Key Posts Category
Chelsea balls: Sarri sacked for £5m; Lampard tops wish list; Manchester City told keys
Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri will be sacked if they lose Sunday’s Carabao Cup final to Manchester City, says the BBC. Sarri will be Chelsea boss for the length of an internship should his side lose to the same City side that thrashed them 6-0 days ago. Get packing, then. This news is echoed in the Mirror, which on February 11 led its sports coverage with: “MAURIZIO SARRI is facing the sack after Chelsea’s heaviest Premier League defeat.” The Mirror added on February 18: “CHELSEA will stick to their new ‘Sarri-ball’ style, even if if (sic) costs the manager his job this week.”
The Mirror’s plan seems to be keep saying Sarri will be sacked and when he is – and, of course he will be one day – say ‘Told yer!’ But the Mirror has form in getting it wrong:
As for Sarri’s eventual sacking, the Sun says it would cost Chelsea £5m – the cheapest pay-off for a manager since Roman Abramovich bought the club in 2003.
Minds turn to who will replace Sarri? Sky Sports says Derby manager Frank Lampard and Real Madrid boss Zinedine Zidane head the list. Layers are working on their early-exit clauses as we speak.
Unless Chelsea win the Carabao Cup – in which case the Mirror will report that Sarri will be sacked ‘soon’…
Posted: 20th, February 2019 | In: Arsenal, Back pages, Key Posts, Sports, Tabloids | Comment
Shamima Begone! ISIS member is up ‘Brit Creek’ as Home Office removes citizenship
Shamima Begum, the Londoner who joined the Islamic State group in Syria aged 15, will not be coming ‘home’ to the UK. The Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, has revoked her citizenship. He writes to her parents: “In light of the circumstances of your daughter, the notice of the Home Secretary’s decision has been served on file today (19th February), and the order moving her British citizenship has subsequently been made.”
Begum’s family say they will explore “all legal avenues to challenge this decision”. All roads lead to “Brit creek” says the Star. Or Asia. Shamima Begum holds Bangladeshi as well as British citizenship which allowed the Home Office to go ahead, says Sky News. She’s not stateless. The Home Office acted quickly. The UK’s gain is Bangladesh’s loss.
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Sir Ed Davey says the UK is “palming off” Ms Begum to another country – which ISIS isn’t, despite its violent attempts to become one.
On BBC TV’s Newsnight King’s College London’s Shiraz Maher opines: “I think it’s a very dangerous decision, it does create this perception that there is a two-tier system and a system that’s frankly racist.” Perception is not fact. It all depends on you angle of approach. Come closer, within stabbing distance, and look at Shamima Begum?
But really? If the government can revoke Shamima Begum’s citizenship, it can cancel your, too. At least it can if you associate with people it does not like.
Posted: 20th, February 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Tabloids | Comment
Matt Kuchar should have paid his caddie the correct rate
Matt Kuchar has earned well over $45m in prize money playing golf. Last November he did something the judgemental among us can enjoy. Kuchar, 40, won the Mayakoba Golf Classic in Mexico and banked the $1,296,000 winner’s cheque. His regular caddie was unavailable. So Kuchar hired local man David Ortiz. Caddies typically get 10% of first-prize winnings. Kuchar gave Ortiz $5,000. “He was definitely my lucky charm,” Kuchar said. “He brought me good luck and certainly some extra crowd support and did a great job as well. He did just what I was hoping for and looking for.”
Fair pay? In a way, it was. Kuchar and Ortiz had agreed a $4000 payment for a Top 10 finish. The extra $1000 was a bonus. Kuchar recognised that the $4,000 was low, so he topped it up by 25%. But that was a low act.
And then it got worse. Ortiz politely asked Kucha’s management to dig deeper. How much would be enough? Ortiz gave the figure: $50,000 – still less than half what a regular caddie could expect. Kuchar’s agent offered him $15,000. Ortiz then did the smart thing: he talked to the media. Journalist Michael Bamberger spoke to Kuchar. His reply is worth repeating. “I kind of think someone got in his ear,” said Kuchar. “For a guy who makes $200 a day, a $5,000 week is a really big week.” Bang! Bamberger had a story of greed and entitlement anyone can tuck into.
Faced with bad press, Kuchar spoke about the matter:
“It’s kind of too bad that it’s turned into a story. I really didn’t think it was a story because we had an arrangement when I started. I ended up paying him $5,000 and I thought that was more than what we agreed upon. So I certainly don’t lose sleep over this. This is something that I’m quite happy with, and I was really happy for him to have a great week and make a good sum of money. Making $5,000 is a great week.”
Oh dear. But then after more unfavourable reaction to the stinginess and reports of heckling at a subsequent tournament – “Go low, Kuch…just not on the gratuity!” yelled one spectator off the sixth tee. Fans cheered a missed putt on the 12th, and chants of “Mooch” could be heard throughout the day” – an apology finally arrived. Kuchar agreed to pay Ortiz $50,000:
“This week, I made comments that were out of touch and insensitive, making a bad situation worse. They made it seem like I was marginalising David Ortiz and his financial situation, which was not my intention. I read them again and cringed. That is not who I am and not what I want to represent. In this situation, I have not lived up to those values or to the expectations I’ve set for myself. I let myself, my family, my partners and those close to me down, but I also let David down. I plan to call David, something that is long overdue, to apologise for the situation he has been put in, and I have made sure he has received the full total that he has requested.”
When you tell the media first that you plan to call someone you short-changed and belittled, it’s all about the publicity. Kuchar pressed on:
“I never wanted to bring any negativity to the Mayakoba Golf Classic. I feel it is my duty to represent the tournament well, so I am making a donation back to the event, to be distributed to the many philanthropic causes working to positively impact the communities of Playa del Carmen and Cancun.For my fans, as well as fans of the game, I want to apologise to you for not representing the values instilled in this incredible sport.”
Screw the eponymous donation to the needy and the grandstanding. Just pick up the phone to Ortiz, apologise and on the quiet pay the guy the full whack. Don’t stop at $50,000. Pay him the $120,000.
Kuchar’s regular caddie, John Wood, then chimed in: “Nobody’s perfect. All we can do when a mistake is made is reconsider, apologise and make amends… To crucify for one mistake feels wrong.”
It does. But when anyone hears the name Matt Kuchar, they’ll always remember him for what he did wrong.
Posted: 19th, February 2019 | In: Key Posts, Money, Sports | Comment
Shamima Begum: Jeremy Corbyn understands you
Do we really care what Shamima Begum thinks of us? If you sign up to the view that Begum is a victim of grooming, a victim of sexual exploitation as one nodding head opined on Sky telly yesterday, a victim of the UK’s lax security in allowing 15-year-old to leave the country, as she was when she left London for Syria, a victim… you buy into the message that nothing she says is an expression of her own thoughts, they’re words planted in her throat by nefarious types who rape children, enslave women, decapitate men and throw homosexuals from tall buildings.
But if you believe in free will, consider it questionable that Begum was a passive web-surfer looking for pop vids who was mind-altered and “brainwashed” when she saw a preacher extolling jihad, you’ll afford her the dignity of self. What she says is what she means. So when she talks about the murders of 22 people and the injuries sustained by 800 more when a fellow ISIS fan bombed an Arianna Grande concert in Manchester, you know she’s saying what she thinks. “How dare she?” asks the Sun, which claims she says the attack was justified. “How could she?” asks the Express. Answer: she’s a self-declared jihadi. Murdering infidels is what they do.
“Even though I was only 15 years old, I could make my own decisions,” says Begum. “But I will admit, it’s my fault right now. I just want forgiveness from the UK. Everything I’ve been through, I didn’t expect I would go through that.”
But she continues to talk. And she doesn’t come over as being all that bright:
“Isis Briton compares Manchester bombing to western airstrikes. I do feel that is wrong. Innocent people did get killed. It’s one thing to kill a soldier, it’s fine, it’s self-defence. But to kill people like women and children, just like the women and children in Baghuz who are being killed right now unjustly by the bombings. It’s a two-way thing really…
“This is kind of retaliation. Their justification was that it was retaliation so I thought that is a fair justification. That was unfair on them … They weren’t fighting anyone. They weren’t causing any harm. But neither was I and neither [were the] other women who are being killed right now back in Baghuz.”
It’s muddled thinking. And it’s not a lot unlike the sort of thing you hear from Jeremy Corbyn’s fans for whom moral equivalence is a moveable target. Like Corbyn, Begum was there but not participating.
Joanna Williams touched on the same in a story about Labour’s problem with Jews and the Party’s attitude to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, which after much hand-ringing and self-serving bullshit it adopted in full:
The idea that the Labour Party champions free speech beggars belief. Amid the protests and counterprotests surrounding the NEC meeting, activists – including those previously expelled from the party over claims of anti-Semitism – chanted ‘IHRA no, BDS yes’. The mental gymnastics involved in rejecting a definition of anti-Semitism in order to defend free speech in the very same breath as backing a campaign that curtails academic freedom and free cultural exchange are astonishing. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement aims to stop singers, sports stars and actors performing in Israel and explicitly calls for the censorship of Israeli scholars and scientists abroad. In putting a political and geographical proviso on free speech, BDS activists negate the entire principle.
It’s not me, it’s them, says Begum. They made me do it but I also went of my own free will. Verstehen sie? So forgive me. Look only to yourselves. Because in this age of narcissism, it’s all abut you.
Posted: 19th, February 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Tabloids | Comment
‘We’re fu**ed’: Labour split press conference gets X-rated voiceover
Seven Labour MPs announced their split from the party in a press conference. Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie, Angela Smith, Mike Gapes, Gavin Shuker and Ann Coffey, announced their decision to a packed room. The microphones picked up a running commentary: ‘We’re fucked”:
Posted: 18th, February 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment
Labour is racist to the core: three cheers for the Magnificent 7 – Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie, Angela Smith, Mike Gapes, Gavin Shuker and Ann Coffey
Yes! A vote for Labour is a vote for Jew hatred. Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie, Angela Smith, Mike Gapes, Gavin Shuker and Ann Coffey did the right thing. Fuck you, Jew haters. Just fuck you!
The above are the MPs have resigned from the Labour Party in protest at Jeremy Corbyn’s approach to Brexit and anti-Semitism. They took a stand.
Ms Berger says Labour is institutionally anti-Semitic. She became “embarrassed and ashamed” to stay. Hurrah! Where are the rest of you?
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn says he’s “disappointed”. Balls. He’s chuffed. He can now look to replace them with some loyalists less sensitive to his myopia.h
The Magnificent 7 will sit in Parliament as the Independent group.
Note: For the past few years I’ve seen the growth of antisemitism first hand – the violence (yeah – I got in a fight); the casual Jew hatred; the mainstreaming of racism (I believe they’re called ‘tropes’ – rich Jew; powerful Jew; bloodthirsty Jew; barbaric Jew; disloyal Jew); and the shameful acquiescence to it in politics, society, over a pint, among ‘friends’, and at school, where a child told one of my own as she pushed her from a group that Jews were not allowed the play; Jews were not allowed to her house; Jews could not come to the party. The school did NOTHING. And not one parent would go on the record and back us up when we complained. Shame on you all.
Posted: 18th, February 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment
Shamima Begum wants sympathy for the devil
Shamima Begum says she deserves our sympathy. The newspapers largely disagree. Begum is the women who at age 15 wilfully travelled to join ISIS.
You might sympathize with the Christian women and children ISIS sold as slaves and raped – “They usually take the older women to a makeshift slave market and try and sell them. The younger girls… are raped or married off to fighters. It’s based on temporary marriages, and once these fighters have had sex with these young girls, they just pass them on to other fighters”; Keith Palmer, the policeman murdered as he guarded democracy in Westminster; the Kurds butchered; David Haines, an aide worker beheaded as he helped the stricken at a refugee camp; Olivia Campbell-Hardy, who was 15 when she was murdered at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester – a death ISIS celebrated wildly. You want more? Is that not enough? Here’s one more: ISIS loved it when the guys and gels murdered Saffie Roussos. Like Olivia and so many others, Saffie was watching a pop concert when she was murdered. “She loved life, she loved music,” her dad Andrew told the BBC. Sympathy? Your heart breaks for him.
No more. The Sun has heard enough. It tells Shamima Begum to jog on. It quotes Conservative MP David Davies as saying: “The only thing she regrets is that ISIS lost.” The paper’s editorial calls on the government to look at “every legal avenue” to ensure that she never returns to Britain.
“The Daily Mirror focuses on Begum’s statement to Sky TV that she initially had a “good time” in Islamic State. The 19-year-old does not regret joining the extremist group.
The Mail hears Begum say he was just a “housewife” in ISIS. She cooked, cleaned and was ok with the beheadings. Well, so long as she can get the bloodstains off the towels and hubby didn’t use her best knife to slice off the infidels’ heads, all’s good.
In the Times, Tasnime Akunjee, a solicitor hired by her family to help bring her back to Britain, opines: “In terms of the political landscape what she’s saying isn’t helpful [but] she’s somebody who was persuaded to go out there. She will need help. She will obviously have to be de-radicalised.”
Doesn’t she just need locking up? She’s no victim.
He adds: The Nazis had the Nuremberg trials. They were given due process. This girl was a victim when she went out there at 15 years old. Our politicians are saying that she should be denied protections and due process that would have been granted to Nazis.”
Yeah, good one Tasnime. They also had the death penalty. Keep working on that defence…
Gilet jaune vs Star Wars
To Paris, where the gilet jaune movement is serenading the local police with a burst of Star Wars:
The armed police, water cannon, tanks, guns, rubber bullet and doesn’t stand a chance against the mighty trumpet.
Paul Hollywood’s sex life: dreams of Summer Lovin’
Paul Hollywood is the subject of a Great British headline in the Great British Sun. Hollywood is a star of The Great British Bake Off, a TV show proving that if you use ‘Great British’ as an epithet, anything can be improved. The shock is that no-one has called it the Great British Brexit and Channel 4 has yet to broadcast 100 Great British murders. But give it time.
Hollywood is newsworthy because a) he dresses like a late middle-aged divorcee on the pull in a provincial nightclub – big cuffs, open neck shirt, diver’s watch, fringed mouth – chasing the kind of women you imagine they couldn’t pull when they were in their twenties; and b) the 52-year-old’s 23-year-old lover has had a run-in with his 54-year-old (estranged) wife.
Alex (wife) is said to have called Summer Monteys-Fullam (lover) a “slut” and a “whore”. Since both are badges of honour, we wonder if Summer thanked Alex? She didn’t. She called the police complaining of harassment.
We then get to see a photo of Summer and her sister Saskia (26) – their mum is called Sabina (48) – giving the world the finger via Instagram – which affords the Sun the chances to appraise the £9,000 ring Hollywood gave Summer and try to fathom the image’s accompanying message: “Got youuuuuuuu.” What to make of that? And what to make of the Sun’s opinion that this was a “bust-up” between “Paul’s women”? This is how you describe the main player in a televised mid-life car-crash. You get on first name terms with the man of whom Summer once stated on Instagram, having first labelled him her “amazing boyfriend”, he “turned me from a girl to a woman, and to a house woman”.
No word of reply to that from ‘Paul’. But it’s not hard to imagine that in his head he’s swaying his hips, tossing his soft leather blouson biker’s jacket over his shoulder and in the manner of John Travolta in Grease telling the Viagra poppers at the country club about his latest bout of ‘Summer lovin’.
Posted: 16th, February 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Tabloids | Comment
Shamima Begum: the making of a martyr
Is Shamima Begum’s situation all about Islam? Called “foolish” and an “abstract concept” for joining ISIS, media reaction to the teenager who joined an outfit committed to mass murder, who expresses no remorse for having done so, can be compared and contrasted to the treatment meted out to the Covington Boys. Like Begum, the Covington boys are religious, attending a US Catholic high school.
They are mostly white. Begum is dark skinned, her parents hail from Bangladesh. The Covington boys’ crime was to have attended the anti-abortion March for Life rally in Washington, D.C. and in the face of a prolonged verbal onslaught by the Black Hebrews as they waited for coaches home – during which they were called “fagots” and “products of incest and paedophiles” – were filmed smirking at Nathan Phillips, a Native American who had approached them. For this the boys were called “vermin“, racists, Trump fans whose MAGA hats were “akin to the new white hood” and “products of a hate factory”. The boys were the embodiment of “blatant hate, disrespect and intolerance”. Begum, on the other hand, was “groomed“.
The Covington boys apologised, although it remains unclear to anyone sane what they did wrong. Being a surly, sarky teen is no crime.
Begum has expressed no remorse. She says she only left the battlefields to return to the UK and have a child on the NHS.
What is it about fair-mined liberals that turns white, Catholic teenage boys in baseball caps into something less than human and demonic, but presents a dark-skinned, Islamic teenage girl who joined a death cult into a victim? They marched peacefully to end abortion. She joined a group that pledges to murder gays, Jews and Christians, rapes underage girls sold in slave markets, and murdered children at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester. They smirked and danced. Her reaction at being shown the remains of her gang’s handiwork was “When I saw my first severed head it didn’t faze me at all”.
The prejudice is blatant. But why is it there?
Not that this is to say anti-Islam bigotry is not prevalent. The Mail gives space to Tania Joy, a former jihadi who “called for Begum to be given a second chance for the sake of her unborn child – and for a law ‘to protect children from their religion’.” Ban Islam? Make it a crime to be Muslim? Why give space to such an abhorrent view?
The argument that all of Islam is to blame for a death cult is patently absurd. What of the Islamists’ many Muslim victims? But let’s no dig too deep. If you need more time to work out why calls to ban a religion are revolting, why are you here?
The paper adds:
In comments that place much of the blame on Islam rather than on personal responsibility, she added: “I wish there was a law in England that could protect children from their religion.
“If I had grown up in an agnostic, atheist, or even a Christian or Jewish home, I would not have been exposed to these suppressive ideas of women and how god controls everything – and it is just such a lie.
“I feel sorry for [Shamima], she is so young, she has been in a toxic environment for all these years where she is not allowed to think anything different from the rest of the group. She is still in that state. She is only 19 and that’s when I radicalised.
Can Shamima Begum be saved by turning away from Islam and towards Jesus?
Today, estranged from her British family, Miss Joya is the wife of IT executive Craig Bruma, 49, who answered an advert she placed on dating website match.com stating: ‘I have four kids. My husband abandoned me to go and become the next Osama Bin Laden.’
Twice divorced himself and a father of three sons, he has introduced her to ‘Unitarian Universalism’, which is based in Christianity but advocates a ‘search for spiritual growth’.
Mohammed kills. Jesus saves. An odd take on the Shamima Begum story, for certain. And it avoids the biggest question: why did Shamima Begum seek an alternative life with ISIS to the one offered in the UK? It’s lazy to see her as a passive target of grooming. You don’t happen along a video of a man preaching genocide and global jihad, keep watching and eventually sign up unless his message chimed with you. And you don’t prevent social division of a sort so violent it ends up in mass murder by presenting one group as eternal, unalloyed victims who must be tip-toed around less offence be caused.
Come home, Shamima, by all means. Face your days of reckoning. But let’s not let prejudice turn her into a martyr.
Shamima Begum: ‘I want to live a quiet life with my baby’ away from the cameras
Shamima Begum’s story that will only grow. Today the Times, which spotted Begum living in the al-Hawl refugee camp in Syria, tells us that the teenager who left London to join Islamic State in Syria wants to come home and raise her baby.
Now 19 and nine-months pregnant, Begum is the subject of heated debate. One Times writer says Begum is nothing but a “credulous fool”. She “has suffered the unspeakable tragedy of seeing two infants die for want of effective hospital care”. She “fled a brutal battlefield”. And “yet it is all but impossible to feel sorry for her”. It’s the bits about viewing severed heads with a dispassionate eye and having no remorse for signing up to ISIS that grinds. “That’s why I really want to get back to Britain,” she says pointing to her unborn child, “because I know it will be taken care of, health-wise at least.” Entitled, moi?
“What do you think will happen to my child?” she asks. It’s a good question. “Because I don’t want it to be taken away from me, or at least if it is, to be given to my family.” The baby dad, the Dutch jihadist Yago Riedijk, whom she loves “very much” is busy helping those fighters allied to the Syrian Democratic Forces who nabbed him with their enquiries.
“I knew that coming back to the UK wouldn’t be a quiet thing. It’s uncomfortable,” she adds. “If I ever do go back, it’ll be a long time before the cameras stop and all the questions stop.” She sees media intrusion affecting her stated desire to “come home and live quietly with my child”. Unless she means the cameras in a secure unit, which she most likely does not.
Pristine copy of first Super Mario Bros game sells for $100,150
To the attic! An unopened copy of Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. original 1985 game has sold at auction for $100,150.
From the auction house:
“Beyond the artistic and historical significance of this game is its supreme state of preservation,” says Kenneth Thrower, co-founder and chief grader of Wata Games.
Due to its popularity, Nintendo reprinted Super Mario Bros. from 1985 to 1994 numerous times, resulting in 11 different box variations (according to this visual guide). The first two variations are “sticker sealed” copies that were only available in the New York and L.A. test market launch of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985 and 1986. Of all the sealed copies of Super Mario Bros., this is the only known “sticker sealed” copy and was certified by Wata Games with a Near Mint grade of 9.4 and a “Seal Rating” of A++.
“Not only are all of NES sticker sealed games extremely rare, but by their nature of not being sealed in shrink wrap they usually exhibit significant wear after more than 30 years,” Thrower said. “This game may be the condition census of all sticker sealed NES games known to exist.”
A group of collectors joined forces Feb. 6 to purchase the game, including some of the biggest names in video games and collectibles as a whole. The buyers include Jim Halperin, Founder and Co-Chairman of Heritage Auctions of Dallas, Texas; Zac Gieg, owner of Just Press Play Video Games in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Rich Lecce, renowned coin dealer, pioneering video game collector, and owner of Robert B. Lecce Numismatist Inc of Boca Raton, Florida.
“Super Mario Bros. is not only the most recognizable game of all time, it saved the video game industry in 1985,” said Wata Games President, Deniz Kahn. “In terms of rarity, popularity, and relevance to collectors, this game has it all. Mario is the most recognized fictional or non-fictional character in the world, more so than even Mickey Mouse. Super Mario Bros. launched the world’s largest game franchise and this copy is the only known sealed example from Nintendo’s test market release…
“Gieg called this example the equivalent of the valuable comic book, Action Comics #1. “This is first appearance of Superman of video games,” he said. “We all knew how hard it is to find an open copy of this version in nice condition, but to find one still sealed is truly something I thought I would never see, even after selling vintage video games for over 20 years”
Spotter: Heritage Auctions
Posted: 15th, February 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Technology, The Consumer | Comment
The taming of Shamima Begum: British teen who joined ISIS wants to come home
Teenagers, eh. They slam doors, get pierced and run off to join ISIS in Syria, where they pledge Holy War, death to Jews, Christians and gays, and champion the subjugation of women, rapes and paedophilia. Shamima Begum, 19, is the British-born bride of an ISIS fighter and nine months pregnant. She wants to come home.
In February 2015, Begum left the UK to join ISIS. The Mail sums it all up in a long headline: “Unrepentant former London schoolgirl, 19, who ran away to join ISIS with two friends flees last-stand battle while ‘nine months pregnant with third baby’ after two more children died in Syrian warzone and begs to come home.”
Got it? You can read more in the Times, which tracked Begum down. The paper’s man in a sandpit finds her “weak and exhausted from her escape across the desert”. She “nevertheless looked calm and spoke with a collected voice.” Can we lend a sympathetic ear to the young woman who left Bethnal Green to see the world (and conquer it by deadly force).
Anthony Loyd, reporting from Al‑ Hawl, Northern Syria, where Begum lives in a refugee camp, then delivers a cinematic moment:
With those words and the act of lifting her niqab, a mystery ended. The girl sitting before me, alone in a teeming Syrian refugee camp of 39,000 people where she is registered as No 28850, was Shamima Begum, the only known survivor of the three schoolgirls from Bethnal Green Academy whose fate has been unknown at home since they fled Britain together in 2015 to join Islamic State.
Where is David Lean when you need him most to overlook the pubescent boys being sold in the market, the slave girls and the murderous racism to focus on the cheekbones and to-die-for pashminas?
And on it goes, the soft focus look at the woman who dared and is now demure. One Guardian writer tells us: “Having been found alive and nine months pregnant in a Syrian refugee camp, Begum is no longer an abstract concept.” What gutless, pliable tosh. An abstract concept doesn’t charge at your mum with a knife.
Security Minister Ben Wallace says Begum “has a right to come home”. He added: “British citizens have rights whoever they are but if they have gone join IS and return to the UK they can expect to be questioned and, if possible, prosecuted… Actions have consequences. I think the public will be reflecting on why these people want to return to a country they said they hate.”
Why? Take a seat. Grab the popcorn:
“I was weak,” she told me of her flight from the battle in Baghuz, with something akin to remorse. “I could not endure the suffering and hardship that staying on the battlefield involved. But I was also frightened that the child I am about to give birth to would die like my other children if I stayed on. So I fled the caliphate. Now all I want to do is come home to Britain.”
Begum is showing “something skin of remorse” to Times readers. But on LBC radio Dr Kim Howells, a former Foreign Office and Counter-Terrorism Minister, is raging:
“You can bet your bottom dollar there will be a lobby that will swing into action to get this girl home on humanitarian grounds. But she sounds to be completely unrepentant, she sounds cynical, she said she wasn’t phased by the sight of these heads in a bin as she described it. And she sounds well educated. She was obviously deluded by Islamic propaganda and now she wants to take advantage of the NHS. She wants to get back to a country which is the antithesis of this Caliphate that was so attractive for so many people and responsible for so much brutality. There’s not going to be many people with great enthusiasm for bringing her back, but I suspect she will make it in the end.”
Must she sound anything other than herself? The two friends Begum left London with – Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase – also each married an ISIS foreign fighter. Ms Sultana was reported killed two years ago. Here are some more highlights from Begum’s jaunt:
On her Dutch-born husband, a Muslim convert:
“They imprisoned and tortured him for six and a half months after accusing him of spying. There was a lot of similar oppressions of innocent people. In some cases fighters who had fought for the caliphate were executed as spies even though they were innocent.”
On city life:
“Mostly it was a normal life in Raqqa, every now and then bombing and stuff,. But when I saw my first severed head in a bin it didn’t faze me at all. It was from a captured fighter seized on the battlefield, an enemy of Islam. I thought only of what he would have done to a Muslim woman if he had the chance.”
And then the camera zooms in:
Though Ms Begum’s husband still urged her to be patient, grief at the loss of her two children accentuated an overwhelming desire to ensure her unborn child survived. “In the end, I just could not endure any more,” she said. “I just couldn’t take it.”
Will there be a sequel?
“The caliphate is over,” she said. “There was so much oppression and corruption that I don’t think they deserved victory. I know what everyone at home thinks of me as I have read all that was written about me online. But I just want to come home to have my child. That’s all I want right now. I’ll do anything required just to be able to come home and live quietly with my child.”
Anything? Names. Places. Dates. And maybe we can swap Begum for one of the Yazidi women enslaved and raped by her old gang? And if they need staff, Begum’s looking for a new career…
Madeleine McCann: three cops; one source; and freedom of no information request
There’s been very little news of Madeleine McCann. The story has lost its push. But the Star and other tabloids plough gamely on, waiting for an new fact to add to the only one we know: child vanishes.
The Star, Sun and Mail all bring news that police were “secretly investigated for misconduct”. To the Star and Sun they are “Madeleine McCann cops”, part of the missing child’s private and personalised police force. The Mail and Star’s stories are based entirely on the Sun’s.
The Sun’s scoop tells readers that the police officers who worked on the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance were accused of “neglect or failure in their duty”. The Sun sums up:
Each officer was accused of “neglect or failure in their duty” while working on the Met Police’s £12million investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance. But two allegations were not upheld and one was later withdrawn after Scotland Yard found there was no case to answer.
It is not clear if the complaints were made by members of the public or Madeleine’s family.
Sources even hinted that internet trolls could be responsible.
We know that no officers did anything wrong thanks to a freedom of information request. And after the facts, we get the theorising in the Star:
Madeleine’s parents Kate, 50, and Gerry, 49, of Rothley, Leics, believe their girl, who would now be 16, could still be alive.
Believe. Could. Guexses and hunches in place of news and facts.
And in the Sun we get an unnamed “source “to tell us:
One said: “Because the precise details of the allegations aren’t made public, it’s entirely possible good officers have been subjected to a complaints process even though there may be little merit in the allegations against them.”
There may be little merit in the story; there may be some merit in the story. The source is available for comment either way…
Posted: 14th, February 2019 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, News, Tabloids | Comment
Creating Anti-Vax news for clicks; Darla Shine says measles is ‘LOL’; LadBible accused; cancer patients worry
Darla Shine used to be a producer for Fox News producer. She’s married to Bill Shine, the White House deputy chief of staff of communications. Darla thinks a measles outbreak in Washington state and Oregon is terrific. A highly infectious viral illness is “LOL”:
Fame beckons. So she trolled on:
Darla might well realise that because measles is riding high on the news cycle, clicks can be had by whopping it up for anti-vax and science deniers. The LadBible gets it.
And Darla? Hey, fame costs, and if an outbreak of measles is the price, so be it:
If your immunes system is weak – say, by chemotherapy – you can thank the anti-vaxers for making life that much more perilous.
Tara C. Smith noted:
What many forget is that we had a massive outbreak of measles in the United States from 1989–1991. While our 644 cases in 2014 seems high compared with recent years, 25 years ago measles incidence spiked to 18,000 cases per year, with a total of more than 55,000 infections before the outbreak began to dwindle. It was the largest measles outbreak in this country since the 1970s. … Despite our advances and our modernity and our status as a developed country, we still saw 123 measles deaths during this epidemic—here, in the United States, where we get plenty of Vitamin A. There were also 11,000 hospitalizations—fully one-fifth of people infected with measles became sick enough to be hospitalized.
Eugenics is back.
Phone lottery scammer tried to con former CIA and FBI boss William Webster; scammer lost
Keniel A Thomas, 29, was a scammer who could not fail – not until he called William Webster (born March 6, 1924), the man who served as chief of the CIA and FBI. Thomas is now serving a six-year sentence. “Everybody’s vulnerable every grandmother, every grandfather,” said the former spy chief’s wife, Lynda Webster. “It seemed to me that something wasn’t quite right,” said Webster, 94. “This was pretty obvious to me that there was something fishy about it.”
The calls to the Webster home started in March 2014, with various men calling to tell William Webster he had won the lottery. In June, Thomas began calling, identifying himself as “David Morgan,” a manager with Mega Millions. However, Webster saw that he had an email address of keniel.thomas@outlook.com. He asked “Morgan” to stop calling, but Thomas not only continued to call but also sent more than 20 emails to Webster. At one point in July 2014, Thomas called Lynda Webster and told her that he knew no one was at her home the previous night. In another call, Thomas told Lynda Webster, “So easy that we go set your house ablaze, how is that? … You can be taken care of that easy.”
The FBI was able to link the Websters to other victims who had reported sending funds to Thomas or interacting with “David Morgan,” or who had sent funds to American middlemen who were also victims. Agents tracked payments through Western Union and MoneyGram to Thomas or members of his family, court records show. One California man reported receiving certified checks in exchange for sending “fees” to Jamaica, and wound up sending $85,000 to the scammers even though the certified checks all bounced.
Spotter: Washington Post
Posted: 13th, February 2019 | In: Key Posts, Money, News | Comment
Emiliano Sala: Daily Mirror turns his girlfriend into clickbait
Before he died during a flight over the English Channel, the British media was not interested in Emiliano Sala. Signed by Cardiff City from Nantes for a club record fee of £15 million (€18 million), Sala became front-page news when the plane carrying him to Wales crashed. Terrible. But not all bad to the Mirror, which seeks to milk the story with a tale of Sala’s “secret lover”.
Oh, you wonder. Was the Argentine footballer married and playing away from home? No. He wasn’t married. So why was his lover a “secret”. Well, she wasn’t. Luiza Ungerer and Sala had been dating since 2017. She’s been talking to Globo in her native Brazil about her love for him, recalling how fans used to pat him on the back as they strolled together round Nantes.
Photos of the couple are all over Instagram. Not clandestine shots of them sneaking about. These are phots of them on their social media accounts. The Mirror opts to feature one of Ungerer in a bikini on the beach. Give never looked so titillating.
Journalism, eh. It’s not all speaking truth to power. Sometimes it’s shameless clickbait.
Posted: 13th, February 2019 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment
Katy Perry blackface shoes are racist
You can see your face in Katy Perry’s shoes. Well, you can if you work as a black and White Minstrel. Perry’s shoes are no longer in store on account of them having a blackface design and so being based on racist caricatures.
Katy Perry Collections is not as woke as Katy Perry, and the offending footwear has been removed from sale. Did anyone buy the shoes?
“I’ve made several mistakes,” said Perry in 2017. “I won’t ever understand, but I can educate myself and that’s what I’m trying to do along the way.”
Mind your step as you go.
Posted: 12th, February 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, The Consumer | Comment
Ilhan Omar singles out those ‘evil’ Jews who owe allegiance to a foreign power
Ilhan Omar has done her bit to prove that the far Right doesn’t have a monopoly on antisemitism (see: Corbyn J). Omar, one of just two Muslim women in the US Congress and a Somali refugee, posited the considered and not in the least bit racist view that support for Israel among her fellow politicians was fueled by money from a pro-Israel lobby group.
Ms Omar represents the state of Minnesota. But, as with so many on the Left, her narrow thoughts are dominated by Jews. She tweeted: “It’s all about the Benjamins baby.” That’s a reference to $100 bills, which feature an image of Benjamin Franklin (not a Jew). A kind heart on Twitter asked her who she thought was behind US politicians’ support of Israel.
Ms Omar was quick to the punch. “AIPAC!,” she exclaimed, a reference to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat speaker of the House, express an opinion: “Congresswoman Omar’s use of anti-Semitic tropes and prejudicial accusations about Israel’s supporters is deeply offensive. We condemn these remarks and we call upon Congresswoman Omar to immediately apologise for these hurtful comments,”
Eliot Engel, Democrat chairman of the House foreign affairs committee, called it “shocking to hear a member of Congress invoke the anti-Semitic trope of ‘Jewish money.'”
Ms Omar, 37, instantly resigned. No. Of course not. She muttered: “My intention is never to offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole.”
Not as a whole. What was her intention, then? To claim American Jews owe allegiance to foreign power?
She added: “We have to always be willing to step back and think through criticism, just as I expect people to hear me when others attack me for my identity. This is why I unequivocally apologise.”
It’s not her. It’s you. The sympathetic backstory; the call to look to yourself; the non-denial detail. It’s all there in a few mealy-mouthed words.
And this is the same Omar who backs the censorious BDS movement. Omar who said Israel “has hypnotised the world”, and that Israel was uniquely “evil”. Those comments were made in 2012. They did not stop her becoming an elected representative. Why? Because to most people, Jew hatred doesn’t matter.
It’s back. And its rife.
Posted: 12th, February 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment
Labour: ‘What Antisemitism crisis?’; Corbyn’s 12 apostles get busted
The Labour antisemitism “crisis” – which isn’t – appears on just one front page. The Daily Telegraph leads with the “Labour antisemitism crisis”. But not one of the Corbyn cronies running Labour thinks Jew hatred in it ranks is a crisis. They see it as an issue, bigger than dog poo on the pavements but smaller than getting the trains to run on time and keeping Diane Abbott off the telly.
At a recent meeting of the Labour party – one so important that the party’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, didn’t bother to attend; and neither did Labour General Secretary Jennie Formby, who instead wrote a letter saying how she thinks Jew hatred is wrong. She says that as a result of hundreds of instances of antisemitism in the party – some of which were probably investigated by a crack team of party loyalists [insert small number here] – 12 members were kicked out. Kick out JC’s apostles. Raus! To the trains!
PS: Odd that the only national newspaper at the vanguard of sticking up for Jews caught once again in the maw of rising antisemitism is the Telegraph. This is how the paper responded to one recent complaint:
This article [HYPERLINKED] of 26 September published in Telegraph Travel originally stated that only Cuba, North Korea and Iran do not have a central bank owned or controlled by the Rothschild family. We accept that this is an anti-Semitic trope, although it was not included by the writer with anti-Semitic intent. We obviously accept that it was inaccurate and offensive, however, and we are very sorry that it found its way into our output. It has been redacted from the article.
Antisemitism – you’re never more than a click away from the stuff.
Posted: 12th, February 2019 | In: Broadsheets, Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment
Meghan Markle writes an open letter to her dear old dad
Meghan Markle will need stronger crystals and a firmer deep tissue massage to reach the serotonin (happy hormones) as her heart is “broken beyond repair”. The Express has news that Meghan is pained by her father’s decision to “reveal” a private letter. And he “could release MORE”. MORE! We want more, rather MORE. But for now all we have to tuck into is a handwritten note Meghan sent her father, Thomas Markle – “In August, Meghan wrote to her Meghan’s father to stop his attacks.” She wrote:
Daddy,
It is with a heavy heart that I write this, not understanding why you have chosen to take this path, turning a blind eye to the pain you’re causing. Your actions have broken my heart into a million pieces – not simply because you have manufactured such unnecessary and unwarranted pain, but by making the choice to not tell the truth as you are puppeteered in this. Something I will never understand.
You’ve told the press that you called me to say you weren’t coming to the wedding – that didn’t happen because you never called.
You’ve said I never helped you financially and you’ve never asked me for help with is also untrue; you sent me an email last October that said: ‘If I’ve depended too much on you for financial help then I’m sorry but please could you help me more not as a bargaining chip for my loyalty’…
I have only ever loved, protected, and defended you, offering whatever financial support I could worrying about your health…and always asking how I could help. So the week of the wedding to hear about you having a heart attack through a tabloid was horrifying.
I called and texted… I begged you to accept help – we sent someone to your home…and instead of speaking to me to accept this or any help, you stopped answering your phone and chose to only speak to tabloids.
If you love me, as you tell the press you do, please stop.Please allow us to live our lives in peace. Please stop lying, please stop creating so much pain, please stop exploiting my relationship with my husband…
I realise you are so far down this rabbit hole that you feel (or may feel) there’s no way out, but if you take a moment to pause I think you’ll see that being able to live with a clear conscience is more valuable than any payment in the world.
I pleaded with you to stop reading the tabloids.On a daily basis you fixated and clicked on the lies they were writing about me, especially manufactured by your other daughter, who I barely know.
You watched me silently suffer at the hand of her vicious lies, I crumbled inside.We all rallied around to support and protect you from day one, and this you know.
So to hear about the attacks you’ve made at Harry in the press, who was nothing but patient, kind and understanding with you is perhaps the most painful of all.
For some reason you continue fabricating these stories, manufacturing this fictitious narrative, and entrenching yourself deeper into this web you’ve spun.
The only thing that helps me sleep at night is the faith and knowing that a lie can’t live forever.
I believed you, I trusted you, and told you I loved you.
The next morning the CCTV footage came out.
You haven’t reached out to me since the week of our wedding, and while you claim you have no way of contacting me, my phone number has remained the same.
This you know. No texts, no missed called, no outreach from you – just more global interviews you’re being paid to do and say harmful and hurtful things that are untrue.”
He commented: “This is not the girl I know. It’s not the way she talks. This letter is cold. When she signs off it’s ‘Meg’. You read the way it ends and it felt like a final farewell to me.”
This is jut one of 14 – that’s FOURTEEN in Express language – stories on Meghan Markle in today’s paper of record. Other highlights include:
“What is the latest travel advice for expectant mothers?” – Don’t get into a car driven by Prince Philip?
“Meghan Markle: Sister Samantha hits out at ‘NARCISSIST’ duchess – ‘She doesn’t care!'” – so why keep talking about?
And news that Meghan is “nothing like Princess Diana” – well, there’s no extra-martial sex to repot on and she alive (see car advice).
“Will Meghan and Harry name their baby after THIS Queen?” – Arise Princess Freddie Mercury.
“Meghan Markle must learn THIS marriage trick from Kate Middleton’s royal success” – Tell the butler to double the order on stun guns.
More to follow. Much, much more…
Posted: 11th, February 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Royal Family, Tabloids | Comment
Manchester United Balls: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer named new manager – but only in the Sun
As you were Spurs fans. Relax. Mauricio Pochettino is no longer wanted by Manchester United. The Sun bellows the news that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will be named the full-time manager at Manchester United. It’s a matter of when not if. The Sun says United will wait until the end of the season.
Not so, says the BBC. Solskjaer has does brilliantly in his first 11 games as Manchester United’s caretaker manager. He’s rid United of the “toxic atmosphere” created by Jose Mourinho. He’s delivered ten wins from 11 matches. He won over United’s staff with bars of chocolate – on his first day at the club Solskjaer gave all backroom staff bars of duty free chocolate. But the BBC notes: “What happens in the next 11…will probably determine whether the 45-year-old Norwegian gets the job of replacing Jose Mourinho full-time.”
Do we all believe the Sun?
Might be best to wait and see…
And this is what the Sun said of the Norwegian way back in January 2019:
Despite an encouraging start to life as interim manager, Solskjaer has a chequered record as a coach. Having taken Cardiff down he is yet to win a trophy since returning to Molde. How he would deal with a major transfer budget also requires consideration. There must also be questions over whether he possesses the tactical nouse to improve United beyond his honeymoon period.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer it is, then.
Posted: 11th, February 2019 | In: Back pages, Key Posts, manchester united, Sports, Tabloids | Comment
Martial Phwoar! Manchester United striker in Paris sex scoop
Anorak was looking for the headline ‘Martial Phwoar’, but instead has to make do with the Star’s “exclusive” that Manchester United forward Anthony Martial is a “Cheapskate”.
The paper alleges the player cheated on his pregnant partner, squiring his extra-martial lover in a £70-a-night budget hotel. Or to put it another way: pennywise football does not squander cash but seeks out best rates – possibly by the hour.
Martial’s partner has since given birth to the couple’s son… Swan. And today readers meet “French beauty Malika Semichi”. She says of her alleged tryst at the two-star Hotel du Midi near the Gare de Lyon train station in Paris: “I have to say I was surprised when he told me which hotel he had picked. It wasn’t the nicest and was a bit rundown and cheap, especially seeing as he’s used to much nicer hotels. But I knew he had a girlfriend so presumed it was because he didn’t want anyone to see us together.”
And who can presume anything other than that. After all, as Malika says: “He kept referring to me as his second girlfriend. He made me feel special.” You’re a number 2. Aw, shucks. And it get still more romantic in Paris, city of car-b-cues, angry people in yellow vests and snails a la mode. The Star claims he sent her “a string of snaps showing off his manhood, which this paper has seen”. The paper has seen Martial’s bellend? Bu at least we know now what what a load of snapshots of your knob is called: a string – a word once reserved for pearls?
Posted: 10th, February 2019 | In: Key Posts, manchester united, News, Sports, Tabloids | Comment
Gemma Collins seeks spiritual advice from Kerry Katona
Who better for Gemma Collins to turn to for spiritual advice than Kerry Katona, former Queen of ITV’s I’m A Celebrity jungle and long billed in the tabloid press as “troubled”? Kerry is the women who had her cosmetic surgery televised and was once so hard up, she was forced to sell her parrot to buy Tampax.
Collins, 38, currently between injuries in ITV’s Dancing On Ice is “seeking help from crystal-loving Kerry Katona”. That’s an unfortunate or conniving play on words by the Mail, given Kerry’s battles with drugs – and crystal is a shorthand for crystal meth. The People reminds readers that Katona is an “ex-addict” whose nadir – or at least one of them – was being filmed taking coke a caper that led to her getting sacked by Iceland (the frozen food store and not the nation). In any case, Collins wants help calming down not speeding up. A source arrives to explain all:
“It sounds a bit woo and wacky, but Kerry’s obsessed with meditating and yoga and it’s helped her so much with her stress and anxiety. Kerry has been choosing crystals she thinks will help Gemma cope with the pressures of Dancing on Ice and all the diva accusations she’s had.”
Anorak advices Collins choose the homophonous Krsytle Carrington, who was always ice cool in a crisis, save for when Alexis pushed her too far and she resorted to fisticuffs.
PS: Cynics will point out that Katona and Collins have have the same agent. This in no way diminishes from the truth of this story.
Posted: 10th, February 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment
Liverpool balls: Mane offside for ‘lovely goal’; Howe wants VAR; Bournemouth and West Ham robbed
Sadio Mane was “offside” (BBC) when he opened the scoring in Liverpool’s 3-0 win at Bournemouth. Mane has scored in four successive Premier League games for the first time in his career. The first goal should not have stood. What says the media – is it biased?
The AFC Bournemouth website says, “the Senegalese frontman was offside as James Milner’s delivery was swung into the box”. Bournemouth manger Eddie Howe added: “VAR will help us in those situations, I think that will benefit everybody, it was tight but offside was the right decision.”
The Liverpool FC website makes no mention of VAR, noting, “Sadio Mane set them on their way to victory with a header midway through the first half.” The offside goal was not one of the site’s ‘Talking Points”. This is how the LFC liveblog saw the goal:
GOALLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!! MANE!!!
Breakthrough for Liverpool and yet again it’s Mane.
The Senegal international meets Milner’s delivery from the right with a firm downward header beyond Boruc. A lovely goal.
Get in!
Liverpool 1-0 Bournemouth
Offside! Not on Liverpool where it was a “lovely goal”. Liverpool scored their first goal during a 1-1 draw at West Ham from a blatant offside position. The LFC website reported that egregious error thus: “Sadio Mane’s swift spin and finish put the away team ahead midway through the first half at the London Stadium.”
Lallana’s immaculate control and quick feet on the right touchline freed Milner to roll a pass to the front post and Mane. The No.10 artfully rolled around Issa Diop and planted a confident left-foot finish beyond Lukasz Fabianski.
Or as the official West Ham United site put it:
West Ham looked to have valid protests that Milner was in an offside position, but the linesman’s flag stayed down.
They say luck and bad decisions even out over a season. Liverpool will be hoping that’s not the case. If it is, they’re in big trouble.
Posted: 9th, February 2019 | In: Back pages, Key Posts, Liverpool, Sports | Comment
