Key Posts Category
Fabrice Muamba turns from sponging black immigrant to footballing hero
FABRICE Muamba is the Bolton Wanderers footballer who stopped breathing on the pitch during his team’s FA Cup match with Spurs yesterday afternoon. Once upon a time he might have been the tabloid’s black immigrant, the son of an asylum-seeking African. But the tabloids have changed their view of him. (Not everyone has seen the light – twitter, as @LiamStacey showed us, is a haven for bigotry and spite.)
Firstly, how do the newspapers report on the horror?
The front pages are an escalation of Mumaba’s abilities:
Telegraph (front page): “FA Cup tie abandoned after footballer fights for life”
Express (front page): ” Premirship footballer, 23, fights for life after collapse”
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Posted: 18th, March 2012 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comments (2)
Fabrice Muamba and the twitter hunt for @LiamStacey9
FABRICE Muamba, the Bolton Wanderers player who collapsed during his side’s FA Cup match with Spurs, is stable. Muamba has a son named Joshua and is engaged to Shauna. Fabrice Muamba is 23.
On twitter the hashtag #prayformuamba is showing that people can come together.
Not everyone is generous and humane. @liamstacey9 – now shut down – went against the grain. Tweets from that address contained the hashtag #muambasdead, a “LOL” and the word “coon”.
A twitter hunt is underway for Liam Stacey. In the US a Chet Walken tweeting from @WalkenG4OP revels in his bigotry:
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Posted: 17th, March 2012 | In: Key Posts, Technology | Comments (7)
Abortion in Texas – one woman’s horror story
HERE’S a horrible story of they do abortion in Texas:
Halfway through my pregnancy, I learned that my baby was ill. Profoundly so. […] “I’m worried about your baby’s head shape,” she said. “I want you to see a specialist—now.”
[… B]efore I’d even known I was pregnant, a molecular flaw had determined that our son’s brain, spine and legs wouldn’t develop correctly. If he were to make it to term—something our doctor couldn’t guarantee—he’d need a lifetime of medical care. From the moment he was born, my doctor told us, our son would suffer greatly.
So, softly, haltingly, my husband asked about termination. The doctor shot me a glance that said: Are you okay to hear this now? I nodded, clenched my fists and focused on the cowboy boots beneath her scrubs.
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Posted: 16th, March 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (4)
Tesco’s sells ‘Welsh Lady Ass fudge’
TESCO’S is selling “Welsh Lady Ass Fudge’. It’s £.99 – which is a bloody rip off…
Spotter: Schofe
Posted: 16th, March 2012 | In: Key Posts, The Consumer | Comments (2)
Marilyn Hagerty and the cynical manipulation of contrived simplicity
WHEN Marilyn Hagerty went to the Grand Forks, North Dakota’s first Olive Garden eatery, she wrote a review. The thing went viral. Over 27 million Facebook likes is none too shabby. Marilyn Hagerty’s words in the Grand Forks Herald went:
“[The new Olive Garden] is the largest and most beautiful restaurant now operating in Grand Forks. It attracts visitors from out of town as well as people who live here.”
Marilyn Hagerty bought a chicken Alfredo (“warm and comforting on a cold day”) and water – the waiter recommended a raspberry lemonade and she conceded “on a hot summer day, I will try the raspberry lemonade that was recommended”. And “the server was ready with Parmesan cheese”.
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Radiation is good for you – radioactive items to improve your health
ONCE upon a time radiation was good for you. You can read the history here. The photos below are of products that claimed to improve your virility, teeth, skin and general health. Incredible:
Posted: 16th, March 2012 | In: Key Posts, The Consumer | Comments (4)
Victoria Beckham gets postnatal depression for Mother’s Day
OK! magazine’s lead story on Victoria Beckham follows the front-cover headline:
“HOW I got over postnatal depression”
Adding:
“David helps her ‘FORGET THE EMPTINESS'”
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Posted: 16th, March 2012 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment
Kim Kardashian wants a little privacy for her next wedding (stop laughing)
THE last wedding Kim Kardashian had was televised in her reality show, prompting a marriage that lasted around the same length of time it takes a mayfly to live and die. Everyone cried ‘SHAM!’ at her and Kris Humphries, Kim K’s beleaguered and incredibly dimwitted husband, got all stompy and upset about it.
Kim clearly didn’t understand why everyone loathed her so much (being rich and of no-fixed-talent never helped anyone to be loved) and burrowed away and had a long thing about her next move.
And so, here she is, talking about getting married again.
“When I saw Khloé and Lamar get married — and they had their wedding on TV — I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, that’s so exciting! That’s what I want!'” Kardashian told Allure magazine. “If you were to ask me now, that’s not what I want … I would just want it to be so special, with our family and close friends, and that’s it. Somewhere on a deserted island, very private. No cameras.”
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Posted: 15th, March 2012 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment
Katie Price fight Gabby Logan in Celebrity Mum unification bout – photos
THE winner of the Celebrity Mum of the Year for 2012 is…Katie Price.
Voiceover: Katie has three children by two different men, neither of whom she is with just at the minute. She last received the honour in 2007, beating shortlisted contenders Kate Moss, Jade Goody and Heather Mills McCartney. In 2012, Katie has seen off Holly Willoughby, Victoria Beckham and Amanda Holden.
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Posted: 15th, March 2012 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment
Eric and Donald Trump Junior kill wild animals for fun – photos
DONALD Trump’s children Donald Jr. and Eric went to Zimbabwe and killed a lot of animals: elephant, civet cat, big wild pig. Rumours suggest they went hunting for new sources of Trump hair.
Experts at Psychology Today opine:
Since the 1970″s, research has consistently reported childhood cruelty to animals as the first warning sign of later delinquency, violence, and criminal behavior. [sic]
The BBC notes:
People who participate in a system that treats animals cruelly, and that kills animals to provide trivial pleasures to human beings, are behaving selfishly, and not as a virtuous person would.
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Posted: 15th, March 2012 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comments (4)
Nightmare On Fleet Street: Action And Battle In The Comic Books
HALF a century ago, an influx of lurid American horror comics prompted a major backlash in 1950s Britain. The Christian philosophy of The Eagle set the scene for a new generation of comics for boys, in which clean-cut heroes triumphed over clear-cut baddies, and wholesome youngsters had good clean fun. Rip-roaring adventures were had by all, and everything was solved up in time for tea.
By the end of the 1960s, however, papers like The Eagle and Victor were looking a bit tired, and more aggressive comics like Warlord and Battle moved in to replace them. In one sense they were even more old-fashioned, dominated as they were by the Second World War; but their style was more modern and aggressive. Their subsequent success prepared the ground for the most controversial comic of recent times: the visceral and violent Action, which first hit the streets in February 1976.
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Posted: 15th, March 2012 | In: Flashback, Key Posts | Comments (4)
The Beatles Butchered: How The Beatles Were Carved Up
THE Beatles albums are the cornerstones of the popular music canon. Please Please Me, With The Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night, Beatles For Sale, Help!, Rubber Soul… They sold in their millions all over the globe.
In America, however, things were very different. The group’s early material was owned by different labels, leading to an unseemly scramble as different Beatles singles were released in competition with each other.
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Posted: 15th, March 2012 | In: Celebrities, Flashback, Key Posts | Comments (11)
14 Neglected Beatles’ Gems
AS The Beatles go virtual reality and we get the chance to join the band, Ed Barrett picks 14 tracks of neglected Beatles gems:
Back in the early 1960s, popular music (or “the pops” as it was known) was a singles game. Albums (or “LPs” as they were known) were created by the simple expedient of slapping on a couple of already released hits and padding out the rest with assorted rubbish, often composed by managers and producers in order to earn “song-writing” royalties.
Keith Richards (or “Keith Richard” as he was then known) described them as “two hits and ten pieces of shit”. Then came the Beatles’ first LP: “Please Please Me, Love Me Do and 12 other songs”. But this was different: two hits, some classy covers of other people’s hits, and a bunch of potential hits for other acts to nick. The formula was changed at a stroke, and pop music would never be the same again.
The Beatles continued to release best-selling singles (and how) and their albums set new benchmarks of creativity and quality. So prolific was their output that the LPs often contained no singles at all.
Most groups would have killed for 45s like I Saw Her Standing There, All My Loving, Eight Days A Week, Yesterday, Drive My Car and the rest. Yet the Beatles were happy to use them as album tracks, alongside all the other idiosyncratic and innovative songs with which they delighted their fans and kept the competition guessing.
Now that their catalogue has been re-mastered in mono and stereo, attention is once again focussed on Tomorrow Never Knows, Strawberry Fields Forever, A Day In The Life, and all the usual suspects. So here instead, for your listening pleasure, is a 14-track album’s worth of neglected Beatles gems. As the song says, a splendid time is guaranteed for all.
Ed Barrett
P.S. I Love You
(Please Please Me, 1963)
Written by Paul McCartney in Hamburg two years earlier, this was chosen for the group’s EMI audition. Created to fit the prevailing pop template, it nevertheless demonstrates the distinctive Lennon-McCartney style that would flower over the next year.
All I’ve Got To Do
(With The Beatles, 1963)
A good example of how, when the Beatles copied other people, they ended up creating something different in the process. Their first two LPs included several R&B and Tamla-Motown covers, and this is a clear attempt by John Lennon to write a song on the style of the writers he admired, such as Smokey Robinson and Arthur Alexander, whose Anna (Go To Him) had appeared on the first album.
Till There Was You
(With The Beatles, 1963)
Paul McCartney’s sense of musical tradition is often seen as evidence of his tendency towards blandness and sentimentality. But this sensibility – when balanced with his many other qualities – was an important part of the Beatles’ appeal. It increased the scope of their music, taking it to places where others feared to tread, and Sgt Pepper would have been impossible without their willingness to experiment with all kinds of musical genres. This beautifully understated interpretation of Meredith Willson’s Broadway show tune sees Paul at his most controlled.
Don’t Bother Me
(With The Beatles, 1963)
The first George Harrison composition to appear on record, and one of the best. His typically deadpan voice is perfectly suited to this idiosyncratic but hypnotic tune.
I’ll Be Back
(A Hard Day’s Night, 1964)
A downbeat ending to the album-of-the-film-of-Beatlemania. Though structurally unconventional, it appears completely natural – a feature of Lennon’s most interesting compositions. Had it appeared a year later, it might have received the attention it deserves.
Every Little Thing
(Beatles For Sale, 1964)
Sung by Lennon, and melodically and lyrically a typical Lennon song. All of which shows how wrong you can be, as it was in fact a McCartney composition, written as a prospective single. Eventually consigned to side two of one of their least regarded albums, it has remained there ever since.
You Won’t See Me
(Rubber Soul, 1965)
The nonchalance of the performance is in marked contrast to the desperation of the subject matter – and the result is wonderful. Classic mid-period Fab Four: the cool “ooh-la-la-las” of the backing singers are a Beatle-ism every bit as recognisable as the enthusiastic “yeah, yeahs” and “ooohs” of two years earlier. Steve Harley would use the same device to profitable effect a decade later on his smash Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me).
I’m Looking Through You
(Rubber Soul, 1965)
A good example of McCartney’s craftsmanship. The original version (available on Anthology 2) was an attractive but slightly ponderous mid-tempo number with a hole at its centre. At the last minute, McCartney added a sprightly middle eight which fits perfectly and leads seamlessly into the following verse. The whole thing was thus invigorated, resulting in a perfectly formed pop song.
Rain
(Single, 1966; also Mono Masters, Past Masters)
Recorded with its A-side Paperback Writer during the Revolver sessions, this LSD-drenched sonic assault gave warning of what was to come – backward tapes and all. Lennon’s gratingly harsh vocal provides the template for Liam Gallagher.
Fixing A Hole
(Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967)
This plangent marijuana-fuelled meditation was recorded in the company of a man who had knocked on McCartney’s door hours earlier, claiming to be Jesus Christ. Picks up where Paul’s interlude in A Day In The Life left off. “Somebody spoke and I went into a dream…”
Flying
(Magical Mystery Tour, 1967)
Speaking of which, this pleasing instrumental “dream sequence” from the Beatles’ misunderstood movie has undergone various trippy remixes over the years, and now makes a comfortable living as atmospheric TV background music.
It’s All Too Much
(Yellow Submarine, 1969; also Mono Masters, Past Masters)
More drugs. This Harrison epic was recorded in the early summer of 1967 just before All You Need is Love, and features a similar extended fade-out, replete with snatches of other songs (in this case the Merseys’ Sorrow). It would have fitted perfectly on Magical Mystery Tour, but ended up on the Yellow Submarine soundtrack album two years later. “All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece but no too much.” A delicious slice of British psychedelia.
Two Of Us
(Let It Be, 1970)
The bad-tempered sessions for the album that would eventually be known as Let It Be were mainly taken up with dismal Beatle originals and plodding versions of old rock’n’roll standards. This airy, optimistic tune was a welcome exception.
You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)
(Single, 1970; also Mono Masters, Past Masters)
An important element of the Beatles’ character was their sense of humour. An early amateur recording featured a girl with a National Health eyeball, and their fan club Christmas records were full of clowning, yet this skit on northern clubs is the only fully-fledged comedy number in their commercial catalogue. It features Brian Jones [well, was he?] of the Rolling Stones, who also helped with the sound effects on the band’s novelty hit Yellow Submarine.
Recorded in 1967, it eventually appeared in truncated form as an incongruous B-side to the group’s portentous final single, Let It Be. By then Jones was dead and the Beatles were history. Listening today, the amusingly incoherent ramblings from around the 3.40 mark bear an uncanny resemblance to the Fast Show’s “I was ve’y ve’y drunk”.
The Beatles albums are released by EMI. They are available individually in stereo, and collectively in mono and stereo box sets
Posted: 15th, March 2012 | In: Flashback, Key Posts | Comments (2)
TV Cameraman kills rare rabbit with no ears while filming news story
TIL, a bunny rabbit with no ears, has been killed by a cameraman filming it for a news feature. Til had been born at a zoo Limbach-Oberfrohna in Saxony, eastern Germany, a few days ago.
Til had the making of a media darling. Cute. Fury. Edible. But now sadly dead.
Uwe Dempewolf, the director of the zoo, tells Speigel:
“We are all shocked. During the filming, the cameraman took a step back and trod on the bunny. He was immediately dead, he didn’t suffer. It was a direct hit. No one could have foreseen this. Everyone here is upset. The cameraman was distraught.”
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Posted: 14th, March 2012 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comments (4)
The 10 sexiest One Direction Gifs ever
OK. Girls. Ready? These are the 10 sexist, most suggestive One Direction gifs ever. One Direction are totally checking you out… Liam, Niall, Harry, Louis and Zain are her to say hi*:
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Rick Santorum is a meme – denies raped underage teen a life-saving abortion
RICK Santorum is overcoming his anal issues by adding a silent P to his first name. Rick says that abortion should be illegal under all circumstances – even if his raped wife needed one to dave her life., Rick is all about compassion…
Posted: 14th, March 2012 | In: Key Posts, Politicians | Comment (1)
Why I’m Leaving Al Qaeda, by Ayman al-Zawahiri
GREG Smith is resigning today as a Goldman Sachs executive director and head of the firm’s United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Others soon to pen their resignation letters from organisations bent on world domination and a win-at-all-costs mentality:
Rupert Murdoch from News Corp
Ayman_al-Zawahiri from al-Qaeda
Samir Nasri from Manchester City
Tony Blair from Heaven
Phil Mitchell from The Arches
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Posted: 14th, March 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)
Kerry Katona: ‘Stacey Solomon’s smoking Silk Cut – it’s not a real cigarette’
KERRY Katona says her fellow former celebrity mum of the year Stacey Solomon did nothing wrong in smoking throughout her pregnancy because:
“Let’s be honest, Stacey’s smoking Silk Cut – it’s not even a real cigarette.”
It’s a fake ciggie, a toy, if you will.
This is Katona who slurred her words on ITV’s This Morning, made bipolarism the go-ahead celebrity mental illness, lost her job advertising Iceland’s frozen squirrel Boozy Brownies for taking cocaine, was filmed apparently takin cocaine in her en-suite bathroom, was held up in armed robbery at her home, shagged behind a Tesco (allegedly) and featured in the telly show Kerry Katona: Crazy in Love in which she and now ex-husband Number 2 appeared dressed in a straight jacket.
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Posted: 14th, March 2012 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment
Raquel Welch says internet porn pre-fab breasts rot good sex
RAQUEL Welch has been speaking with Men’s Health magazine – magzaine obsessed with sex. Welch is number #2 in Men’s Health’s Hottest 100 Women of All Time list, beaten by Hilary Clinton. No, it was Jennifer Aniston, which is only slightly less incredible. Conversation turns to sex and the lack of the erotic mystery:
“I think this era of porn is at least partially responsible for it. Where is the anticipation and the personalization? It’s all pre-fab now. You have these images coming at you unannounced and unsolicited. It just gets to be so plastic and phony to me. Maybe men respond to that. But is it really better than an experience with a real life girl that he cares about? It’s an exploitation of the poor male’s libidos. Poor babies, they can’t control themselves… I just imagine them sitting in front of their computers, completely annihilated. They haven’t done anything, they don’t have a job, they barely have ambition anymore. And it makes for laziness and a not very good sex partner. Do they know how to negotiate something that isn’t pre-fab and injected directly into their brain?”
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Posted: 13th, March 2012 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment
The 10 best pet birthday party photos ever
HAPPY birthday to you. Happy birthday dear [insert pet name here – we go with Hauser], happy birthday to you-uuuuu. Then three cheers. Bumps. Pin the tail on the donkey. If it’s your donkey’s birthday, use a cat. A pinata shaped like Lassie (it’s what she would have wanted) and then the cake…
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Posted: 13th, March 2012 | In: Key Posts, Photojournalism | Comment
Tramps are now made useful by being turned into WiFi hotspots
TRAMPS. They’ve got an awful life. When the weather’s bad, they feel it most. The die in doorways and have septic extremities. And to think, they’ve got the paucity to actually ask you for money while you’re throwing a sandwich in the bin because it was a ‘bit dry’.
Either way, vagrants are being put to good use as a New York ad agency has decided to turn them into walking WiFi aerials.
Bartle, Bogle and Hegarty (BBH) handed out free MiFi gadgets to the panhandlers along with t-shirts sporting their names alongside the words “I’m a 4G hotspot”. The hobos will be bothering people with their excellent connective properties at hipsterfest, SXSW.
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Posted: 13th, March 2012 | In: Key Posts, Technology | Comment
Danny Gold understands the Daily Mail – and will bring about its fall in America
Posted: 13th, March 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (3)
Bobbi Kristina duets with Whitney Houston on Oprah Winfrey’s Milking records
WHITNEY Houston’s daughter Bobbi Kristina has met with Oprah Winfrey in the kitchen, for obvious reasons. (Milking human suffering is hungry work.)
Says Bobbi Kristina:
“Throughout the house lights turn on and off, and I’m like, ‘Mum, what are you doing?’ I can still laugh with her and still talk to her. I can hear her voice telling me, ‘Keep moving, baby, I got you.’ She’s always with me. I can always feel her with me. She would say at 5am the saints start praying. I wake up now and look at the clock and it’s five o’clock. I start praying. Her spirit is strong. I feel her pass through me all the time.”
Stitch that, Graceland! Does Elvis sing to the tourists as they pass though his mansion? Does he put on light show? No and no.
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Posted: 13th, March 2012 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment
Rebekah Brooks and Charlie Brooks arrested: the dumped bag mystery
REBEKAH Brooks has been arrested in den of knobs Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, reports Sky News. Also arrested is her husband Charlie Brooks, David Cameron’s pal.
David Cameron is out of the country at the moment. Which is convenient.
In all six people have been arrested this morning by officers from Operation Weeting. They are suspected of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
Of course, Rebekah Brooks has already been arrested, In July 2011, Brooks was arrested in July on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and on suspicion of corruption. Back then her lawyer told media:
Her lawyer Stephen Parkinson said: ‘Despite interviewing her for nine hours, the police put no allegations to her. They will in due course have to give an account of their actions.’
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Posted: 13th, March 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (10)
Israel and Gaza Watch: Using dead children Raja Abu Shaban and Nayef Qarmut to win hearts and minds
ISRAEL is back at the top of the news cycle. Islamists have been firing rockets into Southern Israel. Israeli war planes have attacked Gaza. Adham Abu Selmiya, a spokesman for Hamas emergency services, says “mostly children” have been injured or killed. Israel says this is not so.
An Israeli spokeswoman says the country’s forces “targeted a weapons storage facility and four rocket launching sites in the northern Gaza Strip, as well as a rocket launching site in the southern Gaza Strip”.
Israel says Zuhir al-Qaisi, head of the Popular Resistance Committees, an armed group linked to Hamas, was set to order an attack. In the Israeli offence / response to PRC rockets, 18 Palestinians were killed, 16 of them militants. The Islamists fired 120 rockets into Israel, injuring four.
One side has bunkers. One does not.
The war is ongoing. But what of the media? Can they play a part. Do we treat the news that “mostly children” are injured with caution? Do we know for certain an attack on Israel was planned? Do we belive all we see? Take this in the Times:
And what of this? @KhuloodBadawi tweets a photo:
Only, the Israel Defence Force has seen the photo. The IDF points us towards @avimayer, who spotted that the picture was taken in 2006.
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