How to Break the Conspiracy of the Elders of Zion.

Anorak

Posted: 22nd, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (4)

The Bay City Rollers And Ann Margaret’s Saturday Night Special: The Greatest Audience Video

YOU know the feeling. With a heavy heart, you slump down in front of the television for an evening watching The X-Factor, Britain’s Got Talent, Strictly Come Dancing, or one of a million other mind-numbing repackages of old light entertainment formulas. After a few minutes, you find yourself thinking:

“I’m sure things weren’t this bad when I was a child, and I was forced to watch the Saturday night family schedule because there was nothing else to do.”

Well, you know what? You are right.

Oh, the programmes were awful, of course. And the performers weren’t always the greatest. But the audiences… now they were something special.

Cardiff, Blackpool, Cannock, Dundee, Felixstowe – the coaches came from all four corners of the kingdom and decanted their cargo of up-for-it pensioners into theatres and studios from which the nation’s two television companies would broadcast to captive audiences of 15 million plus.

And when I say “up for it” I mean up for it.

Anorak

Posted: 22nd, December 2010 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment

Manchester City’s Mario Balotelli Is A Cock: Photos

MANCHESTER City’s stroppy teenager Mario Balotelli has won the Golden Boy trophy. This sounds like a public school trophy for the brightest catamite; or a spray-painted waiter given to the top drunk dancer at an Ibiza super-club. It turns out to be an award administered by Tuttosport, an Italian newspaper canvassing journalists’ opinions for the world’s hottest young footballing talent.

Anorak

Posted: 22nd, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment (1)

Peter Andre And Kerry Katona’s Christmas Together: What Lies Within OK!

PETER Andre is on the cover of OK!. He’s giving the camera a big muppet-mouthed smile while shoving a generous fairy cake into his daughter Princess TenaLadii’s face. Not so very long ago, the child mother, the Teflon-coated Katie Price, told us via Twitter:

“I want to withdraw them from the public eye as I want them to have as normal a childhood as possible and want them to choose what they want.”

Can this outing be related to that Tweet?

While we wonder at that, we study the latest installment in the made-for-idiots fauxmance between Peter and Kerry Katona, the former queen of own-brand ketchups. On the OK! cover, she is sat next to Peter, dandling one child on her knee while another gives us a small-toothed, hesitant smile.

Says the headline:

“Peter & Kerry – It’s Our First Christmas together.”

Anorak

Posted: 22nd, December 2010 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment

Snow: A Gallery Of Fantastic Sculptures And Designs

SNOW. Like George Bush, France and an intense itch, you miss it when it’s gone. Anorak has been out on the snow-covered internets looking for interesting snow sculptures and designs. Now feast your eyes upon the wonder of the snow killers, hitchers, sleepers and lovers…

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Anorak

Posted: 22nd, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment

Sir Paul McCartney Plays Liverpool As Heather Mills Recalls Her Life As Penny Lane: Photos

HEATHER Mills’ words were still ringing in our ears as Sir Paul McCartney played a concert at the Carling 02 Academy in his home city of Liverpool. The latest rumour on the internet is that at a meet-the-teachers night for Mills and Sir Paul’s daughter Beatrice, the child was praised for her skill with the saxophone. Mills, aka Penny Lane, is alleged to have replied:

“Yes. She gets that from me.”

This is augmented by another quote form the women known locally as Lovely Rita:

I ask if Beatrice is musical. “Well, yeah, because all her family are – I play saxophone and oboe, my brother plays bass trombone and has a rock band, my sister plays the flute, my mother played piano and my dad played six instruments, so…”

Anorak

Posted: 22nd, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Music | Comments (4)

Julian Assange: Is Wikileaks Blackmailing Bank Of America?

IT turns out that once more Julian Assangve, of Wikileaks, is not all that fond of openness. The Times leads with news that Assange is upset with Nick Davies, the Guardian reporter, who published details of Assange’s allegedly terrible sex with one of the two Swedish women who claims he sexually abused them. The choicest cut of this is that Assange accuses Davies of – get his – “selectively publishing” the more interesting parts. Yep, he accuses Davies of journalism.

Indeed, readers. This is the same Assange who tells us that he has enough material to, as the Times says, “destroy the bosses of one of the world’s biggest banks”. But he won’t tell us know. He prefers to sit on the information until such a time as it suits him.

Anorak

Posted: 21st, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)

Awkward Christ Cards: A Wonderful Gallery Of The Terrible

CHRISTMAS cards are a big deal. They say some much about you. Firstly, they say that you are the kind of person who sends cards. If you send a charity card, the missive says that you care, and want others to know it. But what about those cards that carry photos of you and your family? What do they say? We’ve compiled a gallery of awkward, terrible and wonderful Christmas cards. You cannot help but enjoy them…

You will love: Santa Clause (Awkward Santa Photos)

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Anorak

Posted: 21st, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment

EastEnders Cast Come Out In Support Of Julian Assange: Wikileaks TV

JULIAN Assange is a hero of EastEnders, that slice of life BBC soap opera. A reader writes that it was great to see Jane Beale, Ian Beale’s long-suffering wife, lending her support to the Wikileaks’s founder’s cause in the face of an alleged rape. (If you have been affected by the issues raised in this story, then please seek urgent medial help from your primary carer…)

Julian Assange: the HIV; the rape allegations; the crap sex; his dating profile; the Asian teen stalkers; his love emails; the lying cables; the lying cables; the dead bodies; the angst; the pile; and the celebs.

Anorak

Posted: 20th, December 2010 | In: Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment