Key Posts Category
The world shrugged: how does Google get away with it?
THE elite love Google. It’s hard to pick just one example that epitomises the love the rich and powerful have for the big internet search advertising firm. It might be the sight of Eric Schmidt, Google’s billionaire chairman, nipping into Downing Street to talk business with David Cameron. They don’t talk about how via Google you can access images of paedophilia and all manner of abuse. They talk money and influence. And they know each other well:
Rachel Whetstone is Global head of communications and public policy at Google and is married to David Cameron’s former chief of staff, Steve Hilton. Naomi Gummer was formerly adviser to Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, but is now a public policy adviser to Google. Amy Fisher Was a press officer for Google, and is now a special adviser to the Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman.
Also, Amy Fisher, once Google’s European PR supremo, works for justice secretary Chris Grayling. Sarah Hunter, once Tony Blair’s advisor on media policy, and Lord Derry Irvine’s god-daughter, works as UK’s had of public policy.
The Guardian, which has focused on News International’s chumminess with the Tory Party, reported on Gummer thus:
Row after Tory peer’s daughter is given job in culture secretary Jeremy Hunt’s department. Naomi Gummer, daughter of Cameron ally Lord Chadlington, appointed in a ‘highly unusual’ move
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Posted: 2nd, June 2013 | In: Key Posts, Technology | Comment
Brazil v England: the ten most interesting encounters
WITH the renovated Maracanã stadium reduced to well under half its previous capacity, and finally ruled safe for England’s match against Brazil – and with the record standing at 11 wins for Brazil, four for England, and nine draws – we look back at ten of the most interesting encounters…
1956: England 4-2 Brazil
Hungary may have thrashed England 6-3 and 7-1 a few years earlier, and England may have been unceremoniously dumped out of the 1954 World cup by the USA, but as far as most people were concerned, the Empire Stadium at Wembley was still the home of football.
This was Stanley Matthews’s day, and his domination of the legendary full-back Nilton Santos was probably the deciding factor in winning him the first Ballon d’Or. A notable achievement in itself, and even more so when one considers that he was 41 years old.
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Posted: 1st, June 2013 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Sports | Comment
Extracts from Joanna Rohrback’s Prancercise (with inner horse video)
IN 1989, we, like you, were getting fit with Joanna Rohrback’s Prancercise. As she says:
This video shows the 4 modes of Prancercise.You can visit me at www.prancercise.com where you can learn more about Prancercise: “A springy,rhythmic way of moving forward, similar to a horse’s gait and is ideally induced by elation.” copyright 1989, taken from my book Prancercise:The Art of Physical and Spiritual Excellence, now available to the public for the first time!
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Posted: 31st, May 2013 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, The Consumer | Comment
A wonderful history of German football clubs in Europe: 1960 til now
THE Germans are coming (again)
German football didn’t turn professional until the mid-sixties, but by that time the (West Germany) national team had already won the World Cup, and one of their clubs had reached the final of the European Champions Cup.
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Crap Paps: unusual photos of famous faces
THERE is a thrill in spotting a famous face. Some people will play it cool when the hearing excited murmurs that a famous face is close by but most – and I am one – will want to see the star.
My first celebrity spot was Derek Underwood, the Kent and England cricketer. He was sat in a Bournemouth pizzeria with Kent’s Bob Woolmer, the late South African team coach. I was one table over with my dad. It was he who spotted the players. Gesturing at my napkin and silently sliding a pen over towards me, dad thought it would be a good idea if I went and over got their autographs. Back then a signature was considered proof of the meet. I went over. They were charming. I had practically no idea who they were. But, still, I had the proof that I’d met them and that was everything to me and my father.
Nowadays autographs are considered naff. Photos are the thing. And because mobile phones have cameras, and phones are ubiquitous, the star can be snapped at any time. But, then, not everyone wants to be a paparazzo. Not everyone wants to be brash and invasive. So. You take a photo from afar and hope you captured the legend. On the Tumblr Crap Paps, such photographs are recorded.
Who are they. Go to the end of the story to find out:
A. The distance shot snap.
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Posted: 23rd, May 2013 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment
10 famous people and good causes Spurs’ Gareth Bale can sue when he owns the love heart hand gesture
TOTTENHAM Hotspur footballer Gareth Bale wants to make the soppy love heart hand gesture his own. The Spurs star wants to limit the use of your fingers. Anyone pushing their fingers into the form of the heart will be in breach of Bale’s copyright. It’s so utterly pathetic that Bale should be on the receiving end of less controlled gestures. You can take your pick of them here.
The Japanese schoolgirls who have been using the heart sign for years can look over Bale’s application on the IPOwebsite:
If Bale succeeds it will be big money for him. And it will be interesting to see who he sues for breaching his creation. Here’s Victoria Pendleton showing her love at the London 2012 Olympics!
The gesture has appeared on advert for the opticians LensCrafters.
Singer Taylor Swift says he might be the signs inventor:
“At the end of my sophomore year, I left school and went out on a radio tour to play free show after free show … I was an unknown act playing shows night after night, and I was constantly trying out all kinds of different moves to try and get a response from the audience.”
Selena Gomez has also used it.
And then there’s Show Your Hearts, a cause highlighting a fatal road tragedy:
And Usher:
Victoria’s Secret:
Janet Jackson:
The State of Virginia:
And lots of ravers:
Brand Bale is looking to cash in.
Posted: 23rd, May 2013 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comments (2)
Woolwich murderer was ‘arrested on his way to join al-Shabaab in Somalia’: the front pages
HOW have the newspapers reacted to the horrific scenes in Woolwich? An off-duty British soldier has been murdered by two men. One psychotic nutter shouted “…we swear by almighty Allah, that we will never stop fighting you. Until you leave us alone, your people will never be safe”. He added: “We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day.”
The victm was beheaded.
@suttonnick tweets:
Richard Watson on #Newsnight: Can’t confirm but source says last yr one of men was stopped or arrested on way to join al-Shabaab in Somalia.
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Posted: 22nd, May 2013 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)
Happy-slapping terrorism in Woolwich – bloody lunatics murder man in cold blood for kicks
NOT since the horrors of 7/7 had terrorists claimed a life in the UK. Today two men used meat cleavers to murder and, apparently, tried to decapitate a white British a soldier from Woolwich Barracks on the streets of London. He was wearing a Help for Heroes T-shirt. Police shot them.
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A history of England’s football kits: from Umbro through Admiral to Nike
ENGLAND’S new strip – the first from Nike – ends half a century of involvement with Umbro, the Manchester-based sports manufacturer whose name is synonymous with the Three Lions.
As with all new kits, there has been controversy. The Germans have supposedly complained that England are attempting to copy their success by copying the design of their shirts. However, Gary Lineker’s riposte – “If you can’t beat ‘em…” – ignores the fact that the retro kit most closely resembles the Germans of the sixties, when we were still in the habit of beating the old enemy.
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Posted: 22nd, May 2013 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment (1)
Colour film of London in 1927 – rare video and photos
THE British Film Institute has added colour to this 1927 film of London shot by Claude Friese-Greene in Biocolour.
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George Michael was trying to close his car door when he fell from it at 70mph
GEORGE Michael was trying to shut the door on his car when he tell out of it. The singer was travelling at 70mph down the M1 when the accident occurred.
Well, so says Katherine Fox, 23, who was in a car behind Michael’s silver Range Rover.
“I saw blood everywhere and a man on the ground. I thought someone had run across the road and been hit. I asked what had gone on and was told he tried to open the car door and shut it again because it wasn’t shut properly and apparently fell out at 70mph.”
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Posted: 21st, May 2013 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment (1)
Newsnight jumps the shark hunt: 99% of Clark County, Ohio, viewers polled say Ian Katz must go
THE new editor of Newsnight, the BBC news show that spiked the Jimmy Savile expose, is the Guardian’s Ian Katz. Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman said in the wake of the Savile debacle that BBC’s news division had been “taken over by radio … Helen Boaden, a radio person. Steve Mitchell, a radio person. Peter Rippon was a radio person. These people belong to a different kind of culture.”
How will a newspaper man with no experience of telly work out, then?
Guido Fawkes notes:
Fair, balanced and impartial Ian Katz will have no trouble fitting in at his new role as Newsnight editor … Katz certainly has top drawer left-wing credentials. Back in 2004, he was editor of the Guardian’s G2 magazine during their infamous ‘Operation Clark County’ plot to swing the state of Ohio in favour of John Kerry and against George W. Bush. Katz organised thousands of letters written by lefty Britons to be sent to individual voters in Ohio, imploring them to cast their ballot for Kerry. The result was uproar, a near diplomatic incident, and victory for Bush.
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Arsenal send AVB and Spurs into a ‘negative spiral’ – 18 years of hurt in quotes
AS Arsenal take fourth place in the Premier League ahead of arch rivals Tottenham Hotspur, we look back at the words of Spurs’ manager Andre Villas-Boas. Would Spurs undo 17 years of hurts and finally finish the season above Arsenal? Said AVB back in March 2013:
“The difference this year is that we are on an upward spiral in terms of confidence whereas they are in a negative spiral and once you get into that negative spiral it’s difficult to get out of it.”
While AVB wonders about his his side’s own negative spiral, we look back at some other comments of Spurs players who saw the rosy-fingered dawn only to realise it was the red of Arsenal disappearing over the horizon:
2013 – Gareth Bale:
“I think now we have overtaken them on the pitch.”
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Posted: 19th, May 2013 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comments (7)
In photos: David Beckham celebrates last match with an ashtray
PARIS Saint-Germain’s milked every last ounce from being the club for which David Beckham has played his last professional football match. But as the world looked at Becks, we looked at the Ligue One Trophy. No big ears on this monstrosity, just a silvery ball sat on a plinth within a hexagon inside a wheel. It looks not a lot unlike one of the ashtrays that used to sit on the tables at London’s Quaglinos bar and eatery in the 1990s.
Moments of confusion surely even for such a seasoned trophy holder as Becks. Was he meant to hold it aloft of sit back and spit olive stones into it?
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How I Killed The Tiger – Being An Account of My Encounter With A Royal Bengal Tiger: pictures from a 1902 hunt
IN the early 20th Century, tiger hunting was all the rage. King George V went looking for them after a good lunch with the Nepalese King. In 1902, Lieutenant Colonel Frank Sheffield went tiger hunting. He recorded his adventures in How I killed the tiger; being an account of my encounter with a royal Bengal tiger.
He tells his readers:
My main purpose in writing this little book, was to place in a permanent form a description of my wonderful preservation from death in a chance encounter with a Royal Bengal Tiger. My life had been adventurous up to that time. I had shot big game of various kinds. But this episode, so marvellous in itself, so important in its influence upon my after life and character, marks the close of my career as a hunter of big game.
These are the plates:
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Posted: 18th, May 2013 | In: Flashback, Key Posts | Comment (1)
In photos: Indian Muslim Sufi devotees use sharp objects and self flagellate during the Urs festival
IN photos: Indian Muslim Sufi devotees use sharp objects and self flagellate during the Urs festival procession to mark the death anniversary of Sufi Muslim saint Hazrat Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti, in Ajmer, India. Some of these photos are challenging viewing:
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Posted: 17th, May 2013 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)
Bigot Pride in photos: Georgian Gay Pride march cut short after violent protest by hatted and hairy straights
IN Georgia, being gay is difficult. Today there was an anti-gay pride rally, in Tbilisi, Georgia. You might call it bigot pride. Thousands of anti-gay protesters, including Orthodox priests, occupied a central street in Georgia’s capital Friday, with some threatening to lash with nettles any participant in a gay pride parade which was to take place there. The gay parade was to feature around 50 marchers. Police in Tbilisi guarded the gay activists and bused them out of the city center shortly after they arrived at the gathering. In other words, they were rounded up and booted out of town.
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1936: How to die by electrocution in 30 pictures
AUSTRIAN physician Stefan Jellinek founded The Electro-Pathological Museum in 1936. Hr provided the content in Elektroschutz in 132 Bildern (Electrical Protection in 132 Pictures). DEath and electricity went hand-in-hand. But with this book, you would be forewarned.
If you can identify all the contraptions, let us know.
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Posted: 16th, May 2013 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Technology | Comment
Angelina Jolie is now an African man and other hateful reactions to her double mastectomy
WHEN Angelina Jolie announced that she’d had a double mastectomy to greatly reduced her high risk of getting breast cancer, we listened. Like her or not, her actions were brave. But on twitter, many took another view. They pitied Brad Pitt for having lost “his” breasts. They called Jolie selfish. They called her not a woman. They perverted karma into a kind of painful retribution. They tweeted:
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Posted: 16th, May 2013 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comments (2)
Poptastic: extracts from Tony Blackburn’s fantastic autobiography
EXTRACTS from Poptastic! My Life in Radio, by Tony Blackburn, as selected by Eamonn Forde. It turns there is more to Tony than admiration for Neil Sedaka and pressed trousers. Here’s what Tony didn’t cover in his first autobiography, 1985’s Tony Blackburn: The Living Legend.
First few facts about Tony for our overseas and younger readers:
Blackburn’s was the first voice heard on Radio One in 1967. In his album Tony Blackburn Sings, he crooned a version of The White Cliffs of Dover. The rest of career saw him become remarkably uncool.
Now for the extracts. Nice!
Says Tony:
“I’d say that seeing Bobby Vee perform was far more enjoyable than watching The Beatles in their prime. I was never big on Elvis – I prefer Perry Como – and I’ll take Alvin Stardust over David Bowie any day.”
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Posted: 16th, May 2013 | In: Books, Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment
The Ryan Lee Chiropractic Center creates the most terrifying medical advert of all time
RYAN Lee Chiropractic Center is open for business. It might be an idea when advertising health remedies that not everyone agrees with to shy away from a “not-so-serious” commercial that features the chiropractor stood behind and on top of young, photogenic women:
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